Ralph Nader's Blog, page 25

Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein Statement on the January 6th Committee Enforcing Subpoenas

Last month, Congressman Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capitol, voiced doubts about the committee’s authority to enforce its subpoenas. He said: “If we subpoena them and they choose not to come, I’m not aware of a real vehicle that we can force compliance.” The…

Ezra Klein and His Vast Inner Space

By Ralph Nader February 12, 2022 I read the New York Times in print, flipping pages and reading through all the various sections. Over the past year, a nearly life-size face appears in many full-page ads. This same ad appears in any section of the Times including the coveted pages of the Sunday New York…

Statement on J. Robert (“Bob”) Hunter’s Retirement

Feb. 3, 2022 “Bob Hunter has been the greatest advocate for consumer justice against the insurance industry in American history. As a trained actuary, and having been Federal Insurance Commissioner and later Texas Insurance Commissioner, Bob knew where the machinations, frauds and gouging were in this secretive industry. With geniality, he won battle after battle…

Facilitating Civic and Political Energies for the Common Good*

By Ralph Nader February 2, 2022 Some readers responded to one of my earlier columns urging the national progressive civic groups, with millions of members back home, to overcome the dominance of giant corporatism with a Ten-Year Plan budgeted at $1 billion a year (See, Think Big to Overcome Losing Big to Corporatism, January 7,…

Morton Mintz Turns 100 – Investigative Nemesis of Corporate Criminals

By Ralph Nader January 25, 2022 “Hi Mort,” began my calls to Morton Mintz who would invariably answer his phone promptly at the Washington Post. “I’ve got a story,” to which Mintz would respond warily: “Tell me about it.” And so it went for nearly twenty years with me and lots of other citizen advocates,…

Lost Opportunities in Joe Biden News Conference

By Ralph Nader January 21, 2022 President Joe Biden broke the record for the longest presidential press conference ever – going nearly two hours fielding question after question. He stood that long to prove his stamina and dispel bigoted charges of ageism. How did he do by his own standards? First, his opening remarks naturally…

Repudiating the Myths of Market Fundamentalism and the Corporate Coercions it Masks and Enables

There can be no free market when companies engage in monopolistic or anti-competitive activity and systems. There can be no free market when companies lie, cheat and steal, as a way of doing business (eg. the mortgage rackets and pay day loans) and systematically engage in deceptive advertising (eg. Pills That Don’t Work – Sidney…

Eight New Year’s Resolutions for NPR to Consider Now

By Ralph Nader January 14, 2022 The reasons Congress created NPR (National Public Radio) under the Nixon Administration was to fill the yawning gaps of commercial radio in local, national, and international news coverage and to give voice to the people, without ads. It was to be publicly funded by taxpayers. Almost 51 years later,…

Nader Calls on Attorney General Garland to Create Corporate Crime Database

January 12, 2022 The Honorable Merrick Garland Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice Robert F. Kennedy Building 950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 Re: Corporate Crime Database and Annual Report Dear Attorney General Garland: The U.S. Department of Justice has been clear about the dangers posed by corporate crime. We were encouraged by Deputy…

Think Big to Overcome Losing Big to Corporatism

By Ralph Nader January 7, 2022 The progressive citizen groups, that in the sixties and seventies, drove through Congress the key environmental, worker, and consumer legislation, since unmatched, must feel nostalgic. Those were the years when legislation throwing cruel companies on the defensive was signed by arch-corporatist, President Richard Nixon, because he read the political…