The Boys’ Club That Protects Brett Kavanaugh
The New Yorker – September 22, 2018 – Emily Witt
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-boys-club-that-protects-brett-kavanaugh
“I guess you could call it a fraternity between a bunch of rich kids,” an anonymous alumnus of Georgetown Prep, who overlapped with Kavanaugh there, told the Huff Post. “All this shit happens, and then nobody really wants to talk about it, because if one person crumbles, the whole system crumbles, and everybody tells on everybody.”
Palaces for the people: why libraries are more than just books
The Guardian – September 24, 2018 – Eric Klinenberg
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/24/palaces-for-the-people-at-the-library-everyone-is-welcome
At the library, everyone is welcome –so can they help heal our divided, unequal society, asks NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg in this edited excerpt from his new book, “Palaces for the People”… Social infrastructure provides the setting and context for social participation, and the library is among the most critical forms of social infrastructure that we have. It’s also one of the most undervalued.
Trump Admin’s Proposed Rule Will Result in Legal Immigrants of Modest Means Forgoing Needed Benefits
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – Sepotember 24, 2018 – Robert Greenstein
https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/greenstein-trump-administrations-proposed-rule-will-result-in-legal-immigrants-of
A new draft rule that President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted over the weekend would institute a radical change in immigration rules that could make it much more difficult both for many immigrants lawfully in the United States to remain here and for many seeking legal entry to come… Threatening people who want to build better lives for themselves and their families, including both those here lawfully and those seeking lawful entry, is contrary to the national interest and our nation’s most cherished values.
How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump
The New Yorker – October 1, 2018 issue – Jane Mayer
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump
I met recently with Jamieson, in a book-lined conference room at the Annenberg Center, in Philadelphia, and asked her point-blank if she thought that Trump would be President without the aid of Russians, she didn’t equivocate. “No,” she said, her face unsmiling. Clearly cognizant of the gravity of her statement, she clarified, “If everything else is a constant? No, I do not.”… Politicians may be too timid to explore the subject, but a new book from, of all places, Oxford University Press promises to be incendiary. “Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know,” by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, dares to ask—and even attempts to answer—whether Russian meddling had a decisive impact in 2016. Jamieson offers a forensic analysis of the available evidence and concludes that Russia very likely delivered Trump’s victory.
Donald Trump and GOP Want to Cut Social Security. We Should Expand It Instead
USA TODAY – September 23, 2018 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/09/23/bernie-sanders-expand-social-security-tax-millionaires-billionaires-column/1370048002/
Today, one out of every five seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $13,500 a year. How do you pay for necessities like heat, rent and food if you only have $13,500 a year? We have got to do a lot better. And to make matters worse, about half of Americans 55 and older have zero retirement savings. Meanwhile, the average Social Security benefit is less than $1,300 a month… A moral society does not give tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations, and then cut back support for struggling seniors or people with disabilities.Our job now is to rally the public to ensure that everyone in America can retire with dignity and everyone with a disability can live with security.
Here’s Why World Leaders Are Laughing at Trump
Politico – September 25, 2018 – Jarrett Blanc, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a senior State Department official under President Obama.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/25/donald-trump-un-speech-laughing-unga-iran-220620
By inflating treaties and disparaging other forms of international agreements, the Trump administration is trying to undermine diplomacy, not to strengthen it… The world does not stop. We continue to face real national security challenges. We should always seek diplomatic solutions to those challenges.
A Year After Hurricane Maria, There Is Nothing Natural About Puerto Rico’s Disaster
The Intercept – September 21, 2018 – Naomi Klein
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-disaster-capitalism/
Disaster capitalism is about how the already rich and powerful systematically exploit the pain and the trauma of collective shocks — like superstorms or economic crisis — in order to build an even more unequal and undemocratic society… We have seen nothing but more disaster capitalism — using the trauma of the storm to push massive cuts to education, hundreds of school closures, wave after wave of home foreclosures, and the privatization of some of Puerto Rico’s most valuable assets… That is why dozens of Puerto Rican organizations, under the banner of JunteGente, are standing together to demand a different future. Not just a little bit better but radically better. Their message is a clear one: that this storm must be a wakeup call, a historic catalyst for a just recovery and just transition to the next economy. Right now.
Inside the Fight for Medicaid Expansion in America’s Reddest States
Mother Jones – November/December 2018 isue – Patrick Caldwell
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/09/inside-the-fight-for-medicaid-expansion-in-americas-reddest-states/
It’s not just people directly receiving Medicaid who benefit from expansion. A 2016 study published by the Department of Health and Human Services found that insurance premiums on the individual market were 7 percent lower in states with Medicaid expansion than in places that had rejected the program.
A Boost for the Worker-Owned Economy
Yes! Magazine – September 25, 2018 – Fran Korten
https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-boost-for-the-worker-owned-economy-20180925
Business owners looking to sell their companies to their employees just got a helping hand from the federal government. It’s the first such measure that’s passed Congress in more than 20 years. Tucked into the omnibus National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump in August 2018 was language directing the U.S. Small Business Administration to help retiring owners sell their businesses to their employees, either as a worker cooperative or as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
Bringing Farming Back to Nature
Portside – September 24, 2018 – Daniel Moss and Mark Bittman, New York Times
https://portside.org/2018-09-24/bringing-farming-back-nature
Agroecology isn’t rocket science. It simply takes full advantage of nature’s assets, drawn from the farm itself and surrounding ecosystems, to grow food. But in a $5 trillion food system dominated by ever-growing corporate giants, an endorsement from the U.N.’s top food official for farmers to use compost as fertilizer, to take steps to attract pollinators as well as predators that consume agricultural pests and to grow complementary crops for soil health is a significant poke in the eye to a cynical, essentially self-regulating agriculture industry. It’s an industry that would have us believe that we need rocket science to grow a carrot.
Radical Municipalism and Tech
Portside – September 29, 2018 – Fully Automated Luxury Communism Newsletter, https://tinyletter.com/FullyAutomated/letters/radical-municipalism-and-tech
https://portside.org/2018-09-29/radical-municipalism-and-tech
Left techies should increasingly look at the municipal level for their tech interjections and policy suggestions, because that is probably the level we are going to exert power first… Probably the most notable policy issue for left-wing urban tech activists will most likely be smart cities. This very diffuse term, generally refers to attempts to use information technology to improve the management of cities.
The Earth Is the Common Home of All Inhabitants
Global Research – September 30, 2018 – Riccardo Petrella
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-earth-is-the-common-home-of-all-inhabitants/5655619
In 2018, the year in which the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is being celebrated, it is indispensable to rethink the vision of rights in a perspective of collective, community, shared and participated rights extended to all inhabitants of the Earth.