New or Noteworthy

Meeting Sundays 3-5 pm During COVID-19 shutdown we will meet on-line. E-mail josh@altbanking.net if you want to join us.

Current topics

  1. Poor People’s Campaign responses to COVID-19 crisis
  2. Plagues expose the foundations of injustice
  3. The idea that this virus is an equal-opportunity killer must itself be killed.
  4. Angela Davis and Naomi Klein: On this Covid crisis & the possibilities to civilize our world if we move on globally NOTE: skip 6 minutes into it when discussion starts. The first 3 minutes are muted and the next three are intro.
  5. Coronavirus U.S.: Amazon, Instacart And Whole Food Workers Strike
  6. Essential Workers and the Reverse Robin Hood Coronavirus Bailout
  7. Bernie Sanders Calls for ‘Boldest Legislation in History’ to Halt Spiraling Covid-19 Catastrophe
  8. Authoritarian Populists Have Six Classic Moves. Trump’s Response to COVID-19 Uses Five of Them

March 29 to April 4, 2020

  1. Cathy O’Neil: Comments on COVID-19
  2. Let’s not forget we are electing a president this year
  3. The Racial Time Bomb in the Covid-19 Crisis
  4. Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid & How to Organize in the Age of Coronavirus
  5. Who Will Win the Fight for a Post-Coronavirus America?
  6. Coronavirus is a historic trigger event — and it needs a movement to respond
  7. In epidemics, the wealthy have always fled. The poor, having no choice, remained.
  8. ‘A Matter Of Common Decency’: What Literature Can Teach Us About Epidemics
  9. Google Gives Cover to Trump’s Lies
  10. ‘We Need People’s Bailout, Not Polluters’ Bailout’: Climate Groups Move to Preempt Big Oil Giveaway Amid Pandemic
  11. ‘This Is Despicable’: Not Even COVID-19 Pandemic Can Halt Trump’s Right-Wing Takeover of Federal Courts
  12. Radical Solidarity Through Covid-19
  13. Dear Jeff Bezos, instead of firing me, protect your workers from coronavirus: Chris Smalls (organizer and former Amazon worker)

March 15 to 28, 2020

  1. Black Garbage Workers Go on Wildcat Strike in Pittsburgh as General Strike Wave Spreads
  2. Anne Boyer: this virus, masks
  3. Our Political System Is Hostile to Real Reform
  4. Dissent:
  5. Mike Davis on Coronavirus Politics
  6. Organizer Mariame Kaba: We Need a People’s Bailout to Confront Coronavirus
  7. Coronavirus Economics with Grace Blakeley
  8. Debt Collection Industry Deems Itself Essential to “Financial Health” of Consumers, Fights Covid-19 Shutdown
  9. How the Pandemic Will End
  10. Coronavirus in South America: How it became a class issue
  11. Brazil’s Bolsonaro threatens dictatorship over COVID-19 crisis
  12. Over 900 Florida Healthcare Workers Sign Petition Asking Governor to Order People to Shelter in Place Amid COVID-19
  13. Anne Boyer: this virus, masks
  14. Instacart workers plan to strike Monday to demand safety gear and hazard pay during COVID-19
  15. The Workers Who Face the Greatest Coronavirus Risk
  16. The Digital Divide: Researching the Challenges of Online Learning for Many Students
  17. When a Pandemic Strikes Americans Who Are Already Suffering
  18. AOC angrily slams ‘crumbs for our families’ in a fiery speech about coronavirus stimulus on House floor
  19. The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Is a $2 Trillion Slush Fund for Washington Cronies
  20. Four Ways You Can Take Caring Action Around Coronavirus – Even if You’re Overwhelmed

March 8 to 14, 2020

  1. Data and Race:
  2. Coronavirus:
  3. Politics and Coronavirus:
  4. Politics
  5. Severe blood shortage due to blood drives cancelled for COVID-19
  6. Not really about coronavirus, just exploiting a pandemic to advance agenda:
  7. The EARN IT bill is the government’s plan to scan every message on-line
  8. Public health experts: Single-payer systems coping with coronavirus more effectively than for-profit model
  9. NASA fixes Mars lander by having it hit itself with a shovel

February 23 to March 7, 2020

  1. Chile: Despite Harsh Repression Of Thousands In Dignity Square Protesters Prevail
  2. End of the Corporation? It’s time to make profit-making, shareholder controlled, corporations a thing of the past
  3. Reposting because it should not be missed: Suresh Naidu on Capitalism, Labor Power, and Inequality 90 minute Sean Carroll Mindscape podcast
  4. How Many Times Do the Drug Companies Have to be Paid for Their Research?
  5. Meet the Trump Fan Accused of Registering Democrats as Republicans
  6. The Political Elite vs Bernie
  7. Lee Camp: The Exxxit Polls Are Way Off! 
  8. MASSACHUSETTS 2020 DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRIMARY Exit Poll Versus Reported Vote Count
  9. No ballot box is safe: Volunteers hacked into all 100 voting machine types they went after
  10. Elite Media Dismiss Voter Suppression on Grounds That It’s ‘Complicated’
  11. Krystal Ball: New York Times clownishly misunderstands the left
  12. Coronavirus was produced in a US/Israeli laboratory: Former CIA intel officer
  13. ‘Where was your patient zero?’ Chinese official speculates AMERICANS may have infected Wuhan at army games & calls to ‘come clean’
  14. US Summons Chinese Envoy Over Claims That American Military Brought Coronavirus to Wuhan – Report
  15. Donald Trump to declare a national state of emergency – as Brazilian leader he shook hands with claims test shows he does NOT have coronavirus after his own son said he did
  16. Warmonger Tom Cotton Openly Threatens China, Claims Beijing ‘Inflicted’ Coronavirus on the World
  17. Trump linked to company making covid-19 tests
  18. U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by lab materials shortage
  19. Sick People Across the U.S. Say They Are Being Denied the Coronavirus Test
  20. Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that’s the real global emergency
  21. Coronavirus inevitable in prison-like US immigration centers, doctors say
  22. Michigan workers got screwed out of sick time by Snyder, GOP. Now coronavirus is here.
  23. “Tear Gas Can’t Stop Us”: Police Fire Projectiles At Ohio Students After School Moves To Close Due To Coronavirus
  24. Government Fails at COVID-19 Test Distribution But Has $1.5 TRILLION for Wall St.
  25. Biden vows to bring back Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty for not having insurance
  26. Joe Biden Threatens to Slap Detroit Autoworker in the Face
  27. Obama administration was corrupt, more and more evidence reveals daily
  28. Woman who grew up in Oregon faces deportation
  29. EPA scientists found a toxic chemical damages fetal hearts. The Trump White House rewrote their assessment.
  30. 8 Heartbreaking Cases Where Land Was Stolen From Black Americans Through Racism, Violence and Murder
  31. Israel drags Palestinian boy away from his mother
  32. Trump Bans Unions at Defense Department
  33. US now openly admits its goal in Syria is to make it ‘difficult’ for Moscow and Damascus to defeat terrorists
  34. Public Benches In Iowa City Replaced So That Homeless People Can Lie Down Across Them
  35. Judge orders Chelsea Manning released from jail

February 23 to March 7, 2020

  1. Energy Corporation releases despicable sexual image with Greta Thunberg’s face
  2. Coronavirus Cancellations: Every Film, TV Show, and Event Affected by the Outbreak
  3. Psychiatrist: Trump Needs Urgent MRI, Obvious Dementia Symptoms
  4. Robert Reich: Mitch McConnell’s Do Nothing Republicans
  5. ICE’s NY Office used rigged algorithm to keep virtually all arrestees in detention. ACLU thinks its unconstitutional
  6. Karl Taylor Died in a New York Prison. Now the State Has Agreed to Pay Millions.
  7. Video Shows NYPD Officers Violently Arresting Young Black Man For Allegedly Smoking Marijuana In Park
  8. Campaign news: Not endorsements

We are thinking of organizing an event on something in the connections between race, technology and data. These posts are food for thought.

February 16 to 22, 2020

  1. The Free Market Isn’t Up to the Coronavirus Challenge
  2. Suresh Naidu on Capitalism, Monopsony, and Inequality 90 minute Sean Carroll Mindscape podcast
  3. Only a Green New Deal can douse the fires of Eco-Fascism
  4. Not Cleaning Up the Wreckage Left by Innovation
  5. Irish election results:
  6. Amazon:
  7. Ilhan Omar under fire for saying benefits of G.I. Bill should be applied ‘to everybody’
  8. Activist arrested for calling Xi Jinping ’clueless’ on coronavirus crisis
  9. Austerity’s Impact
  10. George Washington was a ‘liar who wore dentures made from hippo ivory and who once slapped a slave’, new biography claims
  11. Bernie Sanders will be good for American economy, top economist says after Goldman Sachs attack
  12. George Zimmerman sues Warren, Buttigieg for tweets marking Trayvon Martin’s birthday
  13. ‘Bury them alive!’: White South Africans fear for their future as horrific farm attacks escalate
  14. Fighting mounts as Washington backs Turkish attack on Syria, Russia
  15. Bloomberg Files:

February 9 to 15, 2020

  1. Campaign news: Not endorsements
  2. Take it from an activist who was there: Stop and frisk cost New Yorkers their lives
  3. Fires and floods: maps of Europe predict scale of climate catastrophe
  4. Left wing Sinn Féin victory reshapes Ireland’s political landscape
  5. Grow, not grow, or degrow?
  6. Trump’s War Budget Slashes Support for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
  7. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture on the Julian Assange Case
  8. El Salvador’s President Militarizes Legislature to Strengthen Police Force
  9. ‘Parasite’ Is a Class-Conscious Climate Parable
  10. #MenToo: The hidden tragedy of male sexual abuse in the military
  11. Neo-Nazi group membership will not get you booted from army, military tells Congress
  12. Turning up the pressure for integration, NYC students plan citywide school boycott

February 2 to February 8, 2020

  1. Climate Change Needs To Be on the Balance Sheet
  2. Rashida Tlaib Booed Hillary at Bernie Rally, Mass Pearl Clutching Ensued
  3. Some DNC Members Want to Outright STEAL the Nomination from Bernie Sanders if He Wins
  4. MSNBC’s Anti-Bernie Bias Is HILARIOUS
  5. ‘Uninsurable and Unhedgeable’: Central Banks Warn of Financial Crisis from Climate Change
  6. Risk of ‘stranded assets’ from 2025, new oil report warns
  7. The Pandemic of Xenophobia and Scapegoating
  8. Iowa Caucus:
    Chaos Continues in Iowa as Democrats Mistakenly Award Delegates for Bernie Sanders to Deval Patrick
    Pete Buttigieg Tries to Guaidó the Iowa Caucus
    What REALLY happened in Iowa? Was it caucus corruption? Part 1
  9. Democrats Cheered For Regime Change During State Of The Union Address
    (older article, relevant here):
    Venezuela’s Election System Holds Up As A Model For The World
  10. DNA exonerates man who spent 25 years in prison for 1985 rape he did not commit
  11. Ben Carson mocked for being the one Black face in a sea of white Trumpers
  12. Bloomberg’s Housing Policies Are a Joke. Why Is Matthew Desmond Cosigning Them?
  13. How NYC’s homeless ‘charities’ cash in — ruthlessly
  14. Bernie Sanders Vows to Reverse ‘Every single thing’ Trump has done on Immigration as he surge to first in New Hampshire Poll
  15. Police Responding to Man Having a Seizure, Shoot and Kill His Service Dog
  16. ICE agents, while arresting undocumented Mexican immigrant, wind up shooting second man in wild Brooklyn street brawl
  17. The Aristocracy of Finance: History of liberalism through eyes of “The Economist” A better interview of Alexander Zevin than the one posted a few weeks ago.
  18. On the Media: Cancel This
  19. Jeff Bezos

26 January to 02022020

  1. Brexit is actually here, sort of
  2. The U.S. Is Recycling Its Big Lie About Iraq To Target Iran
  3. An American capitalist seeing the bright side of plague … Commerce Secretary Ross Says Coronavirus May Help ‘Accelerate Return of Jobs
  4. Crisis, what crisis? Wall Street Venture-Fund Curbs to Be Eased in Volcker Revamp
  5. Endless War is a Disastrous (But Profitable) Enterprise
  6. 1619 Project debated:
  7. Trump and Netanyahu Dictate Terms of Palestinian Surrender to Israel and Call It Peace
  8. Alan Dershowitz’s latest defense of Trump would let presidents get away with almost anything Senate Republicans endorse it
  9. Michael Hudson on the History of Debt Cancellation, Austerity in Europe, January 2020
  10. Supreme Court’s ‘public charge’ decision sows confusion among immigrants using public benefits
  11. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson
  12. ‘Everything Is Not Fine’: Nobel Economist Calls on Humanity to End Obsession With GDP

January 19 to 25, 2020

  1. Review Of 22 Studies All Agree Medicare For All Less Expensive Than Insurance-System
  2. Biden Makes His Most Deceitful, Trumpian Accusation About Sanders’ Campaign Yet
  3. Joe Biden Has the Same Ignorant Stance on Video games as Trump Does
  4. Ocasio-Cortez’s Reality Check About the Democratic Party: They’re “Not a Left Party”
  5. Zephyr Teachout: Why Bernie Sanders Should NOT Give Joe Biden a Pass for His Corruption
  6. The 1619 Project and the falsification of history: An analysis of the New York Times’ reply to five historians
  7. Replant the American Dream. “Your USA today is the world’s most hated nation”. Why?
  8. The Refined Sociopathy of ‘The Economist‘
  9. Media resurrects debunked “Bernie Bro” myth as desperation to beat Bernie grows
  10. French “yellow vests” protest for Assange
  11. How new creative actions are fueling Chile’s uprising
  12. The Housing Crisis is intentional and Black communities are fighting back
  13. Donald Trump vs The Presidency

January 12 to 18, 2020

  1. Poverty Is the New Draft: Truthdig or Real News Network
  2. Mothers 4 Housing and the Legacy of Black Anti-Growth Politics
  3. Propaganda Machine: The Military Roots of Cambridge Analytica’s Psychological Manipulation of Voters
  4. Harry & Meghan and Marx
  5. 25 ideas that will shape the 2020s
  6. Financial Times: Forecasting the world in 2020
  7. “The Great Hack”: Big Data Firms Helped Sway the 2016 Election. Could It Happen Again in 2020?
  8. There should be clear warnings’: hair dye cancer risk stokes fear in black women
  9. Rent Control Brings Big Crowd to Massachusetts State House
  10. Report Sees de Blasio’s ‘Mandatory Inclusionary Housing’ Falling Short
  11. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Dow’s record high is meaningless for many Americans
  12. Stiglitz: The Truth About the Trump Economy
  13. Heastie drills down on homelessness, affordable housing
  14. George Zimmerman Says He Lives In Fear Because Of Rappers
  15. Emotional Currency: How money shapes human relationships
  16. Martin Luther King, Jr: Three Evils of Society speech
  17. Not endorsements but giving attention to presidential candidates and media coverage of them
  18. Israeli troops killed British photographer in Gaza (old incident, new story)
  19. 14 states sue to block Trump administration’s food stamp cuts
  20. The National Archives Says ‘We Made A Mistake’ After Erasing Criticism Of Trump From Photo

January 5 to 11, 2020

  1. NYC Public Advocate Holds Rally To Dispel Myths About New Bail Reform Law
  2. Fresh Calls to #RaiseTheWage After Study Shows $1 Increase Could Prevent Thousands of Suicides
  3. U.S. Anti-War Protesters Demonstrate
  4. U.S. Anti-War movement is fired up
  5. A Report Card On The American Project
  6. Iran:
  7. Trump is a criminal but Dem
  8. World Bank warns of coming global debt crisis (but probably not imminent)
  9. France strikes: nurses, teachers and lawyers join pension protests
  10. How the oil industry has spent billions to control the climate change conversation

Dec. 29 2019 to Jan. 4, 2020

  1. Happy New Year! Hoping it is better than 2019
  2. Smile-to-pay: Chinese shoppers turn to facial payment technology
  3. Starship Technologies Raises $40 Million To Expand Its Food-Delivery Robots On College Campuses
  4. U.S. War on Black and Brown
  5. ‘A New Age of Pogroms’
  6. A national movement for community control of police
  7. New Bail and Discovery Laws in New York
  8. Beyond GDP
  9. “Don’t Shoot the Messengers”: Amazon Accused of Threatening to Fire Climate Activists
  10. ‘Just the Beginning’: Illinois Gov. Pardons Over 11,000 on Eve of Recreational Cannabis Legalization

Earlier Posts

July – Dec. 2019
Jan. – June 2019

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