The Alleged News®

Groups Call for More Democratic Constitution on Anniversary of Bill of Rights Ratification On the anniversary of the 1791 ratification of the Bill of Rights, two pro-democracy human rights groups, Democracy Unlimited and Move to Amend, are calling for mass public participation to envision a more just and democratic U.S. Constitution. Toward a People’s Constitution is a website [www.PeoplesConstitution.US] launched last week to provide an inclusive and participatory arena for a respectful, vigorous and strategic discussion to create an authentic people’s constitution. The effort is based on the growing realization that many of the current major crises our nation is facing—inadequacy of providing basic human …

Read more

The staff of the Marketplace Morning Report usually tries to make the economy interesting. It’s not easy. The subject of the show, which airs weekdays on NHPR, is famously nicknamed “the dismal science.” On December 8th, though, we wonder if they soft-pedaled the story, for fear of insurrection. It often seems that that day’s topic—income inequality—has been beaten to death by now. In abstract terms, it has. Percentages, changes over time, blah blah blah. A little dismal science can go a long way towards combatting insomnia. This time, though, an interesting character decided to ask the right question the right way. Early in his career, …

Read more

President Humpty Dumpty Trumpty had a Great Fall. Some people have said it was the greatest fall of all time. No one has ever seen anything like it. In fact, there may never again be anything like it—because we might not survive this one. The last we heard, President Humpty Dumpty Trumpty retained full authority to demand the nuclear football, right along with his next bag full of Big Macs.® If we were in a comic strip, the joke would be on the angry, overweight, overgrown child. Alas, we’re not; the joke is on us. For all his vain posturing, the real Michael Richard Pence …

Read more

We ought to be inured by now to this recurring political cycle. After all, it’s been going on for nearly a century. Even our legendary level of ironic distance, though, fails to provide an adequate level of psychic insulation. In short, this is too damn much. We cannot put a stop to it, but, by god, we can describe it. One party forces the country to accept some dubious policy choice. This choice is invariably made in service to Moloch, or capitalism, or whatever you want to call the human face of concentrated financial power. By its failure—which was, more likely than not, predicted by …

Read more

[Muttering: Surely we can write about something that has nothing to do with the orange guy squatting behind the Resolute desk…. Aha! – The Ed.] Let us now turn to something less distressing that Presidential electoral politics. Almost anything would fit that bill, right? Michael Hiltzik, the Business Columnist for the L.A. Times, wrote a fascinating piece recently on efforts by Congress to fine-tune the IRS. Improving an institution so universally loathed—how hard could that be? And therein lies the problem; improvement was not the aim. Congress is, of course, Constitutionally responsibile for the federal budget, which is to say, raising and spending money. Individual …

Read more

On June 27, 2015—ten days after nine Black worshippers in Charleston, South Carolina were murdered by a white supremacist—an artist and activist then known as Bree Newsome scaled a flagpole on the grounds of that state’s capitol and hauled down the Confederate battle flag. “In the name of Jesus, this flag has to come down,” she said as she was being arrested. “You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.” Two weeks later the legislature of South Carolina—which had been defending the Confederate flag’s presence for decades—essentially ratified Newsome’s …

Read more