ATLANTA – The State of Ohio executed death row inmate Marvallous Keene, 36, on Tuesday, July 21, 2009, marking the 1,000th time in the United States that the government has killed a prisoner by lethal injection.

On this episode, President Obama fires back against Republican obstructionism of health reform. The minimum wage goes up July 24th to $7.25 per hour. And we play excerpts of a recent interview with Dan Kovalik a United Steelworkers union staffer who traveled to Honduras earlier this month to observe pro-democracy protests against the military coup.

Deeply embedded within even these notions of Black freedom, moreover, were two strategic concepts implying collective action to maximize Black civic capacity. The strongest of these was the struggle for equality.

Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica and the person who will serve as mediator of the crisis in Honduras, writes in an OpEd piece July 10th in the Miami Herald, “This coup demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile democracies creates a terrible risk.”

Pressure is mounting on the leaders of the coup d'etat in Honduras. The reactionary ruling elite's attempt to prevent progressive politics taking root in one of the poorest countries in the world is starting to look isolated.

As reported by the media, right-wing military forces waged this coup subsequent to their opposition to a consultative referendum about the necessity to amend the constitution in order to continue the democratic developments in the country.

During a telephone conference call with journalists in Costa Rica, Honduran activists today reported that human rights defenders have been threatened and that the Honduran army is forcibly recruiting youngsters in rural areas, following the "coup" on Sunday.

I very much appreciate that the Obama Administration has taken a principled stand against the coup in Honduras, the ouster of President Zelaya and the violations of human rights and civil liberties that have taken place in Honduras since the coup last Sunday.

Sunday the Honduran military carried out a coup ousting President Manuel Zelaya from power. Almost immediately leaders of Western Hemisphere nations condemned the actions taken in Tegucigalpa, the capital city.

If the last 30 years were an era of reaction, then the coming decade could turn into an era of reform, even radical reform. Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has announced he will return to his country this weekend, accompanied by a distinguished group of Latin American and International figures including Organization of American States Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador.

"Latin America has to guarantee the defeat of this coup d'etat and also has to demand, without conditions, the reestablishment of President Manuel Zelaya and ensure justice is done to the fullest extent..."

Leading civil rights organizations welcomed President Obama's memorandum expanding some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees June 17th, but called on the President to take bolder steps on other hot-button LGBT equality issues.

In June of 2000, Bill Clinton deemed the month of June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” The month was chosen to remember the Stonewall riots in 1969 in Manhattan.

I've had a few of my progressive friends say to me, "You know Keith, I'm not that happy about the president not really going after those quirks in the Bush administration, I'm not that pleased that we haven't heard as much as we want to hear about a public option. What about 100 percent auction for cap and trade? What about these issues that we care about?"

In an attempt to reach technological independence Cuba has placed its bets on open-source software, a fact evidenced at the presentation of the Nova Operative System 2.0 during the 2009 International Convention of Informatics.

President Obama is back from his trip abroad. It was a remarkable tour, during which he spoke of peace, democracy and progress in Egypt, and then, in Germany, he confronted some of the greatest crimes against humanity ever perpetrated, crimes that were the direct result of fascism and war.

President Barack Obama received a resounding round of applause in the initial online public opinion survey conducted by the Center for Working-class Studies (CWCS) at Youngstown State University. According to the survey, 52.6% of the 891 respondents strongly approve and 35% approve of the President’s job performance during his first 100 days in office.

WASHINGTON – A coalition of voting rights groups and attorneys today praised a decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to block the use of flawed and racially discriminatory voter registration practices by Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel.

I believe that there is a very big relationship in terms of understanding the fundamentals of capitalism and what is happening now, and what the prospects are for momentary solutions and longer-term solutions further down the road.