News July 2015

From the week of July 19th to July 25th, 2015

1. Occupy Summer School Protest
2. What?!? Private prisons suing states for millions if they don’t stay full
3. PROP is working to reform NYPD
4. Should Greece Leave the Euro?
5. Dodd Frank needs reforming
6. Fed requires mega banks to hold extra capital (but not enough)
7. Socialism, American-Style
8. The end of capitalism has begun
9. Bank of America Replaces Its Chief Financial Officer as Part of a Shake-Up
10. BRICS
    •  BRICS bank opens for operations in Shanghai
    • What the new bank of BRICS is all about
    • The trillion-dollar club

From the week of July 12 to July 18, 2015

1. Occupy Summer School teaches teens how to protest
2. Some reform to NY City’s bail system but still a long way to go. We are still putting people in jail for being poor. In our Alice and Wonderland justice system, people get punished first, have a trial later — or plead guilty to get out of jail.
3. Poverty, Race, Equality:
   • President Obama pushes for reduced prison sentences
   • Bill Clinton regrets ‘three strikes’ bill
   • Possible To Let More People Out Of Prison, Keep Crime Down?
   • Obama’s Numbers (July 2015 Update)
4. Money and Politics: 2016 Presidential Fundraising
5. Equality: California’s Professional Cheerleaders Entitled to Minimum Wage
6. Puerto Rico:
   • Useful context for Puerto Rico debt problem.
   • Puerto Rico can’t pay its debt, the United States is partly to blame
   • In Campaign Move, Donald Trump to Buy Puerto Rico (the only context in which to discuss this racist clown!!!)
7. Greece:
   • To stay in the euro, Tsipras must jettison every promise he made to voters
   • Blockupy goes Athens, 12 July2015 (12.00, Berlin)
   • Tsipras has been an abysmal failure
   • #ThisIsACoup Greeks denounce bailout deal
   • The Guardian: it solves nothing and holds many dangers
   • IMF Warns Eurozone That Greece Needs Far More Debt Relief
   •  Lapavitsas Calls for Exit for Greek People (Video& Transcript)
   • Reforms ‘will fail’ – Varoufakis

From the week of July 5 to July 11, 2015

1. Greek people stand firm. Decisive “NO” vote against Troika
   • Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy
   • Piketty: ‘Germany Has Never Repaid its Debts. It Has No Right to Lecture Greece’
   • Has Tsipris Capitulated?
2. Puerto Rico:
   • US Partly to Blame for Puerto Rico Debt Crisis
   • Puerto Rico’s ‘unpayable’ debt: is this the Greece of the western hemisphere?
3. I know, our corrupt political system is old news but this is worth seeing, sharing.
   • Payments from lobbyists to state legislators, reporter tries to blow whistle; gets escorted out by police
   • Obama can get dark money out of politics with a swipe of his pen Well, I wish it were so easy. But, he could help shed some light on it — if only he wanted to do so.
4. Elizabeth Warren allies delay Obama’s SEC pick
5. Google’s algorithm shows prestigious job ads to men, but not to women.
   • And probably just to white men as this Harvard study documents racial discrimination, too
6. Former Attorney General Eric Holder completes trip through revolving door by returning to corporate law firm

From the week of June 28 to July 4, 2015

1. We agreed to listen to these two videos to discuss on Sunday
   • John Oliver explains how bail system punishes poor people without trial.
   • How Our Government Created Ghettos
2. Our speakers from last Sunday have started a web site myusueragreement.com to try to organize collective resistance to corporate use of our data.
3. One more example of “marble columns” and how laws are ignored by elites
   • FEC and the breakdown of the rule of law
4. To dispel the notion that the Supreme Court had turned into a force for good, they decided health considerations are not a valid reason to reduce the mercury we breathe. It must be measured in dollars and cents.
5. Scott has posted a book review comparing Engel’s organizing to OWS. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. But, can those do who know history make progress? We hope so.
6. Good to see Occupy getting some favorable notice. But this article would have been much better if they bothered to speak to people in the many offshoots of Occupy that are still working. Please contribute information about them on this Wikipedia page which is woefully incomplete.
7. Not much attention being paid to Puerto Rico, why?
   1. More coverage here and here
8. Race talk and white fragility.
9. Of course, nothing is true until NPR “discovers” it.  Still, Ta-Nehisi Coates is just one of the most recent of many folks who have been digging into local, state and the federal government’s complicity regarding segregation for years.
10. We need a poet.
11. Economy distress here and abroad
    • Turmoil worsens in Greece
    • Stocks drop in China
    • Puerto Rico on brink of default
    • So is Illinois
12. Should we target happiness instead of GDP growth?
    • See our page on alternatives to GDP