Leid Stories – 12.01.15

Prosecuting Egregious Police Crimes: When the Law Is Out of Order
(Part 2: The Laquan McDonald Case)
Indicted last week on first-degree murder charges more than a year after he fired 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald, 17, Chicago Policer Jason Van Dyke sprang himself from a Cook County jail yesterday after posting bail.
Following yesterday’s discussion of the legal complexities of the Freddie Gray case currently being litigated in Baltimore, “Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr. looks at major legal challenges in prosecuting the police killing of McDonald.

Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis – The False Prophet Trudeau

ur inboxes runneth over with congratulations from American friends. “Pleasure to be able to look north without wincing,” “we’re all thrilled to have regained our sensible neighbors to the north,” “Goodbye Stephen ‘Keystone XL’ Harper.”  And then there was this from England: “you now officially have the hottest Prime Minister EVER!” Like us, our friends tend to spend a lot …

Big U.S. firms hold $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes: study

The 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds, according to a study released on Tuesday. The study, by two left-leaning non-profit groups, found that nearly three-quarters of the firms on the Fortune 500 list …

Raphaël Souchier – The Post-Wall Street Era Will be Local

On a shelf of the Phoenix Bookstore, located in the heart of the ecovillage of Findhorn in the north of Scotland, the title Going Local (Free Press, 2000) caught my eye. The book was written by the American economist Michael H. Shuman. It was June 2002, and I had come to Findhorn to attend the international “Restore the Earth” conference, …

Who are the psychopaths? By Duncan MacMartin

Recently we heard that the Australian government plans on destroying and burning protected remnant old growth forests to make electricity and woodchips; and before that we discovered the US government’s open secret of founding and supporting ISIL in Syria after failing to gather public support for a war against Assad! Every day we have been watching the Palm-Oil Mafia commit …

In Defense Of The Commons – Shalmali Guttal & Mary Ann Manahan

“Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich against the poor.” Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. 1944. (p. 35) Shared access, reliance, use and governance of natural resources is a common form of tenure in the world, North and South, rural and urban. The specific rules and institutions that govern common property are very diverse, developed by communities …

Our Power: Battling Austerity with a Bold Green Vision – Avi Lewis

Avi Lewis delivered the opening keynote at the 9th annual Advocacy Conference of Public Interest Alberta, entitled “A Just and Fair Alberta: Making It Happen,” on April 9 in Edmonton. PIA “exists to foster an understanding of the importance of public spaces, services and institutions in Albertans’ lives, and to build a network of people and organizations committed to advancing the public …