New and Noteworthy 2018

We are renaming / reorganizing as Occupy The Future.  For more information about the group, see About Us
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We are considering organizing a conference on inequality in the fall. Discussion and readings are posted here. Please comment on how you think we could contribute effectively on the topic.

From the week of May 20 to May 26
From the week of May 13 to May 19
  1. Airbnb caused NYC renters to pay an extra $616M in 2016, comptroller says
  2. Racist New Yorker Threatens to Call ICE Over Employees Speaking Spanish
  3. Key Democrats Back Gina Haspel’s Confirmation as CIA Director, Despite Her Record on Torture
    1. McCain is rolling over in his hospital bed
  4. Let’s Not Forget How Wrong Our Crime Data Are
  5. Shira:Census Data Could Be Used to Target the Undocumented
  6. ‘Black Mark in Our History’: Six Democrats Join GOP to Confirm Torturer Gina Haspel as CIA Chief
  7. Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.’
  8. Merkley Proposes Plan to Curb President’s War Powers
  9. U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre
  10. Taking Steps Toward Public Options for Banking
  11. ‘Uphill Battle,’ But Net Neutrality Defenders Say Victory in House Possible
  12. CFPB Chief Mick Mulvaney Wants To Shut Public Access To Consumer Complaints Database

From the week of May 6 to May 12

  1. Privacy  (first story is repeated from last week — we selected as discussion topic but didn’t get to it)
  2. “Slavery Is A Choice” Kanye West FULL Interview on TMZ Live
  3. House-flipping is destroying NYC neighborhoods
  4. Iran nuclear deal: Trump pulls US out in break with European allies
  5. Why Iran and Israel Are Clashing in Syria
  6. Occupation at New School escalates
  7. 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
  8. Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse
  9. Inequality:
  10. CIA goes on propaganda campaign for Gina Haspel
  11. The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant The link between immigration and crime exists in the imaginations of Americans, and nowhere else.
  12. 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’
  13. Progressives are lining up behind a jobs guarantee—but leaving the details for later.
    • See also the prior week
From the week of April 29 to May 5
  1. Privacy
  2. Injustice Today: New Federal Prison Policies May Put Books and Email on Ice
  3. Migrant Caravan, After Grueling Trip, Reaches U.S. Border. Now the Really Hard Part.
  4. Yemen: The war we are quietly waging
  5. The Trump administration just sent a dark, threatening message to Kim Jong Un
  6. Job Guarantee: Pro, Con, Discussion of implementation:
  7. Banking on denial: the investment rush to climate catastrophe
  8. Wall Street’s Least Favorite Regulator Is Calling It Quits more accurately, he was forced out
  9. Liberal Totalitarianism
  10. 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.
  11. 232 253 370 people have been shot and killed by police in 2018  (as of 5/3/2018)
  12. Congress killing CFPB anti-discrimination rule: How industry lobbying works: When no one else is paying attention, rules are rewritten
  13. Doctors, Unlike Teachers, Do Well in the Modern Economy Because They Don’t Face Foreign Competition
  14. Trump Administration Ends Protected Status for Thousands of Hondurans
  15. Rebecca Solnit: Whose Story (and Country) Is This? On the Myth of a “Real” America
From the week of April 22 to April 28
  1. Immigrants and refugees
  2. U.S. involvement in wars
  3. Democracy Now’s “Alt Media” Platform for Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria
  4. Major Cuomo Supporters Don’t Want a Democratic State Senate
  5. Republicans rigged our democracy. Here’s how Democrats can fight back
  6. After Mulvaney Admitted Selling Access to Lobbyists in Congress, Warren Wants to Know If He’s Doing the Same at CFPB
  7. How Politicians Use Nonprofits to Hide Dark Money
  8. How Black Students Helped Lead the 1968 Columbia U. Strike Against Militarism & Racism 50 Years Ago
  9. Armenian PM Sargsyan resigns after week of mass protests
  10. Who gets to picture and narrate Africa?
  11. Bernie Sanders to announce plan to guarantee every American a job
  12. Flint crisis, four years on: what little trust is left continues to wash away
  13. Documenting Martin Luther King, Jr. If anyone has a link to the actual program, please let us know
  14. Lynching Memorial In Alabama Remembers The Victims Of Unacknowledged Terror
  15. Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class
  16. Challenging Capitalism through Workers’ Control
  17. Why It’s So Important to Save the Iran Nuke Deal
  18. Pompeo, Koch’s top recipient, confirmed as secretary of state
  19. Scott Pruitt ousted EPA science advisers. Now he’s going after the science itself.
  20. Bayer, Monsanto deal on track for U.S. approval by end of May
  21. Ghana, Kenya and Malawi to pilot world’s first malaria vaccine
  22. In ‘Tremendous’ Steps Toward Peace, North and South Korea Vow to End War and Pursue a Nuclear-Free Peninsula
From the week of April 15 to April 21
  1. Public schools
  2. FEMA: Puerto Rico running out of time as storm season nears
  3. Protesters demand firing of Philly Starbucks manager following arrests of two black men
  4. 2018 Women Run Funds Outperform Funds Run by Men
  5. Is America the main obstacle to peace in Korea?
  6. U.S. Bombing Syria:
  7. The Corker-Kaine Bill Would Codify, not End, the Forever War
  8. Cuomo Attends Uptown IDC Fundraiser, Gets Bashed By Protesters
  9. Gun Violence Debate Needs to Include Police Militarization and Drug Prohibition Violence
  10. Republican Farm Bill Calls On Many SNAP Recipients To Work Or Go To School
  11. Congress just broke the Internet (20 minute podcast).
  12. Charles Blow rips into Trump’s ‘breeding’ tweet — and explains why it is dangerous for minorities
  13. 75% of the ultra-rich forecast a US recession in the next two years, survey finds
  14. Wells Fargo slammed with $1B fine
  15. Jacobin Magazine: Bitcoin: The Dumb Money
  16. Sexual Harassment Was Rampant at Coachella 2018
  17. New Actors Could Be Drawn into Israel’s Coming War With Hezbollah
  18. Labour would rip up definition of affordable housing, Corbyn says
  19. Fresno State Professor’s Barbara Bush-Bashing Tweets Have University Donors On Edge
  20. “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

  1. Syrian Air Strikes — and U.S. ban on Syrian refuguees
  2. “The nations of the world can be judged by the friends that they keep,” Donald Trump
  3. Remembering Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
  4. We’re Keeping Track of All of  Some of Facebook’s Scandals
  5. Who Does She Think She Is?
  6. Did Great Recession Hurt Student Learning?
  7. Obamacare: NJ lawmakers vote to bring back health insurance mandate
  8. Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
  9. The Day After Trump’s ICE Raid in a Small Tennessee Town, 550 Kids Stayed Home From School
  10. How Marketing Propaganda Hacks Our Brains:  The Difference between Pleasure and Happiness
  11. NYU Student Activists Occupy Building Demanding Fossil Fuel Divestment
  12. Puerto Rico’s blackout is now the second largest on record worldwide

From the week of April 1 to April 7

  1. Housing and homelessness
  2. Hunger And Homelessness Are Widespread Among College Students, Study Finds
  3. American Bombs Falling on Yemen
  4. Martin Luther Kings’ message:
  5. Let NY Vote
  6. Suddenly Progressive Andrew Cuomo Ends The IDC
  7. Don’t let the state pick our pockets to fund transit
  8. How America’s Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump’s War On The Media
  9. Settlement Reached in NYPD Muslim Surveillance Lawsuit
  10. Muslims Accused of Plotting Violence Get Seven Times More Media Attention and Four Times Longer Sentences
  11. On the Media: We, the Liberators
  12. Saheed Vassell Locals Knew He Was Mentally Ill. The Officers Who Shot Him Did Not.
  13. How Teens from Chicago’s South SIde Are Standing with Parkland Survivors
  14. Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest
  15. Lunatic Loose In West Wing
  16. Kentucky, Oklahoma teachers rally as rebellion grows over education cuts

From the week of March 25 to March 31

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.

  1. Puerto Rico teachers walk out to protest privatization
  2. Across the globe, cash transfers to the poor, including welfare and basic income, increase labor participation.
  4. Saudi Crown Prince—’Socially Acceptable War Criminal’—Enjoys US Tour Hosted by America’s Elite
  5. Stopping War Pusher John Bolton, Trump’s Choice for National “Insecurity” Advisor
  6. A 13-Year-Old Boy and Other Yemeni Civilians Were Killed in U.S. Drone Strikes This Month
  7. The Public Internet Option How Local Governments Can Provide Network Neutrality, Privacy, and Access for All
  8. Trump fires Secretary for VA, in a tweet, for obstructing privatization of VA health system (and perhaps for overall competence)
  9. The Real Problem with Gina Haspel’s CIA Nomination
  10. The Bear Stearns Bailout, Ten Years Later
  11. Food contribution to climate change — McDonald’s as a global polluter
  12. Big new study on inequality shows, adjusting for everything, systemic racism a huge factor, especially for black men
  13. The Growing College Graduation Gap
  14. Sympathy for White Austin Bomber Stirs Debate About Race, Debate?
  15. Oklahoma Teachers Win Pay Raise, But Say Strike Will Proceed to Challenge ‘Decade of Neglect’
  16. Progress with “all deliberate speed”: Plaque honoring Jefferson Davis removed at Kentucky Capitol but statue remains
  17. 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.
  18. Government takeover that doesn’t get as much attention as Stormy Daniels
  19. When Smug Liberals Met Conservative Trolls
  20. Some courts still working
  21. How the Denver DSA Convinced the Local Democratic Party to Endorse Socialism in Its Platform
  22. Guns and Butter Podcast
  23. Gaza protests

From the week of March 18 to March 24

  1. Data breach and how elections were manipulated
  2. Behind Janus: Documents Reveal Decade-Long Plot to Kill Public-Sector Unions
  3. China to bar people with bad ‘social credit’ from planes, trains
  4. Whistleblowers Sue NYC’s Top Health Insurance Providers
  5. Trump threatens to veto govt. spending over lack of wall funding, DACA fix
  6. It’s Time to Transform the War Economy
  7. ‘Neglect and Bureaucracy’: Six Months After Maria, Trump Condemned for Failed Response in Puerto Rico
  8. Trump offers tough talk, few details in opioid plan
  9. People are dying because we misunderstand how those with addiction think
  10. Understanding the causes and cures of the opioid crisis Compilation by Best of the Left
  11. Ex-FBI agent McCabe condemns ‘unhinged attacks’ by Trump
  12. Demands for Federal Probe as Saudi Crown Prince Reportedly Claims Kushner ‘In His Pocket’
  13. With Vote Looming, Anti-War Groups Call on Nation to Demand Congress End US-Backed Slaughter in Yemen
  14. Trump’s Talk Worries Me, Like the Talk Before the Iraq War
  15. China Says US Warship Sailing Near Spratly Islands Is “Severe Provocation”
  16. Trump’s China tariffs get bipartisan support, reflecting widespread U.S. disillusionment with Beijing
  17. It took 3 weeks, and 2 American deaths, for Trump to speak out about Austin bombings
  18. Stephon Clark shooting: How police opened fire on an unarmed black man holding a cellphone
  19. JPMorgan Facing Shareholder Backlash Over Oil Sands Financing
  20. 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
  21. 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

  1. The Role of Private Investment in Rebuilding Puerto Rico  20-minute radio segment (available as podcast)
  2. The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State
  3. Trump taps torturer to head CIA
  4. Top cannabis regulator says Massachusetts should create a state Public Bank
  5. The Lessons of West Virginia Teachers’ historic wildcat teacher strike has the potential to change everything.
  6. A New Report Has Some Grim News About American Newborns
  7. Senate Marks 10th Anniversary of Historic Collapse of Bear Stearns By Deregulating Big Banks, Increasing Likelihood of Another Crash
  8. 1 Million Students Walk Out of 3,000+ Schools to Protest Gun Violence
  9. Cuomo crony convicted of accepting bribes
  10. For Trump, Cruelty Is the Point of the immigration policy and arguably other policy, too
  11. Seven days in March: The Trump administration and the breakdown of American democracy
  12. GOP Confronts Another Failed Tax Experiment in Oklahoma
  13. Ex-CIA officers running for Congress as Democrats
  14. 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.
  15. Philadelphia’s New Top Prosecutor Is Rolling Out Wild, Unprecedented Criminal Justice Reforms
  16. 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

  1. West Virginia Teachers Win Pay Raise After Four-Day Walkout, But Say Fight Far From Over
  2. Xi Sets China on a Collision Course With History
  3. Donald Trump: Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win ???
  4. Italy’s voters issue warning to Europe
  5. Corporate Personhood:
  6. Union-busting case argued in Supreme Court Same podcast as above: first 25 minutes
  7. Income Inequality in the U.S. Is Even Worse Than You’ve Been Led to Believe
  8. Loan to Jared Kushner raises questions about California water project
  9. Lawlessness in (or by) the U.S.
  10. America’s opioid crisis has become an “epidemic of epidemics”
  11. Dems Team Up GOP to Weaken Bank Rules, Which Critics Say May Lead to More Bailouts & Misconduct
  12. Payday lenders, watchdog agency exhibit cozier relationship
  13. National Consensus For Progressive Transformational Change Grows
  14. Psychological studies show that fear is the difference between popular conservative vs liberal attitudes
  15. 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”
  16. The Economy Is Looking Awfully Strong
  17. 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?
  18. Fringe loan use linked to risk of poor health
  19. 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?
  20. ACLU Accuses U.S. of Broadly Separating Immigrant Families
  21. North Korea Hails ‘Openhearted Talk’ With South Korean Envoys
  22. 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

Discussed on Sunday, for those of us who’d never heard it:   Zombie by The Cranberries

  1. With Xi’s Power Grab, China Joins New Era of Strongmen
  2. Monopolies and Monopsonies
  3. The Both Side­–ism of Amy Chua
  4. The Two Santa Claus Theory: Republican Strategy to Dismantle the Social Safety Net 10 minute video
  5. What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority.
  6. Global Capitalism Is the New Colonialism for Workers, and They Are Resisting
  7. Supreme Court to Take Up Anti-Union Janus Case This Term
  8. Puerto Rico Part 1: The Disaster is the Colony, FEMA is the problem + Aid On the Ground 30 minute video
  9. Coke, Nestle Near Ownership of World’s Second Largest Aquifer
  10. Rev. Billy Graham Lies in Honor at U.S. Capitol for Day of Remembrance
  11. National Identity Is Made Up
  12. Bernie Sanders Wants Congress to End U.S. Support for Yemen War.
  13. 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
  14. As the Strike Continues, West Virginia Students Stand by Their Teachers
  15. The Power of Youth Protest

From the week of February 18 to February 24

  1. Fight to get corporations to reveal political spending
  2. The scandal is what’s legal: The trial of Gov. Cuomo’s longtime aide reveals, again, the need to close Albany’s LLC loophole
  3. 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
  4. Assault Weapons Not Protected by Second Amendment, Federal Appeals Court Rules
  5. What Does Nikolas Cruz Have in Common With Other Mass Shooters? Ties to the Military
  6. The Mental Health Scapegoat
  7. Extreme Poverty in the US Is A Political Choice of the Powerful
  8. West Virginia’s Public Schools Closed Due To Teacher Walk-Out Over Pay
  9. Conservative Political Action Conference: We should know what we are up against.
  10. Why Won’t the EPA Watchdog Fully Investigate Pruitt?
  11. Old but noteworthy: The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The U.S. Public
  12. ‘Low-Yield’ Nukes Are a Very High Threat
  13. How Do You Teach Slavery?
  14. Citi to Refund $330 Million to Credit Card Customers It Overcharged, again
    1. Citibank to refund $700 million to credit card customers for unfair and deceptive practices
  15. Racism Is Literally Killing African-American Mothers
  16. The 28-Hour Work Week
  17. Behind the Explosion in Socialism Among American Teens

From the week of February 11 to February 17

  1. Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere.
  2. At the heart of Canada’s fentanyl crisis, extreme efforts that U.S. cities may follow
  3. On The Media: Blame it on the Alcohol 1 hr podcast
  4. How 30 Knowledgeable People Would Spend $100 Billion to Address the Opioid Crisis
  5. Dems Oppose Trump’s Military Parade But Not the Bipartisan Warfare State Podcast with transcript
  6. Urging Peace Talks, Open Letter From Taliban Asks American People to Recognize Total Failure of 16-Year War
  7. 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
  8. Trump Administration Wants To Decide What Food SNAP Recipients Will Get
  9. CREW calls for investigation into Ben Carson for misuse of office
  10. Ajit Pai faces investigation into moves that benefit Sinclair Broadcasting
  11. Unilever threatens to pull ads from Facebook and Google
  12. Ghosts of the Korean War: Is U.S. really protecting South Korea?  Podcast
  13. Why Is It So Hard for Democracy to Deal With Inequality?
  14. The Dirty Secret Behind Warren Buffett’s Billions
  15. Immigration effort to protect Dreamers collapses in US Senate
  16. Donald Trump, running campaign ads, calling Dems complicit in murders by immigrants
  17. Cy Vance Has a $734 Million Slush Fund of Forfeiture Cash
  18. Oklahoma schools go on 4-day weeks so teachers can work at Walmart on Mondays to make rent
  19. South Africa’s Jacob Zuma resigns after pressure from party

From the week of February 4 to February 10

  1. Criminal Justice Reform Empties Cells, Parole Fills Them Up Again
  2. Who’s Able-Bodied Anyway? The 400-year history of how we talk about the deserving versus the undeserving poor.
  3. Gig economy
  4. How Airbnb’s Is Gentrifying Six Cities
  5. South Africa’s Jacob Zuma could quit within days – ANC
  6. The Nunes-Ryan Civil Liberties Sham The important background to the “memo” kerfuffle
  7. David Cay Johnston and Greg Palast on voter suppression and deregulation across US government agencies:
  8. What Pennsylvania’s Landmark Partisan Gerrymandering Ruling Means
  9. Vulnerable fear Cape Town’s water shut-off
  10. Trump’s environment chief Scott Pruitt suggests climate change could be good for humanity
  11. Trump’s draft plan to punish legal immigrants for sending US-born kids to Head Start
  12. State Waivers As A National Policy Lever: The Trump Administration, Work Requirements, And Other Potential Reforms In Medicaid
  13. CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney is Trying to Put the “Con” in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  14. Trump Says He Will Focus On Opioid Law Enforcement, Not Treatment
  15. Big Pharma buys influence in opioid policy

From the week of January 28 to February 3

  1. The Housing Not Warehousing Act
  2. Puerto Rico to Privatize Public Power & Schools  (long Podcast)
  3. Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble Could blockchain democratize the internet?
  4. 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.
  5. Huge Military Budgets Make Us Broke, Not Safe
  6. ‘Disaster Capitalism Disguised as Progress’: Critics Rip Trump Infrastructure Plan
  7. U.S. becomes world’s second biggest tax haven But will Trump settle for #2?  MAGA.
  8. What to make of Amazon, Chase, and Warren Buffett’s mystery health care project
  9. Newly Defanged, Top Consumer Protection Agency Drops Investigation of Predatory Lender
  10. Trump signs order to keep Guantanamo Bay detention center open
  11. A totally unnecessary and costly Crisis In Community Health.  Another essential service held hostage for political ends.
  12. African governments’ actions push people into extremism, study finds
  13. How an ex-YouTube insider investigated its secret algorithm
  14. Florida’s lifetime ban on voting by felons is unconstitutional, federal judge rules
  15.  Wells Fargo Banned From Growing by Fed After Repeat Scandals

From the week of January 21 to January 27

  1. Paul Ryan Collected $500,000 In Koch Contributions Days After House Passed Tax Law
  2. Obamacare didn’t get repealed — so why did the uninsured rate still go up?
  3. Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs  (in case you didn’t read it last week)
  4. Schumer Sells Out the Resistance
  5. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke Held Onto Undisclosed Shares In Gun Company
  6. Puerto Rico moves to privatize troubled power company
  7. A year into his presidency, Trump is breaking one of his big ethics pledges
  8. Flint emergency manager order repealed, city officially in control of finances
  9. David Frum on why Republicans chose Trumpocracy over democracy
  10. Chelsea Manning files for U.S. Senate run
  11. Democrats Who Approved ‘Greedy Big Pharma CEO’ for HHS Secretary Should Be Ashamed: Critics
  12. U.S. troops could be in Syria indefinitely. (Video or transcript)
  13. US stealth bombers in Guam appear to be readying for a tactical nuclear strike on North Korea
    • Something else Congress should be debating
  14. 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?
  15. The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem

From the week of January 14 to January 20

  1. Corporate power
  2. Mistreatment of immigrants
  3.  Drugs:
  4. HuffPost, Breaking From Its Roots, Ends Unpaid Contributions
  5. Children’s health insurance has become a political hostage
  6. Citing police torture, judge orders convicted murderer freed
  7. David Cay Johnston: Trump is Determined to Provoke War to Draw Focus from Racist & Erratic Behavior (Video interview)
  8. Nuclear Posture Review draft leaks; new weapons coming amid strategic shift
  9. Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs
  10. Gallup: Number of uninsured Americans rose by 3.2 million last year
  11. A Year On, Trump Admin Refuses to Drop Charges Against 59 Arrested at Inauguration Protest
  12. It’s time for Philly to invest in Philly: proposal for public bank and investment
  13. Government shutdown 2018: here’s what could happen: Congress is barreling toward a government shutdown deadline.
  14. Puerto Rico shows what it is like without a functional government

From the week of January 7 to January 13

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

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

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

Earlier items

Second half of 2017
First half of 2017
Second half of 2016