New and Noteworthy Jan. – June 2019

Meeting Sundays 3-5 pm at Columbia International Affairs Building, Columbia University
420 W. 118th St.. (SE Corner of Amsterdam Ave. ) Room 411 or, when not available, we post a notice on Room 411 indicating where we are.

From June 23 to July 6, 2019

1. Independence Day Perspectives
   • ‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’ Frederick Douglass, Revisited
   • An Independence Day Alternative
   • 6 ways to celebrate Ghana’s Independence Day — all of them better than the typical U.S. practice, IMHO
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?
   • Some Contractors Housing Migrant Children Are Familiar to Trump’s Inner Circle
5. Libra: Our corporate overlords’ new currency, as seen by Bill Black
6. U.N. reports human rights violations in Venezuela
   • Venezuela responds blaming U.S. sanctions
   • NYTimes on the U.N. report, not even a single mention of U.S. sanctions’ role in the Venezuelan crisis
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
   • Discussed on Brian Lehrer Show
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
   • Column
   • Podcast
5. How Pentagon Officials May Have Encouraged a 2009 Coup in Honduras
   • Honduras election: Unrest flares over presidential vote “We are defending our vote”
6. Guatemala’s corruption conundrum
7. Protecting Refugees and Restoring Order: Real Solutions to the Humanitarian Crisis
8. Brasil:
   • Corruption in the Brasilian corruption investigation: Lula arrest illegal, Bolsanaro election illegitimate
   • ‘Lula is Political Prisoner’: American Association of Jurists
9. Where are markets appropriate?
   • The Water Marketplace
   • Water Democracy
10. Not endorsements but giving attention to candidates’s proposals:
    • Presidential candidates address poor people’s campaign
      • Andrew Yang
      • Marianne Williamson
      • Elizabeth Warren (broken up, begins here and continues here)
      • Bernie Sanders
      • Eric Swalwell
      • Wayne Messam
      • Kamala Harris
      • Joe Biden
      • Michael Bennet
      • Did not speak: Donald Trump (probably not invited) Tim Ryan, Beto O’Rourke, Seth Moulton, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, Mike Gravel, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Steve Bullock, Bill de Blasio,
    • Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pass her plans
    • The “Biden Controversy”
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?
    • House Democrats vote to repeal 9/11-era law used to authorize perpetual war (not having repealed it when they had a chance years ago)
    • Ben Shapiro’s comment, aptly named “War Drums”, in which he:
      • criticizes “idiotic notion” of “proportionate response”
      • and recommends that Trump (U.S.) show he is (we are) irrational
      • though, it is a “false narrative” pushed by the Europeans, the Left and the media that “Trump is the truly erratic force” and that “th President is going to have to take action sooner or later”
      • and we must , it is “show the Iranians that, if thing ‘get real’ the Ayatollahs are … not going to be breathing anymore”
      • I encourage you to listen to Ben Shapiro’s whole discussion of how we should handle Iran, buy life insurance and get a special deal to straighten our teeth
    • Remember Iraq and Resist the Warmongers
    • Hall of ShameFame: Pundits and Pols who opposed Iraq War in 2003
17. Struggle and Progress
18. House Judiciary Committee hearings on Reparations for Slavery and the path to restorative justice
    • list of speakers and written testimony here
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
    • Facebook creates its own currency, aims for shadow financial system
21. Imagine a world where youth prisons don’t exist?
22. Updates on protests around the world:
    • Sudan protests/massacres
    • Yellow Vests
    • Protesters Demand Resignation Of Haitian President Over Corruption Allegations
    • Protesters Hit Hong Kong Streets
23. A devastating analysis of the tax cut shows it’s done virtually no economic good
    • Walmart Got a $2.2 Billion Tax Cut. Now It’s Laying Off Workers
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:
   • Sanders Proposes New Economic Bill of Rights
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
   • Senate Democrats will seek to force vote on Trump authority for Iran war
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
   • Trump Using “Emergency” Powers to Circumvent Congress and Sell Weapons to Middle East Autocrats
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:
   • Spadework
   • Talking Union in NYC
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:
   • Marianne Williamson interview
   • Eight million jobs, $9tn in spending: Jay Inslee’s radical plan to tackle climate change
   • Pandering, Policy, and the Black Vote
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?
   • San Francisco’s facial recognition technology ban, explained
     
4. Harvard Dismisses First Black Deans (Harvey Weinstein Lawyer and his wife)
5. Will John Bolton’s Dream to Bomb Iran Come True?
   • John Bolton: “The only solution is regime change”
   • British General says there’s no “increased threat” from Iran
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’
   • And, in case we aren’t concerned for those species for their own sake, this also affects our health
9. The world’s most prestigious consulting firm and its work for corruption-plagued regimes
   • And similar past work
10. The corporations backing Alabama’s war on women
11. Two approaches to reform:
    • Elite: Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders
    • Grassroots: Vocal NY: Mass Incarceration, and Florida Rights Restoration Coalition
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:
   • Tulsi Gabbard: Neocons/Neolibs clamor “war war war!!!”—this time in Venezuela (and maybe Iran)
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)
   • Follow up: Andy Piasik discusses outcome of strike on podcast (starts about 5 minutes into show)
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
   • A response
   • Black Liberation Will Not Be Won Through Respectability Politics
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
    • Trump Admin Inflated Iran Intel, U.S. Officials Say
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?
    • But even Labor doesn’t seem serious. No carbon tax or other measures likely to matter much
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
    • South Africa election: ANC set for reduced majority
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:
    • Sen. Mike Gravel’s platform
    • Tulsi Gabbard on Firing Line
      
      • Niko House fights with Ana Kasperian Over Tulsi Gabbard
11. Jordan Peterson | ContraPoints
12. Modi is turning India into a Hindu state
13. John Bolton on the Warpath
    • Podcast interview
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
   • Sudan protests: The women driving change
   • Tens of thousands protest against Algeria’s ruling elite
   • Watch: South African election adverts from the Top Three
   • Egypt Approves Constitutional Changes That Could Keep Sissi In Office Until 2030
   • Trump and Libya: White House egged on warlord who intensified attack on Tripoli
   • India election 2019: marathon vote begins to decide Modi’s fate
   • Indonesian election: President Widodo declares victory
   • Ukraine election set to deliver damning verdict on traditional politics
     • The election of Zelensky in Ukraine and the way forward for the working class
   • Venezuela’s Embassy: Activists vs. US Government
   • Portugal’s comeback is the eurozone’s socialist success story
4. See How Hard Gentrification Has Hit Your NYC Neighborhood
   • NYC Urban Displacement Map
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:
   • Andrew Yang on UBI, jobs and the coming fourth industrial revolution
   • Marianne Williamson CNN Town Hall
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
   • 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. Green New Green
    1. An MMT take on the Green New Deal: how to pay for it without worrying about inflation
    • Labor unions mixed on Green New Deal
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

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Jan. – June 2018
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1. Counterspin: Netfa Freeman on Police Militarization this topic starts 11:10 into episode. Earlier stuff on ranked choice voting also interesting
   • Call It the Surge’: Vowing Nationwide Crackdown, Trump Touts Tougher Police
2. Lula is Freed in Brazil In Victory for Movement to Resist Bolsonaro
3. Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries Disappear from The Real News Network
4. WSJ: Google collecting medical data on millions without informing patients or doctors
5. Las Vegas City Council criminalizes being homeless
6. Facebook not even bothering to explain suspensions anymore
7. Kamala Harris updates:
   CORRECTION: Kamala Locked Up More People for Weed Than We Thought
   California Removes Arrest Reports From Kamala Years
8. Gentrification and Climate Change: How high ground in Miami is being taken from Little Haiti and Overtown: There Goes the Neighborhood: Part 1 of 3
9. Amazon spent $1.5 million on Seattle City Council races. The socialist it opposed has won.
10. Bolivia:
    • Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm’s Lithium Deal
    • What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me
    • Did a coup force Bolivia’s Evo Morales out?
11. In concession to protestors, Chilean lawmakers agree to referendum to replace Pinochet constitution
12. Capitol Police Attempted To Arrest Code Pink Activist Medea Benjamin For Allegedly ‘Assaulting’ Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
13. Rodney Reed Lawyers relieved and thankful after stay of execution
14. ‘Grand American Tradition of Immunizing Its War Criminals’ Continues as Trump Pardons US Soldiers

November 3 to 9, 2019

1. America Will Keep Losing Its Middle Class as Long as “The Free Market” Dominates the Economic Debate
2. California Becomes Second State to Allow Public Banks
3. Housing Advocates Plan Another Aggressive Push in Albany
4. U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement
   • The EPA disbanded our clean air science panel. We met anyway
5. Nigeria oil spills ‘spark environmental genocide’
6. The Case for Economic Disobedience
7. Freedom Rider: America Needs Protest
8. By trying to silence Sanders, America’s corporate media de-legitimizes themselves
9. No Friend But The Mountains U.S.’s history of repeated betrayals of the Kurds
10. Haitian Opposition Calls For More Protests Against President

November 3 to November 9, 2019

1. Economics and Finance:
   • The Next Debt Crisis That No One’s Talking About
   • ‘What Is the Fed Not Telling Us?’: Fears of Economic Instability After Central Bank Intervention Spikes
     • If you want to get into the weeds: Understanding the Great Repo Fiasco
   • This really shows nothing was learned from 2008.
     • Banking Regulators Should Not Give Wall Street’s Five Biggest Banks a $40 Billion Deregulatory Gift for Their Dangerous Derivatives Trading
     • Don’t mess with rules curbing derivatives risk
   • PG&E Blackouts Spur Calls for Public Ownership
2. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hariri Resigns After Weeks Of Protests
3. Iraq’s Prime Minister Agrees to Resign Amidst Largest Protests Since 2003
4. How Much Money Has Your Doctor Received From Drug Companies?
5. Opinion: The $15 minimum wage was supposed to hurt New York City restaurants — but both revenue and employment are up
6. Is Obama right about ‘woke’ signaling and toxic ‘cancel’ culture, are there maybe other things to call out?
   • Obama’s Very Boomer View of ‘Cancel Culture’
7. Brazil leader Bolsonaro lashes out at media over report alleging ties to left-wing activist’s killing
8. Chile: 1 Million Protest Extreme Inequality in Latin America’s Richest Country: Neoliberalism was born in Chile, Neoliberalism will die in Chile (we hope)
9. Twitter banning political ads: Is this the right thing to do?
   • Facebook staff demand Zuckerberg limit lies in political ads
   • Who Elected Zuckerberg Head of the Thought Police?
10. Snowden Spoke About His Book, Barack Obama, the Russians, the Media & Bernie Sanders in the Podcast
11. California Feudalism
    • ‘Modern Day Slavery’: Prisoner Firefighters Risking Their Lives in California Battling Wildfires an Example of System’s Injustice, Say Critics
    • Prisoners Are Fighting California’s Wildfires on the Front Lines, But Getting Little in Return
12. ACLU sues to reveal the FBI’s uses of facial recognition
13. Bringing Pennsylvania’s Young People Safely Home from Juvenile Justice Placements
14. DeVos uses disappointing national test scores to criticize federal involvement in education, push ‘education freedom’
15. Meet America’s newest military giant: Amazon
16. Jarhead author: Drones and robots won’t make war easier—they’ll make it worse
17. ‘Until Freedom’ Protesters Hold Day of Rage Against Racist Policing
18. India strips Kashmir of special status and divides it in two

October 20 to October 26, 2019

1. ‘America is running away’: Irate Kurds pelt withdrawing US forces with vegetables (VIDEO)
   • Turkey to resume assault on Kurds in Syria with ‘more determination’ if US doesn’t keep its promises – Erdogan
2. The U.S. Has Been Silencing Black Girls’ Voices for Decades
3. Bernie Sanders Pledges to End Practice of Prosecuting Whistleblowers Under the Espionage Act
4. Protests in Haiti: An Overlooked Crisis the World Should Not Ignore
5. Police officer kills woman inside her Texas home
   • Texas police officer charged with murder in shooting of black woman in her own home
6. Uber lays off another 350 people
7. Rape, medical experiments, and forced abortions: One woman describes horrors of Xinjiang concentration camps
8. Homeless advocates demand more affordable housing in NYC
9. Brazilians come together to clean beaches after massive oil spill decimates coast
   • Brazilians rally to clean beaches amid outrage at Bolsonaro’s oil spill inaction
10. How ‘Proactive Policing’ Might Damage Health
11. Ending Endless War: Andrew Bacevich on How Reckless Use of U.S. Military Power Caused Today’s Crisis
12. Incredibly scuzzy behavior at Cuomo’s behest … where no one is paying attention
    • Flawed process mars NY campaign finance reform
13. Nobody gets liberated until the plutocrats are defeated
14. Chile in Flames: The Neoliberal Model in Crisis Throughout the Region
15. How Europe’s Greedy Lending to Africa Is Driving the Migration Wave That Fuels the EU’s Xenophobic Politics
16. Students sue DeVos for illegally propping up failing for-profit colleges
    • Trump admin gave over $10 million in aid to students at unaccredited for-profit colleges
17. Is your Congressperson a sponsor of No Shame at School Act?
    • If not, you might ask them why not

October 13 to 19, 2019

1. Economics after neo-liberalism
   • Economics after neo-liberalism
   • How the Economics Profession Is Coming to Terms with Its Role in the Great Financial Crisis
   • Meritocracy’s Casualties
   • The Key to a Sustainable Economy Is 5,000 Years Old
     • A right-wing commentator thinks Debt Jubilee is coming
   • UK Labour Party Agenda: Creating an economy that works for all
2. Finance before neo-liberalism: The Stock Market Crash of 1929
3. Ecuador repeals law ending fuel subsidies in deal to stop protests
   • Ecuador’s Leftist Leaders Arrested In Police Raids Nationwide
4. Black Agenda Report: Josh Myers Critique of NY Times 1619 Project
5. Juveniles Found Innocent But Still Convicted
6. Everybody betraying everybody is Syria
7. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo on Being a Christian Leader
8. Wasteland of Corruption
9. The Alcatraz Occupation: A Powerful Symbol of Indigenous Resistance and Leadership
10. Intuit is evil; Congress is complicit
    • TurboTax’s 20-year fight to stop Americans from filing their taxes for free
    • TurboTax Prevented Google From Indexing Its Free Tax Filing
    • TurboTax is Lobbying to Make Filing Your Taxes More Difficult
11. Death, Misery and Bloodshed in Yemen
12. Chicago teachers strike stops classes for 361,000 students
13. UAW leaders send deal with GM to workers for ratification vote; strike continues
14. What, if any, restrictions should there be on free speech? and by whom?
    • On the Media: Sticks and Stones episode
    • Should Trump be kicked off twitter?
    • Zuckerberg doubles down on free speech
    • Warren targets Facebook with ad claiming Zuckerberg supports Trump
    • Defiant Zuckerberg Says Facebook Won’t Police Political Speech
15. Trump administration rule could end free school lunches for about 500,000 children (or more)

October 6 to October 12

1. GE’s Latest Casualty? Pension Promises
2. GM Workers Strike Against Low Wages and Two-Tier Contract
3. Belabored Podcast: GM Strike, Prospect of combined strike by Chicago teachers, service and park workers, organizing in the gig economy
4. Trump’s first cabinet meeting: Most of these sycophants have been replaced by even worse.
5. Judge LAUGHS At Trump
6. CONFIRMED: Trump Breaks ANOTHER Law
7. The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
   • Billionaires paid lower tax rate than working class for first time in US history: study
8. The Economist asks: Why is there still poverty in America? “The choice is a political one”
9. The Constitution Won’t Save American Democracy either activists will, or it won’t be saved
10. A New York Times Op Ed Says Free Speech Is Killing Us
11. Ecuador:
    • Ecuadorian Protests Intensify as President Flees Capital, Blames Venezuela
    • Lenín Moreno moved the Government to Guayaquil; reaffirms his position on economic measures
12. Angry Queens Residents Shout Down Plans For Homeless Shelter: ‘I Hope Someone Burns It Down!’
13. Wolff on the U.S. Housing Market
14. Cop Acquitted for Rape, Despite 5 Videos Showing Him Having Sex With a Child
15. Cop Thinks He’s Getting An Award, He Gets A Reality Check Instead
16. Dallas Police Arrest Suspect In Joshua Brown Capital Murder Case, Seek 2 Others
17. Adom Getachew on Anti-colonial Worldmaking
18. The Trump Administration Wants Restaurant Servers To Do More Work For Less Pay
19. Betsy DeVos Facing Jail Time
20. INCREDIBLE Bernie Sanders Video Exposes LIES by Mainstream Media
21. Pathetic: CNN Caught Doctoring Photos & Video Of Bernie Sanders
22. Fox News Fool Wants Trump To Be King
23. Krystal Ball: The stories the media doesn’t want you to know about
24. Trump Accused By 43 More Women!
25. Trump’s Border Fantasy Includes Stabbing and Shooting Migrants, Feeding Them to Reptiles
26. GOP official indicted for human smuggling and sale of children in bizarre international fraud scheme
27. After Nearly 60 Years On Air, WBAI 99.5 Shuts Down

Sept. 29 to Oct. 5, 2019

1. Hundreds of cops are in extremist Facebook groups. Why haven’t their departments done anything about it?
2. Wall Street Still Too Big (Complex and Interconnected) to Fail
3. The Police Can’t Solve the Problem. They Are the Problem.
4. The Red Summer of 1919 in U.S. Cities : Massacres of Blacks
   • 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
5. Ibram X. Kendi on How to be an Antiracist (moderately long speech followed by long discussion)
6. Save the Children..from maturity
7. Revealed: how US senators invest in firms they are supposed to regulate
8. France set to roll out nationwide facial recognition ID program
9. U.S. Government Plans to Collect DNA From Detained Immigrants
10. Not taking positions on candidates but sometimes giving them attention:
    • Critique of Warren foreign policy approach v Sanders
    • Sanders/Warren contrasted
    • The Progressive Labor Platform is Popular
    • Dancing Instead of Policy
    • Are Biden poll numbers inflated?
    • Republicans used to sound like this
11. Botham Jean’s brother on hug with Amber Guyger after murder sentence: ‘She still deserves love’
12. The Chinese Revolution at Seventy
13. Larouchepac sends mentally ill woman after AOC
14. Is Democratic impeachment strategy already a failure?
15. At least 30 pine nut farmers killed by U.S. drone strike.
16. Chilling PSA Highlights School Shooting Realities
17. Why Wall Street Loves Strongmen: Why should we be surprised it is amoral?

Sept. 15 to Sept. 28, 2019

1. Economics and Finance:
   • The Unsustainability of Inequality
   • Investors behaving badly
     • Investors Cash In on Ebola Bonds That Haven’t Paid Out
     • Private-Equity-Backed Firms Are Behind Ad Blitz on ‘Surprise Billing’
     • How Private Equity Buyouts Exacerbate Problems Plaguing For-Profit Colleges
2. Japan defense minister: Not aware of any Iran involvement in Saudi attacks
3. Trump pushing for major crackdown on homeless camps in California, with aides discussing moving residents to government-backed facilities
   • Abhorrent’: Trump Condemned After Showing More Concern for Real Estate Than Human Beings in Remarks on Homelessness
4. The New American Homeless
5. Affordable Housing: Who Can Really Afford This?
6. Regulating the Poor: The Potential Consequences of the Smoke-Free Public Housing Rule
7. Warming Oceans Are Rising at Alarming Rate, Says New UN Report
   • UN: “The impacts of climate change have been growing; often with terrifying results, ranging from wildfires, droughts, flooding, and hurricanes to sea-level rise, ocean acidification to the melting of the permafrost.“
8. Report: Can’t Pay, Can’t Vote: A National Survey on the Modern Poll Tax
9. Nearly 50,000 UAW workers go on strike against GM
   • Corruption Cases in the Auto Workers Complicate Bargaining
10. Despite Kashmir, Bill Gates to honor Modi
11. Bill Shaw: Millennials Have It Bad and Are Coming For Us. Here’s Our Escape Clause (intentionally oblivious right-winger)
12. Not taking positions on candidates but sometimes giving them attention:
    • Fox News CAVES on Trump Impeachment
    • Tulsi Gabbard tied to RADICAL right-wing
    • This should end Joe Biden’s Campaign
    • Bogus “Working Families Party” Endorsement Of Warren Exposed
13. Palestinian flags and “Free Palestine” chants flood Labour conference
14. Roger Waters: Militarism is Exacerbating the Climate Crisis
15. Is Canada’s Government a Partner in America’s Crimes?
16. Fed Up With De Blasio, Homeless Advocates Revive Sleep-Out Protest At City Hall Park

Sept. 8 to Sept. 14, 2019

1. How to be an anti-racist: Author Ibram X. Kendi interviewed
2. California just dropped a bomb on the gig economy — what’s next?
3. Is Neo-liberalism losing it’s influence? (Reposted from last week as we are likely to discuss this Sunday)
   • IMF: Neoliberalism Oversold?
   • Ruling the Interregnum: Economic Ideas and Authority in Non-Hegemonic Times
   • The Rise (and Fall?) of the Economists
4. How the War on Terror Corrupted America
5. I Love Amazon: Let’s Break it Up
6. Counterspin: Afghanistan’s Unending War, Deregulation & Corporate America
7. “We Are Striking to Disrupt the System”: An Hour with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg
8. The Catastrophic Tenure of John Bolton
9. Homelessness in the U.S.
10. NY Cop abuses teen biker
    • Cop abusing his power on Biker
    • NYPD Probing Cop Who Smashed Teen’s Bike
11. Appeals Judge Slams The Brakes On 14th Street Busway
12. Trump Administration Rolls Back Clean Water Protections
13. Trump Regulators Granted 85% of Industry Wishes
14. The Super-Rich People Backing the Trump Agenda
15. Trump immigration plans: Supreme Court allows asylum curbs

September 1 to 7, 2019

1. Couple Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide Said They Couldn’t Pay Medical Bills
2. Chinese official says Trump’s fentanyl tweets are ‘not true at all’
3. Uber launch first airport ride-booking kiosk
4. Report Accuses Trump Allies of Conspiring to Profit Off Saudi Nuclear Deal
   • Report: Corporate and Foreign Interests Behind White House Push to Transfer U.S. Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia
5. Why withdrawal of Hong Kong extradition bill won’t quell protests
6. Dior Thought Sauvage Ad With Native Americans was a good idea. Not everyone did.
   • Dior partnered with a Native American group for its controversial ad. But does it matter?
7. Leading Israeli Journalists Launch Racist Rants about Palestinians
8. How Elites Crush Black Dissent
9. Racial Inequality Is Rooted in Denial of Home and Land Ownership
10. The thousands of U.S. locales where lead poisoning is worse than in Flint
11. A New HUD Rule Would Effectively Encourage Discrimination by Algorithm
12. Pakistan Army Accuses India of ‘State Terrorism’ in Kashmir

August 18 to August 31, 2019

1. Empire State of Mind
2. 1619 Project: African slaves were brought to North American in 1619. Will the U.S. finally grapple with the legacy?
3. Ibrim X. Kendi: Acknowledging Racism Is A Good Start. But It’s Only The First Step.
4. Trump is ‘joking’ about pardons? How is this a defense?
5. Johnson’s move to suspend parliament has the hallmarks of a “tin-pot dictator”
   • Johnson Shuts Down U.K. Parliament to Help Ensure No-Deal Brexit
6. Trump Proposes Eliminating Methane Emissions Regulations for the Oil and Gas Industry
7. Mexico border wall: Trump orders aides to seize private land and disregard environmental rules
8. A Top Financier of Trump and McConnell Is a Driving Force Behind Amazon Deforestation
9. ‘Stain on Public Service’: Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out Fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer for Helping Lyft Fight Against California Labor Bill
10. Trump administration policy alters automatic citizenship for some children of US military, government workers
11. Trump Keeps Lying to Farmers…and They’re Finally Furious!
12. Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill says homelessness charities ‘enable’ people to live in parks by providing food
13. Trump adds $4.1 trillion to national debt. Here’s where the money went
14. Trump: California ‘a disgrace to our country’
15. Gay Couples Discriminated Against by Kim Davis To Be Paid $225,000
16. Pence tells Netanyahu US backs Israel’s right to defend itself
17. Right-wing Israeli activists block new school for Bedouin village
18. Israel reduces fuel shipments to sole Gaza power plant
19. Mitch McConnell Received Donations from Voting Machine Lobbyists Before Blocking Election Security Bill
20. Susan Collins ‘Sad’ That Support For Brett Kavanaugh Has Cost Her Votes
21. Trump administration leaves menstruating migrant girls ‘bleeding through’ underwear at detention centres, lawsuit claims
22. The Protest Dispersed. Then an Israeli Sniper Shot a 9-year-old Palestinian Boy in the Head
23. ‘I Beat That N***r Like He Owed Me Money’: New Jersey Cop Faces Up to 40 Years for Federal Charges Including Using Excessive Force
24. Incoming Harvard Freshman Deported After Visa Revoked
25. Black TV Anchor Compared To Gorilla On Live TV By White Co-Host
26. Sunrise Movement Needs To Demand More in the Green New Deal
27. Murdered spies, poisoned Brits and tens of thousands dead – 20 years of Vladimir Putin
28. HORROR: Trump Suggests NUKING Hurricanes to Stop Them
29. Bolsonaro: I’ll save Amazon rainforest by giving it to corporations
30. Conservative Propagandist Totally Shut Down On Palestinian Rights
31. Kamala Volunteers Childishly Storm Out Of Bernie’s DNC Speech
32. NYT: Pro-Trump operatives compiling “fireable” dirt on hundreds of journalists
33. Oil Companies Persuade States to Make Pipeline Protests a Felony
34. PA slams U.S. for removing Palestinians from list of countries
35. Palestinian child killed in Israeli settler hit-and-run attack
36. Trump Claims to Be ‘Environmentalist’ After Skipping G7 Climate Meeting
37. Christian ‘historian’ insists religious people have extra rights under the Constitution
38. Dem. Pres. Candidate Williamson Says ‘Absolutely’ a Capitalist
39. Israel Launches Unprovoked Attacks: Uses Its Firepower, Far And Wide
40. Richard Wolff responds to Jordan B. Peterson on Marxism
41. Wolff on Meritocracy
42. Yemen: 6 children die every hour from starvation
43. Nearly every single person arrested for weed in NYC this year was black or Latinx
44. Chris Hayes examines the ubiquity of anti-semitism in America
45. Chris Hayes On The Inception Of White Terrorism In America
46. Drugmakers’ liability for opioid crisis could reach $150 billion
47. David Koch’s Monstrous Legacy
48. SEIU has an ambitious new plan for workers’ rights. Democratic candidates should take notice.
49. Stripping Uncle Sam of His Protective Lies and Taboos
50. Trump Tweets About Disloyal Jews, Then Tweets He’s “King of Israel”
51. The Democracy We Think We Live In
52. The Amazon is burning

August 4 to August 17, 2019

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.
   • All the times (in early 2016) that Trump called for violence at his rallies
3. Long history of denying racism
4. More on busing:
   • End of busing in Indianapolis
   • Integration v White Intransigence
   • Kirsten Gillibrand Is Right: Racism Is About White People
5. Chicago Race Riots 1919
   • Chicago’s Race Riots Of 1919 Contributed To The Segregation We See Today
6. My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman
   • The Shadow Bosses of the Gig Economy
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
   • Most powerful man on Earth threatens to kill millions, world ignores it.
3. The myth that busing failed
   • Detroit case that undermined integration
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:
   • The Patient Perspective: The Devastating Impacts of Skyrocketing Drug Prices on American Families
   • Profit over Patients: How the Rules of Our Economy Encourage the Pharmaceutical Industry’s Extractive Behavior
   • Podcast intended to advise young people on health care describes how dysfunctional our system is.
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?
   • Anti-Racist Historian: Attacks on Rep. Omar Rooted in Belief “America Is for White People”
2. Best of the Left: How to Build a War from Scratch (Iran)
   • Intercepted: Donald Trump, Iran and the Gulf of Tonkin Redux
   • Democracy Now: As Trump Imposes New Sanctions, Iran Says U.S. Has “Permanently Closed Path to Diplomacy”
   • Real News Network: Wilkerson: US Further Isolates Itself From its Allies Over Iran Policy
   • “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story Of the Iran Nuclear Scare” 
   • FAIR: Counterspin: Media Setting Up Iran as New ‘Threat’ That Must Be Confronted
   • How “Neutral” “Experts” Took Over Trump’s Iran Policy
   • People’s Republic: Iran in context: geopolitical struggles against U.S. empire
   • Thom Hartmann: Iran vs America: What’s Next with Jamal Abdi 
   • BBC: Is the U.S. heading for war with 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
   • Older column on same subject by one of report’s authors
7. More on Modern Monetary Theory
   • Modern Money Theory 101: A Reply to Critics
   • Doug Henwood critiques it
   • Pavlina Tcherneva replies
   • Thomas Palley: Modern Money Theory (MMT) vs. Structural Keynesianism
   • What Is Modern Monetary Theory and Why Is It So Important to the Green New Deal?
8. Honduras Now Ruled By A “Criminal Gang” – With Western Government Support
9. Libra: Our corporate overlords’ new currency.
   • Reposting Bill Black: Facebook’s Libra Currency Monetizes Identity and Threatens Privacy
   • Talking Politics: Libra
   • On the Media on currencies, and crytocurrencies (but not discusssing libra specifically)
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
    • UN Human Rights report on Venezuela
    • Venezuela – The Bachelet “Human Rights Lie”
    • Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela & Killed Over 40,000 Since 2017
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
   • ‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’ Frederick Douglass, Revisited
   • An Independence Day Alternative
   • 6 ways to celebrate Ghana’s Independence Day — all of them better than the typical U.S. practice, IMHO
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?
   • Some Contractors Housing Migrant Children Are Familiar to Trump’s Inner Circle
5. Libra: Our corporate overlords’ new currency, as seen by Bill Black
6. U.N. reports human rights violations in Venezuela
   • Venezuela responds blaming U.S. sanctions
   • NYTimes on the U.N. report, not even a single mention of U.S. sanctions’ role in the Venezuelan crisis
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
   • Discussed on Brian Lehrer Show
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
   • Column
   • Podcast
5. How Pentagon Officials May Have Encouraged a 2009 Coup in Honduras
   • Honduras election: Unrest flares over presidential vote “We are defending our vote”
6. Guatemala’s corruption conundrum
7. Protecting Refugees and Restoring Order: Real Solutions to the Humanitarian Crisis
8. Brasil:
   • Corruption in the Brasilian corruption investigation: Lula arrest illegal, Bolsanaro election illegitimate
   • ‘Lula is Political Prisoner’: American Association of Jurists
9. Where are markets appropriate?
   • The Water Marketplace
   • Water Democracy
10. Not endorsements but giving attention to candidates’s proposals:
    • Presidential candidates address poor people’s campaign
      • Andrew Yang
      • Marianne Williamson
      • Elizabeth Warren (broken up, begins here and continues here)
      • Bernie Sanders
      • Eric Swalwell
      • Wayne Messam
      • Kamala Harris
      • Joe Biden
      • Michael Bennet
      • Did not speak: Donald Trump (probably not invited) Tim Ryan, Beto O’Rourke, Seth Moulton, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, Mike Gravel, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Steve Bullock, Bill de Blasio,
    • Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pass her plans
    • The “Biden Controversy”
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?
    • House Democrats vote to repeal 9/11-era law used to authorize perpetual war (not having repealed it when they had a chance years ago)
    • Ben Shapiro’s comment, aptly named “War Drums”, in which he:
      • criticizes “idiotic notion” of “proportionate response”
      • and recommends that Trump (U.S.) show he is (we are) irrational
      • though, it is a “false narrative” pushed by the Europeans, the Left and the media that “Trump is the truly erratic force” and that “th President is going to have to take action sooner or later”
      • and we must , it is “show the Iranians that, if thing ‘get real’ the Ayatollahs are … not going to be breathing anymore”
      • I encourage you to listen to Ben Shapiro’s whole discussion of how we should handle Iran, buy life insurance and get a special deal to straighten our teeth
    • Remember Iraq and Resist the Warmongers
    • Hall of Shame Fame: Pundits and Pols who opposed Iraq War in 2003
17. Struggle and Progress
18. House Judiciary Committee hearings on Reparations for Slavery and the path to restorative justice
    • list of speakers and written testimony here
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
    • Facebook creates its own currency, aims for shadow financial system
21. Imagine a world where youth prisons don’t exist?
22. Updates on protests around the world:
    • Sudan protests/massacres
    • Yellow Vests
    • Protesters Demand Resignation Of Haitian President Over Corruption Allegations
    • Protesters Hit Hong Kong Streets
23. A devastating analysis of the tax cut shows it’s done virtually no economic good
    • Walmart Got a $2.2 Billion Tax Cut. Now It’s Laying Off Workers
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:
   • Sanders Proposes New Economic Bill of Rights
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
   • Senate Democrats will seek to force vote on Trump authority for Iran war
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
   • Trump Using “Emergency” Powers to Circumvent Congress and Sell Weapons to Middle East Autocrats
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:
   • Spadework
   • Talking Union in NYC
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:
   • Marianne Williamson interview
   • Eight million jobs, $9tn in spending: Jay Inslee’s radical plan to tackle climate change
   • Pandering, Policy, and the Black Vote
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?
   • San Francisco’s facial recognition technology ban, explained
     
4. Harvard Dismisses First Black Deans (Harvey Weinstein Lawyer and his wife)
5. Will John Bolton’s Dream to Bomb Iran Come True?
   • John Bolton: “The only solution is regime change”
   • British General says there’s no “increased threat” from Iran
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’
   • And, in case we aren’t concerned for those species for their own sake, this also affects our health
9. The world’s most prestigious consulting firm and its work for corruption-plagued regimes
   • And similar past work
10. The corporations backing Alabama’s war on women
11. Two approaches to reform:
    • Elite: Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders
    • Grassroots: Vocal NY: Mass Incarceration, and Florida Rights Restoration Coalition
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:
   • Tulsi Gabbard: Neocons/Neolibs clamor “war war war!!!”—this time in Venezuela (and maybe Iran)
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)
   • Follow up: Andy Piasik discusses outcome of strike on podcast (starts about 5 minutes into show)
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
   • A response
   • Black Liberation Will Not Be Won Through Respectability Politics
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
    • Trump Admin Inflated Iran Intel, U.S. Officials Say
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?
    • But even Labor doesn’t seem serious. No carbon tax or other measures likely to matter much
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
    • South Africa election: ANC set for reduced majority
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:
    • Sen. Mike Gravel’s platform
    • Tulsi Gabbard on Firing Line
      
      • Niko House fights with Ana Kasperian Over Tulsi Gabbard
11. Jordan Peterson | ContraPoints
12. Modi is turning India into a Hindu state
13. John Bolton on the Warpath
    • Podcast interview
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
   • Sudan protests: The women driving change
   • Tens of thousands protest against Algeria’s ruling elite
   • Watch: South African election adverts from the Top Three
   • Egypt Approves Constitutional Changes That Could Keep Sissi In Office Until 2030
   • Trump and Libya: White House egged on warlord who intensified attack on Tripoli
   • India election 2019: marathon vote begins to decide Modi’s fate
   • Indonesian election: President Widodo declares victory
   • Ukraine election set to deliver damning verdict on traditional politics
     • The election of Zelensky in Ukraine and the way forward for the working class
   • Venezuela’s Embassy: Activists vs. US Government
   • Portugal’s comeback is the eurozone’s socialist success story
4. See How Hard Gentrification Has Hit Your NYC Neighborhood
   • NYC Urban Displacement Map
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:
   • Andrew Yang on UBI, jobs and the coming fourth industrial revolution
   • Marianne Williamson CNN Town Hall
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
   • 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. Green New Green
    1. An MMT take on the Green New Deal: how to pay for it without worrying about inflation
    • Labor unions mixed on Green New Deal
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