New and Noteworthy 2019

Meeting Sundays 3-5 pm at Columbia International Affairs Building, Columbia University
420 W. 118th St.. (SE Corner of Amsterdam Ave. ) Room 409 (or, when not available, we post a notice on Room 409 indicating where we are.

Housing and Homelessness: Scott will be leading a discussion on Housing and Homeless on Sept. 15. Here are some related reports on the topic, one of which is contributed to.

Current Topics

  1. Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers
  2. Everyone knows Trump is a racist. So why can’t the media say it?
  3. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace is stunned as an ex-Republican goes scorched-earth on the GOP
  4. Hotel Owners Seeking City Hall Approval Threw De Blasio a $90K Fundraiser
  5. India Moves to Annex Kashmir, Heightening Tensions with Nuclear Rival Pakistan
  6. On the Media: Sons of the Soil India rewriting history of Kashmir
  7. Nuclear Weapons: Dangerous, Expensive and Immoral
  8. Mattis Joins Board of Contractor Profiting from Zero Tolerance Policy
  9. Netanyahu Banned Omar And Tlaib Because The Occupation Must Be Hidden To Survive
  10. Epstein’s Death Highlights A Staffing Crisis in Federal Prisons
  11. Why are we all paying a tax to credit card companies?
  12. Stop Trump’s Attack on Immigrant Families: ‘Public Charge’ Rule Revision
  13. Rikers: New York City is considering closing its infamous jail Will its culture of violence die with it?
    • Or will it cancel the plan? Public Comment Needed Now.
    • Here’s How: At Public Comment link:
      • Under “Borough” select “CW” (City-wide)
      • Under “Project” select “C 190333 PSY Borough Based Jail System”
      • Under “My Comments” select “In favor.” Testimony in your own words would be most powerful.
  14. Trump Endangers the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act

July 28 to August 3

  1. Koch, Bradley Money Fuels Trump’s Right-Wing Echo Chamber
  2. Trump Isn’t Inciting Violence by Mistake, But on Purpose. He Just Told Us.
  3. Long history of denying racism
  4. More on busing:
  5. Chicago Race Riots 1919
  6. My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman
  7. Parents Are Giving Up Custody of Their Kids to Get Need-Based College Financial Aid
  8. Brazilians Fight Far-Right Campaign to Silence Greenwald & Intercept Leaks
  9. Report Accuses Trump Allies of Conspiring to Profit Off Saudi Nuclear Deal
  10. UN Report on Child Casualties Blacklists only Muslim Perpetrators
  11. James Baldwin

July 21 to July 27, 2019

  1. Picture The Homeless Launches Fund To Stay Afloat
  2. Defense spending is America’s cancerous bipartisan consensus
  3. The myth that busing failed
  4. How Much Is a View Worth in Manhattan? Try $11 Million
  5. Melinda Katz claims victory in Queens DA race after recount — Tiffany Cabán vows court fight
  6. Health Care:
  7. What economists have gotten wrong for decades
  8. Treasure Island: Leak Reveals How Mauritius Siphons Tax From Poor Nations to Benefit Elites
  9. The case for a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek
  10. There Are Too Few Companies and Their Profits Are Too High
  11. Puerto Rico: Governor’s resignation sparks power struggle
  12. Why Half a Million Puerto Ricans Are Protesting in the Streets
  13. What kind of Prime Minister will Boris Johnson make?

From July 7 to July 20

  1. Ibram X. Kendi Am I an American?
  2. Best of the Left: How to Build a War from Scratch (Iran)
  3. Iran says its seizure of British ship a ‘reciprocal’ move
  4. 50 Years Ago: Apollo Astronauts Land, Take First Steps on Moon
  5. Happy Bastille Day: Bastille Day inspired centuries of civil disobedience in France. Here’s why
  6. California Feudalism: full report
  7. More on Modern Monetary Theory
  8. Honduras Now Ruled By A “Criminal Gang” – With Western Government Support
  9. Libra: Our corporate overlords’ new currency.
  10. Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin On What’s Really Happening in Iran
  11. The Troubling Elimination of Puerto Rican Public Schools
  12. NYC’s Latest Luxury Scheme Could Leave Gowanus Residents in a Foul Place
  13. What, to the undocumented immigrant, is the 4th of July?
  14. A Real Deal: How New Yorkers Banded Together and Cracked the Landlord Lobby
  15. Background on Libya: General who likely bombed migrant camp has worked for CIA
  16. Venezuela
  17. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet appalled by conditions of migrants and refugees in detention in the U.S.
  18. Trump Seeking to Effectively Outsource Asylum Seekers to Guatemala
  19. Honduras Now Ruled By A “Criminal Gang” – With Western Government Support
  20. Private Equity’s Latest Scheme: Closing Urban Hospitals and Selling Off the Real Estate
  21. House Votes to Stop Trump From Launching Unauthorized Attack on Iran

From June 23 to July 6, 2019

  1. Independence Day Perspectives
  2. Leftists fight each other more than capitalists
  3. Too Many Companies Drain Value From the Economy
  4. This is what “Draining the swamp” looks like?
  5. Libra: Our corporate overlords’ new currency, as seen by Bill Black
  6. U.N. reports human rights violations in Venezuela
  7. Citing $69 Trillion Price Tag by 2100, Moody’s Warns Central Banks of Far-Reaching Economic Damage of Climate Crisis
    • And people claim the Green New Deal is too expensive.
  8. Sudan’s civilian opposition and military have reached a power-sharing deal
  9. Mueller Report Gets the Trump Tower Meeting Wrong; Promotes Browder Hoax

From week of June 16 to June 22

  1. POOR PEOPLE’S MORAL BUDGET
  2. The New Housing Politics
  3. PSA: Reclaim lost funds: If you are in NYS, check if you are owed money
  4. The Trump Administration’s Self-Defeating Policy Toward Guatemala
  5. How Pentagon Officials May Have Encouraged a 2009 Coup in Honduras
  6. Guatemala’s corruption conundrum
  7. Protecting Refugees and Restoring Order: Real Solutions to the Humanitarian Crisis
  8. Brasil:
  9. Where are markets appropriate?
  10. Not endorsements but giving attention to candidates’s proposals:
  11. Rape survivor fighting rapist for custody of child in theocracy of Alabama
  12. Trump threatens to fire Fed Chair
  13. The U.S. Is Purging Chinese Cancer Researchers
  14. Harvard rescinds admission to Parkland survivor Kyle Kashuv over past comments
  15. Monsanto’s Weed Killer Found in All Kids’ Cereals Sampled
  16. Provocations in the Gulf of Oman: Will John Bolton Get His War on Iran?
  17. Struggle and Progress
  18. House Judiciary Committee hearings on Reparations for Slavery and the path to restorative justice
  19. Meet the New York couple donating millions to the anti-vax movement (subsidized by our tax dollars, since the donations are “charitable” deductions).
  20. Facebook’s “Instantly Systemic” Bad Idea: Libra — Facebook/Uber currency
  21. Imagine a world where youth prisons don’t exist?
  22. Updates on protests around the world:
  23. A devastating analysis of the tax cut shows it’s done virtually no economic good
  24. On the Media’s series Unmasking America’s Eviction Epidemic

For the week from June 9 to June 15, 2019

  1. Don’t smile for surveillance: Why airport face scans are a privacy trap
  2. Not endorsements but giving attention to candidates’s proposals:
  3. Costs of War project of Brown University
    • 500,000 lives lost as a result of “war on terror”
    • $6 trillion spent by U.S.
    • 1.2 Billion tons of greenhouse gases
  4. How the Democratic Party Strangled Black Politics
  5. Some Critics Argue that the Internal Colony Theory is Outdated. Here’s Why They’re Wrong
  6. Contradicting Trump Claim of Iranian Mine Attack, Owner of Japanese Oil Tanker Says ‘Flying Object’ Likely Caused Explosions
  7. A White Man’s Republic, if they can keep it
  8. Titans of Real Estate in ‘Shock’ Over New York Rent Law Deal
  9. Stonewall: 50th Anniversary

For the week from June 2 to June 8, 2019

  1. Repeated from last week as we may discuss after people have read:
    To Remake the World: Slavery, Racial Capitalism, and Justice
  2. Use of facial recognition tech ‘dangerously irresponsible’
  3. Canada ‘complicit in race-based genocide’ of indigenous women
  4. Lockheed Martin CEO takes part in talks between Trump and UK PM May
  5. Trump Allows High-Tech U.S. Bomb Parts to Be Built in Saudi Arabia
  6. D-Day: How the US Supported Hitler’s Rise to Power
  7. Unchecked corporate power
  8. Liberals rip Democratic leaders for writing drug pricing bill in secret
  9. Sudan crackdown: All the latest updates
  10. Countering the FBI’s “Black Identity Extremist” Offensive
  11. Shame Versus the Free Market

For the week from May 26 to June 1, 2019

  1. On political organizing:
  2. Congressional Study Finds Trump Tax Cuts Failed to Do Anything But Give Rich People Money
  3. Trump’s Trade War With China Is Waged to Make the Rich Richer
  4. New York rent laws: How 9 bills could change regulations across the state Rent-stabilization law expires June 15th
  5. Are Eight Billion People Are Destroying the Climate?
  6. The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut-Wrenching
    • And, of course, impact on Afghans, Iraqis, and others has been even worse.
  7. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates, especially those not getting much:
  8. This stamp lets you put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill: an act of ‘civil disobedience’?
  9. Iran hits back at Trump for tweeting ‘genocidal taunts’
  10. The Dawn Of Corporate Totalitarianism?
  11. Brexit and the rise of the British Trumps
  12. EU Parliamentary elections: High turnout; Greens, Right gain v established parties.
  13. California lawmakers move to protect gig economy workers
  14. To Remake the World: Slavery, Racial Capitalism, and Justice

For the week from May 19 to May 25, 2019

  1. The Corporate Media and the “Resistance” to Peace
  2. Freedom Rider: Abortion Rights and the Power of Protest
  3. Scott Pelley’s Stories from 45 Years as a Journalist
  4. In Defense of Liberalism
  5. Anita Hill’s Courage and PEN America
  6. John Kelly Cashes in on Child Separation Policy He Pushed
  7. A Small Tax on Wall Street to Make Big Change’: Bernie Sanders and Barbara Lee Introduce New Financial Transaction Tax
  8. As 2020 Democrats Cozy Up to Wall Street Donors, Warren and Sanders Refuse to Play Big-Money Game
  9. Trump Says the Military Industrial Complex is Pressuring him Into a War With Iran
  10. The Hidden Iranian Revolution excellent discussion of current situation in Iran in the context of history since revolution starts 4:30 into the show (and lasts about 15 minutes)
  11. Taiwan Holds Live-Fire Drills Off Coast Amid Tensions With China
  12. Vietnam Full Disclosure
  13. We Are Applauding the ‘Gift’ of an Affordable Education. Something Has Gone Wrong.
  14. Even GOP Voters Are Applauding AOC and Sanders for Taking on Lenders
  15. Are Democrats finally getting wise to Republicans’ antisemitism smears?
  16. No Power Without Organizing

For the week from May 12 to May 18, 2019

  1. An Elected Civilian Review Board and Independent Prosecutor: The way to hold police accountable
  2. Ben Shapiro triggered by “leftist” Andrew Neil
  3. San Francisco Approves Ban On Government‘s Use Of Facial Recognition Technology but, is private use ok?
  4. Harvard Dismisses First Black Deans (Harvey Weinstein Lawyer and his wife)
  5. Will John Bolton’s Dream to Bomb Iran Come True?
  6. Delta tells nonunion workers they should just buy video games instead of joining a union
  7. The MMT “Debate” With Dean Baker & Randall Wray regarding Green New Deal They both recognize resource and monetary constraints. MMT in practice, as portrayed here by Randall Wray, doesn’t seem that different from Dean Baker, a progressive Keynesian.
  8. Nature crisis: Humans ‘threaten 1m species with extinction’
  9. The world’s most prestigious consulting firm and its work for corruption-plagued regimes
  10. The corporations backing Alabama’s war on women
  11. Two approaches to reform:
  12. Why Many Venezuelans Are Still Chavistas
  13. Debate on monopoly and trust busting: Tim Wu & Tyler Cowen
  14. Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Growing Up in Detroit, Holocaust Comments and Fighting Poverty on Seth Meyers
  15. MMT: The Magic Money Tree
  16. Pakistan accepts $6bn from IMF to ease economic crisis, agrees to austerity
  17. The Espionage Axe: Donald Trump and the War Against a Free Press

For the week from May 5 to May 11, 2019

  1. Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Legitimize Regime Change in Venezuela
  2. Chris Hedges On Contact – Venezuela with reporter Ben Norton
  3. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates not getting much:
  4. Under Israeli pressure, Facebook and Twitter delete large amounts of Palestinian content
  5. Thousands Of Israelis Take To The Streets Calling For Palestinian Genocide
  6. Grocery Store Workers Take on Billion Dollar Multinational (Stop and Shop strike)
  7. Trump Labor Board Postpones VW Vote While Company Manufactures Climate of Fear
  8. ‘Black Leadership Matters’: Is a Racial Rift Is Growing Among N.Y. Democrats
  9. Indonesia Plans To Move Its Capital Out Of Jakarta, A City That’s Sinking
  10. John Bolton Has Wanted War With Iran for 20 Years. Now Could Be His Best Chance
  11. Foreign Policy Debate: Is Trump Uniquely Awful or Has the Western Foreign Policy Been a Belligerent Catastrophe for Centuries? (or both)
  12. CIA Drone program is immoral, unethical, and prolongs endless wars.
  13. As Trump admin seeks to provoke conflict with Iran, Congress must act to stop it
  14. Yemen Veto-Override Fails in Senate: 5 Reasons We’re Still Hopeful
  15. Scott Warren Worked to Prevent Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert. The Government Wants Him in Prison.
  16. They treat us like crap’: Uber drivers feel poor and powerless on eve of IPO
  17. Australia is being devastated by climate change. So will it swing the election?
  18. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signs fetal heartbeat bill, one of most restrictive abortion laws in nation
  19. Alabama Senate Erupts Into Chaos as Republicans Try to Ram Through Vote on Abortion Ban
  20. Giving Birth While Black
  21. State Capture Crisis Grips South African Elections
  22. The systems used to dispossess, oppress and control Black communities did not end with slavery.
  23. Protests in Istanbul over voiding of election
  24. Trump to Pick Loyalist Patrick Shanahan as Defense Secretary
  25. Ebola death toll in Congo to pass 1,000, World Health Organization warns
  26. The impact of capitalism and political indifference
  27. On Being: Anand Giridharadas: When the Market Is Our Only Language

For the week from April 28 to May 4, 2019

  1. The Largest Gang Raid in NYC History Swept Up Dozens of Young People Who Weren’t In Gangs
  2. Bernie Sanders: Everyone deserves to vote, even felons like Paul Manafort & Michael Cohen
  3. Unions Try to Derail Campaign Finance Overhaul in New York
  4. Do Uber drivers and TaskRabbit cleaners deserve minimum wage or paid time off? Dept. of Labor says no.
  5. Your Guide To Which Universal Rent Control Measures Will Survive Albany
  6. School Surveillance Zone
  7. Why Everyone Should Care About Mass E-carceration
  8. Medicine Monopolies Are Poised to Get Worse, thanks to “free” trade agreements
  9. ‘Microcosm of Everything Wrong With US Foreign Policy’: Senate Fails to Override Trump Veto on Yemen
  10. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates, especially those not getting much:
  11. Jordan Peterson | ContraPoints
  12. Modi is turning India into a Hindu state
  13. John Bolton on the Warpath
  14. Venezuela’s Guaidó’s coup attempt
  15. 0% of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela
  16. Spain’s socialist PSOE party mulls next move after victory without majority
  17. The push to break up Big Tech
  18. Damage done by right wing media
  19. How Big Money Contributions Cripple our Politics
  20. On the Media on antisemitism, accusations of antisemitism and how it is used for political advantage

For the week from April 21 to April 27, 2019

  1. Meltdown of International Socialist Organization: How anti-feminism, racism and bureaucracy led to its demise
  2. Yellow Vests at Notre Dame Protest Over Billionaires Donations
  3. Global political transitions (or not) for better or worse
  4. See How Hard Gentrification Has Hit Your NYC Neighborhood
  5. Federal prosecutors have brought drug trafficking charges against pharmaceutical executives
  6. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates, especially those not getting much:
  7. Global warming has increased global economic inequality
  8. Supreme Court Appears Set to OK Census Citizenship Question Despite Risk of Undercounting Millions

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
  4. Bad Recommendations: Benjamin Walker’s Theory of Everything
  5. Why I Stopped Idolizing Sam Harris
  6. Chomsky: By Focusing on Russia, Democrats Handed Trump a “Huge Gift” & Possibly the 2020 Election
  7. A Mueller report rundown with former Department of Justice spokesman Matt Miller and Fordham law professor Jed Shugerman
  8. Ben Shapiro: 8 things you need to know about the Mueller Report
  9. On a more positive note: An Innovation Policy for the Green New Deal
  10. Yemen war: Trump vetoes bill to end US support for Saudi-led coalition
  11. Are We a Democracy? with Astra Taylor

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
  3. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates not getting much:
  4. Venezuela:
  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
  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
  14. Genuine progress (though not perfection)
  15. An alternative: Restorative Justice: What justice could look like
  16. NY Rent law needs to be renewed by June
  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
  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:
  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
  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:
  39. Book club?

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.
  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.
  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
  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.
  7. FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme
  8. People Need to Be Scared About Climate Change. They Also Need to Recognize That It’s Not Too Late.
  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?

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
  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
  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
  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
  10. ‘He’s a racist, he’s a con man, he’s a cheat’
  11. How Much Does Heterodoxy Help Progressives? (Wonkish) Paul Krugman debates MMT
  12. Pentagon Credit Union takeovers:
  13. Black Activists: U.S. Acts Like Outlaw in Venezuela
  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)
  19. Green New Green
    1. An MMT take on the Green New Deal: how to pay for it without worrying about inflation
  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?
  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
  5. Left perspectives on Presidential Campaigns (not an endorsement)
  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

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
  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
  9. There is a crisis at the border. It’s just not what Trump says it is.
  10. How Pharma rips off Americans
  11. Presidential candidates not getting much press:
  12. Former presidential candidate who got too much press
  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
  6. Activists convicted after leaving water and food for migrants in Arizona desert
  7. Dozens of Cities Have Secretly Experimented With Predictive Policing Software
  8. How do we get dark money out of politics?
  9. No 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:
  13. Trump draining the swamp?
  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
  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
  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
  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
  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
  2. Bryan Stevenson wants the U.S. to face its history
  3. Capital Gains and Inequality
  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:
  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
  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
  4. Pentagon Officials Fear Bolton’s Actions Increase Risk of Clash With Iran
  5. Tulsi Gabbard Is a Rising Progressive Star, Despite Her Support for Hindu Nationalists
  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
  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
  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?
  5. Frightening prospect of a ‘state of emergency’
  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
  8. Bases, Bases, Everywhere…  Except in the Pentagon’s Report 
  9. Human Again’: Florida Felons Emotional as They Begin Registering to Vote

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

  1. Banking and Finance
  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