Early in the morning on June 18, 2013 a brand new Mercedes C250 coupe was driving through the Melrose intersection on Highland Avenue in Hollywood when suddenly, out of nowhere, it sped up. According to an eye-witness, the car accelerated rapidly, bounced several times then fishtailed out of control before it slammed into a palm tree and burst into flames,  ... Read more »

We’ve spent a lot of time this past year trying to understand how the National Security Agency gathers and stores information about ordinary people. But there’s also a thriving public market for data on individual Americans — especially data about the things we buy and might want to buy.

Co ... Read more »

Guns made civil rights possible: Breaking down the myth of nonviolent change

A crucial part of the struggle's been forgotten: how armed self-defense protected activists from white supremacists

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
—Ella Baker

I have never subscribed to nonviolence as a way of life, simply because I have never felt strong enough or courageous enough, even though as a young activist and organizer in the South I was committed to the tactic. “I tried to aim my gun, wondering what it would feel like to ... Read more »

Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million d ... Read more »

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president elect of United Teachers Los Angeles, takes questions on about the verdict of the Vergara v. California lawsuit in Los Angeles Tuesday, June 10, 2014. A judge struck down tenure and other job protections for California's public school teachers as unconstitutional Tuesday, saying such laws harm students, especially poor and minority ones, by saddling them with bad teachers. (Photo: Damian Dovarganes, AP)

Dangerous Court Rulling Is Latest Attempt to Blame Teachers ... Read more »

Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition, bankrupt generations, and hypnotize the media

Tuition is up 1,200 percent in 30 years. Here's why you're unemployed, crushed by debt -- and no one is helping

The price of a year at college has increased by more than 1,200 percent over the last 30 years, far outpacing any other price the government tracks: food, housing, cars, gasoline, TVs, you name it. Tuition has ... Read more »

A woman looks at the bullet holes on the window of IV Deli Mark where a mass shooting took place by a drive-by shooter, Elliot Rodger, in Isla Vista, Calif. The shooter went on a rampage near a Santa Barbara university campus that left seven people dead, including the attacker, and seven others wounded. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

It was a key match in the World Cup of Ideas. The teams vied furiously for the ball. The all-star feminist team tried repeatedly to kick it through the goalposts marked Widespread Social Problems, while the opposing team, staffed by the mainstream media and mainstream dudes, was intent on getting it into the usual net called Isolated Event. To keep the ball out of his net, the mainstream’s goalie shouted “mental illness” ag ... Read more »

[Note: It’s that time of year again when graduates, watched by friends and family, leave campuses across the country amid celebrations and enter our increasingly strange world.  I admit to having a weakness for commencement addresses. Though often degraded, they can be inspiring and insightful. On occasion, we have carried actual commencement addresses -- from Howard Zinn, Mark Danner, and Rebecca Solnit; other years, I’ve let graduates head into the world without comment. From time ... Read more »