Special coverage in the Trump Era

From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."

Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line

Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...

"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.

Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."

Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington

The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version

Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version  of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.

What's New?

March 02, 2017

Small farmer Francisca Ramírez against Nicaraguan canal project

"Who is she and why did the European Parliament order Nicaragua on Feb. 16 to protect her life and rights...?"

A year ago the Honduran environmentalist leader Berta Caceres was brutally murdered. ( See Aljazeera report: Protesters mark anniversary of Berta Caceres' murder )

Now there are international calls for protection for Nicaraguan small farmer Francisca Ramirez, who leads "the campesino movement demanding the repeal of the law for an inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua – a project that the government has awarded to Chinese businessman Wang Jing." (source and more, including information on the two women leaders' meeting "during a forum on the defense of natural resources held in Juigalpa, Chontales, last August" (2015), confidencial.com)

The Peasant Farmer Who Stood Up to the President of Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Feb 24 2017 (IPS) -by Jose Adán Silva. The unequal battle that small farmer Francisca Ramírez is waging against the Nicaraguan government of Daniel Ortega has become so well-known that people are calling for her security and her rights from the political heart of Europe.

Who is she and why did the European Parliament order Nicaragua on Feb. 16 to protect her life and rights, as well as those of thousands of peasant farmers in the centre-south of this impoverished Central American country?

European Parliament resolution of 16 February 2017 on the situation of human rights and democracy in Nicaragua – the case of Francisca Ramirez



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