New and Noteworthy, 1st half 2017

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From the week of June 25 to July 1   Happy Canada Day (150 years of near-autonomy)!

1. The most profound gap between Clinton and Sanders supporters wasn’t about policy
2. Donald Trump is reckless on Syria. It’s his most dangerous foreign policy folly.
   • And there is quite a lot of competition for “most dangerous folly” title
3. Hersh: Trump Ignored Intel Before Bombing Syria
   • White House ‘warning’ of ‘imminent threat of chemical attack in Syria’ is phoney. Here’s why
4. A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals
5. Supreme Court Will Hear Travel Ban Case
6. Republican Health Care Bill
   • The Latest CBO Report Shows Republicans Are Incapable of Crafting a Humane Health Care Bill
     • To think the Republicans would even try to be humane — He must be on opioids
   • CBO’s Obamacare Predictions: How Accurate?
   • Senate Republicans don’t have the votes on health care. Can they get them?
     • It’s looking bad for McConnell but don’t be lulled into thinking bill is dead
   • Will losing health insurance mean more U.S. deaths? Experts say yes
7. Trump has $35,000 a plate fundraiser.
8. Naomi Klein on Politically Reactive Podcast: No is not enough
   • Excellent interview with Naomi Klein starts 20 minutes in
9. Removal of EPA climate change web site is a declaration of war.
10. The end of globalization? — A BBC report looks at the future of trade.
    • Trump could start a trade war this week
    • Trump’s NAFTA ‘renegotiation’: A central battle in the class struggle
11. Tracking Trump’s Corporate Cronies
12. Sanders Has His Priorities Backwards; We Can’t Delay Medicare for All
    • Did Sen. Gillibrand just endorse Medicare for All?
13. ‘Russiagate’ May Be Collapsing as a Political Strategy
14. Seth Meyers on Private Prisons

From the week of June 18 to June 24

1. Treasury Department even more of a threat to Wall Street Reform than Congress
2. Emmanuel Macron wins majority in parliament
3. The scandal people should be outraged about is Trump’s (and Ryan’s) policy agenda, outright lies about what he would do
4. The U.S. just waded deeper into Syrian civil war
   • The U.S. Enters a New Phase in Syria
   • Resist This: the United States is at War With Syria
5. Killer Drones and the Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy
6. Rex Tillerson Admits U.S. Working Towards Regime Change In Iran
7. Movement to end bail
8. How Should We Engage the Democratic Party? Interview w/ Suzi Weissman of Democratic Socialists of America (first 20 minutes of podcast)
9. Hawaii could become the first state to offer its citizens universal basic income after bill passes through both houses of state legislature
10. Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government
11. Republican Healthcare Bill Gives Tax Cuts to the Rich by Gutting Safety Net for Poor & Middle Class
12. Jon Ossoff’s Georgia special election loss shows Democrats could use a substantive agenda
13. Barclay’s Bank charged with fraud during 2008 crisis but for the wrong reasons
14. This Juneteenth, End “US Way Of War”
15. Confirmation Bias vs Desirability Bias
16. Trump to allow pharma to get away with (even more) murder
17. Opioids, a Mass Killer We’re Meeting With a Shrug
    • Addiction Treatment Grew Under Obamacare. Now What?
18. Police killers acquitted
    • Swift Acquittal for Former Milwaukee Cop Charged in Shooting
    • Experts Criticize Police Actions on Video of Philando Castile Shooting
19. Wall St. Democrats vs. Working Class Democrats
20. CIA paid psychologists $81 million to devise brutal tactics for use on terror suspects, and they’re suing

From the week of June 11 to June 17

1. Kids Climate Lawsuit Heads to Trial
2. Ditch Both War Parties: Anti-War Coalition Maps Independent Course to Peace
   • Senate votes 98-2 to impose new sanctions on Iran and Russia
3. Emmanuel Macron’s party set for landslide in French parliamentary elections
4. Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) just launched Lynching in America – a new interactive website created in partnership with Google.This site brings together EJI’s extensive research and resulting data with the stories of lynching victims, as told by their descendants. Bryan Stevenson is the head of EJI.
5. The People Left Behind When Only the ‘Deserving’ Poor Get Help
6. Why Can’t America Solve the Hunger Problem? Answer: because we don’t want to. “SNAP has become a work support program. Work support programs used to be things like childcare. Now we’re subsidizing part of the cost of employment to companies.”
7. Code of Silence: How private companies hide flaws in the software that governments use to decide who goes to prison and who gets out.
8. London Fire Shows Why Britons Don’t Trust System
9. What’s Wrong With Letting Tech Run Our Schools: It’s politically and ethically fraught, with no proven upside.
10. Colin Kaepernick Is Being Blackballed by Billionaire NFL Owners. Here’s Why.
11. 5 people charged with manslaughter in Flint water crisis, including Michigan health chief
12. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos “Resets” Rules On For-Profit Colleges
13. Florida Bills Would Let Citizens Remove Textbooks That Mention Climate Change and Evolution
    • Other government workers are banned from mentioning climate change, why not teachers, too?
14. Health care activity and inactivity
    • Nevada’s legislature just passed a “radical” plan to let anybody sign up for Medicaid
      • Governor Sandoval vetoes bill creating ‘Medicaid for all’ health plan in Nevada
    • Survey: Physician Attitudes Shift To Single Payer
    • 50% of crowdsourcing is for medical expenses
    • Clock running out on NY Health Plan’s chances for passage in 2017
    • No one knows what the GOP senate health plan is, even Republicans
15. NY Times eliminates public editor
16. Senators Again Try To Restrain Kamala Harris’ Pursuit Of Truth At Senate Hearing
17. Ignoring humanitarian pleas, Senate approves Saudi arms deal
    • UN Urges Yemen Cease-Fire, Open Ports to Confront Cholera
18. The Steve Scalise shooting has already become a political football
    • Hannity: Bernie Sanders not responsible for shooting
    • Limbaugh: The New York Times, is
19. Roll-Back of Financial Regulations Has Nothing to do with Complexity or Boosting the Economy
20. The CIA paid psychologists $81 million to devise brutal tactics for use on terror suspects, and they’re suingw

From the week of June 4 to June 10

1. Trump Infrastructure Privatization Plan
   • Bernie Sanders releases a blistering report on Donald Trump’s infrastructure package
   • Preparing for Trump infrastructure privatization, Saudi’s fund Blackstone $40 Billion Infrastructure Fund Wall Street/Saudi/Trump collaboration. What could be bad about that?
2. Bryan Stephenson on why the opposite of poverty is justice
   • Podcast
   • Written synopsis
3. Kansas Republicans decide taxes can be too low
4. Tech Billionaires take over schools, experiment on children
5. How the Financial CHOICE Act Would Leave Consumers in Harm’s Way
   • Sign Occupy the SEC’s petition opposing Financial CHOICE act
6. The OECD says universal basic income could make poverty worse
7. John Oliver on Trump withdrawal from Paris Agreement
8. Greece Forced To Sell Public Water Utilities Under EU-Imposed Privatization Plan
9. Amid Divestment Protests, More Cities Explore Public Banks
10. Build and Fight: The Program and Strategy of Cooperation Jackson
11. ‘Dreadful night’ when Theresa May’s strong and stable fantasy evaporated
12. How House Bill Would Dismantle an Array of Dodd-Frank Reforms
13. Kenyans fear debt to China from railway project
14. Watch Out: You’re in Ai Weiwei’s Surveillance Zone

From the week of May 28 to June 3

1. How Compassion Becomes Contempt
2. You’re not going to change your mind A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest
3. Basic Income Works
4. Rev. Barber: America needs a new Poor People’s Campaign
5. FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights
6. The Committee for Better Banks is organizing to change the banking industry from the inside out.
7. National Jobs for All Coalition
8. Quitting the Paris climate agreement is a moral disgrace
   • How Was A Climate Crisis Denier Elected President of The United States? Here’s what we plan to do about it
9. Lisa Servon: How and Why to Leave Your Bank Lisa will be at Alternative Banking on June 11
10. California takes a step toward universal health care.
11. The Hunger Bonds Conflicts between morality and investment returns in Venezuela
    • Goldman Sachs Just Ignited the Venezuela ‘Hunger Bonds’ Movement
12. Wal-Mart Asks Employees to Deliver Packages on Their Way Home

From the week of May 21 to May 27

1. Related to Sunday’s speaker: Independent Democratic Conference head plans to keep partnership with Senate GOP strong
2. Trump’s cleverest trick is sounding stupid. Or is Trump just a circus distraction from the real dangers of his cabinet’s actions and the Republican Party’s plans?
3. 85% of Germany’s power just came from renewable energy, setting a new record
4. Jelani Cobb on Republicans and the Constitution Stealth effort to rewrite the constitution, funded by ALEC
5. Record Iran Vote Turnout Gives Rouhani a Big Mandate
6. Inequality: Live poor, die young
7. Funniest video ever produced by a central bank — and further proof, if any were needed, that Nordic economies are better!
8. Theresa May and U.K. Conservative Party repudiate Thatcherism (40 years too late): “We do not believe in untrammelled free markets. We reject the cult of selfish individualism.” Now, we need her act on it, and to convince Paul Ryan and his cronies.
9. How not to be monsters. As a follow-up to last week’s discussion, some alternatives to the Republican approach
   • Breaking with the capitalist orthodoxy
   • Socialist Party Points of Agreement
   • A New Social Compact
   • Principles of a Pluralist Commonwealth
10. Universal Healthcare Looks Increasingly Possible In New York State

From the week of May 14 to May 20

1. Heather Booth – She’s The Best Answer To Donald Trump That You Never Heard Of
2. Another inspiring story: Making Change: Rebecca Adamson
3. Russian money-laundering details remains in the dark as US settles fraud case
4. Don’t Grade Teachers With a Bad Algorithm
5. NBA Coach Popovich Slams Trump!
6. Aetna CEO in private meeting: “Single-payer, I think we should have that debate”
   • Dissecting Aetna’s surprising single-payer stance
7. Trump Heads to Saudi Arabia – Target Iran and Iraq?
8. Just in case you thought there was some limit on corporate power, Supreme Court to consider ratifying new corporate rights. Important to protect “U.S.” multinational v “racketeering” villagers.
   • Reposting this as an example of who really are racketeers. When You Thought Trade Deals Could Not Get Any Worse Enter — Wall Street
9. Trump doesn’t embody what’s wrong with Washington. Pence does.(and Ryan, and Gorsuch, and Schumer, and, McConnell, and Sessions and many, many others; that’s the problem).
10. National Security Adviser McMaster denies report on classified info Now Trump says its true. McMaster says he was there, it didn’t happen. He’s one of the guys who are supposed to be serious, competent, reliable.
11. A Whistle-Blower Tells of Health Insurers Bilking Medicare
12. New York’s Legislature Is On The Brink Of Passing Universal Health Care
    • New York Health Act Passes Assembly Senate will be much harder but possible if we work together
    • California is working on single-payer, too. Healthy California Act
13. Free Money … For Everyone UBI experiment in Kenya
14. Attorney General Jeff Sessions Has Just Doubled Down on the Immoral, Racist, and Counterproductive War on Drugs
15. Colin Kaepernick Vs. Systemic Oppression podcast
16. NAFTA Renegotiation Cannot Become Another Corporate Giveaway Alas, it can. But we need to work so it doesn’t and maybe even make some improvements.
17. Trump Cuts Student Aid to Feed School Privatization
18. Are We Monsters? We are a failed country because we have lost our compassion and sense of community.
19. How Our Tax Code Makes Inequality Worse
    • How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality
20. Trump and the art of the lie
21. Iran Holds Highly Contested Presidential Election

Activism Meeting at 2 pm on Sunday, May 14

In preparation for our Left Forum panel, Rob wrote a commentary on arguments for Universal Basic Income and Job Guarantee programs from various perspectives and Josh posted the bullet points, with some short comments. There are also other materials related to the subject on our page dedicated to the subject.

From the week of May 7 to May 13

1. Macron defeats Le Pen to become French president
2. ‘Financial CHOICE Act 2.0’ Rolling Back Consumer Protections Moves Forward. The bill would:
   • Disable the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
   • Increase risk of financial crisis
   • Remove fiduciary rule, Volcker rule, etc.
   • Create a huge impediment to new regulations
   • Put SEC and CFPB under Congress’s thumb
3. Healthcare is a moral issue first
   • NY State could pass a single-payer plan
4. Why do white working class people vote against their interests? They don’t.
5. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
   • Interview of Color of Law author Richard Rothstein
   • Further argument for reparations. Since the government discriminated, it should set things right.
   • Everyone Pays A Price For Segregation
6. In a victory for environmental activists, U.S. Senate votes to keep Obama-era methane rule
7. China to price energy in gold, displace dollar
8. Swiss working to stop leakers, not tax cheaters
9. Yanis Varoufakis: Basic Income Will Be a Major Part of Any Attempt to Civilize Capitalism (Video)
10. China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Protest
11. Universal, Single Payer Health Care has majority support in NY Assembly, needs one more vote in Senate
    • Videos about NY Health Act
12. Pro-Trump Sinclair Network Set to Become Nation’s Biggest Broadcaster as FCC Weakens Ownership Rules
13. The Scandal Hidden Behind Russia-gate
14. Republicans misstate, again and again on TV and at town halls, what’s in their health-care bill

From the week of April 30 to May 6

1. Sustainable activism
   • How to Sustain Your Activism
   • Sustainable activism: managing hope and despair in social movements
2. But, in this country, apparently even laughing at power has legal risks Woman convicted for laughing at Jeff Sessions
   • Video of the event makes it clear that:
     • Laugh was hardly noticeable and didn’t interrupt Shelby’s speech
     • Arrest of activist caused a minor disruption
   • Frightening that there was a prosecution and even more frightening that a jury would convict on this charge.
3. Robots:
   • Will Artificial Intelligence Be The Last Human Invention?
   • How the Robot Apocalypse Will Go Down
4. News on police shootings
   • Shooting of Black teen in Dallas suburb did not meet ‘our core values,’ police chief says
   • 333 killed by police in 2017 as of May 2
   • Would hate to see the statistic if killing Black teens were a core value.
   • Justice department won’t charge white officers in killing of Alton Sterling
   • Ex-officer pleads guilty in black man’s fatal shooting (Walter Scott case)
5. New York Landlords Exploit Loophole to Hike Rents Despite Freeze
6. Crackdown on immigrants:
   • Former Director of Anti-Immigration Group Set to Be Named Ombudsman at U.S. Immigration Agency
7. Inequality hurts democracy\
8. Mississippi is rejecting nearly all of the poor people who apply for welfare They’ve effectively abolished welfare
9. Is it time to break up Google?
   • Please note: Duck Duck Go is a good search engine that doesn’t track you
   • Firefox is better than Chrome
   • There are many other free email services besides gmail.
10. It’s not just Google. America has a monopoly problem no one talks about
    • Best I could find is Sen. Warren and others almost a year ago
    • Where are the free market advocates when we need them?
11. Save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    • Effort to “reform” Dodd Frank would:
      • Disable the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
      • Increase risk of financial crisis
      • Remove fiduciary rule, Volcker rule, etc.
      • Create a huge impediment to new regulations
      • Put SEC and CFPB under Congress’s thumb
    • The Wrong Choice Act Paves the Way Back to the Financial Crisis
    • But, CFPB did dodge a bullet in the budget deal
12. Republican Health Proposal Would Undermine Coverage for Pre-existing Conditions
13. Canada fought the war on science. Here’s how scientists won.
14. Puerto Rico to Seek Bankruptcy Protection
15. Brazilians Launch First General Strike in 2 Decades to Protest Austerity
16. These are all the people the Republican health care bill will hurt
17. Don’t Make Housing for the Poor Too Cozy, ScroogeCarson Warns
18. Harris County bail system unconstitutional
19. Kids Suing Trump Hope the Courts Step Up on Climate Change
    • There is hope for the younger generations (as long as the judges and the rest of us don’t let them down.
20. Locked up for being poor: the case against cash bail
21. Brazil: Explosive recordings implicate President Michel Temer in bribery inst corruption inquiry
    • Here is how Temer took power: “Parliamentary coup”: Impeachment of Brazil’s President Rousseff hands power to corrupt, unelected right wing

From the week of April 23 to April 29

1. First 100 days of Le Grand Orange
   • President Trump’s Corporate Government
   • Destroying the government from within
   • First 100 Days of Resistance Restored Our Faith in Democracy
   • Would Trump voters elect him now?
   • David Remnick has a lot to say about 45, none of it good
   • Judges interfering with persecution of immigrants and those who protect them
   • Making a case for impeachment Things will have to get much worse before this Congress considers it
2. Freedom House report on the state of democracy and freedom.not a pretty picture
   • There were setbacks in political rights, civil liberties, or both, in a number of countries rated “Free” by the report, including Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Tunisia, and the United States. 11th straight year of decline.
3. France’s best? hope against a far-right takeover is an inexperienced former banker
   • Fillon and Hamon, standard bearers of the established parties, came in 3rd and 5th with a combined 26% of vote. The communist beat Hamon soundly and nearly beat Fillon.
4. EPA’s Office of Science and Technology takes science out of mission statement
   • Also, any concern about the natural world is apparently gone
   • At least we can credit them with being honest about it, in this case.
5. Another reason (of many) we needed the March for Science:
   • Pesticide maker tries to kill risk study
6. The [Prison] System is Based on Profit
7. Maddow & Liberal Hawkishness on Russia, Iran
   • Written Critique:MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Sees a “Russia Connection” Lurking Around Every Corner
   • Short video Maddow Response & Liberal Hawkishness on Russia, Iran
8. The Poor Shouldn’t Pay for Punishment
9. More on our focus of Universal Basic Income, Jobs Guarantees and other measures to address poverty.
   • The Right Has No Answer For Automation Job Loss, But The Left Does (hat tip to Michael)
10. John Oliver on Ivanka and Jared
11. Cuomo’s Bait and Switch on “free” college
12. Why Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III Is Unfit to Be Attorney General
13. MIT Professor Says Top U.S. Officials Fabricated Intelligence to Justify Attacking Syria (and no, it’s not Noam Chomsky)
14. The Media Bubble Is Worse Than You Think
15. Even the libertarians have noticed that: Right-wing extremists are responsible for most terror attacks, Muslim extremists get most press coverage
16. CNN “expert” says that more carbon dioxide is good for the planet and compares the Paris climate agreement to appeasement of Hitler.
17. Panama Papers a year later giving Gerald another chance to say “Mossack Fonseca”
    • Will Trump end crackdown on dirty cash in luxury real estate?
      • Is the pope catholic?
      • Maybe this is how Trump plans to bring jobs to the U.S.
    • U.S. Economy: A Money Laundering Operation?
18. Trump tax “plan”
    1. Trump’s Much Hyped Tax Plan Is Basically the Words “I Want to Cut Taxes” Written on a Sheet of Paper
    2. This isn’t tax policy; it’s a Trump-led heist
    3. 6 Worst Things About Trump Tax Plan Note: old article but criticisms apply to current plan, too.

From the week of April 16 to April 22

1. Reversal of Justice Will Jeff Sessions Police the Police?
2. The American War on Drugs
3. Trump Administration Is Removing Climate Change Research from Government Websites
4. Our continuing discussion of UBI, Jobs Programs and other approaches to addressing jobs and poverty:
   • Supply-Side Economics, but for Liberals
   • False Promise of Universal Basic Income
5. When You Thought Trade Deals Could Not Get Any Worse Enter — Wall Street
6. Meet the conservative student activist who wants to ‘make campus great again’
7. Leading Democratic Candidate for New Jersey Governor Calls for State-Owned Public Bank
8. Climate Change
   • U.S. faces disgrace if Trump drops Paris climate pact
   • Coral Bleaching Ravages Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
   • Early Warning Signs of Global Warming: Coral Reef Bleaching
9. Behind the Carbon Curtain: How the Energy Corporatocracy Censors Science
10. I.R.S. Hires Private Debt Collectors
11. Preview of life in Trump/Pruitt/Ryan’s America: The Saga of North Carolina’s Contaminated Water

Recommended on topics we discussed last week

1. How the Press Gets Seduced By War
2. Taxes, Why So Tedious?

From the week of April 9 to April 15

Event: Exorcism Of The Purported NSA Spy Building In Tribeca On Saturday

1. When the robots take over, will there be jobs left for us?
2. Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With the Same Risk
3. What is “Brain Hacking”? Tech Insiders On Why You Should Care
4. New York State budget:
   • On Ethics, Cuomo Budget Entered Like a Lion and Emerged Like a Lamb (or a weasel?)
   • Housing and tax breaks
     • Affordable’ Housing Program Gives City Tax Break to Developers
     • Gov. Cuomo’s New Affordable Housing Proposal Would Make Some Rents Less Affordable
   • New York “Free” College for middle class plan
     • Cuomo claims New York Becomes Only State to Offer Free Four-Year College
     • The Gaps in New York’s Free-College Plan The students who need the most help least likely to receive it.
     • New York’s Free-Tuition Program Will Help Traditional, but Not Typical, Students
5. Syria
   • Trump’s Syria Strike Was Unconstitutional and Unwise
   • Trump Opposed Striking Syria In 2013 He was right (then). What he did now is unconstitutional
   • Journalist Alia Malek on What We’re Missing When We Talk About About Syria
     • Things that Trump wants to cut that could be funded from cost of 59 Tomahawks: Emergency Refugee Assistance Fund, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, U.S. Institute of Peace, U.S. Hazard and Safety Investigation Board, National African Fund, National Wildlife Refuge, Occupational Safety and Health Administration
6. How the Press Gets Seduced by War
7. You’re Not Mad at United Airlines, You’re Mad at America
   • Related Twitter Link
8. Mar-a-Lago Is Just the Start of Trump’s Ethical Mess
9. Trump on pace to surpass 8 years of Obama’s travel spending in 1 year
   • Trump’s spending spree on security is crazy
10. U.S., Mexico, Canada join to launch 2026 World Cup bid
11. I wish media would recognize that many Americans are not red or blue. But these charts are striking
    • A map that shows we really do live in two different Americas
    • The difference between Republicans and Democrats, in one chart
12. House GOP vows to offer Dodd-Frank overhaul bill by end of April
13. Why Trump won’t be branding China a currency cheater
14. SEC: Articles on some investing websites were by people secretly paid to tout stocks
15. Turkey’s Constitutional Referendum
16. Republicans want to “repeal and replace” Dodd-Frank, too.
17. Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | Johann Hari
18. Frances Fox Piven: From Protest to Resistance
19. Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not Here?
    • Perhaps because some people want us to hate taxes

From the week of April 2 to April 8

50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” call to end social evils of racism, poverty, and militarism, April 4.

This week Tavis and his guests commemorate the anniversary of Dr. King’s speech, gauging where we are fifty years later on what King called the triple “evils of racism, poverty, and militarism.”

Speaker Sunday, April 9, 2-3 pm: Anna Callahan: Corruption, Inequality and how to fight it

1. UN: Americans’ Right To Protest Is In Grave Danger Under Trump
   • “We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
     
2. Donald Trump’s Race War
   • Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the racially charged rise of a demagogue
     • A question asked over a year ago (in video above): “What would this country look like with Donald Trump being the president? That is a scary thing. That is a very scary thing.”
   • Top Democrats Are Wrong: Trump Supporters Were More Motivated by Racism than Economic Issues
3. Syria: Growing Humanitarian Crisis as War Rages On
4. Doug Henwood show on “Inventing the Future” on robots, ubi, etc. (April 6 show)
5. NYPD officers accessed Black Lives Matter activists’ texts, documents show
6. Attorney General Sessions Plans to Roll Back Decades of Police Reform
7. How Much People in the Trump Administration Are Worth
8. The FBI Has Quietly Investigated White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement
9. Bigger Corporations Are Making You Poorer
10. Republicans go “nuclear” to confirm Gorsuch to Supreme Court
11. Philippines’ Duterte orders occupation of isles in disputed South China Sea
12. Nader: Crash of Trumpcare opens door to Medicare for All
    • The Case for Medicare for All
    • Bill in New York State Legislature on New York Health Act has passed the Assembly in 2015 and 2016
    • Actions for improved medicare for all
13. Starvation Stalks the Horn of Africa
    • U.S. sends more aid? No, more bombs
14. For Cuomo, Ethics Reform Forgotten as Budget Lurches
15. Bannon removed from National Security Council
16. Relevant to this week’s Speaker Session: This is the most amazing chart on Congress you’ll see today

From the week of March 26 to April 1

Event: OccuEvolve’s Citywide Affordable Housing Conference April 1

1. Don’t Discriminate Against Mutants Like Me
2. Drug firms poured 780M painkillers into West Virginia amid rise of overdoses
   • Part 2: Drug order rules never enforced by state
   • Drug-addled WV county sues pain-pill shippers, doctor
3. America must divorce dignity from work
4. Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs
5. Trade and (de)Globalization Watch:
   • UK begins to Brexit
   • While we are distracted, Trump moves to make NAFTA even worse
   • Roosevelt Institute on: This is what Sustainable, equitable trade looks like
6. U.S. War Footprint Grows in Middle East, With No Endgame in Sight
7. U.S. Gives Wells Fargo Failing Grade on Lending
   • “an extensive and pervasive pattern and practice of discriminatory and illegal credit practices across multiple lines of business within the bank, resulting in significant harm to large numbers of consumers.”
     • Sounds like a case for RICO prosecution; if this isn’t organized crime, what is?
     • But don’t hold your breath waiting for it.
8. Trump’s Muslim ban is off the front pages but still a threat
   • Is ICE Targeting Undocumented Activists for Arrest?
9. de Blasio, gearing up campaign:
   • de Blasio promises short-term jobs for inmates when they complete time in city jails but “Most city jail inmates won’t be eligible”
   • Mayor Is Said to Back Plan to Close Rikers (some day) and Open Jails Elsewhere
10. U.S. military now authorized to conduct offensive airstrikes in Somalia
11. Tillerson to Lift Human Rights Conditions on Arms Sale to Bahrain
    • Bahrain Books Trump Hotel, Raising Ethical Concerns
      • Very doubtful there is any connection. Trump admin would approve arm sales in any case, as did the Obama admin. But, they are making no effort to keep up appearances.
12. Protest groups to unite as “The Majority” for massive actions across the country on May 1
    • Free event commemorating 50th Anniversary of landmark MLK speech at Riverside Church
13. Trump moves decisively to wipe out Obama’s climate-change record
14. The death of Paul Ryan, policy genius He’s always been more con artist than wonk.
15. Ivy League admission letters are out. Low-income kids: if you won’t be attending, you’re not alone
16. Why is Colin Kaepernick still a free agent?

From the week of March 19 to March 25

1. New York Spends $1.2 Billion a Year on Homelessness And yet the problem is only getting worse.
2. Zephyr Teachout: Supreme Court Pick Neil Gorsuch “Sides with Big Business, Big Donors & Big Bosses”
   • Video interview on Democracy Now
   • Written Op Ed
3. Tillerson’s saber-rattling isn’t the answer with North Korea Let’s hope saber-rattling is as far as they go. Tillerson was supposed to be the relatively-sane one.
4. A new, climate-friendly approach to trade
   • Replace NAFTA: it must support climate justice, workers, and healthy communities.
5. Russia: The Conspiracy Trap
6. American Job Guarantee Program
   • 22-minute podcast
   • Written: Op Ed ,or 2-page brief
7. H-1B VISA Prevailing Wage Abuses – American Workers Forced To Train Their Replacements
   • 60 Minutes – Are U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Workers With H-1B VISAS?
   • The Early Days of H-1B Abuse
   • H-1B VISA Bill Introduced In US, Minimum Pay More Than Doubled
   • Bipartisan bill aims to reform H-1B system
   • Protect US Workers.org Sara Blackwell video (5 mins)
8. We’ve talked some about Reagan lately
   • This 1-hour podcast is a good reminder of what Reagan era was like
9. Trump did to Merkel what men do to women all the time
10. A Last Chance for Resistance
11. Exxon Says Some Emails From ‘Wayne Tracker’ Alias May Be Lost
12. Participatory Budgeting — allocate a tiny fraction of NYC budget
13. The Awful Truth About A Trump Lie!: Grieving father: ‘I don’t play Trump songs anymore’
    • The cruel double standard that could save Obamacare (explained in 3 min video)
14. Kochs Bankroll Movement to Rewrite the Constitution
15. Five Creepy Things Your ISP Could Do if Congress Repeals the FCC’s Privacy Protections
16. 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” call to end social evils of racism, poverty, and militarism next month.
    • Free event commemorating it at Riverside Church
17. In effort to pass bill, Republicans make it worse: Updated House Ryancare Bill Deepens Damaging Medicaid Cuts
    • CBO agrees; revised bill even worse than first try
    • Republican Yank Obamacare Repeal Bill
    • AHCA may be dying but not dead yet. Republicans are supposed to present plan in Senate.
18. Donald Trump’s Syrian intervention is high-risk foolhardiness
    • Donald Trump’s decision to deploy hundreds of US marines in northern Syria has received surprisingly [and distressingly] little attention.
19. It’s not just unfair: Inequality is a threat to our governance

From the week of March 12 to March 18

1. Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media
2. Democrats Dangerous Diversion
3. Sanders: Democratic approach has been a failure
4. G.O.P. Health Law Insures Fewer People, Nonpartisan Review Shows
   • Price defends tax cut for health insurance CEO’s
   • Don’t call it a health care bill. Discussion of Republican bill to cut taxes on the rich, paid for by taking health care away from poor people
     • The discussion of health care begins 22 minutes in (earlier is on Trump’s taxes). Highlight at 27:30: Matt Yglesias “Donald Trump has gotten a reputation for lying because he says things all the time that aren’t true. Paul Ryan has a much longer, much more dishonest record of statements…” followed by Ezra Klein “I usually defend Paul Ryan from Matt Yglesias’s slander. What Paul Ryan has said this week, its flatly indefensible.”
   • Republican health care plan has a big tax break for insurance execs’ pay
   • Trump administration open to making some Medicaid recipients work, pay premiums
   • She makes $26K, will pay $14K for health care
   • By the numbers: Why millions go uninsured under Republicans’ Obamacare alternative
   • GOP health-care bill would drop addiction treatment mandate covering 1.3 million Americans
   • The Cost of Healthcare in America
5. With Obamacare in jeopardy, California considers going it alone with ‘single-payer’
6. Canadians With Cystic Fibrosis Live 10 Years Longer Than Americans With the Disease Actually, 12 years and, as study notes, it is entirely due to good universal medical coverage.
7. Alex Jones Preaches Conspiracy Theories, Trump Listens
   • Links between Trump, Russian Oligarchs, The Bank of Cyprus and Wilbur Ross Uncovered
8. Crazy at the wheel: psychopathic CEOs are rife in Silicon Valley, experts say
9. Republicans continuously rail about ‘States Rights’; This is a blueprint to using Republican type tactics for the benefit of the progressives’ agenda!
   • Will Trump have to release his tax returns to run in N.J. in 2020?
     • House Dem forces GOP to take recorded vote on Trump tax returns
10. Boycotts do work: Ivanka Trump brand will shut down jewelry line
11. German prosecutors raids corporate headquarters of Volkswagen and Audi
12. Bankers taking a page out of Brand New Congress playbook
    • Lobby launches ‘candidates school’ for bankers to run for office
13. Trump’s plan to dismember government
    • In addition to awful budget, Trump declares are on the Executive Branch
    • Trump’s policies and how they will change America — in charts
14. Rex Tillerson silent as rumors swirl
15. Exxon Adds New York to Suit in Bid to Stop Climate Change Probe
    • New York attorney general: Tillerson used ‘Wayne Tracker’ email to discuss climate change
    • People doing good: The Couple Who Replanted a Rainforest
16. Dutch give center-right victory over extremist right, Labor loses share, Greens do well
17. 17 Republican Congresspeople move to acknowledge climate change
18. What if Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists?
19. Towards An Integrated Progressive Agenda: The Roots of Domination: Connecting parental abuse and gender inequality to authoritarianism
20. MUST READ: Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In The US. White socialism is nice if you can get it.

From the week of March 5 to March 11

1. Republicans introduce Obamacare replacement plan
   • The Republican health insurance plan slashes funding for vaccines and public health
   • Republicans’ Obamacare repeal plan would cut taxes on the wealthy
2. Ben Carson: slaves were ‘immigrants’ with dreams for their children
3. WikiLeaks publishes ‘biggest ever leak of secret CIA documents’
4. International Women’s Day 2017: protests, activism and a strike
5. Bowing to auto industry pressure, Trump to reconsider emissions standards, says source We are sure Trump and Pruitt are doing this very reluctantly only under pressure and, of course, to save American jobs.
6. Ready to Lie Intercepted Podcast analyzes what Trump, the CIA, Wikileaks etc. are up to.
7. TPP is not dead. It is now called the Trade In Services Agreement (TiSA) (except TiSA is worse)
8. Rewarding Disobedience
9. New Bill Would Force NYPD to Disclose its Surveillance Tech Playbook
10. Wall Street Lobby and Campaign Cash Tops $2 Billion for 2016 Elections
11. One Reason Workers Are Struggling Even When Companies Are Doing Well
12. Time to fight for health care for everyone
13. How activists have already scored victories against Trump’s policies
14. South Korean president Park Geun-hye forced from office by constitutional court
15. Judge Accepts Class Action Lawsuit Against Use of Slave Labor in Private Detention Centers
16. Democrats Fight Trump, the Man, But Not His Austerity and Militarism
17. Podcasts on opioid epidemic recommended by Gerald
18. Baltimore turns to a life-saving opioid overdose antidote, but it’s no cure for the crisis
19. America’s Deportation Machine Unleashed
20. Derivatives – Global linkages center on Deutsche Bank

From the week of February 26 to March 4

1. “Pitchforks have their uses, but crafting health-care policy calls for more delicate instruments.” Atul Gawande on the tricky part of changing Obamacare: Americans don’t want to lose the benefits they have gained.
2. In The New Yorker, Evan Osnos, David Remnik, and Joshua Yaffa provide an excellent look at Trump, Putin, and The New Cold War: What lay behind Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — and what lies ahead?
   • An alternative view of what’s going on: How ‘New Cold Warriors’ Cornered Trump
   • Glenn Greenwald: Five Uncomfortable Truths About U.S. and Russia
3. House Intelligence Chair tell reporters to ‘be careful” “Do you want us to do you want us to conduct an investigation on you“?
4. Protein Challenge 2040: How can we feed 9 billion people?
5. Quinnipiac University Poll: Results of NYC poll on political corruption, homelessness and other issues
6. Electric carmakers on battery alert after hedge funds stockpile cobalt
7. Forget Trump’s tweets and media bans. The real issue is his threat to the internet
8. Trump speech
   • Trump’s Speech Was Quiet — And Quietly Radical
   • Wonky analysis of policy-making in Trump White House
   • Trump’s “More Presidential” Speech to Congress is Just Hate, Rebranded
9. Democrats really don’t get message of election
   • DNC Race: Tom Perez Becomes DNC Chair in Close Election Victory
   • Schumer-Pelosi “Pre-buttal” of Trump speech
   • DNC Members Vote Down Corporate Money Ban
   • Sanders unofficial reply to Trump
10. AG Sessions reverses Obama administration plan to phase out private prisons which will be put to use detaining immigrants, among others.
11. Thomas Piketty: Basic Income or Fair Wage?
    • Discussion of wh at Piketty meant
12. The Death of Compassion
13. Rebirth of compassion? New Social Compact
14. The EPA will no longer require oil and gas companies to report their methane emissions

From the week of February 19 to February 25

1. We didn’t have time to discuss the “future of finance” last meeting so we will next time. Here are some sub-topics:
   • Future of finance
   • Trump Undermining Dodd-Frank – does it matter?
     • Republicans looking to hamstring the CFPB
     • Ending the fiduciary rule
   • What will the next financial crisis be?
   • How to reform Wall Street (before, or after, next crisis)
   • What the banks — and some economists — say about the future of monetary policy
2. The New Free Speech: Milo
3. Varoufakis on UBI
   • Video of Varoufakis and, briefly, Chomsky on UBI
   • FT review on Andy Stern’s Raising the Floor, including his support for (UBI)
   • Elon Musk sees basic income in the automated future
   • Sean Kline at the Universal Basic Income Project explains how it work
   • Resources on UBI: Universal Income Project (funded by the Roosevelt Institute), Basic Income News and UBI Facebook page
4. Jacobin on a job guarantee
   • Roofllines on JG over UBI
   • Bill Mitchell on JG over UBI (last of a series of 5 blogposts)
5. Trump Proposal Would Deport More Immigrants Immediately
   • Muhammad Ali Jr. said he was detained, asked about his religion at airport
6. Clinton plan on opioid addiction Perhaps if she had talked about this, she’d be President.
7. How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped the NSA Spy on the Whole World — Saruman and the Palantir
8. NYT’s Fake News about Fake News
9. DC residents band together to try and oust Utah Congressman
10. Why Trump’s election scares data scientists
11. Contentious moments from U.S. town halls
12. Under GOP draft of Obamacare repeal plan, a lot of people could loose coverage
    • Obamacare in Trump Country: why voters remain confident the president-elect will fix the law

From the week of February 12 to February 18

1. Tough federal bank regulator calls it quits
2. Global Trade Watch’s Lori Wallach on how Trump will proceed on trade
   • Dem. Introduces Resolution Outlining Principles for New Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada
3. Immigration matters
   • ICE raids led to 41 arrests in New York City last week
   • Aggressive Immigration Raids Are Breaking Up Families and Scaring Longtime Residents
   • On the Media: What we know about the border A place where your rights are in a state of suspension
   • Can they search my phone? A CNN guide to your rights at the border
4. Isolationism and it’s cost to America:
   • America is great because of its willingness to accept talented immigrants
   • Mexico ready to retaliate by hurting American corn farmers
   • Immigration policy in 2017? Good luck with that say veterans
5. Flynn is not the “first casualty of the Trump administration: Preceding Flynn were:
   • As usual, the truth
   • the (never spotless) reputation of the U.S.
   • victims of hate crimes that have been rising
   • Sean Spicer’s self-respect (KellyAnne Conway lost hers months ago)
   • immigrants (documented, undocumented and permanent residents)
   • respect for the court system
   • the environment
   • Merrick Garland
   • … Flynn won’t be the last casualty, either.
   • Ben Carson didn’t know his aide was fired
6. EU Steps Up The Pace For Cashless Society In 2017/18
7. Environmental Protection and Climate Change:
   • Kids take feds to court over climate change
   • GOP may try to curb Endangered Species Act
   • The oceans are losing oxygen
   • Could giant machines help refreeze Arctic?
   • Iceberg the size of Delaware break off from Antarctica
8. More pollution news
   • ‘Extraordinary’ levels of pollutants found in 10km deep Mariana trench
   • India’s Air Pollution Is Out Of Control, Report Finds
9. Women’s March organizers announce date for general strike
10. Data and privacy
    • Do You Trust Big Data? Try Googling the Holocaust
    • TV Maker Vizio to Pay Out Millions After Secretly Collecting Customer Data
      • … but will not stop the practice, just “inform” people.
    • It’s not just your TV that can track your habits without consent
    • Note to self: The Privacy Paradox
    • Please stop charging your phone in public ports
    • And, most creepy of all: German Officials Tell Parents To Destroy Doll That Records Conversations … but still for sale on Amazon
11. Man v Machine: Or, can tech work for us?
12. Cuomo, NYS legislature blocks NYC plastic bag law Maybe someday, NYC will be allowed to govern itself.
13. Lobby, or hassle, your representatives
    • Your Congresscritter is home next week to consult with constituents: Give them a piece of your mind
    • Rallies Demand Reluctant Reps Stop Hiding From Constituents
14. MIT/Harvard win CRISPR Gene Editing patent
    • Questions the court did not consider:
      • Should gene editing be allowed for humans? National Academy of Sciences says OK in some circumstances
      • But do we want genetically-modified children?
      • If so, how will the technology be controlled? Who will have access to technology? Should the patent be a public asset?
15. Why Trump wants you to hate the media
    • McCain: This is how dictators get started
16. Major government and corporate figures are prosecuted, in other countries
    • Samsung Heir’s Arrest in South Korea Intensifies Calls for Cleanup
    • Spanish King’s Brother-in-Law Convicted as Princess Is Cleared
17. Latest post in the “Who owns the robots?” series
    • The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates
18. Opioid Epidemic continued: Science Friday discusses the continued problems of prescription drugs (18 minutes), and
19. PBS Frontline’s Chasing Heroin (nearly 2 hours)

From the week of February 5 to February 11

1. a new social compact? If so, what should it include? I am sure Gerald will have some thoughts on this at the 2-3 pm discussion of the moral case for a UBI.
2. Connecting with the Trump voter: Trump gives America’s ‘poorest white town’ hope
   • Trump supporters care about jobs, not voter fraud
     • Exit Polls
   • Most Americans not benefiting from Dow 20,000
   • Trump vows 25 million jobs, most of any president
   • Arlie Hochschild on Democracy Now: Anger and Mourning on the Right
   • How to reason with a Trump voter
3. Cross administrations and ACA connections: Former Obama staffer joins Josh Kushner’s VC fund
4. ‘A day without a woman’ — Women’s March organizers plan a general strike
5. Naomi Klein: Labor Leaders’ Bad Deal With Trump
6. Employers worry GOP Obamacare overhaul could harm job-based coverage
   • Cruz, Sanders debate Obamacare in 90 seconds
   • Vets call out Trump in powerful Ad
7. Your car’s data may soon be more valuable than the car itself
   • Could/should we sell or tax it to pay for Job Guarantee or Universal Basic Income.
8. Republican elders float carbon tax, plan White House lobbying campaign
9. Behind Today’s Breakthrough Advocacy Campaigns
10. Republicans Tried to Suppress the Words of Coretta Scott King. Bad Idea.
    • Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general despite controversies
11. DeVos confirmed as Secretary of Education despite a lack of qualifications, amazingly similar to Trump!
    • About That Bill Abolishing The Department Of Education
      • H.R.899 – To terminate the Department of Education
12. Progressives should insist worldwide taxation cover corporate personhood claimants
    • Boris Johnson has given up his U.S. citizenship!
13. Trump: I wanted month delay before travel ban, was told no “his own words are telling regarding who’s not in charge”
14. Activists win access to NYPD’s Black Lives Matter surveillance files
15. Good news on bail reform:
    • New bail reform law goes into effect, eliminating bail for minor crimes in New Jersey
      • New Jersey passes new bail reform law, changes lives of poor defendants
    • Maryland’s highest court overhauls the state’s cash-based bail system
16. Rorty’s predictive analysis of the left and its response.

From the week of January 29 to February 4

Take Action: Tell the NY State Legislature to Expand the Millionaires Tax

1. Francis Fox Piven on how we can resist
2. CDC Cancels Conference on Climate Change and Health
   • CDC abruptly cancelled LGBT youth health summit after Trump got elected.
3. Rise of the Machines: Fear robots, not China or Mexico
4. Who owns the robots? and who should own them?
5. If you missed the health care enrollment that ended on January 31, blame Trump.
6. Opinion: Ignore politicians and apply economic pressure on corporate America: Uber CEO drops out of Trump’s business advisory council
   • Trump’s Business Advisory Council
   • Nordstrom distances itself from Ivanka Trump brand
7. South Dakota GOP uses ’emergency’ rules to repeal anti-corruption law
8. The Navy wants to know who flew a Trump flag on a military convoy
9. IndyKids: Why Care About the First Amendment
   • Teen Siblings Create App for Social Justice
10. Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich
11. Davos Elite Fret About Inequality Over Vintage Wine and Canapés
12. Deregulation Watch
    • Drumpf to Order Dodd-Frank Review, Halt Obama Fiduciary Rule
      • Drumpf: “We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because frankly, … friends of mine … they can’t borrow money.”
      • Why we need the fiduciary rule and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    • Republicans will try a little-used tactic to kill five Obama regulations this week including one to stop dumping coal dust in streams and one to keep mentally disabled from buying guns.
    • On the same day Rex Tillerson is confirmed, the House votes to kill a transparency rule for oil companies
13. Measures to impede global kleptocracy not likely to last in the Drumpf administration
14. Black and low-income New Yorkers largely shut out of major academic hospitals
15. UBI video from Ale

From the week of January 22 to January 28

1. On the deep divide that Trump tapped.
2. Robert Reich on message.
   • Robert Reich 2 minute video
3. Leftist Underdog Benoit Hamon Likely To Win French Socialist Primary for President
   • Supporter of Basic Income
   • Congratulations from Yanis Varoufakis
4. 2 Years, 31 Dead Construction Workers. New York Can Do Better.
5. Secret Service looking at agent who suggested she wouldn’t defend Trump from bullet
6. All Things Trump:
   • Trump freezes state EPA grants and contracts
   • Proposed laws would crackdown on protesters who block roadways
   • Trump Administration Puts Gag Order on Several Government Agencies
   • Trump is doing so much, it is very hard to keep track — let alone protest it. Here are some other things.
7. Opinion: Killing TPP is bad news for America, but great for China
   • Trump didn’t kill TPP, the people did
8. Trump nominations:
   • Jeremy Scahill on Trump Team: A Cabal of Religious Extremists, Privatization Advocates & Racists
   • DeVos, education secretary nominee, hearing postponed over financial interests
     • DeVos Ethics Report Reveals Ties to Student Debt Collection Firm
     • DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth
     • A sobering look at what Betsy DeVos did to education in Michigan — and what she might do as secretary of education
     • If you want to tell your senators what you think of Betsy DeVos, this link makes it easy.
   • Trump’s HHS pick: Right to Medicaid may not be guaranteed under block grants
   • Dems could have blocked Mattis
     • But instead all but Gillibrand voted to approve him
   • Chuck Schumer, “Leader of the Resistance”, Keeps Approving Trump’s Nominees
     • Worth noting that Gillibrand, but not Warren or Sanders, has opposed all Trump nominees so far.
   • Trump nominees, big donors to the senators voting for them
9. Show Me The Money – JG/UBIG Funding (re: discussion topic 2-3pm)
   • The Federal Government’s $128 Trillion Stockpile: The Answer to Our Debt Problems?
   • Federal Assets Above and Below Ground
   • The US Government Is Absolutely Not $16 Trillion In The Hole
10. Koch Dark-Money Operative Is Trump’s Liaison to Congress
11. Trump Blocks Syrian Refugees and Others; Orders Mexican Border Wall to Be Built
    • ‘Sanctuary City’ Mayors Vow to Defy Trump’s Immigration Order
    • Why Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities is unconstitutional
12. Financialization of Rents Gets Taxpayer Guarantees — We are guaranteeing private equity firm Blackstone
    • This seems to be something Obama and Trump admins both support. What could be bad about it?
    • Evictions by Wall-Street Mega-Landlords Soar, Financialization of Rents Cause “Housing Instability”: Atlanta Fed
13. Universal Basic Income (re: discussion topic 2-3pm)
    • 8 basic income experiments to watch out for in 2017
    • Introducing Circles – Universal Basic Income
    • Global Basic Income-AN ANCIENT IDEA READY FOR PRIMETIME
    • Free Cash in Finland. Must Be Jobless.
    • Are We Headed For ‘Automated Luxury Communism’?
    • The Basic Income and Job Guarantees are Complementary, not Opposing Policies
14. Six journalists get felony charges after covering inauguration unrest

From the week of January 15 to January 21

1. 1. 1. Discussion (video presentation) — Job Guarantee versus Universal Basic Income Guarantee
         • Martin Luther King’s Economic Dream: A Guaranteed Income for All Americans
         • Finland’s centrist government experiments with Universal Basic Income so Finns will return to undesirable and lowest-wage jobs
         • Why conservative economist Milton Friedman, neoliberalism’s framer, supported a universal basic income
      2. These 8 Men Are Richer Than 3.6 Billion People Combined
      3. Trump’s Cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it Congress writes the rules, so this kind of corruption is perfectly legal.
      4. Khalil Gibran Muhammad: No Racial Barrier Left to Break (Except All of Them). We can’t create a more just nation simply by dressing up institutions in more shades of brown. Now we must confront structural racism.
      5. From Occupy Wall Street To Occupy White House: The Resurrection of Goldman Sachs
      6. Citigroup’s Profits Climb On Pick-Up In Bond Trading, Lower Costs
      7. If We Don’t Write The Rules, Billionaires Will – Lyft: Here’s how to make America’s roads great again
      8. NY Housing Authority Seeks Private Investors for Brooklyn, Bronx Buildings
      9. Rebecca Solnit: We could’ve avoided President Donald Trump. Now, we must learn the lessons
         1. Lakoff says — progressives won’t win until they learn how to frame the debate.
      10. Former World Bank Staffer Explains How Neoliberalism Is Destroying The World
          • Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
      11. Trump inaugurated: ‘American carnage’: Trump’s vision casts shadow over day of pageantry
          • Why is he sowing fear?
          • Divest or put in a blind trust all of the President’s business and financial assets
          • Immediately release Donald Trump’s full tax returns, with all information needed to verify emoluments clause compliance.
      12. Obama administration sticks with its inadequate crisis response: fines but no prosecutions, homeowners still get too little, too late and CEOs walk away scott free..
      13. ‘We’re Not Going Away’: Huge Crowds for Women’s Marches Against Trump

From the week of January 8 to January 14

1. Cognitive science tells us how Trump will alter our social behavioral norms.
2. Jacobin’s answer to “Who put Trump in the White House?”
3. What to expect from Trump: clues from populist regimes around the world.
4. Rachel Maddow connects the dots between Trump, Tillerson, Putin and Obama’s sanctions.
5. Matt Stoller on Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s economic failures.
6. On the other hand, Bernie supporters just took control over the Democratic Party in California.
7. De Blasio opens the door to community land trusts.
8. Jeff Merkley pushes Tillerson on climate change.
9. Just before leaving, Obama expands surveillance.
10. Stiglitz on trade and Trump.
11. Psychologist Rob Brotherton on conspiracy theories.
12. House passes REINS Act to deregulate and erode standards
13. This is why you get worked up about politics, according to science
14. Your Government Owes Your a Job
15. One-Third of the Trump Team Has Ties to the Koch Brothers
16. Bitcoin
17. As Trump Moves into the White House, Democrats Need A Bold New Vision
18. What Donald Trump Owes Wall Street

From the weeks of December 18 to January 7

Happy New Year!

Five years and we’re still here! We took a very rare break (both on-line and in person). We will be meeting Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017

1. Another, more beautiful America is rising. Trump will be resisted
2. A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda
3. Five Republicans who could buck Trump in 2017
   • We’d like to note that there are 52 Republican senators who could, and should, buck Trump and it’s pretty pathetic that only five are even considering it.
4. Building a Mass Socialist Party
5. Privacy in the modern world: Theory of Everything Podcast Surveillance miniseries Your host visits both the glass room ( a fake pop up store) and the Google pop up store (a real pop up store).
6. A socialist criticism of basic income guarantee.
7. Rethinking retirement: The Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started
   • Version of above without the paywall
8. Algorithms: AI’s creepy control must be open to inspection
9. House Republicans send us a New Year message. Fuck you!
   • We can be as sleazy as we please and there’s nothing you can do about it
     • You know things are terrible when Trump can take the ethical high ground
     • But, the Ethics panel probably got the message anyway. Leave us alone or you’re fired.
   • Obviously not chastened by previous failed power grab, House Republicans revive obscure rule that could allow them to slash the pay of individual federal workers to $1
   • Maybe, Corporations Need a New Reason to Be Or maybe not?
     • Also worth noting that “shareholder value” or “profit maximization” has never been accepted legal doctrine as noted by the Supreme Court, most recently in the otherwise-regrettable Hobby Lobby decision.

     • While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.

     • More thoughts on the subject of corporations’ purposes
10. So much shit is going on, it seems this nearly slipped through. I had trouble finding anything critical written about the 2017 NDAA
11. Under Cover of Christmas, Congress passes NDAA, Obama Establishes Controversial Anti-Propaganda Agency
12. Senate Republicans take first step to repeal Obamacare
13. Republicans Are Planning to Rush Through Jeff Sessions’s Confirmation Hearing
14. Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds
    • Trump downplays Russian meddling in election despite intel report
    • Young Russian denies she aided election hackers: ‘I never work with douchebags’
15. Or, have our elections been hacked for decades?
    • Sensing Gains Ahead Under Trump, the Kochs Court Minorities
    • Iowa’s Top Election Official Announces Voter ID Bill

News and Noteworthy from 2016