Texas: Neutering Democracy

Date: 19 Oct 2015 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In Texas liberty trumps democracy. The Texas Supreme Court itself says so. In a recent decision, three of the five Justice majority bluntly declared. “(O)ur federal and state charters are not, contrary to popular belief, about ‘democracy’.” They are about “liberty’s primacy”. The Justices concluded the Texas Constitution gives primacy to liberty because of the sequence … Read More

The Government Is About To Give Prisoners a Fair Deal When They Call Home

Most jail and prisons phones are owned by profit making corporations that charge unconscionable (dare I say criminal) rates as high as $1 per minute for phone calls.  The federal government is about to change the rules. Later in October the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to slash the average telephone rate by as much … Read More

Forty Years Ago We Deregulated the Airlines. Now We Pay The Price

We should remember that it was liberals, not conservatives who deregulated the airlines.  The theory was that deregulation would unleash vigorous competition, better service, more airlines and lower prices.  None of that occurred.  Instead we now have fewer airlines controlling our airports and skies than we had under regulation.  And things are getting worse.  At AlteNet … Read More

Norway Owns Its Oil. Canada Doesn’t. And That Has Made All The Difference

Canada and Norway produce about the same amount of oil and gas. Through a combination of public ownership and taxes Norway captures about 85 percent of the net revenue from sales. As a result its 25 year old Sovereign Fund has $1.1 trillion in assets that has been used to make Norway one of the most … Read More

Four Strategies For Reducing Ridiculously Inflated Drug Prices

American consumers pay hundreds of billion of dollars in inflated pharmaceutical prices because drug companies are legal monopolies, a result of current patent laws. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research evaluates 4 separate strategies for slashing the cost of drugs and seeing drugs as a common good.

We Now Have A Private Judicial System Just for Corporations

Date: 28 Sep 2015 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In the last 20 years the Supreme Court has created a parallel judicial system to resolve disputes involving corporations that is effectively run by the very corporations whose behavior is under investigation. Here is how that judicial coup against an independent judiciary occurred. In 1925 Congress passed a simple 4-page law, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). … Read More

Buy America? Of Course. But You Can Do Even Better

Date: 24 Aug 2015 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

“Every person ought to have the awareness that purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act,” Pope Francis announced early this year. How can we spend our money as if our values matter? In some sectors and for some values this is fairly easy. Food is an obvious example. Those who … Read More

Conservatives Have Hijacked Our Language

Date: 23 Aug 2015 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me.” A fine sentiment, but any child subjected to cyber bullying knows that words do indeed matter. Language evolves. Sometimes a word that once was negative becomes positive, like “terrific” which originally meant terrifying. Sometimes a word that was once positive becomes negative, as … Read More

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