In 1971, conservative corporate lawyer and later Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell issued the notorious “Powell Memorandum” urging the reactionary forces of right-wing corporatism to rally against the social movements that swept the nation in the late 1960s and early 1970s and advising them on how they could succeed in rolling back the progress of … Read more
August 15, 2025 New York Times: Patrick Kingsley Aaron Boxerman Isabel Kershner Adam Rasgon Natan Odenheimer Ronen Bergman International Editor: Philip P. Pan Washington Post: Louisa Loveluck Shira Rubin Abbie Cheeseman Miriam Berger Gerry Shih John Hudson Associate Editor: Karen DeYoung Wall Street Journal: Foreign News Editor: James Hookway The American Prospect: Editor, David Dayen … Read more
By Ralph Nader August 8, 2025 The worst crimes of Donald Trump and dangers to America from the unstable, monomaniacal, lying outlaw in the White House have yet to come. He is not satisfied with tearing apart our country’s social safety net for tens of millions of Americans (e.g., Medicaid and food program cuts); wrecking … Read more
August 6, 2025 President Donald J. Trump The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500 Re: Convention Against Torture Dear Mr. President: The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture. Among other things, Article 3 of the Convention prohibits the United States from sending or returning a person to a … Read more
July 28, 2025 Morton Mintz was a consummate ‘beat journalist.’ His pioneering sense of newsworthiness, including reporting what citizen groups were doing, opened up one area of consumer, environmental, and workplace abuses after another for other reporters to follow. He was the drug industry’s consistent “hair shirt.” Many a high corporate executive looked with dread … Read more
By Ralph Nader July 11, 2025 Readers think, and thinkers read. Here are some selections for your summer reading list. A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine by Chris Hedges (Seven Stories, 2025). With brilliant narratives, both historical and contemporary—Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges provides the framework that explains how the … Read more
By Ralph Nader July 3, 2025 The narrow passage of Trump/GOP 1100-page bill that spells death, destruction, and deprivation to the American people—including MAGA voters and innocents abroad should destroy the Trumpster Republicans in the 2026 Congressional election. However, by then it will be too late for poor American children facing Trump reducing the food … Read more
FY26 OTA Final Letter
By Gabriel Duffany, 7/1/25 On June 22, 2025, Republican proposals to slash Government Accountability Office (GAO) funding by 49% were approved by the House Appropriations Committee, sparking widespread concern for the future of U.S. science and technology (S&T) legislation. Among it’s duties as a government watchdog agency, GAO is tasked with producing detailed reports to … Read more
Background – Office of Technology Assessment In the 1960s, members of Congress became increasingly aware of the rising importance new technologies played in our society and recognized their responsibility to be better informed about the impact of emerging technologies. Spurred on by skyrocketing federal budget requests for new military technology1 and a NASA budget that … Read more