New and Noteworthy 2019

This Sunday, meeting from 2-5 pm because we have so much to discuss

Meeting Sundays 3-5 pm at Columbia as always
Location: Room 409, Int’l Affairs Bldg. Columbia Univ.
420 W. 118th St.. (SE Corner of Amsterdam Ave. )

On April 28, we are planning to use “On Left Political Organization“, Chapter 2 of Stanley Aronowitz’s Left Turn, as a starting point to a discussion of organizing. Please read before the meeting. PDF available at link above.

For the week from April 14 to April 20, 2019

1. Pompeo is “Setting the Stage for a War with Iran”
2. Landlords are exploiting a key loophole to raise rents on thousands of apartments
3. The Next Recession: Economic Policy Institute discussion

For the weeks from March 31 to April 13, 2019

1. Anything Can Be Anything the whole podcast on conspiracies is very good (except the closing music) but I particularly recommend Jelani Cobb which is “Act 1” and starts 9 minutes into the full podcast
2. Press coverage of Trump/Russia and other stories
   • After the Mueller Report, the Dream of a Sudden, Magic Resolution to the Trump Tragedy Is Dead
   • As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate? Glenn Greenwald vs. David Cay Johnston
   • Glenn Greenwald “If You Turn On CNN Or MSNBC It Was Basically STATE TV! CIA TV!”
   • Trump made two remarkably authoritarian remarks in one day, did people notice?
   • Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post has inflammatory front page about Rep. Ilhan Omar
     • George W. Bush joked about 9/11 shortly after it occurred (by the way, he was also lying about having given caveats on deficit spending)
   • Congressman quotes Mein Kampf on floor of House, does not make the front page (NY Times doesn’t cover it at all).
     • And it should go without saying (but doesn’t): Hitler was not a socialist
3. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates not getting much:
   • Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard interviewed by Joe Rogan
     • Tulsi Gabbard on U.S. Sanctions against Venezuela and elsewhere Note: source’s Youtube account terminated
   • Mayor Wayne Messam discusses student debt, inmmigration and climate change
   • Andy Yang interviewed by Brian Lehrer
4. Venezuela:
   • The Origins of Venezuela’s Economic Crisis
   • ‘New York Times’ Journalist Describes An ‘Almost Unimaginable’ Crisis In Venezuela dramatically understating U.S. role in it
5. Trump cuts off aid to Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador; claims they aren’t doing enough to stop migration
6. Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns after mass protests
7. Lori Lightfoot elected Chicago mayor, will be 1st black woman and 1st openly gay person to hold post
8. Melissa Conyears-Ervin elected first black woman treasurer of Chicago
9. Slovakia Elects First Woman President in Rebuke to Nationalism
10. House passes resolution ending US involvement in Yemen
    • Jewish Groups Accuse GOP of Weaponizing Anti-Semitism to Prolong Slaughter in Yemen
11. U.S. approves secret nuclear power work for Saudi Arabia
12. Saudi Arabia is detaining American activists 6 months after Khashoggi’s murder
13. Inequality is damaging the development and educational achievement of millions of children
    • Even billionaire Ray Dallio thinks inequality is a “national emergency”
14. Genuine progress (though not perfection)
    • New York City’s Bail Success Story
    • New York Overhauls Pretrial Evidence Rules
    • New York ends cash bail for most crimes
    • New York State Budget Mandates Public Financing of Elections
      • Law to be written by an undemocratic commission appointed by the “3 people in a room”
    • There is no good reason felons cannot vote
    • Bryan Stevenson: What Justice Requires
15. An alternative: Restorative Justice: What justice could look like
16. NY Rent law needs to be renewed by June
    • Housing Justice for All
17. The Real Roots of ‘Black Capitalism’
18. Gaza marks Israel march anniversary
19. The Israeli Election Put the Bigotry of Its Political Class Front and Center
    • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of Trump, just united with a political party that experts say is like the KKK
    • Israel’s election, through the eyes of a young Palestinian
    • AIPAC Targets Bernie Sanders in Facebook Ads
20. Why Is It So Hard To Talk About Israel?
21. Critics Warn Designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as Terrorist Organization Is Trump Itching for War
22. Federal Reserve appointees:
    • Stephen Moore would change the Federal Reserve — for the worse?
    • Trump is said to pick Herman Cain for Fed seat as a counterweight to Powell
    • Trump’s previous, more conventional, Fed appointments
    • Plus, a women nominated by Trump was torpedoed by Republicans in Congress (and the big banks) — because she was a good regulator
    • The Fed Claims to Be Independent. The reality is more complex.
    • The Politically Talented Mr. Greenspan
    • Fractures on Supreme Court coming out
23. Who should be embarrassed (more on why Smollet is a side issue)
24. Nearly everything Trump just said about Puerto Rico is wrong
25. For Trump, the cruelty is the point.
26. Deputy’s Son Has Been Arrested In Connection With Fires At Three Black Churches In Louisiana
27. Kirstjen Nielsen Shows Why It’s Impossible to Restrain Trump
28. ICE Official Who Said Detention Was “More Like Summer Camp” Will Now Lead The Agency
29. Trump’s administration has delayed putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.
    
30. GOP triggers ‘nuclear option’ to speed up Trump’s picks
31. Facebook is buying good press
    • So much easier than improving one’s behavior, especially if you’ve got billions to spend.
    • And press is desperate for funds since FB & friends have taken their advertising
    • Life is great if you’re Zuckerberg
32. Justice Department releases damning report on Alabama’s gruesome, violent prisons
    • The biggest surprise here is that the DoJ is still apparently functioning, to some extent.
33. Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns after mass protests
34. High-Flying Cy: How Manhattan DA Vance Spent $250K on Travel and Food
35. It’s time to panic about privacy
    • Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police
36. Brexit Brief: May requests delay to June 30
37. U.S. Government’s indictment of Julian Assange poses grave threats to press freedoms
38. Taxes:
    • Alternative Visions – Trump Whacks the Middle Class
    • Planet Money: Tax Hero and villian Grover Norquist wants you to spend hours so you hate taxes
39. Book club?
    • Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
    • Left Turn : Forging a New Political Future

For the week of March 24 to March 30, 2019

1. Jussie Smollett isn’t the problem. We are
2. Conservative media’s war on AOC is hammering her poll numbers
3. There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts
4. Rich People Are More Likely To Cheat And Steal Than The Poor, Study Says
5. Kalief Browder’s Suicide Inspired a Push to End Cash Bail. Now Lawmakers Have a Deal.
6. Puerto Rico Faces a Flood of Fracked Gas in Wake of Hurricane Maria
7. Venezuela Is in Economic Crisis, Not Humanitarian Crisis
8. Federal Judge Strikes Down Medicaid Work Requirements In Arkansas And Kentucky
9. Revolutionary group that raided North Korean Embassy establishes contact with FBI

For the week of March 17 to March 23, 2019

1. Sixteen years after the invasion of Iraq, it is [long past] time to start taking responsibility
2. Even Jamie Dimon says we’ve split the US economy, leaving the poor behind
3. Sen. Brian Schatz introduces a new bill to tax stock trades and curb high-frequency trading
4. Financial Stability Oversight Council, a Dodd-Frank reform, is giving up on monitoring shadow banks
5. Only 7 Black Students Got Into N.Y.’s Most Selective High School, Out of 895 Spots
6. How the US Empire Starts Wars, But Refuses to End Them
7. Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign In Somalia How many civilians have been killed as strikes escalate? Since Trump took office, figuring out whom the US is killing and why has become nearly impossible.
   • Article in The Nation
   • Interview on Democracy Now!
8. America’s Generals Have Learned Nothing From Our Failed Wars
9. U.S. Mercenaries Arrested in Haiti Were Part of a Half-Baked Scheme to Move $80 Million for Embattled President
10. ‘Political Reptilian Brains’: Cuomo Blasts Democrats and the Left
11. The 20 companies and groups that spend the most money to influence lawmakers
12. Advocates and Senators Refute Assembly Democrats’ Concerns with Campaign Finance Reform
13. On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post
14. Stepping Inside the FoxHole – Fox News impact on opinions a more careful version of “The Brainwashing of My Dad” (with appropriate cautions that correlation doesn’t prove causation)
15. Obesity-Related Cancer Rates Are Rising Among Millennials
16. Deaths of six men tied to Ferguson protests alarm activists
17. Study: Philly among leaders in gentrification, which has pushed out people of color
18. The Kingdom and the Kushners: Jared Went to Riyadh.
    • Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Use Private Accounts for Official Business, Their Lawyer Says
19. Minimum wage increases raise low wage workers income (surprise)
20. Thank you, Climate Strikers. Your Action Matters and Your Power Will Be Felt

For the week of March 10 to March 16, 2019

1. Christchurch mosque shootings: Rotorua community unites at evening vigil
2. U.S. Gun Makers Send Weapons South As Migrants Flee North
3. White House And Ivanka Trump Propose New Spending On Child Care
   • And her dad proposes taking 1,618 times as much from all other programs to help 99%
4. Putting Billionaires in Their Place
5. KEPT OUT: For people of color, banks are shutting the door to homeownership
6. Wells Fargo Says Its Culture Has Changed. Some Employees Disagree.
   • SEC also disagrees: 2 Wells Fargo units among 79 charged
   • We don’t need the fiduciary rule: OMB delays fiduciary rule until 2020
   • Wells Fargo scandals: The complete list (of those made public so far)
   • We don’t need the CFPB: Elizabeth Warren torches consumer protection head for not protecting consumers
7. FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme
   • The news is that this is illegal?
   • Will the people in college bribery scandal be subject to 5 years in prison as this parent trying to get her kids a better education was?
8. People Need to Be Scared About Climate Change. They Also Need to Recognize That It’s Not Too Late.
   • Reposting because I think it’s so essential (and it’s short): Greta Thunberg speech at UN Climate Change Conference
   • Students around the world are striking for action on climate change
9. Want to Know How Your Local Jail Operates? Sorry, That May Be a Trade Secret.
10. Regime Change Via Sanctions? U.S. Uses International Finance System to Strangle Venezuelan Economy
11. Progress in Albany?
    
    • Ending cash bail?
    • Getting campaign finance reform?

For the week of March 3 to March 9, 2019

1. Anat Admati: Towards a Better Financial System
2. A Century of U.S. Intervention Created the Immigration Crisis
3. As States Look To Cut Jail Populations, Electronic ‘Miniature Prisons’ Are On the Rise
4. Opinion: End cash bail without hurting people
5. Report: ICE Tracking NYC Protests Through ‘Anti-Trump’ Spreadsheet
   • Documents reveal immigration enforcement agency keenly attuned to left-leaning protests in the city. 
6. The Amazon Deal Was Not Brought Down by a Handful of Politicians It was felled by a robust grassroots coalition.
7. Dems selling themselves (and us) out: The drive to adopt public campaign financing might be on the skids.
8. Reparations Now? Maybe In Order to Get the Job Done It’s Time To Call It Something Else
   • “White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this… The Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed ” James Baldwin
9. Brexit endgame
10. House’s Anti-Semitism Resolution Exposes Generational Fight Over Ilhan Omar
    • House Majority Leader McCarthy busted for posting anti-Semitic tweet
11. Senate Republicans block vote on bill to stop funding war in Yemen
12. Judge rules that Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross broke law, violated Constitution in census decision

For the week of Feb. 24 to March 2, 2019

1. Greta Thunberg powerful speech at UN Climate Change Conference
   • Greta Thunberg interview on Democracy Now!
2. The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy
3. Irate Kenyans Serve Muddy Water to Leaders in Daring Protest Move
4. Lunch Debt and Shaming in Schools
5. Why New York State’s Democracy Needs Small Donor Public Campaign Financing
6. Did you know you could be jailed for a seat belt violation? Supreme Court thinks this is ok! Why isn’t the Right (and the rest of us) yelling about this? (Audio, Video , interview starts at 5:30 )
7. New bill would ban racist algorithms from setting bail
8. The opioid epidemic and other public-health emergencies are being aggravated by failings in the criminal-justice system.
9. Some Presidential candidates backing reparations for slavery
   • The Racial Wealth Gap Could Become a 2020 Litmus Test
10. ‘He’s a racist, he’s a con man, he’s a cheat’
    • Rashida Tlaib berates Mark Meadows for using black woman as ‘a prop’ at hearing
11. How Much Does Heterodoxy Help Progressives? (Wonkish) Paul Krugman debates MMT
12. Pentagon Credit Union takeovers:
    • American Bankers Assoc. Says Pentagon Fed Mergers a Threat to Small Credit Unions
    • New Jersey Credit Union Plans Merger With PenFed
13. Black Activists: U.S. Acts Like Outlaw in Venezuela
    • Red Cross warned U.S. about risks of sending aid to Venezuela
    • Colombian Red Cross Condemns Unauthorized Use of Its Symbol
    • Video From Venezuelan Supermarket Exposes CNN Lies
14. A Century of U.S. Intervention Created the Immigration Crisis
15. U.N. report on Gaza says Israeli forces may have committed war crimes
16. Silicon Valley parents are so panicked about kids’ screen time that they’re having nannies sign ‘no-phone contracts’
17. To Disempower Lobbyists, Give Congressional Staff a Raise
18. Economists for Inclusive Prosperity A network of academic economists committed to an inclusive economy and society (and sound research)
    • Suresh Naidu is one of those leading this effort.
19. An MMT take on the New Green Deal: how to pay for it without worrying about inflation
    • But labor balks
20. NY Lawmakers Delay Criminal Justice Reform

For the week of Feb. 17 to Feb. 23, 2019

1. America’s Other Family-‍Separation Crisis: Why do we lock so many women up?
   • Conference on incarcerated women
2. U.K. government report labels Facebook ‘digital gangsters’
3. A history of debt: David Graeber questions etablished wisdom about the moral power of debt, the origins of money and the definition of money itself.
4. Regime Change We Can Believe In: The U.S. Agenda in Venezuela, Haiti, and Egypt
   • Americans arrested in Haiti with arsenal of guns won’t face charges
5. Left perspectives on Presidential Campaigns (not an endorsement)
   • Meagan Day writes: Bernie Is Running, Thank God
6. Socialism for Realists
7. CFPB is looking out for financial predators instead of Main Street
8. Momentum grows for New York’s landmark climate-equity bill
9. School strikes against climate change take off
   • 13-Year-Old U.S. Activist Hailed as Glorious ‘Threat’ to Those Driving Planetary Disaster with Climate Denialism

For the week of Feb. 10 to Feb. 16, 2019

1. How The CIA Overthrew Iran’s Democracy Any similarity to events in Venezuela are purely coincidental
2. Elliott Abrams, U.S. envoy for Venezuela, previously convicted of deceiving Congress, faces questions from Congress about past and present U.S. interventions in Latin America
3. Venezeula: Maduro accuses U.S. of imperialism; history says he’s not wrong
4. Why more of the world now feels threatened by U.S. than by China or Russia (see above)
5. Republicans Are Using Shameless Tactics to Split Democrats Over BDS
   • The Progressive Assault on Israel
   • The sick double standard in the Ilhan Omar controversy
6. Virginia blackface scandal: Ralph Northam vows to stay as governor
7. Will the U.S. Senate Let the People of Yemen Live?
8. Trump’s Illegal Emergency Declaration Is a Dangerous Low Point in U.S. Presidential History
   • Emergency declarations are a sign of dysfunctional, undemocratic government. So many we are having trouble keeping track of them:
     • Here are 28 active national emergencies
     • Here’s a list of the 31 national emergencies that have been in effect for years
9. There is a crisis at the border. It’s just not what Trump says it is.
   • ICE Is Sending Hundreds of Asylum-Seekers to a Private Prison in Mississippi
10. How Pharma rips off Americans
11. Presidential candidates not getting much press:
    • Marianne Williamson
    • Andrew
    • Yang
12. Former presidential candidate who got too much press
    • Lyndon LaRouche, bizarre political theorist and perennial presidential candidate, dies at 96
13. The Left must finally break with the Democrats
14. NYC Public Advocate debate also note: not qualifying for debate but on the ballot: Manny Alicandro, David Eisenbach, Anthony Herbert, Jared Rich, Helal Sheikh, Latrice Walker, Benjamin Yee
15. The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy
16. To combat dark money, we need public campaign financing
17. Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out Dark Money
18. Amazon Cancels Plan to Build Headquarters in NYC
19. The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism
20. The vultures are circling NYCHA
21. Science and Subterfuge in Economics

For the week of Feb. 3 to Feb. 9, 2019

1. Economic Bills of Rights:
   1. FDR: The Economic Bill of Rights
      1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
      2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
      3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
      4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
      5. The right of every family to a decent home;
      6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
      7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
      8. The right to a good education.
   2. Reagan’s version
      1. Freedom to work
      2. Freedom to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor
      3. Freedom to own and control one’s property
      4. Freedom to participate in a free market
2. Twelve Step Method to Conduct Regime Change
3. Democratic Socialists statement on U.S. intervention in Venezuela “Stop Dangerous and Counterproductive US Intervention in Venezuela”
4. Venezuela crisis: Former U.N. rapporteur says U.S. sanctions are killing citizens
5. Mark Twain’s opposition to imperialism
   • Twain’s War Prayer
6. Activists convicted after leaving water and food for migrants in Arizona desert
   • Judge: Providing Water to Dying Immigrants in Desert is a Crime
7. Dozens of Cities Have Secretly Experimented With Predictive Policing Software
8. How do we get dark money out of politics?
9. No billionaires
   • Abolish Billionaires
10. Curious case of missing wealth taxes
11. Media is badly botching medicare-for-all debate: The current health system is unaffordable, not medicare-for-all
12. Green New Deal:
    • Original: Green Party Green New Deal
    • Ocasio Cortez / Markey: Green New Deal
      • There’s now an official Green New Deal. Here’s what’s in it.
    • Nancy Pelosi dismisses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “New Deal” climate plan
    • Green New Deal critics missing the point
13. Trump draining the swamp?
    • Former Koch official runs EPA chemical research
    • Trump to tap ex-energy lobbyist David Bernhardt to head Interior
    • Trump pick sets up fight over World Bank
14. Trump’s 2019 State of the Union was an ode to an imaginary America
15. Racism, Sexual Assault and Politics in Virginia

For the week of Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 2019

1. Financialization creates inequality some finance is helpful, too much is damaging. And we have way too much (slide show)
2. Venezuela: What activists (and others) need to know about the U.S. led coup
   • Wall Street Journal: Pence pledged U.S. backing before Guaido claimed presidency “Trump administration’s secret plan offering support for opposition leader Juan Guaidó was preconceived and tightly coordinated”
   • The actual terrorists
   • 86% of Venezuelans Oppose Military Intervention, 81% Are Against  U.S. Sanctions
   • As U.S. Moves to Oust Maduro, Is Invading Venezuela Next? Allan Nairn on Trump’s Attempted Coup
   • Bolton promises to confront Latin America’s ‘Troika of Tyranny’
   • Racist, imperialist war on Venezuela
3. SCUM Manifesto
4. This conversation may change how you understand misogyny
5. Men at Davos Discover New, “Creative” Excuse to Justify Excluding Women in the Workplace Creative??? They are just following Mike Pence
6. Climate Change Leads to Wars, Refugees
   • Study says
7. Youth Climate Lawsuit in Limbo as the U.S. Government Puts Up Roadblocks
8. Jackboots in the Morning: No One Is Spared From This American Nightmare
9. The War in Yemen Is the World’s Worst Man-Made Humanitarian Disaster
   • Congress could force Trump to end U.S. complicity with Saudi Arabia if it chose to
10. Accounting for Race  “Abetted by the federal government, several states have actively subverted the well-being of their residents of color. “
11. The Congolese people succeeded in forcing President Kabila to allow elections to choose his successor, but Kabila still rigged the vote.
12. Trump Is Killing the INF Treaty
    • Withdrawal from INF nuclear treaty brings us closer to doomsday than any time since 1950s
13. Withdrawing our money from Wall Street: Why NYC needs public banking now

For the week of Jan. 20 to Jan. 26, 2019

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech on Three Evils of Society: Racism, Extreme Materialism and Militarism
   • Transcript
   • Video
2. Bryan Stevenson wants the U.S. to face its history
   • U.S. doesn’t Distortions of MLK legacy
3. Capital Gains and Inequality
   • Capital gains tax cuts are by far the biggest contributor to growth in income inequality
     • Linked an old study because, amazingly, I can’t find any good new ones on this crucial topic.
     • Also a timely topic because Green New Deal includes a proposal to eliminate tax preference for income from capital (both capital gains and dividends)
     • Finally, it is topical because this also encourages replacing workers with robots.
4. Do not call lists: Police who prosecuters think are too ‘unreliable’ to testify in court
5. SPLC sues Trump administration for violating due process rights of immigrant children
6. Venezuela:
   • Venezuela crisis: How the political situation escalated
   • Trump appoints man who backed death squads in Latin America to ‘oversee democracy efforts’ in Venezuela
   • Trump’s intervention in Venezuela: an undemocratic coup
   • OAS Interventionist Resolution Against Venezuela Defeated
   • “A Coup is not a democratic transition”
7. A case for starting process to impeach Trump column or video
8. Latest Oxfam report shows 26 billionaires have more than 3.8 billion people combined. One of their key recommendations is to tax wealth and capital (see above) at higher, fairer, rates.
9. After LA’s Teachers Strike, “Nothing Will Be the Same”

For the week of Jan. 13 to Jan. 19, 2019

1. Banking and Finance
   • $15 Minimum Wage: Job Killer or Path Out of Poverty?
   • How neoliberalism’s obsession with markets destroyed the heart and soul of key jobs
   • Government shutdown threatens food stamps and section 8 housing
   • Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America
   • Diane Ravitch: LA teachers strike is about charter schools
     
   • Never mind killer robots—here are six real AI dangers to watch out for 1. Self-crashing cars 2. Political manipulation bots 3. Algorithms for war ? 4. A surveillance face-off 5. #deepfakes 6. Algorithmic discrimination
   • One day, your voice will control all your gadgets, and they will control
   • US real estate: the brawl over the way New York is built
     • How the 0.01% make it: union bashing
2. Fascinating, frightening discussion of chaos and deception in decisionmaking to go into Iraq No reason to think things are better today
3. Trump’s Wall Demands Hurt People Already Hurting the Most
   • Trump says most furloughed workers ‘are Democrats’
     • when he says “Democrats” does he mean “black”?
       • and would either be relevant to what is done?
4. Pentagon Officials Fear Bolton’s Actions Increase Risk of Clash With Iran
   • ‘A Reckless Advocate of Military Force’: Demands for John Bolton’s Dismissal After Reports He Asked Pentagon for Options to Strike Iran “Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!”
5. Tulsi Gabbard Is a Rising Progressive Star, Despite Her Support for Hindu Nationalists
   • Previous questions about Tulsi Gabbard
6. One day, your voice will control all your gadgets, and they will control you
7. See you in court, citizens tell governments on climate change
8. Chicago’s police ‘code of silence’ went on trial — and the code won
9. Albany passes some voting reform, Cuomo not helpful
   • Senate narrows, doesn’t close, LLC loophole
   • NYS Legislature passes voting reform including early voting
     • Cuomo doesn’t fund early voting in proposed budget
   • Parolees and others left out of voting reform
   • What bail reform could look like
   • What needs to be done: Build a real firewall between consulting and lobbying
10. Astra Taylor’s What is democracy? offers no simple answers

For the week of Jan. 6 to Jan.12, 2019

1. Banking and Finance
   • Relevance of the 2008 crisis for today
   • Stop Inequality Before It Starts
   • Public policy of being mean to the poor
     • How cities make money by fining the poor
     • Wisconsin legislature rushed through lame duck measures to contravene the voters. What was less covered was that it specifically revoked minimum wage increase and Medicaid expansion
   • A surge of climate lawsuits targets human rights, fossil fuels
     • Good news not covered: Dutch climate lawsuit wins on appeal.
   • India’s top court allows Monsanto patents on GM cotton
     • Seeds of suicide: how Monsanto destroys farming
   • Recipients of Section 8 face eviction due to government shutdown
   • 12 charts that show how policy could reduce inequality—but is making it worse instead
   • Fox icon Tucker Carlson blames capitalism for America’s ills, wants government to fix it “Market capitalism is not a religion”, it is “the enemy of a healthy society”, elites (Mitt Romney) don’t care about us and want to drug us.
     • Right wing has a shitstorm
       • Ben Shapiro: Tucker Carlson Claims Market Capitalism Has Undermined American Society. He’s Wrong.
       • Reason Magazine: Tucker Carlson Thinks the Problem With America Is Market Capitalism, He Couldn’t be More Wrong
       • National Review: Personal Responsibility Is No Substitute for Political Reflection
2. Carbon emissions rise second most in 20-years as majority of America believes in anthropogenic climate change‘
3. Raising the Bar on a Green New Deal
4. Do We Really Need Billionaires?
   • Howard Buffett’s border war
5. Frightening prospect of a ‘state of emergency’
   • Trump May Raid Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief Funds for Border Wall That’s what the headline says. But there really aren’t any Puerto Rico hurricane relief funds, he’d be raiding money from Florida, Texas and California
6. Case Closed: The Justice Department Won’t Stand Behind Its Report on Immigrants and Terrorism
7. Tulsi Gabbard Is a Rising Progressive Star, Despite Her Support for Hindu Nationalists
   • Previous questions about Tulsi Gabbard
8. Bases, Bases, Everywhere…  Except in the Pentagon’s Report 
9. Human Again’: Florida Felons Emotional as They Begin Registering to Vote
   • Despite continuing efforts to impede it

For the weeks of Dec. 23, 2018 to Jan. 5, 2019

1. Banking and Finance
   • The exodus of New York City’s endangered middle class
   • The Dollar Store Backlash Has Begun
   • The secret shame of middle-class Americans
   • Money Changers in the House of God
   • Pelosi’s deficit obsession
   • What We Learned From a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Health Insurance
   • Neoliberalism, Brazilian style: Bolsonaro unveils mass privatization plan while slashing taxes on rich and wage of poor
   • China cuts bank reserve requirements to in effort to boost growth
   • While public employees work without pay, Pence and cronies get raises
   • Rep. Ocasio Cortez proposes 70% tax on wealthy to pay for green new deal
     • Plan to return taxes to level of 1950-70s called “radical” by mainstream press
2. Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal ‘King’ Macron
3. Winners Take All | Robert Wright & Anand Giridharadas (if you’ve listened to other stuff from Giridharadas, you can skip about 30 minutes to where he talks more about solutions)
4. Black Agenda Radio: Twilight of US empire; Black Alliance For Peace: Trump Should Withdraw From Syria, and Africa too; Carrie Bramen on the myth of “American Niceness”
   • Listen to whichever segments you like. I recommend the last: myth of American Niceness .
5. Important Environmental Stories of 2018
6. “Prison Reform” Is Not Enough. In 2019, Let’s Fight for Decarceration
7. Romney states the obvious: Trump lacks character
   • Also praises Sessions, Haley, Mattis, Tillerson, judges (Kavanaugh), corporate tax cuts, “deregulation” and Trump policy in general
8. The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done

Earlier items

July-Dec. 2018
Jan. – June 2018
July – Dec. 2017
Jan. – June 2017
July – Dec. 2016
Jan. – June 2016