Most recent posts:
From the week of June 24 to June 30, 2018
- Washington’s Narrow Definition of Human Rights
- “What to the Slave is 4th of July?”
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Or related Brian Lehrer episode.
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- Almost 600 arrested at Washington protest over Trump immigration policy
- Budget cuts threaten to end food stamps program in Louisiana
- Went Down to the Rich (White) Man’s House: Poor and Unhoused People March on Washington DC for their lives and self-determination
- Big Banks Are Once Again Taking Risks With Complex Financial Trades, Report Says
- When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn
- Never, as long as they keep getting bailed out — why should they?
- When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn
- Recent Supreme Court decisions
- overturns long-established precedent on union dues
- ducks decision on gerrymandering (podcast) — allowing gerrymandered districts to remain
- protects deceptive pregnancy clinics
- approves Trump Muslim ban
- protects monopolistic practices by American Express
- protects state taxation of Amazon sales
- approves purges of voter rolls
- punts on case of whether baker must serve gay couple
- companies may forbid class-action suits by their employees
- lawyers can’t override their client’s choice to plead innocent
- took a somewhat broad interpretation of protection from searches
- Is Supreme Court a political body?
- This may seem obvious to you but apparently the justices don’t see it
- Anthony Kennedy and the Privatization of Meaning
- Trump’s hidden back channel to Justice Kennedy: Their kids
- America Is Guilty of Neglecting Kids: Our Own
- As Interest in Democratic Socialism Surges, Ocasio-Cortez Explains to Colbert What a ‘Moral’ Economy Would Look Like
- After Joe Crowley Defeat, Anti-War Progressive Barbara Lee Considers Bid for House Democratic Chair
- “Stop the War! Feed the Poor!”: March by Poor People’s Campaign Ends With Arrests in DC
- Dozens Of Parents With Their Babies Occupy ICE Field Director Office
- U.S. Quits UN Human Rights Council, Saying It’s Anti-Israel
- This is the same council that just published the report on Extreme Poverty in the U.S. but that couldn’t have influenced this decision.
- Juneteenth and the Detention of Children in Texas
- Federal judge rules that Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure is unconstitutional
- Saudi-backed Yemeni forces capture Hodeidah airport
- The War in Afghanistan is Killing More People Than Ever
- White House Plan to Privatize the Postal Service: Statement from President of American Postal Workers Union
- Behind Trump’s Plan to Overhaul the Government: Scaling Back the Safety Net
- New Jersey Leads the Way on Bail Reform
From the week of June 10 to June 16
- Trump has turned words into weapons. And he’s winning the linguistic war
- New York puts a price on freedom with cash bail
- Assault on Yemen’s Al Hudaydah Would Be Catastrophic
- Trials of Universal Basic Income
- Nevermind the Wall — They’re Building Warehouses
- Bleak New Figures Show Just How Unaffordable Rent Is In Every U.S. State
- Historic handshake: But what did Kim-Trump summit achieve?
From the week of June 3 to June 9, 2018
- UN Report on extreme poverty and human rights in the U.S.
- Undermining of democracy
- Shortcomings in basic social protection
- Reliance on criminalization to conceal the underlying poverty problem
- Persistent discrimination and poverty
- Confused and counterproductive drug policies
- Environmental pollution
- U.S. state lawsuits against Purdue Pharma over opioid epidemic mount
- Massive Truckers’ Strike Exposes Political Chaos as Brazil Gears Up for Elections in October
- A movement for a public bank in NYC
- Google to halt controversial project aiding Pentagon drones
- The Ideological Roots of America’s Market Power Problem
- Raj Patel and Jason Moore on Capital, Nature, and Cheap Things
- Court forces Puerto Rico to release death statistics after government tries to avoid doing so?
- Justice Department Takes Aim at Heart of Obamacare Law
- The case for shutting down Rikers Island jail
- Terrorizing of Immigrant Community Continues as ICE Arrests of Pizza Delivery Man
- A Legal Blueprint for Our Ecological Survival
- Ethiopia Will ‘Fully Accept’ 2000 Peace Agreement with Eritrea
- South Africans’ anger over land set to explode
- Transforming California from Red to Blue: How Community Organizing Changed the Political Landscape
- Inequality
- Italy: Five Star and League parties likely to form governing alliance
- Big Banks to Get a Break From Limits on Risky Trading
- On Race: The Moral High Ground
- The Reelection of Maduro – Venezuelan Voters Defiant Answer to US Empire
- ‘Shells still land in our areas’: Ramadan in war-torn Taiz
- Trump Taxpayer-Funded Coal and Nuclear Bailout Decried as ‘Breathtaking Abuse of Authority’
- Puerto Rico’s Uncounted Dead: Study Says Hurricane Maria Toll Far Higher Than Official Count
- Canada to buy controversial Trans Mountain pipeline
- Origins of the Opioid Epidemic: Purdue Pharma Knew of OxyContin Abuse in 1996 But Covered It Up
- ACORN and the Firestorm: 2-minute Trailer, 1 hour film, 15-minute podcast about it
- Story of a very effective organizing group taken down by a disinformation campaign
- Curb cuts podcast Successful advocacy by handicapped helps everyone
- Congress Approves
FirstAnother Big Dodd-Frank Rollback - New social compact
- Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers’ Rights
- GOP lawmaker says rocks falling into ocean to blame for rising sea levels
- Koch-Tied Firm Conducts Mass Layoffs After Trump “Job Creating” Tax Cut Bill (personally, the even worse news is that the Kochs bought Time magazine and it didn’t make the news.
- Housing Project Plagued by Police Corruption
- Stacey Abrams becomes first black female nominee for governor
- Unregulated Capitalism Is Literally Depressing Us
- Trump-Kim Meeting Cancelled, But Can the Talks Survive?
- US forces accused of complicity in Somalia raid that left five civilians dead
- EPA bars reporters from toxic chemicals summit again one day after promising not to
- “Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice”: Mass Action Planned to Promote Clean Energy Economy
- How Ireland Moved to the Left: Overwhelmingly Ends Abortion Ban
- Airbnb caused NYC renters to pay an extra $616M in 2016, comptroller says
- Racist New Yorker Threatens to Call ICE Over Employees Speaking Spanish
- Key Democrats Back Gina Haspel’s Confirmation as CIA Director, Despite Her Record on Torture
- McCain is rolling over in his hospital bed
- Let’s Not Forget How Wrong Our Crime Data Are
- Shira:Census Data Could Be Used to Target the Undocumented
- ‘Black Mark in Our History’: Six Democrats Join GOP to Confirm Torturer Gina Haspel as CIA Chief
- Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.’
- Merkley Proposes Plan to Curb President’s War Powers
- U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre
- Taking Steps Toward Public Options for Banking
- ‘Uphill Battle,’ But Net Neutrality Defenders Say Victory in House Possible
- CFPB Chief Mick Mulvaney Wants To Shut Public Access To Consumer Complaints Database
From the week of May 6 to May 12
- Privacy (first story is repeated from last week — we selected as discussion topic but didn’t get to it)
- “Slavery Is A Choice” Kanye West FULL Interview on TMZ Live
- House-flipping is destroying NYC neighborhoods
- Iran nuclear deal: Trump pulls US out in break with European allies
- Why Iran and Israel Are Clashing in Syria
- Occupation at New School escalates
- Still obviously too high but: America’s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low
- Still highest rate in the world, Still almost triple what it was in 1980, at least trend is good
- Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse
- Inequality:
- Bezos interview:
- Bezos: “I got very lucky”
- Last week we had Bill Gates for dinner here and he said in a self-ironic manner that he has a ridiculous amount of money and it is so hard to find appropriate ways to spend that money reasonably and to do good with the money. So what does money mean for you, being the first person in history who has a net worth of a three-digit amount of billions
- Bezos: The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel
- To Save Humanity, We Could Fight Inequality. Or We Could Go Bar-Hopping on Mars.
- New Data Shows Millions of Hungry Americans Ineligible for Federal Nutrition Assistance
- Bezos interview:
- CIA goes on propaganda campaign for Gina Haspel
- The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant The link between immigration and crime exists in the imaginations of Americans, and nowhere else.
- John Kelly: It’s not ‘cruel’ to separate families at the border — ‘the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever’
- Progressives are lining up behind a jobs guarantee—but leaving the details for later.
- See also the prior week
- Privacy
- Injustice Today: New Federal Prison Policies May Put Books and Email on Ice
- Migrant Caravan, After Grueling Trip, Reaches U.S. Border. Now the Really Hard Part.
- Yemen: The war we are quietly waging
- The Trump administration just sent a dark, threatening message to Kim Jong Un
- Job Guarantee: Pro, Con, Discussion of implementation:
- Banking on denial: the investment rush to climate catastrophe
- Wall Street’s Least Favorite Regulator Is Calling It Quits more accurately, he was forced out
- Liberal Totalitarianism
- A Miami police officer has been relieved of duty after a video showed him kicking a suspect in the head, as he was lying on the ground getting handcuffed.
232 253370 people have been shot and killed by police in 2018 (as of 5/3/2018)- Congress killing CFPB anti-discrimination rule: How industry lobbying works: When no one else is paying attention, rules are rewritten
- Doctors, Unlike Teachers, Do Well in the Modern Economy Because They Don’t Face Foreign Competition
- Trump Administration Ends Protected Status for Thousands of Hondurans
- Rebecca Solnit: Whose Story (and Country) Is This? On the Myth of a “Real” America
- Immigrants and refugees
- U.S. Must Keep DACA and Accept New Applications, Federal Judge Rules
- ICE agents arrest 97 immigrants in raid on meat processing plant
- ICE raid on Rome, NY farm
- Bodega owners strike, rally against Trump’s travel ban ahead of Supreme Court case
- Israel scraps contested plan to deport tens of thousands of African migrants
- UK: The Windrush scandal explained
- The Windrush scandal is no accident: Forget bureaucratic ineptitude. The Conservatives are convinced they have the consent of the people to enact inhumane policies
- U.S. involvement in wars
- Corker releases AUMF without an expiration date
- Trump Can’t Make War Whenever He Likes or can he?
- Mattis: “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important U.S. national interests.”
- Haley: “Iran is a national threat to American interests.”
- Democracy Now’s “Alt Media” Platform for Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria
- Major Cuomo Supporters Don’t Want a Democratic State Senate
- Republicans rigged our democracy. Here’s how Democrats can fight back
- After Mulvaney Admitted Selling Access to Lobbyists in Congress, Warren Wants to Know If He’s Doing the Same at CFPB
- How Politicians Use Nonprofits to Hide Dark Money
- How Black Students Helped Lead the 1968 Columbia U. Strike Against Militarism & Racism 50 Years Ago
- Armenian PM Sargsyan resigns after week of mass protests
- Who gets to picture and narrate Africa?
- Bernie Sanders to announce plan to guarantee every American a job
- Flint crisis, four years on: what little trust is left continues to wash away
- Documenting Martin Luther King, Jr. If anyone has a link to the actual program, please let us know
- Lynching Memorial In Alabama Remembers The Victims Of Unacknowledged Terror
- Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class
- Challenging Capitalism through Workers’ Control
- Why It’s So Important to Save the Iran Nuke Deal
- Pompeo, Koch’s top recipient, confirmed as secretary of state
- Scott Pruitt ousted EPA science advisers. Now he’s going after the science itself.
- Bayer, Monsanto deal on track for U.S. approval by end of May
- Ghana, Kenya and Malawi to pilot world’s first malaria vaccine
- In ‘Tremendous’ Steps Toward Peace, North and South Korea Vow to End War and Pursue a Nuclear-Free Peninsula
- Public schools
- FEMA: Puerto Rico running out of time as storm season nears
- Protesters demand firing of Philly Starbucks manager following arrests of two black men
- 2018 Women Run Funds Outperform Funds Run by Men
- Not a new story 2014: Hedge Funds Run by Women Outperform Those Run by Men
- but that makes is more puzzling. Shouldn’t the free market be adjusting?
- Not a new story 2014: Hedge Funds Run by Women Outperform Those Run by Men
- Is America the main obstacle to peace in Korea?
- U.S. Bombing Syria:
- Obama official: “violation of international law” and “right thing” to do.
- There Was Nothing Humanitarian About Our Strikes on Syria We fired 105 missiles on April 14. That’s 10 times the number of Syrian refugees we’ve taken all year.
- Mattis Wanted Congressional Approval Before Striking Syria. He Was Overruled.
- The Corker-Kaine Bill Would Codify, not End, the Forever War
- Cuomo Attends Uptown IDC Fundraiser, Gets Bashed By Protesters
- Gun Violence Debate Needs to Include Police Militarization and Drug Prohibition Violence
- Republican Farm Bill Calls On Many SNAP Recipients To Work Or Go To School
- Congress just broke the Internet (20 minute podcast).
- Charles Blow rips into Trump’s ‘breeding’ tweet — and explains why it is dangerous for minorities
- 75% of the ultra-rich forecast a US recession in the next two years, survey finds
- Wells Fargo slammed with $1B fine
- Jacobin Magazine: Bitcoin: The Dumb Money
- Sexual Harassment Was Rampant at Coachella 2018
- New Actors Could Be Drawn into Israel’s Coming War With Hezbollah
- Labour would rip up definition of affordable housing, Corbyn says
- Fresno State Professor’s Barbara Bush-Bashing Tweets Have University Donors On Edge
- “Kansas Trio” Convicted in Plot to Bomb Somali Immigrants
- But please, don’t call them terrorists, they are white.
From the week of April 8 to April 14, 2018
- Syrian Air Strikes — and U.S. ban on Syrian refuguees
- Without a strategy, U.S. airstrikes mean more danger for Syrians International Rescue Committee
- The U.S. Has Accepted Only 11 Syrian Refugees This Year
- Deconstructed Podcast:: Is Trump about to Start an Illegal War with Syria?
- Syrian Researcher: Focus on Alleged Chemical Attack Ignores War’s Ongoing Deaths by Airstrikes, Bullets
- Deconstructed Podcast:: Is Trump about to Start an Illegal War with Syria?
- In ‘Clear Violation of Domestic and International Law,’ Trump Bombs Syria
- ACLU: U.S. Strikes in Syria Are an Illegal Response to Atrocity (written last year but applies to latest strike too).
- “The nations of the world can be judged by the friends that they keep,” Donald Trump
- Remembering Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
- We’re Keeping Track of
All ofSome of Facebook’s Scandals- Note: In the headline, Fortune claims they are keeping track of ALL OF the FB Scandals.
- please email Alt.Banking.OWS@gmail.com with any they have omitted. The list may be insightful regarding both Facebook and what the corporate media ignores.
- Facebook and Google Helped Anti-Refugee Campaign in Swing States
- Shadow profiles are the biggest flaw in Facebook’s privacy defense
- Note: In the headline, Fortune claims they are keeping track of ALL OF the FB Scandals.
- Who Does She Think She Is?
- Did Great Recession Hurt Student Learning?
- Obamacare: NJ lawmakers vote to bring back health insurance mandate
- Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
- The Day After Trump’s ICE Raid in a Small Tennessee Town, 550 Kids Stayed Home From School
- How Marketing Propaganda Hacks Our Brains: The Difference between Pleasure and Happiness
- NYU Student Activists Occupy Building Demanding Fossil Fuel Divestment
- Puerto Rico’s blackout is now the second largest on record worldwide
From the week of April 1 to April 7
- Housing and homelessness
- The Business of Homelessness Picture the Homeless
- Homelessness, Step by Step
- We can end the homelessness crisis. Partnership for the Homeless
- This City Came Up With a Simple Solution to Homelessness: Housing
- The solution is public housing
- Inwood rezoning proposal could price out locals, advocates say
- In 83 Million Eviction Records, a Sweeping and Intimate New Look at Housing in America
- Hunger And Homelessness Are Widespread Among College Students, Study Finds
- American Bombs Falling on Yemen
- Martin Luther Kings’ message:
- Let NY Vote
- Suddenly Progressive Andrew Cuomo Ends The IDC
- Don’t let the state pick our pockets to fund transit
- How America’s Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump’s War On The Media
- Settlement Reached in NYPD Muslim Surveillance Lawsuit
- Muslims Accused of Plotting Violence Get Seven Times More Media Attention and Four Times Longer Sentences
- On the Media: We, the Liberators
- Saheed Vassell Locals Knew He Was Mentally Ill. The Officers Who Shot Him Did Not.
- How Teens from Chicago’s South SIde Are Standing with Parkland Survivors
- Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest
- Lunatic Loose In West Wing
- Kentucky, Oklahoma teachers rally as rebellion grows over education cuts
From the week of March 25 to March 31, 2018
We’ve decided to revise our meeting format somewhat. One hour of our regular 3-5 pm meeting will be on a topic we pick ahead of time and led by someone who prepares and, perhaps, distributes reading/listening in advance. Sunday April 1 Tom will lead a discussion on “Money through the lens of golf”. You’ll have to come to find out what that’s about. Afterwards, we’ll have our usual discussion of topics chosen by attendees from the list below and other suggestions.
- Puerto Rico teachers walk out to protest privatization
- Across the globe, cash transfers to the poor, including welfare and basic income, increase labor participation.
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Picture the Homeless releases major report: The Business of Homelessness: Financial & Human Costs of the Shelter-Industrial Complex
- Saudi Crown Prince—’Socially Acceptable War Criminal’—Enjoys US Tour Hosted by America’s Elite
- Stopping War Pusher John Bolton, Trump’s Choice for National “Insecurity” Advisor
- A 13-Year-Old Boy and Other Yemeni Civilians Were Killed in U.S. Drone Strikes This Month
- The Public Internet Option How Local Governments Can Provide Network Neutrality, Privacy, and Access for All
- Trump fires Secretary for VA, in a tweet, for obstructing privatization of VA health system (and perhaps for overall competence)
- The Real Problem with Gina Haspel’s CIA Nomination
- The Bear Stearns Bailout, Ten Years Later
- Food contribution to climate change — McDonald’s as a global polluter
- Big new study on inequality shows, adjusting for everything, systemic racism a huge factor, especially for black men
- Equality of Opportunity Project
- The massive new study on race and economic mobility in America
- Podcast: ignore title, the first 30 minutes of “is Facebook bad” are on inequality and race
- Great visualization of study findings
- The Growing College Graduation Gap
- Sympathy for White Austin Bomber Stirs Debate About Race, Debate?
- Oklahoma Teachers Win Pay Raise, But Say Strike Will Proceed to Challenge ‘Decade of Neglect’
- Progress with “all deliberate speed”: Plaque honoring Jefferson Davis removed at Kentucky Capitol but statue remains
- With NYS budget deadline looming, many items may fall off negotiating table immigration policy, sexual harassment, criminal justice reform, early voting, and the Child Victim’s Act. Immigrants, women and children need better lobbyists.
- Government takeover that doesn’t get as much attention as Stormy Daniels
- The Americans Our Government Won’t Count
- Under Ben Carson, HUD Scales Back Fair Housing Enforcement
- Trump Administration Fights Effort to Unionize Uber Drivers
- The E.P.A. Says It Wants Research Transparency. Scientists See an Attack on Science.
- The Energy 202: Scott Pruitt’s climate message is now official EPA guidance
- When Smug Liberals Met Conservative Trolls
- Some courts still working
- How the Denver DSA Convinced the Local Democratic Party to Endorse Socialism in Its Platform
- Guns and Butter Podcast
- Gaza protests
From the week of March 18 to March 24
- Data breach and how elections were manipulated
- Behind Janus: Documents Reveal Decade-Long Plot to Kill Public-Sector Unions
- China to bar people with bad ‘social credit’ from planes, trains
- Whistleblowers Sue NYC’s Top Health Insurance Providers
- Trump threatens to veto govt. spending over lack of wall funding, DACA fix
- It’s Time to Transform the War Economy
- ‘Neglect and Bureaucracy’: Six Months After Maria, Trump Condemned for Failed Response in Puerto Rico
- Trump offers tough talk, few details in opioid plan
- People are dying because we misunderstand how those with addiction think
- Understanding the causes and cures of the opioid crisis Compilation by Best of the Left
- Ex-FBI agent McCabe condemns ‘unhinged attacks’ by Trump
- Demands for Federal Probe as Saudi Crown Prince Reportedly Claims Kushner ‘In His Pocket’
- With Vote Looming, Anti-War Groups Call on Nation to Demand Congress End US-Backed Slaughter in Yemen
- Lawmakers just tried — and failed — to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen 10 Dems, 45 Reps voted for war
- Trump’s Talk Worries Me, Like the Talk Before the Iraq War
- Will Pompeo beat the drums of war against Iran? our new chief diplomat
- John Bolton is a hawk itching for war – and few are there to stop him our new National Security Advisor
- China Says US Warship Sailing Near Spratly Islands Is “Severe Provocation”
- Trump’s China tariffs get bipartisan support, reflecting widespread U.S. disillusionment with Beijing
- It took 3 weeks, and 2 American deaths, for Trump to speak out about Austin bombings
- Stephon Clark shooting: How police opened fire on an unarmed black man holding a cellphone
- JPMorgan Facing Shareholder Backlash Over Oil Sands Financing
- Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class (1.5 hour video town hall, skip first 20 minutes)
- 1.5 hour video town hall with Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren, Darrick Hamilton, Michael Moore, Catherine Coleman Flowers, Cindy Estrada, Gordon Lafer
- RACE MATTERS A huge new Stanford and Harvard study proves that US inequality isn’t just about class
- Not a surprise at all but worth seeing it confirmed exhaustively.
From the week of March 11 to March 17
- The Role of Private Investment in Rebuilding Puerto Rico 20-minute radio segment (available as podcast)
- The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State
- Trump taps torturer to head CIA
- Top cannabis regulator says Massachusetts should create a state Public Bank
- The Lessons of West Virginia Teachers’ historic wildcat teacher strike has the potential to change everything.
- A New Report Has Some Grim News About American Newborns
- Senate Marks 10th Anniversary of Historic Collapse of Bear Stearns By Deregulating Big Banks, Increasing Likelihood of Another Crash
- Democrats Back a Bank Bill That Could Hurt Black Homebuyers
- Apparently, they are nostalgic for the bad old days of crises and discrimination (not that the present is great)
- 1 Million Students Walk Out of 3,000+ Schools to Protest Gun Violence
- Cuomo crony convicted of accepting bribes
- For Trump, Cruelty Is the Point of the immigration policy and arguably other policy, too
- Seven days in March: The Trump administration and the breakdown of American democracy
- GOP Confronts Another Failed Tax Experiment in Oklahoma
- Ex-CIA officers running for Congress as Democrats
- RealJusticePAC Working to elect reform-minded prosecutors who are committed to using the powers of their office to fight structural racism and defend our communities.
- Philadelphia’s New Top Prosecutor Is Rolling Out Wild, Unprecedented Criminal Justice Reforms
- Rebecca Solnit on What Makes Her Hopeful in the Age of Trump from #MeToo to Anti-Gun Protests
From the week of March 4 to March 10
- West Virginia Teachers Win Pay Raise After Four-Day Walkout, But Say Fight Far From Over
- Xi Sets China on a Collision Course With History
- Donald Trump: Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win ???
- Italy’s voters issue warning to Europe
- Corporate Personhood:
- How Businesses Became People (Zephyr Teachout book review)
- When Did Corporations Become People? Podcast: discussion on this topic begins at 28:00.
- Union-busting case argued in Supreme Court Same podcast as above: first 25 minutes
- Income Inequality in the U.S. Is Even Worse Than You’ve Been Led to Believe
- Loan to Jared Kushner raises questions about California water project
- Lawlessness in (or by) the U.S.
- Trump’s Illegal War in Syria
- Harsh words and a lawsuit: Trump and California at war
- Trump, Sanctuary Cities and States Rights — great 20-minute podcast “What Trump Can Teach Us about Constitutional Law:”
- Trump killing Medicaid — without changing the law
- Needless and Ideologically-Driven Cruelty’: Arkansas to Become First State to Implement Trump’s Assault on Medicaid
- Obama’s Executive Orders Longer And More Restrictive Than Previous Administrations
- Jeff Sessions Has a Huge Conflict of Interest in a Federal Bribery Case—and It Keeps Getting Worse
- America’s opioid crisis has become an “epidemic of epidemics”
- The Case For Safe Injection Sites In New York
- Note: for this to work, police would need to agree not to enforce the law
- The Case For Safe Injection Sites In New York
- Dems Team Up GOP to Weaken Bank Rules, Which Critics Say May Lead to More Bailouts & Misconduct
- Payday lenders, watchdog agency exhibit cozier relationship
- National Consensus For Progressive Transformational Change Grows
- Psychological studies show that fear is the difference between popular conservative vs liberal attitudes
- Amazon reportedly looks to offer checking accounts for customers via JP Morgan, other banks
- “According to a recent survey, 45% were comfortable using Amazon as their primary bank account”
- The Economy Is Looking Awfully Strong
- What do customers want? (we aren’t people anymore, we are customers)
- “At Adobe, we’ve honed in on what customers expect: They want brands to know and respect them, and predict and deliver what they want before they ask for it, all while respecting privacy.”. Does this make your skin crawl?
- Fringe loan use linked to risk of poor health
- See also previous postings: Structural racism and health inequities in the USA and Racism Is Literally Killing African-American Mothers
- US Holocaust museum retracts award to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi
- If the Nobel Peace Prize committee starts rescinding awards, who would lose them?
- ACLU Accuses U.S. of Broadly Separating Immigrant Families
- North Korea Hails ‘Openhearted Talk’ With South Korean Envoys
- International Women’s Day: ‘Millions’ join Spain strike
In need of some laughs, watch The Samaritans. A sitcom about an NGO that does nothing. Thanks Shira
From the week of February 25 to March 3, 2018
Discussed on Sunday, for those of us who’d never heard it: Zombie by The Cranberries
- With Xi’s Power Grab, China Joins New Era of Strongmen
- Xi Jinping Thought Explained: A New Ideology for a New Era
- Xi’s Warning to Investors: Any Chinese Billionaire Could Fall
- Free-Market ideologues claim (and seem to receive) credit for the fact that millions of Chinese have risen from poverty. Is this there model of a free market?
- Monopolies and Monopsonies
- Amazon Doesn’t Just Want to Dominate the Market—It Wants to Become the Market
- Does Monopoly Power Explain Workers’ Stagnant Wages?
- Boeing Is Killing It by Squeezing Its Suppliers
- Bosses Rule Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It)
- for those of us who prefer podcasts, a good (long) interview of Elizabeth Anderson by Russ Roberts
- Concentrated Corporate Power and the Age of Monopoly David Dayen
- The Both Side–ism of Amy Chua
- for those of us who prefer podcasts, a good (long) interview of Amy Chua by Ezra Klein
- The Two Santa Claus Theory: Republican Strategy to Dismantle the Social Safety Net 10 minute video
- What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority.
- Global Capitalism Is the New Colonialism for Workers, and They Are Resisting
- Supreme Court to Take Up Anti-Union Janus Case This Term
- Puerto Rico Part 1: The Disaster is the Colony, FEMA is the problem + Aid On the Ground 30 minute video
- Coke, Nestle Near Ownership of World’s Second Largest Aquifer
- Rev. Billy Graham Lies in Honor at U.S. Capitol for Day of Remembrance
- National Identity Is Made Up
- Bernie Sanders Wants Congress to End U.S. Support for Yemen War.
- How Low Can Unemployment Really Go? Economists Have No Idea
- Worth noting that it is 2.4% in Japan and there is no visible inflation problem
- As the Strike Continues, West Virginia Students Stand by Their Teachers
- The Power of Youth Protest
From the week of February 18 to February 24
- Fight to get corporations to reveal political spending
- The scandal is what’s legal: The trial of Gov. Cuomo’s longtime aide reveals, again, the need to close Albany’s LLC loophole
- The Free Market Threat to Democracy Video interview. (Sorry, not the most captivating speaker, maybe the transcript it better).
- See also Piketty post from last week
- Assault Weapons Not Protected by Second Amendment, Federal Appeals Court Rules
- What Does Nikolas Cruz Have in Common With Other Mass Shooters? Ties to the Military
- The Mental Health Scapegoat
- Extreme Poverty in the US Is A Political Choice of the Powerful
- West Virginia’s Public Schools Closed Due To Teacher Walk-Out Over Pay
- Conservative Political Action Conference: We should know what we are up against.
- Why Won’t the EPA Watchdog Fully Investigate Pruitt?
- Old but noteworthy: The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The U.S. Public
- ‘Low-Yield’ Nukes Are a Very High Threat
- How Do You Teach Slavery?
- Citi to Refund $330 Million to Credit Card Customers It Overcharged, again
- Racism Is Literally Killing African-American Mothers
- The 28-Hour Work Week
- Behind the Explosion in Socialism Among American Teens
From the week of February 11 to February 17
- Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere.
- At the heart of Canada’s fentanyl crisis, extreme efforts that U.S. cities may follow
- On The Media: Blame it on the Alcohol 1 hr podcast
- How 30 Knowledgeable People Would Spend $100 Billion to Address the Opioid Crisis
- Dems Oppose Trump’s Military Parade But Not the Bipartisan Warfare State Podcast with transcript
- Urging Peace Talks, Open Letter From Taliban Asks American People to Recognize Total Failure of 16-Year War
- ICE’s Top Lawyer In Seattle Has Been Charged With Stealing Immigrants’ Identities
- He was doing just what Trump is doing — profiting off the oppressed — just on a much smaller scale
- Trump Administration Wants To Decide What Food SNAP Recipients Will Get
- CREW calls for investigation into Ben Carson for misuse of office
- Ajit Pai faces investigation into moves that benefit Sinclair Broadcasting
- Unilever threatens to pull ads from Facebook and Google
- Ghosts of the Korean War: Is U.S. really protecting South Korea? Podcast
- Why Is It So Hard for Democracy to Deal With Inequality?
- The Dirty Secret Behind Warren Buffett’s Billions
- Immigration effort to protect Dreamers collapses in US Senate
- Donald Trump, running campaign ads, calling Dems complicit in murders by immigrants
- Even some on the right think that goes too far
- Though, many on right, including Breitbart seem not to
- Cy Vance Has a $734 Million Slush Fund of Forfeiture Cash
- AG Jeff Sessions: Expand Unconstitutional Forfeiture Programs
- Sometimes, the libertarians are on the right side of an issue, it seems Sessions never is
- Oklahoma schools go on 4-day weeks so teachers can work at Walmart on Mondays to make rent
- South Africa’s Jacob Zuma resigns after pressure from party
From the week of February 4 to February 10
- Criminal Justice Reform Empties Cells, Parole Fills Them Up Again
- Who’s Able-Bodied Anyway? The 400-year history of how we talk about the deserving versus the undeserving poor.
- Gig economy
- How Airbnb’s Is Gentrifying Six Cities
- South Africa’s Jacob Zuma could quit within days – ANC
- The Nunes-Ryan Civil Liberties Sham The important background to the “memo” kerfuffle
- David Cay Johnston and Greg Palast on voter suppression and deregulation across US government agencies:
- What Pennsylvania’s Landmark Partisan Gerrymandering Ruling Means
- Vulnerable fear Cape Town’s water shut-off
- Trump’s environment chief Scott Pruitt suggests climate change could be good for humanity
- Trump’s draft plan to punish legal immigrants for sending US-born kids to Head Start
- State Waivers As A National Policy Lever: The Trump Administration, Work Requirements, And Other Potential Reforms In Medicaid
- CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney is Trying to Put the “Con” in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Trump Says He Will Focus On Opioid Law Enforcement, Not Treatment
- Big Pharma buys influence in opioid policy
From the week of January 28 to February 3, 2018
- The Housing Not Warehousing Act
- Puerto Rico to Privatize Public Power & Schools (long Podcast)
- Puerto Rico’s New Power Struggle: Privatization (11 minute video or read transcript)
- Before the Deluge How Washington sealed Puerto Rico’s fate More depth and context
- Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble Could blockchain democratize the internet?
- Hate of the Union Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill discuss Trump State of the Union. Podcast: discussion starts at 2:30 and goes for about 12 minutes.
- Huge Military Budgets Make Us Broke, Not Safe
- ‘Disaster Capitalism Disguised as Progress’: Critics Rip Trump Infrastructure Plan
- U.S. becomes world’s second biggest tax haven But will Trump settle for #2? MAGA.
- What to make of Amazon, Chase, and Warren Buffett’s mystery health care project
- Newly Defanged, Top Consumer Protection Agency Drops Investigation of Predatory Lender
- Trump signs order to keep Guantanamo Bay detention center open
- The Most Important Thing Trump Said That No One Is Talking About These “conservatives” don’t seem to think the Constitution matters. If they are right about this, it is very frightening.
- A totally unnecessary and costly Crisis In Community Health. Another essential service held hostage for political ends.
- African governments’ actions push people into extremism, study finds
- How an ex-YouTube insider investigated its secret algorithm
- Florida’s lifetime ban on voting by felons is unconstitutional, federal judge rules
- Wells Fargo Banned From Growing by Fed After Repeat Scandals
From the week of January 21 to January 27
- Paul Ryan Collected $500,000 In Koch Contributions Days After House Passed Tax Law
- Obamacare didn’t get repealed — so why did the uninsured rate still go up?
- Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs (in case you didn’t read it last week)
- Schumer Sells Out the Resistance
- Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke Held Onto Undisclosed Shares In Gun Company
- Puerto Rico moves to privatize troubled power company
- A year into his presidency, Trump is breaking one of his big ethics pledges
- Flint emergency manager order repealed, city officially in control of finances
- David Frum on why Republicans chose Trumpocracy over democracy
- Chelsea Manning files for U.S. Senate run
- Democrats Who Approved ‘Greedy Big Pharma CEO’ for HHS Secretary Should Be Ashamed: Critics
- U.S. troops could be in Syria indefinitely. (Video or transcript)
- A Syria Plan That Breaks the Law Even Cory Booker thinks this is illegal without Congressional authorization — which they don’t have
- US stealth bombers in Guam appear to be readying for a tactical nuclear strike on North Korea
- Something else Congress should be debating
- Turkey invades Syria to attack US-backed Kurdish forces
- Syrian, Russian, Turkish, Kurdish and American troops in Syria. Well this end well? Will this end?
- The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem
From the week of January 14 to January 20, 2018
- Corporate power
- Forget Consumer Welfare. This Antitrust Movement Targets Power Instead
- See also postings #3, #4 and #7 from last week
- Mistreatment of immigrants
- “America is home”: How Trump’s immigration policies are upending Somali lives in the U.S.
- Trump’s attacks on humanitarian immigration just became a full-blown war — He’s trying to force 260,000 immigrants to return to El Salvador after more than a decade living and working legally in the United States.
- The Department of Justice Is Considering Arresting Sanctuary City Politicians
- Immigrant advocate Ravi Ragbir headed back to detention in NY area as community continues to rally
- A Michigan father, too old for DACA, is deported after three decades in the U.S.
- Drugs:
- The Wrong Way to Treat Opioid Addiction
- Reposted: Addiction Inc: Marketing wizards and urine-testing millionaires: Inside the lucrative business of America’s opioid crisis.
- How Europe’s heroin capital solved its overdose crisis
- HuffPost, Breaking From Its Roots, Ends Unpaid Contributions
- Children’s health insurance has become a political hostage
- Citing police torture, judge orders convicted murderer freed
- David Cay Johnston: Trump is Determined to Provoke War to Draw Focus from Racist & Erratic Behavior (Video interview)
- Nuclear Posture Review draft leaks; new weapons coming amid strategic shift
- Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs
- Gallup: Number of uninsured Americans rose by 3.2 million last year
- A Year On, Trump Admin Refuses to Drop Charges Against 59 Arrested at Inauguration Protest
- It’s time for Philly to invest in Philly: proposal for public bank and investment
- Government shutdown 2018: here’s what could happen: Congress is barreling toward a government shutdown deadline.
- Puerto Rico shows what it is like without a functional government
From the week of January 7 to January 13, 2018
- Immigration Rights Activist Ravi Ragbir Detained at ICE Check-in Amid Protest, Police Violence
- This is the kind of bail out we need
- Podcast America’s Monopoly Problem — (curated by Best of the Left)
- Podcast Fight for anti-trust
- Podcast Changing how we understand the purpose of anti-monopoly laws
- Podcast Breaking Down The American Monopoly
- Podcast The need to dismantle monopoly and reclaim our property
- Podcast Platform capitalism and the birth of global monopolies
- Podcast It’s time for a third American Revolution to beat back the monopolies
- Long read: America Has a Monopoly Problem—and It’s Huge
- Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least?
- Where Are We with CHIP Now?
- Podcast Who’s regulating whom?
- Trump Administration Sides With Employers Over Workers On Arbitration Agreements
- How redlining segregated Philadelphia
- Racial Amnesia in America
- How climate change web content is being censored in the Tump Administration
- Is Anyone On the Side of the Congolese Now?
- Catherine Deneuve and others denounce the-#MeToo movement.html
- In ToxicDocs.org, a Treasure Trove of Industry Secrets
- The Insane Plan to Give North Korea a ‘Bloody Nose’
- Martin Luther King, Jr.: Beyond Vietnam speech
From the week of December 31, 2017 to January 6, 2018
- Structural racism and health inequities in the USA
- The Right is Waging War on Academic Freedom
- 987 people killed by the police in U.S. in 2017 let’s work for a better 2018
- Report: Blacks in Boston Have a Median Net Worth of $8, Whites Have $247K
- Universalizing Resistance: To Fight Trump, Fight the System
- The Supreme Court’s Quiet Assault on Civil Rights
- The Death Toll in Puerto Rico is Still Rising
- Trump Justice Department Pushes for Citizenship Question on Census, Alarming Experts
- An SF city bank is not only possible — it’s a great idea, budget analyst concludes
- Repeating from last week when we deferred discussion: China Snares Innocent and Guilty Alike to Build World’s Biggest DNA Database
- Iran protests:
- How will the US move to cut aid affect Pakistan?
- Luck of the draw helps Republicans hold Virginia House
- Large real estate donations find their way into both ends of New York City Council speaker race
- A Year in Trump Corruption
- Led by the Mercers, Bannon’s allies abandon him
- Sexual or financial misconduct is OK. Disloyalty or proposing raising taxes is not
- 1968 The Strike that Brought MLK to Memphis
- Have things changed? “I AM a Man” mirrored in “Black Lives Matter”
- Video – The Price of Social Change: Why California Is Paying Gun Offenders
Earlier items
Second half of 2017
First half of 2017
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