New and Noteworthy July-Dec. 2017

This Sunday, January 21 at 2 pm will be our next discussion of the books Capitalism & Slavery / Capitalism & Freedom. You can comment on them here. We’ll be discussing chapters 6&7 of both books.

From the week of January 14 to January 20

  1. Corporate power

From the week of January 7 to January 13

  1. Immigration Rights Activist Ravi Ragbir Detained at ICE Check-in Amid Protest, Police Violence
  2. This is the kind of bail out we need
  3. Podcast America’s Monopoly Problem — (curated by Best of the Left)
  4. America Has a Monopoly Problem—and It’s Huge
  5. Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least?
  6. Where Are We with CHIP Now?
  7. Podcast Who’s regulating whom?
  8. Trump Administration Sides With Employers Over Workers On Arbitration Agreements
  9. How redlining segregated Philadelphia
  10. Racial Amnesia in America
  11. How climate change web content is being censored in the Tump Administration
  12. Is Anyone On the Side of the Congolese Now?
  13. Catherine Deneuve and others denounce the-#MeToo movement.html
  14. In ToxicDocs.org, a Treasure Trove of Industry Secrets
  15. The Insane Plan to Give North Korea a ‘Bloody Nose’
  16. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Beyond Vietnam speech

From the week of December 31, 2017 to January 6, 2018

  1. Structural racism and health inequities in the USA
  2. The Right is Waging War on Academic Freedom
  3. 987 people killed by the police in U.S. in 2017 let’s work for a better 2018
  4. Report: Blacks in Boston Have a Median Net Worth of $8, Whites Have $247K
  5. Universalizing Resistance: To Fight Trump, Fight the System
  6. The Supreme Court’s Quiet Assault on Civil Rights
  7. The Death Toll in Puerto Rico is Still Rising
  8. Trump Justice Department Pushes for Citizenship Question on Census, Alarming Experts
  9. An SF city bank is not only possible — it’s a great idea, budget analyst concludes
  10. Repeating from last week when we deferred discussion: China Snares Innocent and Guilty Alike to Build World’s Biggest DNA Database
  11. Iran protests:
  12. How will the US move to cut aid affect Pakistan?
  13. Luck of the draw helps Republicans hold Virginia House
  14. Large real estate donations find their way into both ends of New York City Council speaker race
  15. A Year in Trump Corruption
  16. Led by the Mercers, Bannon’s allies abandon him
    • Sexual or financial misconduct is OK. Disloyalty or proposing raising taxes is not
  17. 1968 The Strike that Brought MLK to Memphis
    • Have things changed?  “I AM a Man” mirrored in “Black Lives Matter”
  18. Video – The Price of Social Change: Why California Is Paying Gun Offenders

From the week of December 24 to December 30

  1. Picture the Homeless Honors the Dead, and Celebrates Victories
  2. The Movement to Divest from Fossil Fuels Gains Momentum
  3. What Makes a Good School?
  4. ‘I hope I can quit working in a few years’: A preview of the U.S. without pensions
  5. When Welfare Sabotages Lives Basic Income Guarantee done wrong
  6. Cyril Ramaphosa chosen to lead South Africa’s ruling ANC party (Jacob Zuma is still President, though, at least for now)
  7. George Weah wins Liberian Presidency
  8. Venezuela’s Maduro threatens to ban rivals from future elections
  9. The Economists Who Stole Christmas by Yanis Varoufakis
  10. Addiction, Inc. Inside the lucrative business of America’s opioid crisis.
  11. Control of Virginia’s House may come to drawing lots
  12. AG Jeff Sessions forcing IRS to apologize as agency settles conservative groups’ suits over nonprofit status delays
  13. Excerpts From Trump’s Interview With The Times
  14. Study: Mainstream Media Acted as Trump’s Mouthpiece, Clinton’s Foe
  15. Gaming community points to ‘swatting’ in deadly Wichita police shooting
  16. Sessions revokes dozens of guidance documents that protect marginalized communities
  17. World’s richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1tn this year
  18. Kwanzaa doesn’t discriminate
  19. 10 Good Things About a TERRIBLE Year

From the week of December 17 to December 23

  1. Libya’s migrant slave auctions
  2. How NY Prison ‘Slave Labor’ Powers A $50 Million Manufacturing Enterprise
  3. Two billion dollars in stolen wages were recovered for workers in 2015 and 2016—and that’s just a drop in the bucket
  4. Proposed rule would protect employers who steal workers’ hard-earned tips
  5. With all the excitement over the tax cut, it seems they haven’t been paying attention to keeping the government running:
  6. The New York Times considers Marco Rubio, A “long-time champion of the working class”????
    • Here’s his latest triumph. Poor people currently get gypped out of $900 of the $2,000 tax credit other people get. Thanks to Marco, they’re only going to get gypped out of $600 — and Marco and his ilk can be hailed as heroes for the poor.
  7. This Moment Isn’t (Just) About Sex. It’s Really About Work.
  8. If Dickens or Kafka made up something this cruel, they would not have been believed:
  9. A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
  10. The US DoJ has given HSBC a major boost by seeking dismissal of the deferred criminal charges for money laundering and sanctions violations
  11. Media’s Dangerous Distortion of Black Families
  12. Puerto Rico’s Struggle for Recovery
  13. DC jury acquits 6 inauguration day protesters on all counts but others are still awaiting possible trials

From the week of December 10 to December 16

  1. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
  2. Nobody is laughing at the Religious Left in 2017
  3.  Honduras
  4. Did Cornel West Come for Ta-Nehisi Coates?
  5. White Cop Michael Slager Sentenced to 20 Years for Murdering Walter Scott
  6. International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Acceptance Speech for Nobel Peace Prize
  7. Voter suppression in Alabama: Note: discussion starts 1:45 into the video. This is not what democracy looks like.
  8. How Obama Destroyed Black Wealth
  9. Climate Change, worse than previously forecast: Antarctic Modeling Pushes Up Sea-Level Rise Projections
  10. Trump accusers to unite, demand congressional investigation into allegations
  11. How Big Medicine can ruin Medicare for all
  12. Why millennials are facing the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression.
    • (and that doesn’t even factor in climate change)
  13. Seven Steps To Becoming A Citizen Activist
  14. How Citizens United Changed Politics and Shaped the Tax Bill
  15. Don’t expect debt payments from Puerto Rico any time soon
  16. Nationalize the Networks the case for public broadband
  17. When Will There be a Harvey Weinstein Moment for U.S. Wars?
  18. Rohingya: Is this genocide?
  19. Libya Slave Trade: Amnesty International Accuses European Union Of Complicity

From the week of December 3 to December 9

  1. When Affordable Housing Meets Free-Market Fantasy: NIMBYism isn’t what’s denying us affordable housing
  2. Where criminals get their guns
  3. Cocaine deaths among blacks on par with opioid deaths among whites, study finds
  4. Preemptive Strike on North Korea: Is Trump Wagging the Dog?
  5. The Tax Overhaul is Proof that Money in Politics Affects All of Us
  6. There’s only one way to stop the #GOPTaxScam from becoming law: massive public mobilization that makes very clear the culprits will be held to account
  7. Sen. Orrin Hatch sparks backlash after claiming there’s no money for children’s health plan
  8. CFPB’s sad story under Trump: Consumer Bureau’s New Leader Steers a Sudden Reversal
  9. The case for normalizing impeachment
  10. Cory Doctorow: Here’s the thing about the “foreign interference” narrative that bugs me:
  11. Gangster capitalism and nostalgic authoritarianism in Trump’s America
  12. In South Korea, the Virtual Currency Bubble Hits Home
    • “I may have missed the Bitcoin boat but new boats are coming and I want to hop on those,” he said. “It is possible that some might be scams but even with those, the prices will rise at least in the middle of their life cycles so that there will be a chance to make money from trading them.”
  13. Inequality and the Coming Storm
  14. Official Toll in Puerto Rico: 62. Actual Deaths May Be 1,052.
  15. White nationalists hoping to lure leftists by talking like Bernie Sanders — but there’s a really big catch
  16. John Conyers, Al Franken Trent Franks are out. Are we making progress on sexual harassment?
  17. The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct
  18. New Jersey Democrats Aren’t Worried About Menendez in 2018 Despite facing corruption charges, senator has party’s support
  19. Jobs growth settles into solid trend, but wage growth still underwhelms

From the week of November 26 to December 2

  1. F.B.I.’s Dangerous Crackdown on ‘Black Identity Extremists’
  2. Tax Cut Moral Abomination
  3. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  4. Puerto Rico: Ruined Infrastructure and a Refugee Crisis
  5. NYPD must provide videos of Black Lives Matter activists within 30 days after contempt of court ruling
  6. Activists Implicate Trump’s Health Nominee Alex Azar in Insulin Price-Gouging Scheme
  7. Alex Azar, Trump’s HHS Pick, Has Already Been a Disaster for People With Diabetes
  8. The Koch Government: These 44 Trump Officials Have Close Ties to Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers
    • This isn’t what ‘draining the swamp’ looks like, either.
  9. North Korea can hit all of US with its new ICBM. Deal with it
  10. Saudi Arabia still barring aid to Yemen despite pledge to lift siege
  11. How Rex Tillerson Wrecked the State Department
  12. Why Net Neutrality Matters
  13. Intercepted Podcast — Very Bad Men: Trump, Saudi Crown Prince, Sexual Assaulters, and Robert Mugabe
  14. The dog that didn’t bark: Why so few Wall Street cases of sexual harassment in the news?

From the week of November 19 to November 25

  1. U.S. killing civilians in Iraq much more often than admitted
  2. When food is used as a weapon (Saudi Arabian atrocities in Yemen)
  3. John Oliver dissects how The Trump Presidency is degrading public debate
  4. If you tax the rich, they won’t leave: US data contradicts millionaires’ threats
  5. China hawk Lighthizer increasingly influential in White House
  6. Olivia Munn Doubts Hollywood Will Truly Punish Sexual Assaulters
  7. Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa to return as Mugabe’s likely successor
  8. FCC Plans to Gut Net Neutrality, Allow Internet ‘Fast Lanes’
  9. Republicans May Use Cuts in Entitlement Programs to Reduce Deficit
  10. While Congress debates tax bill, 9 million children will lose health coverage because of Congressional inaction

From the week of November 12 to November 18

  1. The Ivory Tower Can’t Keep Ignoring Tech
  2. When an Algorithm Helps Send You to Prison
  3. US gov’t report finds climate change 90% manmade, contradicting Trump officials
  4. Senate Confirms Former Mine Executive To Be In Charge Of Mine Safety
  5. Bill Clinton’s $80 Million Payday, or Why Politicians Don’t Care That Much About Reelection
  6. Koch-Funded Group Prods Trump’s EPA to Say Climate Change Not a Risk
  7. Sean Hannity has become the media’s top conspiracy theorist
  8. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ripped as ‘hypocrite’ for saying Bill Clinton should’ve resigned over Lewinsky scandal
  9. Trump’s CFPB Pick Will Likely Spell Bad News for Consumers
  10. House Republicans pass major tax cut bill after Trump’s closed-door speech
  11. When Will Power Come Back To Puerto Rico? And why isn’t more being done about it?
  12. Confidential U.N. Document Questions the Saudi Arabian Blockade That’s Starving Yemen
  13. Democrats Missed A Chance To Draw A Line In The Sand On Sexual Misconduct
  14. How to stop the opioid overdose epidemic
  15. The housing crisis is not inevitable

From the week of November 5 to November 11

  1. ICIJ: Paradise Papers: Secrets of the Global Elite
  2. Big Banks Are Committing Major Crimes Against the Climate
  3. Bitcoin Could Consume as Much Electricity as Denmark by 2020
  4. Saudi Arabia Arrests Princes, Cabinet Members in Crackdown
  5. How disturbing is it that Trump’s chief of staff Gen. Kelly needs a Civil War Refresher?
  6. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was making us believe they pay all the taxes
  7. Tax cut is based on budget plan to cut everything except military (which it raised),
    • that is Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, housing assistance, nutrition assistance, Head Start, NIH, diplomacy … basically everything good the federal government does except Social Security
  8. Trumps set to launch two real estate projects in India, despite conflict-of-interest concerns
  9. Wisconsin became the 28th state to back a national constitutional convention for a balanced budget amendment.
  10. Frustration Mounts Over Puerto Rico’s ‘New Normal’ As Federal Troops Leave The Island
  11. Japan is facing a ‘death by overwork’ problem — here’s what it’s all about
  12. October Revolution’s Long Shadow
  13. From Brussels to Arkansas, a Tough Week for Monsanto
  14. Maine Approves Medicaid Expansion; Referendums In New York, Ohio Fail
  15. Liberian Refugee Eager to Serve Montana Capital That Elected Him Mayor

From the week of October 29 to November 4

  1. Jacobin: The Fight For Free Time. Work as a source of meaning.
  2. Social Credit Scores in China: Big Data Meets Big Brother
  3. Two New York Detectives Are Charged With Rape and Kidnapping: “Typically, when officers are charged with crimes, their colleagues come to court in a sea of blue uniforms to support them. But on Monday, not one officer appeared in court with Detectives Martins and Hall.”
  4. Cowardly New World: Alternative Media Under Attack By Algorithms
  5. Stop peddling the black-on-black crime myth. These DoJ statistics prove it’s not a thing
  6. The Supreme Court Has An Ethics Problem
  7. Jerome Powell, Trump’s pick to lead Fed, would be the richest chair since the 1940s
  8. Trojan Horse Tax Cut
  9. Artificial intelligence could bring nasty surprises, warns Financial Stability Board
  10. Why NAFTA needs an expiration date
  11. Trump’s Trade Endgame Could Be the Undoing of Global Rules
  12. Donna Brazile Confesses that DNC Rigged Primaries
  13. Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump
  14. ‘Big Chicken’ Connects Poultry Farming To Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
  15. Moscow Mueller: What the Indictments and Plea Agreements Mean for Donald Trump
  16. It’s Not Just Niger — U.S. Military Activity Is a “Recruiting Tool” for Terror Groups Across West Africa
  17. In Puerto Rico’s Highlands, Hurricane Maria Has Exploded Fault Lines of Poverty & Austerity

From the week of October 22 to October 28

  1. Too many pills: the problem started with a flood of prescription painkillers, distributed by some of the country’s biggest corporations.
  2. ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Examines Modern Policing And The Life And Death Of Eric Garner
  3. Republicans, Wall Street score victory in dismantling class-action rule Trump draining the swamp?
  4. Xi Jinping: has China’s strongman forgotten the perils of power?
  5. Christopher Marte Plans to Run Against Council Member Chin in General Election
  6. Waging a Write-In Campaign: Mark Fliedner campaign against Cyrus Vance
  7. US Military Breeds Violence in Africa
  8. CIA in Afghanistan: Operation Phoenix Redux?
  9. 10% of NYC Public School Students Were Homeless Last Year
  10. America’s affordable-housing stock dropped by 60 percent from 2010 to 2016
  11. EPA kept scientists from speaking about climate change
  12. Kids’ Climate Change Lawsuit Gets Its Day in Court
  13. Lunch Debt and Shaming in Schools
  14. Puerto Rico power woes continue, a month after Hurricane Maria
  15. Congress quietly passed a budget outline with $1.8 trillion in health care cuts
    • It wouldn’t be so quiet if the press make a bigger deal of it.
  16. The Danger of President Pence
  17. What would the impact be of budget just passed on opioid treatment?
  18. This is the nightmare scenario for the Children’s Health Insurance Program
  19. Nurses returning from Puerto Rico accuse the federal government of leaving people to die
  20. Twitter Bans RT and Sputnik Ads, Who’s Next?

From the week of October 15 to October 21

  1. The Trump White House Wants You to Know It Really Doesn’t Care About Corruption … Among Republicans, of course.
  2. How the Breitbart machine smuggled racist hate
  3. NYC Mayoral race
  4. Is the FBI Setting the Stage for Increased Surveillance of Black Activists?
  5. LA Police Commission Approves LAPD Drone Pilot Program Amid Protest
  6. Only Nonviolent Resistance Will Destroy Corporate State
  7. Trump’s stance on insurance “bailouts” is completely incoherent… or more accurately stupid, wasteful and counterproductive (unless your goal is destruction of government and society)
  8. Cyrus Vance and the myth of the progressive DA
  9. Revealed: Sound of the ‘sonic attack’ on Americans in Cuba
  10. The Secretive Family Making Billions From the Opioid Crisis
  11. Big Tobacco and right-wing US billionaires funding anti-regulation hardliners in the EUs
  12. Senate passes Trump’s budget, a first step toward contentious tax reform
    • The focus on tax “reform” ignores all the awful cuts to programs the budget has (and rise in military spending)
    • And, it is not “tax reform” but a tax cut for the wealthy, they are working on
  13. Conspiracy Theorists Rejoice: President Trump says he will allow classified JFK assassination documents to be made public
  14. How rage over a woman’s anti-cop Facebook post killed a Lynn coffee shop

From the week of October 8 to October 14

  1. How to Fund a Universal Basic Income Without Increasing Taxes or Inflation
  2. Republican Senator says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens World War
  3. Deregulating For Dollars: How Trump’s Anti-Regulation Agenda Could Boost His Own Pocketbook
  4. A society will be judged by how it treats its weakest members
  5. Puerto Rico’s Health Care Is in Dire Condition, 3 weeks after storm
  6. Thirty Four Ways to Talk about Race
  7. A Hospital Crisis Is Killing Rural Communities. This State Is ‘Ground Zero.’
  8. Portugal Basks In Post-Bailout Economic Revival
  9. Trump Calls Iran Nuclear Deal ‘Unacceptable,’ But Leaves U.S. In It For Now
  10. Cyrus Vance doesn’t indict Ivanka and Don Jr., then gets big contribution from Trump lawyer
  11. These 6 charts explain why some Americans have gotten much richer than others
  12. U.S. demands World Bank overhaul of lending to China
  13. Wolfgang Schäuble warns of another debt-driven global financial crisis
  14. Trump’s executive order to undermine Obamacare, explained
  15. Academic paper on Money Creation – The bank does not loan any existing money, but instead creates new money.
  16. Brian Lehrer: 34 Ways to Talk About Race
  17. The Takeaway: Fentanyl Manufacturer Faces Mounting Lawsuits
  18. PBS Newshour: How the opioid crisis decimated the American workforce

From the week of October 1 to October 7

  1. Resource on the New York State Constitutional Convention including both pro and con donations and donor names and organizations.
  2. Avoiding war (we hope)::
  3. Program that provides low-cost health care to 9M children set to expire
  4. Gun violence in America, explained in 17 maps and charts
  5. Trump to Puerto Rico: your hurricane isn’t a “real catastrophe” like Katrina
  6. Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by a billion last year, says Greenpeace
  7. Tillerson’s Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence
  8. Puerto Rico Suffers as Debt Vultures Linger
  9. Koch brothers launch new misinformation campaign against electric cars
  10. How the Bankruptcy System Is Failing Black Americans
  11. CFPB Finalizes Rule To Stop Payday Debt Traps
    • This is what good government looks like
    • The next fight will be an attempt in Congress to rescind it
  12. Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Absurdity of Hope
  13. At campus event, Black Lives Matter attacks liberalism of ACLU as ‘white supremacy’

From the week of September 24 to September 30

  1. Occupy Wall Street in the Age of Trump
  2. War of words with North Korea escalates, with Trump calling Kim a ‘madman’
  3. Trump administration malfeasance
  4. Is Health Care a Right?
  5. Will the Supreme Court Strike Down Extreme Partisan Gerrymandering?
  6. John McCain thinks Congress is falling down on it’s job overseeing military operations and the administration is not providing it needed information.
  7. What Lies Ahead For Puerto Rico
  8. Corporate Consolidation
  9. Voter ID Suppressed the Vote Exactly as Wisconsin Republicans Predicted
  10. Pros and cons of holding a NY State constitutional convention (caveat: published by an organization that favors a “yes” vote)
  11. Assessing de Blasio’s first term and speculating on his next

From the week of September 17 to September 23

  1. China plans bans on sale of fossil fuel cars
  2. German politics is about to tip rightwards
  3. How Big Tech is taking over our lives
  4. Biden to oppose universal basic income
  5. Opioids and other drugs:
  6. The Right Wing Has a Vast, Secret Plot to Destroy Unions for Good. Here’s How to Fight Back.
  7. Cassidy-Graham: The last GOP health plan left standing, explained
  8. How the CFPB Should Respond to Equifax
  9. Trump and Netanyahu ready united assault against Iran nuclear deal
  10. Sessions’ Big Lie on Crime
  11. Rand Paul: Unconstitutional Saudi War in Yemen Is Not in Our Interest and Congress Should Vote
  12. For Bitcoin aficionados:
  13. In battle over tax cuts, it’s Republicans v Economists

From the week of September 10 to September 16

  1. Occupy Wall Street, 5 Years later
  2. How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated?
  3. Senate Will Vote on Amendment to Repeal War Authorization
  4. Trump: “The rich will not gain from tax reform” Another lie
  5. Risk of nuclear war with North Korea
  6. Reposting on Equifax because we didn’t have time to discuss last week
  7. Trump/Sessions Justice Department Drops Investigation into the Death of Freddie Gray
  8. Corporations becoming “Global Citizens” taking over Central Park (and the world)
  9. Philippines human rights commission gets only $20 from Duterte’s congress
  10. Nikki Haley lays out White House’s argument to leave Iran deal
  11. Ta-Nehisi Coates on The First White President
  12. The census data has bad news for Americans of Color
  13. 7 tough questions single-payer advocates must answer before their ideas can become law
  • From the week of September 3 to September 9
  1. 9 facts that explain DACA, the immigration program Trump is threatening to end
  2. Remembering Native Americans in what is now Yosemite Park
  3. Agency That Runs Obamacare Is Using Taxpayer Money to Undermine It
  4. Parents outraged school offered pass to let kids skip lunch line for $100
  5. Need for Diplomacy More Clear Than Ever After North Korea Claims H-Bomb Test
  6. The Coming Tax Fight — and Why We Need You!
  7. Predictive Policing Goes to Court
    • It shouldn’t require a court case to get information about this, but it does.
  8. This is what made thousands of people successful, according to a former Google data scientist
  9. ‘I Just Knew To Run To Save My Life’: Nearly 125,000 Rohingya Flee Myanmar
  10. Mathbabe: We’re losing the war on opioids,
  11. America’s Monopoly Problem
  12. Texas is flooded because our democracy is, too
  13. Immigrants shouldn’t have to be ‘talented’ to be welcome
  14. A change in the rules will allow Senate Republicans to stack the courts with Trump’s nominees
  15. Our Guide to Electing a Brooklyn DA (based on their commitment to ending mass incarceration)
  16. DeVos announces review of Obama-era sexual assault guidance
  17. Donald and family benefit from federal housing subsidies, will benefit more if U.S. agency sale allowed
  18. Latest entrant in the “most shameless corporate offender” Equifax
  19. Martin Shkreli defending his title of “creepiest” (excluding those currently in public office)
  20. Juan González On De Blasio’s NY: The Mayor Has Not Confronted The Affordable Housing Crisis
  21. Puerto Rico Drowning in Debt: Irma Deepens the Crisis

From the week of August 27 to September 2

  1. Could teenager’s shooting be a turning point in Duterte’s dirty war in the Philippines?
  2. When the war crimes are our own
    • “Let’s be blunt: With U.S. and U.K. complicity, the Saudi government is committing war crimes in Yemen.”
  3. Countering the State Sponsored Conspiracy to Destroy Pedro Hernandez (Part 3)
    • Crown Heights: Movie True story of prisoner who fights for 21 years to reverse wrongful conviction
      • Note: very long web page load time for a reason
  4. Here’s How 139 Countries Can Convert to 100% Renewable Energy by 2050 getting most of the way by 2030 and it is easier than you’d think
  5. Carbon Tax and Social Dividend
  6. Floods:
  7. Trump Just Gave Thousands of Bayonets And Hundreds of Grenade Launchers Back To Police
  8. Uruguay Finds No Banks for the Bongs
  9. New Illinois Law Could Automatically Register 1 Million Voters
  10. Three radical ideas to transform the post-crisis economy
  11. Credit default swaps are storing up trouble for China
  12. Wells Fargo Finds More Fake Accounts, offers them $2 apiece in compensation
  13. Google Critic Ousted From Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant
  14. Look Who’s Fighting Our Algorithmic Overlords
  15. Musings on a Confederate Statue
  16. Trump Raises an Army
  17. The millennial trying to revitalize the union movement using Facebook

From the week of August 20 to August 26

  1. Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a ‘major gift to the Right’
  2. Tensions grow inside ACLU over defending free-speech rights for the far right
  3. Banks working to show why we really need an effective CFPB and why we could use a postal savings bank
  4. Border Patrol says Texas checkpoints to remain open during Hurricane Harvey
  5. Maybe robots won’t take all the jobs after all:
  6. Trump’s Team Is Amazingly Incompetent …
  7. … but still able to do grave harm
  8. Trump administration full of conflicts of interest
  9. Police Tear-Gas Demonstrators at Large Anti-Trump Protest in Phoenix
  10. Dick Gregory: A Life Educating & Seeking Justice
  11. Court Rejects Pipeline Rubber-Stamp, Orders Climate Impact Review
  12. Company behind DAPL sues Greenpeace, other environmental groups
  13. You’re not imagining it: the rich really are hoarding economic growth
  14. All the Times Trump Said the U.S. Should get out of Afghanistan
  15. Prison abolitionists aren’t naive dreamers.
  16. Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago
  17. Activists in Jackson Hole Pressure Fed on Inflation, Endorse Yellen
  18. Blacks Should Not Become Uncle Sam’s Clean-Up Crew

From the week of August 13 to August 19

  1. Trump’s Message to the Country: #NotAllNazis
  2. h Rich CEOs are the big winners of Trump’s race war.
    • Trump is devastating racial minorities while distracting his base from a plutocratic agenda.
  3. Fed Vice Chair: Trump’s push to deregulate Wall Street ‘may be taking us in a direction that is very dangerous’ Even the mainstream market types are concerned
  4. Not easy to find a senator worse than Sessions, but Alabamans are trying
  5. Youngstown Residents Push to Oust Corporations from Election Campaigns, Cap Contributions at $100
  6. Strangling Puerto Rico in Order to Save It
  7. The Whale That Should Not Have Gotten Away
  8. U.S. Begins NAFTA Negotiations With Harsh Words
  9. Extreme gender imbalance in hedge funds
  10. NY’s Fracking Ban Was Supposed to Set a Precedent — but Governor Cuomo Is Going Back on His Word
  11. U.S. Government Wants Online Data of Anti-Trump Protesters

From the week of August 6 to August 12

  1. We will be discussing the minimum wage and studies of the impact of a rise in Seattle to $13/hour.
  2. Policies of White Resentment
  3. Screening Out Family Time: The for-profit video visitation industry in prisons and jails
  4. These Are the Technology Firms Lining Up to Build Trump’s “Extreme Vetting” Program
  5. The Supreme Court Could Make It Easier for States to Purge Voters
  6. “The Left’s Misguided Debate over Kamala Harris” — foreclosures continue while the left quibbles over personalities
  7. Black millennials move south
    • …while New York’s housing crisis makes it to the elite pages of the NY Review of Books
  8. CRISPR Corrects Disease Mutation in Human Embryos
  9. Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
    • Note: Maximum income tax rate in earlier period 70%. Most of later period it was less than 40%.
  10. Why corrupt bankers avoid jail
  11. Observing 72nd anniversary of bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. Threatens North Korea
  12. Our Obsession with Trump Shows Authoritarianism Has Arrived
  13. A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack
  14. Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report
  15. The Great Escape: How Credit Raters Ducked Reform

From the week of July 30 to August 5

  1. Further reading on our discussion on asset forfeiture
  2. Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif Ousted by Court Over Panama Papers Corruption Probe
  3. China rising political star facing corruption probe
  4. Koch network teaming up with Trump officials for tax-reform event
  5. Is the U.S. Trying to Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal?
  6. 581 killed by police in 2017 (581 as of August 1, 604 as of August 8)
  7. It’s Time for the Adults in This Nation To Talk Seriously About Medicare for All
  8. Wells Fargo scandals could have sweeping consequences if only we had real bank regulation
  9. Why the for-profit college bubble is deflating.

From the week of July 23 to July 29

  1. Further reading/listening from our discussion of incarceration
  2. On Civil Asset Forfeiture, Jeff Sessions Is the New Kamala Harris
    • “The attorney general wants to expand a practice that is essentially government-sanctioned stealing from citizens. Conservatives should oppose this.” So should progressives.
    • Clarence Thomas weighs in on “Policing for Profit”
      • Showing even Clarence Thomas is sometimes on the right side of an issue
      • Would be great if he came out against “Prisons for Profit” too.
  3. Protesters can make an impact and have fun, too Profile of Marni Halasa
  4. Criminalizing Critics of Israel: Congress Considers Sweeping Bills to Fine & Jail Backers of BDS
  5. Trump’s war on sanctuary cities has begun
  6. India
  7. Polish President vetoes controversial court reforms after protests
  8. Trump is Setting Up a ‘Dangerous Confrontation’ With Iran
  9. Policy proposals:
  10. Venezuela
  11. Paul Ryan Hands Donald Trump a Blank Check for Endless War
  12. Dylan Matthews: We could eliminate poverty. UBI is not the best way to do it
  13. 100 years ago African-Americans marched down 5th Avenue to declare that black lives matter
  14. Chicagoans say ‘Yes In My Backyard’ to affordable housing
  15. Trump Pick for Fed’s Wall Street Watchdog Plans to Ease Rules
  16. The most alarming passages from Trump’s fearmongering Long Island speech
  17. Trump-Ryan-McConnell-NoCare is finally dead, we hope
  18. Down the Mighty Columbia River, Where a Power Struggle Looms
    • This is what Trump’s infrastructure plan will look like
    • Politicians can be voted out of office. Corporations cannot.
  19. Trump Assigns White House Team to Target Iran Nuclear Deal, Sidelining State Department
  20. Scaramucci shows who’s boss: Scaramucci in vulgar tirade against White House colleague Priebus

From the week of July 16 to July 22

  1. Barbara Lee’s long campaign to end the open-ended 9/11 military authorization makes some headway
  2. New York Times Beats War Drums Against Iran
  3. Election system problems:
  4. With Amazon on the rise and a business tycoon in the White House, can a new generation of Democrats return the party to its trust-busting roots?
  5. Trump Can’t Vote Down Obamacare, So He’s Strangling It Instead
  6. We Must Make It Toxic for Politicians to Not Get on Board with Single Payer
  7. Polemicists in Robes. The president’s bomb-throwing judicial nominees will transform the federal bench for generations.
  8. 11 Ways Corporate America Benefits from Trump
  9. Workers Protest NY Presbyterian Hospital’s Ties To Disreputable Furniture Delivery Company
  10. To My Fellow Plutocrats: You Can Cure Trumpism
  11. Poland: Draft Law Threatens Supreme Court
  12. Exxon Mobil Fined for Violating Sanctions on Russia
    • “Exxon Mobil demonstrated reckless disregard for U.S. sanctions requirements,” while Tillerson was CEO
  13. More Foreign Workers Requested By Trump’s Mar-A-Lago
  14. Tennessee Inmates are Being Offered a Horrifying Choice: Jail Time or Sterilization
    • Where are the libertarians when we need them?
  15. Russiagate: Kooky Characters, Cold War Liberals
  16. ALEC meets in Denver. Promotes coal, school vouchers, gerrymandering and sexual assault
  17. Hedge funders scramble for ways to pay tax bill now that a big loophole is closed
    • Will be interesting to see if this actually happens or if “tax reform” restores loophole
  18. Scaramucci Joins White House as Spicer Reportedly Resigns
  19. Elon Musk Claims U.S. Approval for World’s Longest Tunnel
    • Infrastructure Trump style: by the billionaires, for the millionaires, expensive and unlikely to work
  20. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: 6 years old. This is what good government looks like

From the week of July 9 to July 15

  1. Amazingly, there is at least one regulatory agency in DC still doing a good job
    • Three cheers for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
  2. But, thanks to supreme court, workers may lose class-action rights
    • One step forward, four steps back
  3. House votes to keep U.S. troops out of Yemen a gesture that would have been more meaningful if they had rejected Saudi arms deals, too.
  4. Alarmed Macron overrules his PM Édouard Philippe and reinstates early tax cuts
  5. Threats, bullying, lawsuits: tobacco industry’s dirty war for the African market
  6. Trump’s ‘war on the open internet’: tech firms join activists in day of protest
  7. How Much Does It Cost to Buy a Congressman’s Vote? Not Much
  8. Here Are the 4 Lawsuits That Could Force Trump to Release His Taxes
  9. Left wing movements in flyover country
  10. Deportation a ‘Death Sentence’ to Adoptees After a Lifetime in the U.S.
  11. Immigrant sues Chicago, police for placing his name in gang database
  12. Chris Hedges interviews Noam Chomsky Part 1 and Part 2
  13. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
  14. The new Senate health bill is terrible for anyone who is sick, has been sick, or will be sick
  15. Stunning Truths About the Bloated Safety Net for the Wealthy
  16. Trump Has Secretive Teams to Roll Back Regulations, Led by Hires With Deep Industry Ties
  17. Minimum wage myths, busted (long podcast). You might listen from 17:15 (or 22:00) to 27:00
  18. Support the IBEW NYC Spectrum Workers Strike hat tip to Manny for bringing this to our attention that the NY Times has not covered during the many months it has been going on
  19. Happy Bastille Day: How Should We Judge the Revolutionaries?
  20. Lula is convicted in Brazil (The Guardian)
  21. Is the Left losing its mind? Alternative facts on social media (The Atlantic)
  22. Provocative comedy skit showing how inequality brought us Trump goes viral
  23. Study finds that hiring chief risk officers led banks to take even more risk (HBR)

From the week of July 2 to July 8

  1. Atmospheric carbon rises even while emissions stabilize
  2. More on the National Bureau of Economic Research’s controversial study of Seattle’s minimum wage
  3. Naomi Klein on Politically Reactive Podcast: No is not enough
    • Excellent interview with Naomi Klein starts 20 minutes in (reposted by request)
  4. Bringing Power to the People: The Unlikely Case for Utility Populism
  5. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski just accused the White House of trying to manipulate them
  6. 18 States Sue Betsy DeVos Over Student Loan Protections
  7. Sinclair Broadcast Group: John Oliver
  8. Noam Chomsky: On Trump and the State of the Union
  9. Black America is “Pro-Peace,” but Its Politicians Work for the War Party
  10. The underlying source of contention between Qatar and Saudi Arabia
  11. Voter Suppression:
  12. Tom Coburn: We Will Get 34 States for Article V Constitutional Convention to Drain the Swamp
  13. Study: cities rely more on fines for revenue if they have more black residents
  14. ‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’ Frederick Douglass, Revisited

Earlier items
First half of 2017
Second half of 2016
Oct. 2015 – June 2016