Fake News Blight Hits Alaskan Family
“Be careful with your words.” That was something I heard Pop Moore often say while I was growing up. I guess that’s a saying we all hear often enough, but I wonder how many people really think about the weight of their words. With the flood of information and the ability to have a bazillion words at your fingertips at any second — thanks to our phones — maybe we feel deluged in our own language. Much has been written about Anchorage Assembly member Amy Demboski and her — at best — careless use of language this week in regard…
You Don’t Know What Liberal Means
I get lots of e-mails from Jenny. She’s always asking for money. There’s always some looming threat from “LIBERALISM!” or “LEFTISTS.” Which is weird, since as a leftist and a liberal, I feel like there’s always a looming threat from CONSERVATISM and FASCISTS. Now I’m not Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin’s equal. She’s the head of an enormous organization with hundreds of thousands of members and millions of dollars. Her group sways national elections. I’m just a journalist who notices things. From the e-mail above she writes: “[Obama] has unions, leftist legal groups, and every liberal lobbying organization…
The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska Newsweek – ALASKA-ANCHORAGE: THE BEST WOMEN’S HOOPS TEAM WEST OF UCONN AND THE YUKON Megan Mullings was understandably despondent. A freshman at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, she had just taken part in her first intercollegiate scrimmage, a whupping that was so one-sided it may as well have been a crime scene. “I was thinking, This is our first game; is our entire season going to be this bad?” recalls Mullings. KTUU – Ex-Juneau lawmaker fined over alleged conflict of interest A state ethics committee is fining a former state legislator more than $18,000 over claims that he sought…
The Weekend Off – The News You Missed
Alaska The New York Times – Past Road’s End, Democrats Dig for Native Votes “NAPASKIAK, Alaska — No roads go this deep into the tundra, especially not for Democrats. Not that politics weigh too heavily on the mind when people are consumed with more basic needs, like catching enough fish to eat or scraping together the $6 a gallon it costs to fill up their boat with gas.” Alaska Dispatch – For Senate candidates, no escape from “trackers” on the trail “The Chamber of Commerce, and other groups involved in Alaska politics, are on the alert for “trackers” — the entry-level political…
Lizz Winstead Takes on Hobby Lobby
From the Daily Show and Air America’s Lizz Winstead: So the Green family, billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby, a Christian Craft store (whatever THAT means), don’t want to cover certain birth control options in their employee healthcare plan because Jesus, or something. In fact, this brood are so rich they just paid millions to take their fight to keep ignoring science all the way to the Supreme Court. Yep, this is what passes for democracy in 2014. Today, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear Hobby Lobby v. Sebilius, and these dangerous religious gajillionaires will argue their corporation…
Voting Rights Act Decision Nears on Anniversary of Evers Death
Sometime in the next couple of days the US Supreme Court will decide if crucial components of the Voting Rights Act will stand. Which is why when I saw this court room sketch posted on the excellent SCOTUSblog I felt the need to post it. From right to left you see Jess Jackson, Al Sharpton and then on the left John Lewis. All of these men, to varying degrees fought hard for this act – and lost many friends along the way. Greg Palast, who has been at the forefront of fighting the Right’s (and sometimes the Left’s) push to limit…
Palast: Dummy’s Guide to Voting Rights Act
Will the Supreme Court pull the teeth out of the law? by Greg Palast exclusively for TheMudflats.net This month –as early as tomorrow— the US Supreme Court will tell us whether Black and Brown citizens have the right to vote. Now, if you saw the film Lincoln, you probably thought that issue was settled about 147 years ago. But Honest Abe never imagined a High Court occupied by Dishonest Thomas and Scalia the Scurrilous. There’s been a lot of nonsense talk fogging the issue before the Court. To cut through the BS, the Palast Investigative Fund has made a little…
The Story Behind the Meme: Equal Rights Equal Sign
As a person who’s worked on branding and social media in the non-profit sector I’ve always admired the Human Rights Campaign. Their branding, use of social media is at a level that most corporations can’t match. In a country where it seems there’s a 100 groups for every cause the HRC stands out and has become the go to organization on GLBT rights. So this past week when the HRC logo went viral I was wondering to myself – how did they decide on something as elegant and straightforward as the equal sign. Well I’m guessing they’ve been asked that…
Greg Palast asks, ‘How Do You Steal a Dream?’
How Do You Steal a Dream? Supreme Court hears suit to kill Voting Rights Act For Care2.com By Greg Palast, author, “Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps” Video Produced by The Mudflats’ own, Zach D Roberts. Sign the petition to Defend Martin Luther King’s Dream Act – here. Read Shannyn Moore’s piece on how Alaska plays into all this – at the Anchorage Daily News Jim Crow is alive and well — and he has mounted a new attack on the law Martin Luther King dreamed of: the Voting Rights Act. February 27, the…