If the murder of Oscar Grant on an Oakland transit platform marked the dawn of the Obama era, the cold-blooded murder of former Naval reservist and Los Angeles Police officer Christopher Dorner might just mark the end of whatever optimistic hope people can muster in his administration. Whether an innocent young man just trying to get home, shot in the back after being racially profiled and slurred, or a man driven to his breaking point …

Read more

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas delivered powerful testimony at a hearing about immigration reform on Wednesday afternoon, reviewing his personal history as an undocumented immigrant who came to America as a child and did not become aware of his illegal status until he applied for a driver’s permit at age 16.

Eliciting applause from the audience, Vargas demanded to know what Congress plans to do with the undocumented population.

Click here to watch …

Read more

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has donated $1 million to help preserve a Los Angeles Board of Education majority that has pushed for several controversial efforts dealing with teachers — including remaking evaluations and speeding the dismissal process — that are supported by the L.A. mayor and the superintendent.

Brokered by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the contribution to the Coalition for School Reform is the largest on record — by far — to support school …

Read more

Samer Issawi, a Palestinian prisoner in Israel, is in dire straights after 203 days on hunger strike in protest against Israel’s abusive prison system. Issawi has been refusing food since July 2012 – making his hunger strike one of the longest in the world.

The 33-year old stopped drinking water and taking vitamins earlier this month. Now confined to a wheelchair, Issawi’s weight has dropped below 47 kilograms, his vision is weakening, and he is vomiting …

Read more

With reports of abuses by forces on both sides of the conflict during the ongoing war in Mali, coupled with starvation across much of northern Mali, the local population is questioning the role of French troops on their soil whom they say are making life even more difficult for them than before. Malians in the north are concerned that they have been neglected by both the French and the local authorities leaving them in the …

Read more

A third African American with experience at the LAPD has come out to express empathy with Christopher Dorner’s charges of cop racism.

Not only that but Brian Bentley, who wrote about his experience on the job in One Time: The Story of a South Los Angeles Police Officer, says he knew three other cops who had manifestos of their own:

He says in a statement that he expected to see a black cop blow his top sooner …

Read more

• Listen to this segment

My fellow Americans the State of the Union is strong. Its politicians, however, are stupid and bought off by everybody from oil billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Saudi sheikhs to transnational corporations and defense contractors. This is problem One. Our Supreme Court has said that money is the same thing as speech. It’s not. It’s money. Our Supreme Court has also said that corporations …

Read more

British authorities have raided a slaughterhouse and a meat processing company suspected of selling horsemeat labelled as beef, shutting them down temporarily and seizing all the meat found.

Tuesday’s raid by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was the first time since the growing scandal broke across Europe that horsemeat being marketed as beef has been traced to suppliers in Britain, officials said.

The FSA said it suspended production at the Peter Boddy slaughterhouse in Yorkshire, in the …

Read more

President Obama’s State of the Union Address provided some solace to progressives on some issues, but left a lot to be desired on others.

He was right to point out that we can’t keep “drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next”—a good, clean shot at Republican obstructionism on the fiscal cliff and sequestration.

But for the longest time in the first part of his speech, he focused on deficit reduction, which is an exaggerated problem. He …

Read more

Fans are boycotting DC Comics’ selection of “Ender’s Game” author and vocal anti-gay activist Orson Scott Card to pen its “Adventures of Superman” digital-first release.

Last week, DC announced that Card was selected to write the first chapter in the digital “Adventures of Superman” series, and fans quickly responded with a petition calling on the company to renounce Card and “stand for equality”:

DC Comics has just hired anti-gay writer Orson Scott Card …

Read more