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30 Sunday Dec 2018
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30 Sunday Dec 2018
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The Green New Deal, Explained
Reader Supported News – Vox – December 23, 2018 – David Roberts
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/54066-the-green-new-deal-explained
Young activists, who will be forced to live with the ravages of climate change, find this upsetting. So they have proposed a plan of their own. It’s called the Green New Deal (GND) — a term purposefully reminiscent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s original New Deal in the 1930s — and it has become the talk of the town… “GND” can mean just about anything at the moment. Now the race is on to make it mean something in particular — to produce something that activists and wonks can agree on, that politicians can run on, and that the public can rally around… The GND offers Americans a bracing new alternative, not a hesitant step forward — a rejection of Republican dogma and fossil fuel energy, not a compromise with them. To rally Americans behind it, Democrats will have to “paint the picture and the vision.”
Universal Basic Income Is Easier Than It Looks
Global Research – December 29, 2018 – Ellen Brown
https://www.globalresearch.ca/universal-basic-income-is-easier-than-it-looks/5664239
Calls for a Universal Basic Income have been increasing, most recently as part of the Green New Deal introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supported in the last month by at least 40 members of Congress. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a monthly payment to all adults with no strings attached, similar to Social Security… A UBI would replace money-created-as-debt with debt-free money – a “debt jubilee” for consumers – while leaving the money supply for the most part unchanged; and to the extent that new money was added, it could help create the demand needed to fill the gap between actual and potential productivity.
Trump Imperils the Planet
The New York Times – December 26, 2018 – Editorial Board
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/opinion/editorials/climate-change-environment-trump.html
The health and environmental effects of the Trump rollbacks, as documented by a Times investigation published this week, are far-reaching and potentially devastating.
The Threat in the White House
The New York Times – December 23, 2018 – Susan Rice
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/opinion/trump-mattis-syria-afghanistan.html
If our national security decision-making process were even minimally functional, there would have been a carefully devised plan to execute moves, including wrongheaded ones. The plan would have included strategies for mitigating risks to our partners on the battlefield and to friendly governments; advance consultations with allies; briefings of Congress; and a press strategy. Instead, two factors combined to ensure the collapse of the decision-making apparatus… A second factor — Mr. Trump himself — has dealt the death blow to effective policymaking. The president couldn’t care less about facts, intelligence, military analysis or the national interest. He refuses to take seriously the views of his advisers, announces decisions on impulse and disregards the consequences of his actions. In abandoning the role of a responsible commander in chief, Mr. Trump today does more to undermine American national security than any foreign adversary.
The answer to plastic pollution is to not create waste in the first place
The Guardian – December 26, 2018 – Monica Wilson
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/26/pollution-plastic-waste-environment-china
Instead of coming up with increasingly complicated and expensive ways to deal with plastic waste, why not focus on preventing it from being made in such large quantities in the first place? We simply need less plastic in the world.
10 Steps to Save American Democracy
Robert Reich’s Website – December 26, 2018
http://robertreich.org/post/181325899935
Trump isn’t the only problem. As Big Money floods our political system, and some in power are intent on making it harder for certain people to vote, we need a movement to save our democracy.
America’s Generation Gap: Aging White People v. Diverse Millennials
Informed Comment – December 27, 2018 – Aviva Rutkin
https://www.juancole.com/2018/12/americas-generation-millennials.html
How is the U.S. changing, on a grand and gradual scale? How are Americans different than they were last year, or last decade, or last century? These patterns may not yet be fully understood, but they hint at what the U.S. could become.
Facing Nuclear Reality: 35 Years after “The Day After”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – December 28, 2018 – Dawn Stover
https://thebulletin.org/facing-nuclear-reality-35-years-after-the-day-after/
The television movie The Day After depicted a full-scale nuclear war and its impacts on people living in and around Kansas City… ABC broadcast The Day After on November 20, 1983, with no commercial breaks during the final hour. More than 100 million people saw it—nearly two-thirds of the total viewing audience. It remains one of the most-watched television programs of all time… By the late 1990s, American and Russian leaders had created a stable, treaty-based arms-control infrastructure and expected it to continue improving over time… Now, however, a long era of nuclear restraint appears to be nearing an end. Tensions between the United States and Russia have risen to levels not seen in decades… The United States desperately needs a fresh national conversation about the born-again nuclear arms race.
Banishing Truth
Global Research – Trurthdig – December 24, 2018 – Chris Hedges
https://www.globalresearch.ca/banishing-truth/5664097
The later part of Hersh’s career is the most distressing… When Hersh exposed the fictitious narrative spun out by the Obama administration about the killing of Bin Laden, the magazine [The New Yorker] killed the story… Hersh resigned. He published the account of the raid in the London Review of Books, the beginning of his current exile to foreign publications. When we most urgently need Hersh and good investigative reporters like him, they have largely disappeared. A democracy, at best, tolerates them. A failed democracy, like ours, banishes them, and when it does, it kills its press. [Explores investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and his memoir “Reporter.”]
How This Year’s Struggles Set Us Up for a Bold, Hopeful 2019
Yes! Magazine – December 28, 2018 – Chris Winters
https://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-this-years-wins-for-democracy-set-us-up-for-a-bold-hopeful-2019-20181228
We could choose to look at the coming year not as a pot of misery getting ready to boil over. With the right attitude, you might see—if you squint—that the proverbial glass is half-full of hope. Some things are going in the right direction… These past two years have energized a wide swath of sensible people who have come to realize that apathy is unacceptable in the face of an administration determined to corrupt the rule of law and strip vulnerable populations of their rights… the Trump years have demonstrated that, while our democracy is a fragile thing that needs the force of law and the will of the people to protect it, Americans have been rising to and meeting that challenge. Some of our leaders in Washington, D.C., are starting to recognize that.
23 Sunday Dec 2018
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A Widening World Without a Home
Axios – December 15, 2018 – Stef W. Kight
https://www.axios.com/immigration-refugees-global-crisis-nation-without-homes-71d5ee33-9b6b-497e-9811-8cc6082ad431.html
As of last year, more people have been forced by violence and conflict to flee their homes than live in the U.K. or France. Why it matters: That’s upwards of 60 million people — a global nation of refugees… The crisis is the worst its been since World War II, and it’s not getting better… Climate change is expected to create even more internally displaced people as natural disasters become more frequent and intense.
How the Trump Admin’s War on Science is also a War on Ethics
Informed Comment – December 16, 2018 – Jill Richardson
https://www.juancole.com/2018/12/admins-science-ethics.html
A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses Trump’s Interior Department of “relentless attacks on science ranging from suppressing and sidelining the work of the department’s scientists to systematically refusing to act on climate change.” To put it mildly, this is concerning… Yale sociologist Justin Farrell points out that disputes over the management of nature can be more moral than scientific in nature. Science can tell us how many wolves or grizzly bears live in Wyoming, or how much habitat and genetic diversity they need to survive as a species. But the belief that humans should manage nature to preserve intact ecosystems is a moral one.
ACA Repeal Bills Would Do Much the Same Damage as Judge’s Decision
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – December 17, 2018 – Aviva Aron-Dine
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/aca-repeal-bills-would-do-much-the-same-damage-as-judges-decision-to-strike-down-the-law
Last year’s [repeal] bills would have had much the same devastating consequences as the decision itself, and the responses to the ruling are a reminder that the Administration and many congressional Republicans still support these outcomes as a matter of policy.
Conservatism’s Monstrous Endgame
The New York Times – December 17, 2018 – Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/republican-apparatchiks-deep-state.html
It’s not just health care, nor is it just the courts. What Nancy Pelosi called the “monstrous endgame” of the Republican assault on health care is just the leading edge of an attack on multiple fronts, as the G.O.P. tries to overturn the will of the voters and undermine democracy in general… Even as Trump and his allies spin fantasies about sabotage by the “deep state,” the reality is that a growing number of positions in government agencies are being occupied by right-wing partisans who care nothing, or actively oppose, their agencies’ missions.
At Last, Divestment Is Hitting the Fossil Fuel Industry Where It Hurts
The Guardian – December 16, 2018 – Bill McKibben
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/16/divestment-fossil-fuel-industry-trillions-dollars-investments-carbon
Trillions of dollars of investments are being taken out of carbon-intensive companies. Governments must now take notice… The deeper question, though, is whether divestment is making a dent in the fossil fuel industry. And there the answer is even clearer: this has become the deepest challenge yet to the companies that have kept us on the path to climate destruction… Divestment by itself is not going to win the climate fight. But by weakening – reputationally and financially – those players that are determined to stick to business as usual, it’s one crucial part of a broader strategy.
Amazon Wants in on US Warfare
Truth Out – December 16, 2018 – Nick Mottern
https://truthout.org/articles/alexa-drop-a-bomb-amazon-wants-in-on-us-warfare/
Amazon is seeking to build a global “brain” for the Pentagon called JEDI [Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure], a weapon of unprecedented surveillance and killing power, a profoundly aggressive weapon that should not be allowed to be created… JEDI is intended to not only improve information sharing, but to dramatically increase the US military’s ability to collect and sort through huge amounts of surveillance information from many, many sources on individuals and groups – governmental and non-governmental – around the world. This will be part of a process of using artificial intelligence and algorithms to identify probable targets for killing… Will we trade our humanity for convenience, including convenience in killing?
‘A sweatshop firing on all cylinders’: what it’s like to work at Amazon at Christmas
The Guardian – December 19, 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/19/how-your-holiday-shopping-drives-us-amazon-workers-to-exhaustion
In the third installment of The Amazon Diaries, a worker describes the madness that is the six-week ‘peak’ season.
Now We Know Trump Picked William Barr to Shut Down Mueller
New York Magazine – December 20, 2018 – Jonathan Chait
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-william-barr-memo-mueller-obstruction-justice.html
The most optimistic reading of the Trump administration is that the system has held, and a coterie of professionals have curtailed Trump’s gross autocratic instincts. In this case, then, giving the highest law-enforcement job in the country to an extreme advocate of executive authority, who defends the president’s right to obstruct justice and to demand his own investigations as a matter of abstract ideology would be a grave risk.
‘Mass Starvation Plan’: Trump USDA to Push Work Requirements for Food Stamps That Congress Left Off Farm Bill
Common Dreams – December 20, 2018 – Jessica Corbett
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/20/mass-starvation-plan-trump-usda-push-work-requirements-food-stamps-congress-left
Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress (CAP), delivered a scathing takedown of the proposal on Twitter… The Trump [administration] is dressing up their cruel cuts in the language of work, claiming their mass starvation plan is about the ‘dignity of work.’ Well, I’ve got news for them. Making struggling workers hungrier won’t help them find work any faster.
US passes first anti-lynching law after Senate vote
BBC – December 20, 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46634184
The bill was a bipartisan effort. It was first introduced earlier this year by Ms Harris and Cory Booker – both Democrats – and by Republican Senator Tim Scott… “Notwithstanding the Senate’s apology and the heightened awareness and education about the nation’s legacy with lynching, it is wholly necessary and appropriate for the Congress to enact legislation, after 100 years of unsuccessful legislative efforts, finally to make lynching a federal hate crime,” the bill says.
Young People Are Poised to Take the US Government to Court Over Climate Change
Think Progress – December 21, 2018 – Kyla Mandel
https://thinkprogress.org/our-childrens-trust-young-people-climate-change-lawsuit-d3c45c6bd21f/
The landmark lawsuit, brought by a group of 21 children and young adults, argues that the government is violating its obligation to current and future generations by failing to preserve a clean atmosphere. A final decision could shape the future of climate litigation for years to come.
Jim Mattis Was the Only Thing Keeping Trump’s Insane Clown Posse in Check
The Daily Beast – December 21, 2018 – Rick Wilson
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jim-mattis-was-the-only-thing-keeping-trumps-insane-clown-posse-in-check
Trump knows on some deep, basal level that he’s a figure of mockery and cordial (at best) dislike by leaders of America’s traditional allies, and is seen as an easy mark by our adversaries. Trump saw how often Mattis had to clean up messes President Best Brain made in China, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and across Europe. Worse, he saw that the leaders of those nations respected Mattis in a way he couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal. One supreme irony of Jim Mattis working for Donald Trump was apparent to me from the beginning. Mattis wasn’t just a better man on every axis; Trump was the kind of man Jim Mattis spent his career training to defeat; the authoritarians and oppressors of this world, the big-bore despots and the small-bore warlords. The type of people Trump either admires or lets himself be manipulated by—Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Kim Jong Un, and others—are the kind of men Mattis sees as obvious adversaries of the United States. Mattis sees the risks of failed states, while Trump seems determined to create one. Mattis understands American institutions; Trump monomaniacally craves royalty, a literal Imperial Presidency.
Harold Koh’s Verdict on Donald Trump vs. International Law
The New Yorker – December 20, 2018 – Jeffrey Toobin
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/harold-kohs-verdict-on-donald-trump-vs-international-law
Koh has an improbably sunny demeanor, considering that he has devoted his career to the frequently dispiriting field of international human-rights law. His new book is written in the same optimistic vein, as he explained to a skeptical audience at New York University Law School the other day. President Trump, Koh avers, has failed in virtually every foreign-policy initiative in his first two years in office. And that, to Koh’s mind, is a fortunate thing indeed.
Last minute gifts? All l I want for Christmas is no plastic, please
The Guardian – December 22, 2018 – Jemima Kiss
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/22/christmas-gifts-plastic-plasticfree-shopping-last-minute
For the next few months, Jemima Kiss explores how we can all move towards a life without plastic, starting with Christmas.
Remembering the Christmas Truce of 1914, The Desire for Real Peace
Global Research – December 23, 2018 – Dr. Gary G. Kohls
https://www.globalresearch.ca/remembering-the-christmas-truce-of-1914-the-desire-for-real-peace/5623341
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a spontaneous, unauthorized event that happened at a number of locations all along the 600 miles of triple trenches that stretched across Belgium and France, and it was an event that would never again be duplicated, thanks to the war-profiteers, professional militarists and saber-rattling wannabes in the media, parliament and Congress who glory in their nation’s “pseudo-patriotic” wars.
The Public Banks’ Option: This Radical Plan to Fund the ‘Green New Deal’ Just Might Work
Global Research – December 20, 2018 – Ellen Brown
https://www.globalresearch.ca/radical-plan-fund-green-new-deal-just-might-work/5663229
The “Green New Deal” promoted by newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop. It would give a House Select Committee “a mandate that connects the dots between energy, transportation, housing, as well as healthcare, living wages, a jobs guarantee” and more… Ocasio-Cortez and the 22 representatives joining her in calling for a Select Committee are also proposing a novel way to fund the program, one which could actually work. The resolution says funding will primarily come from the federal government, “using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, public venture funds and such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate, in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.”
A Practical Approach to Making Co-ops Work
Yes! Magazine – December 18, 2018 – Nathan Schneider
https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/how-to-make-a-fair-economy-without-starting-a-revolution-20181218
Cooperators need to build on a diverse foundation, one that recognizes the diverse ways people interact with their economies—not only as certain kinds of workers but as consumers, users, contributors, small-business owners, and crowdfunders. We can learn to revive the democratic spirits dormant in so many credit unions, electric co-ops, insurance mutuals, and employee stock-ownership plans. There is no single, gleaming, out-of-the-?box model. Commonwealths spread through variety… Unlike capitalism’s penchant for perpetual disruption, cooperation works best when it can work with what is already at hand… Excerpted from “Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy” by Nathan Schneider.
16 Sunday Dec 2018
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Why Gandhi’s ideas on Nonviolence continue to thrive, even in the post-truth era
Informed Comment – December 7, 2018 – Tom Shillam
https://www.juancole.com/2018/12/gandhis-nonviolence-continue.html
Modern politics – and its new formula of Twitter hashtags, populist sloganeering and strongman dictators – may seem an unlikely place for the teachings of Gandhi to offer fresh inspiration. But just such a thing also happened during the Cold War, when politics faced some very similar problems.He believed what was needed… was a social and economic life based around local production for local needs, something that would also foster greater cultural enjoyment. But is the current post-truth age still able to make use of this simple, authentic message?… We now face a global dearth of alternative political ideas, perhaps it’s no wonder we are turning again to the Mahatma for inspiration.
Five reasons ranked-choice voting will improve American democracy
The Boston Globe – December 4, 2018 – Eric Maskin
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/12/04/five-reasons-ranked-choice-voting-will-improve-american-democracy/XoMm2o8P5pASAwZYwsVo7M/story.html
Harvard economist Eric Maskin says the system, just used in Maine, doesn’t faze voters, eliminates the problem of “spoiler” candidates, and better reflects what voters want… If a candidate gets a majority of the first-place votes, she is elected. Otherwise, the candidate ranked first by the fewest voters is dropped, with that person’s ballots going to the second-place choices of her voters. The process repeats until a majority winner emerges — no candidate can win with a mere third of the vote. Moreover, the danger of vote splitting is greatly reduced.
Denver’s New Sales Tax is the First in the Nation to Benefit Kids’ Health
Civil Eats – December 4, 2018 – Rachel Cernansky
https://civileats.com/2018/12/04/denvers-new-sales-tax-first-in-the-nation-to-benefit-kids/
Ordinance 302, placed on the ballot by the Healthy Food For Denver Kids campaign, establishes a nominal sales tax (less than a penny on any $10 purchase) to fund healthy food access and education programs for youth in Denver over a 10-year period… “One of the reasons Ordinance 302 is so exciting is that it represents the values and will of a community to provide money to help advance local food and healthy food for the most vulnerable among us, in this case kids,” said Blake Angelo, the main organizer of the campaign, who also served as the city’s first manager for food systems development.
The Khashoggi skeletons in America’s closet
Al Jazeera – December 6, 2018 – Azeezah Kanji
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/khashoggi-skeletons-america-closet-181205055637618.html
US officials are keen to condemn Jamal Khashoggi’s murder but remain silent on US crimes against journalists… While Trump may have been the first US president to openly and explicitly declare the media “the enemy of the people,” the treatment of journalists as a hostile force has been a consistent feature of the US’s so-called “war on terror”.
The Guardians and the War on Truth
Reader Supported News – Time Magazine – December 11, 2018 – Karl Vick
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/53848-focus-the-guardians-and-the-war-on-truth
The stout man with the gray goatee and the gentle demeanor dared to disagree with his country’s government. He told the world the truth about its brutality toward those who would speak out. And he was murdered for it.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accelerate Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018
The New York Times – December 5, 2018 – Kendra Pierre-Louis
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-2018.html
Scientists described the quickening rate of carbon dioxide emissions in stark terms, comparing it to a “speeding freight train” and laying part of the blame on an unexpected surge in the appetite for oil as people around the world not only buy more cars but also drive them farther than in the past — more than offsetting any gains from the spread of electric vehicles.
Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world’s biggest investors
The Guardian – December 9, 2018 – Damian Carrington
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/10/tackle-climate-or-face-financial-crash-say-worlds-biggest-investors
Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said. The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.
Following Trump’s lead, Republicans avoid addressing climate change
Axios – December 11, 2018 – Neal Rothschild
https://www.axios.com/climate-change-trump-republicans-democrats-accept-d386a123-06e5-4deb-bd97-d9f60326dd38.html
There’s always been a divide between Republicans and Democrats on the issue, but this data — measured by the number of floor statements, press releases and social media posts that mentioned climate change — shows that the chasm is growing. And it’s happening as new scientific reports and extreme weather events are drawing new attention to the issue.
‘Reasonable doubt’ makes great TV drama, but it’s killing the planet
The Boston Globe – December 12, 2018 – Thomas Levenson
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2018/12/12/reasonable-doubt-makes-great-drama-but-killing-planet/giX5jwARLzzax94IeXsvdL/story.html
Opponents of climate action are trying an all too familiar tactic to move public opinion back in their direction… In essence, they’re turning science against itself. They’re treating climate researchers’ willingness to acknowledge the limits of their findings — as all reputable scientists do — as evidence of lingering doubts that relieve us of any obligation to address the problem at all.
We Are Forty-Four Former US Senators. The Senate Must Act to Protect Our Democracy.
The Washington Post – December 11, 2018 – signed by 44 Former U.S. Senators
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-are-former-senators-the-senate-has-long-stood-in-defense-of-democracy–and-must-again/2018/12/10/3adfbdea-fca1-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html
It is our shared view that we are entering a dangerous period, and we feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security… Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.
Police State Mindset Sees One-Year-Old and Mother as Threat
Reader Supported News – December 12, 2018 – William Boardman
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/53865-rsn-police-state-mindset-sees-one-year-old-and-mother-as-threat
The stunningly abject failure of police to live up to their professed mission featured several police officers violently separating a one-year-old boy from his mother as she lay on the floor crying for help. … What do we want police to do? Have they not been trained in de-escalation? Are they not capable of making sensible, proportionate decisions? How willing are they to live up to their mission of “treating every citizen with compassion, courtesy, professionalism, and respect…”?
Bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill Protects SNAP
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – December 11, 2018 – Robert Greenstein
https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/greenstein-bipartisan-2018-farm-bill-protects-snap
SNAP, a key part of the farm bill, has long been our nation’s most powerful and effective anti-hunger program. The new farm bill conference agreement reauthorizes SNAP and provides for modest improvements to program integrity and administration. The agreement would also encourage and prioritize approaches to job training and other employment-related activities that are proven to be successful by the findings from employment and training pilot projects that the 2014 farm bill established.
Work Requirements in Farm Bill Are Off the Table
The American Prospect – December 11, 2018 – Kalena Thomhave
https://prospect.org/article/work-requirements-farm-bill-are-table
But we can also be assured of this administration’s love affair with work requirements. Don’t be surprised if Secretary Perdue announces further SNAP restrictions for which he doesn’t need congressional approval, likely increasing hunger in an effort to promote “self-sufficiency.”
‘Death sentence’: butterfly sanctuary to be bulldozed for Trump’s border wall
The Guardian – December 13, 2018 – Samuel Gilbert
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/butterfly-sanctuary-border-wall-mission-texas
This threat could mean the end of the butterfly center and enormous harm to its dozens of butterfly species and the threatened Texas tortoise, Texas indigo snake, and Texas horned lizard that are also found there… Even if you don’t care about butterflies, you should care about this.
From Arizona to Yemen: The Journey of an American Bomb
The New York Times – December 11, 2018 – Jeffrey E. Stern
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/magazine/war-yemen-american-bomb-strike.html
Concerned about encirclement by Shia forces, Saudi Arabia started bombing Yemen in March 2015, soon after the Houthis established a government. Almost immediately, the United Nations and human rights groups expressed alarm about the way the war was being prosecuted, with its startling toll on civilians and critical infrastructure. The Saudis’ bombs have struck factories, roads, bridges, hospitals, wells, funerals, weddings, gatherings entirely of women and a school bus full of children. The United Nations reported last month that it has documented about 18,000 civilian deaths and injuries that have resulted from the fighting, almost 11,000 of them from airstrikes alone. Several other groups believe these estimates to be conservative.
What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency
The Brennan Center for Justice – December 14, 2018 – Elizabeth Goitein
https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/what-president-could-do-if-he-declares-state-emergency
Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency” — a decision that is entirely within his discretion — more than 100 special provisions become available to him… What if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down… At a time when other democracies around the world are slipping toward authoritarianism — and when the president seems eager for the United States to follow their example — we would be wise to shore up the guardrails of liberal democracy. Fixing the current system of emergency powers would be a good place to start.
Bill McKibben Calls FBI Tracking of Environmental Activists “Contemptible”
Clean Technica – December 13, 2018 – Steve Hanley
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/13/bill-mckibben-calls-fbi-tracking-of-environmental-activists-contemptible/
The FBI has revealed it maintained an open investigation of 350.org — the climate activism group founded by Bill McKibben — and its members as part of an ongoing anti-terrorism campaign. “Trying to deal with the greatest crisis humans have stumbled into shouldn’t require being subjected to government surveillance,” McKibben says. “But when much of our government acts as a subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, it may be par for the course.” He added the FBI’s apparent failure to distinguish between nonviolent civil disobedience and domestic terrorism was contemptible.
The Public Ownership Solution
Portside – Jacobin – December 15, 2018 – Thomas M. Hanna
https://portside.org/2018-12-15/public-ownership-solution
The US has a surprisingly large amount of public ownership. But in order for it to truly serve the social good, it must be expanded — and democratized… Public ownership in the United States is far more common than many people realize… There are around two thousand publicly owned utilities that, along with consumer-owned cooperatives, provide around 25 percent of the nation’s electricity… Around 87 percent of the US population gets its water from publicly owned water at the municipal level… Nearly all public transportation systems — buses, subways, trams — in the United States are publicly held… The goal must be to once again connect with a majority of ordinary people and set about our historic task: constructing a world in which all people can flourish.
To the Children Seeking Asylum in the U.S.: This Is My Wish for You
Yes! Magazine – December 3, 2018 – Claudia Castro Luna
https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/to-the-children-seeking-asylum-in-the-us-this-is-my-wish-for-you-20181203
In these unfinished letters, I tell you that I think your parents are so brave. You and they have shown the world what courage looks like, what hope and determination look like, the raw wish to live. Life seeks always life—your parents want to live, they want you to live, to see you grow up and prosper. Your parents love you. That is what I see in the pictures of all of you walking thousands of miles, enduring hunger, thirst, sleeping on sidewalks and plazas… The U.S. has disrupted economic and political life in Central America but now refuses to see in your tired faces the outcome of its opportunistic history in the region… This is my wish for you… That your days may soon change, that the love your parents and relatives feel for you glow inside you to give you strength and mitigate the great pain you are being forced to endure.
09 Sunday Dec 2018
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Jon Swift caught flak for his satire… this might too, song Patriarchy (i’m afraid the Right might actually adopt it)
09 Sunday Dec 2018
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In the Valley of Fear
The New York Review of Books – December 20, 2018 issue – Michael Greenberg
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/in-the-valley-of-fear/
Measured by yearly production, the San Joaquin Valley is one of the highest-value stretches of farmland in the country, and is dominated by large growers who preside over a labor force of migrant workers in a way that has not changed much since Carey McWilliams described it in his 1939 book, “Factories in the Fields”…. Today, at least 80 percent of farmworkers are undocumented Mexicans, the majority of them Mixteco and Trique, indigenous people from the states of Oaxaca, Sinaloa, and Guerrero—the poorest regions in Mexico—who speak no or very little Spanish, much less English. Most of them have been working the fields for at least a decade, have established families here, and live in terror of la migra, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is called, and instant deportation or imprisonment that would wrench them from their children.
How Trump Fuels the Fascist Right
The New York Review of Books – November 29, 2018 – Bernard E. Harcourt
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/11/29/how-trump-fuels-the-fascist-right/
President Trump makes constant use of the language and logic of the “new right,” a toxic blend of antebellum white supremacy, twentieth-century fascism, European far-right movements of the 1970s, and today’s self-identified “alt-right.” And his words and deeds have empowered and enabled an upsurge of white nationalists and extremist organizations—from Atomwaffen to the Proud Boys to the Rise Above Movement—that threatens to push the country into violent social conflict. Amplified by social media, this new right rhetoric is inciting unstable men to violence through pipe-bomb mailings and temple shootings. It is crucial for the American people to identify and oppose this radicalization, in order to steer the country back to a steadier path.
Portrait of a Planet on the Verge of Climate Catastrophe
The Guardian – December 2, 2018 – Robin McKie
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastophe
As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return… Climate catastrophe is now looking inevitable. We have simply left it too late to hold rising global temperatures to under 1.5C and so prevent a future of drowned coasts, ruined coral reefs, spreading deserts and melted glaciers.
Progressive lawmakers call for climate change revolution
The Guardian – December 4, 2018 – Emily Holden
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/04/bernie-sanders-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-climate-change-town-hall-green-new-deal
“What we are trying to do tonight is be part of the revolution in terms of the need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and to not only save the planet but create millions of good-paying jobs in the process,” Sanders said… Ocasio-Cortez said the climate movement was “going to be the Great Society, the moonshot, the civil rights movement of our generation”.
David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon
The Guardian – December 3, 2018 – Damian Carrington
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/03/david-attenborough-collapse-civilisation-on-horizon-un-climate-summit
Attenborough said: “The world’s people have spoken. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.”
By Now, Climate Denial Amounts to Mass Murder
Reader Supported News – December 6, 2018 – Mort Rosenblum
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/53759-rsn-by-now-climate-denial-amounts-to-mass-murder
Let’s be clear before it is too late. Any government leader or corporate executive who flouts irrefutable evidence of climatic shifts is complicit in murdering the human race. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called willful denial of climate change “depravity” in a New York Times essay on heedless greed and hubris. That’s not the half of it. Bill McKibben, in The New Yorker, outlined in devastating detail what he has watched closely since sounding the alarm 30 years ago. Yet as fire, flood and famine steadily worsen toward Endgame, the world dithers. “It’s now reasonable to ask,” he wrote, “whether the human game has begun to falter – perhaps even to play itself out.”
Family Separation Never Really Ended
Rolling Stone – November 30, 2018 – Jamil Smith
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/family-separation-continues-761874/
Lord knows that there are many worthy contenders for Worst Thing That Donald Trump Has Ever Done, but it is difficult to see how anything captures the essence of his cruelty like the incarceration of immigrant children separated from their families by his government. Especially since it seems as though it is still going on, quiet as it’s kept. How can you ever be more than the worst thing you have ever done if you don’t stop doing it?
Age, gender play role in perception of harassment
The Boston Globe – December 4, 2018 – Alex Tanzi
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/12/03/age-gender-play-role-perception-harassment/R3JsEuIa3zjeS56CYqMQ8N/story.html
Is it sexual harassment? The answer will depend on whether you’re a man or a woman, as well as your age, according to a recent wide-ranging US survey that included questions on unwanted sexual advances in the workplace… The responses, part of the American Family Survey that also included issues of marriage, children, and public policy, showed that younger people and men were less likely than older Americans and women to view something as harassment.
Lost lands? The American wilderness at risk in the Trump era
The Guardian – December 5, 2018 – Charlotte Simmonds, Gloria Dickie and Jen Byers
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/05/american-wilderness-trump-energy-threat
Two years after Trump came to power, a new study produced by the Wilderness Society, a not-for-profit organization advocating for the protection of public lands, and shared exclusively with the Guardian, reveals the full extent of his government’s efforts.
The Art of the Imaginary Deal
The New York Times – December 6, 2018 – Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/opinion/columnists/trade-tariffs-trump.html
Even as he declared himself Tariff Man, Trump revealed that he doesn’t understand how tariffs work. No, they aren’t taxes on foreigners, they’re taxes on our own consumers… The future of world trade, with all it implies for the world economy, now hinges largely on Donald Trump’s mental processes. That is not a comforting thought.
Trump’s Countless Scams are Finally Catching Up to Him
Portside – The Guardian – December 4, 2018 – Rebecca Solnit
https://portside.org/2018-12-04/trumps-countless-scams-are-finally-catching-him
The daily news drip can make it difficult to recognize the immense scale of the president’s legal troubles.
Republicans are undermining democracy state by state
The Guardian – December 9, 2018 – Russ Feingold
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/09/republicans-michigan-wisconsin-strip-power-democrats-undermine-democracy
What Republican legislators just did in Wisconsin – passing bills to strip key powers from the governor-elect, Tony Evers, and other newly elected Democratic officials – is a total betrayal of the people of Wisconsin and our nation’s democratic ideals.
How the Iconic 1968 Earthrise Photo Changed Our Relationship to the Planet
Reader Supported News – December 8, 2018 – Bill McKibben
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/53805-how-the-iconic-1968-earthrise-photo-changed-our-relationship-to-the-planet
Though it emerged from the fraught and divisive politics of the late 1960s, there was a sweetness to Earth Day. The event had a sense of unity because – and this was the point made so clear in the Earthrise image – we were clearly all in it together… Donald Trump has been trying to turn “globalist” into a curse word, but if the Earthrise photo makes anything clear, it’s that we do indeed inhabit a globe. That’s our most basic identity.
02 Sunday Dec 2018
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Israeli Squatters in West Bank uproot 1,000 Palestinian Olive Trees a Month (800,000 since 1967)
Informed Comment – November 26, 2018 – Maan News Agency
https://www.juancole.com/2018/11/israeli-squatters-uproot-palestinian.html
For hundreds of Palestinian families, olive trees are the main source of income, however when harvest season approaches, Israeli settlers target Palestinian lands and cause severe economic damages. According to a report by Israeli NGO B’Tselem, Israeli settlers’ vandalism in the occupied West Bank is a daily routine and is fully backed by Israeli authorities.
Norway Becomes World’s First Country to Ban Deforestation
EcoWatch – June 8, 2018 – Katie Pohlman
https://www.ecowatch.com/norway-becomes-worlds-first-country-to-ban-deforestation-1891166989.html
“This is an important victory in the fight to protect the rainforest,” Nils Hermann Ranum, head of policy and campaign at Rainforest Foundation Norway said in a statement. “Over the last few years, a number of companies have committed to cease the procurement of goods that can be linked to destruction of the rainforest. Until now, this has not been matched by similar commitments from governments. Thus, it is highly positive that the Norwegian state is now following suit and making the same demands when it comes to public procurements.”
Tear Gassing Central American Migrants Is Inhumane, Unconstitutional, Immoral
Democracy Now! – November 26, 2018 – Amy Goodman interviews Reverend William Barber
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/26/rev_william_barber_tear_gassing_central
These people are fleeing places that were destabilized, and much of the destabilization happened because of our own military policies in Guatemala during the Reagan years. And nobody wants to talk about that. We created a situation that destabilized people, we supported the wrong people in South America and upheld governments that were oppressive to the people and now many of them are fleeing. And they are fleeing much of what we helped create and then we want to push them—or at least Trump and this administration wants to push them back.
We Bear Responsibility for the Conditions in Honduras Causing Its People to Flee
Esquire Magazine – November 26, 2018 – Charles Pierce
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25309275/honduras-1980s-cia-military-migrants-border/
For the past several decades, the country’s civilian government has been riven with corruption and the country itself has ripped its own entrails out in gang violence. It has become both a de facto and a de jure human rights nightmare, according to Human Rights Watch… The question is how much of the turmoil we own—and how we’re going to make good on our moral debts… These are people being told through violence that they have to return to the violence that drove them out of their countries in the first place. The ones with longer memories will recall the days when the United States used Honduras to initiate violence in Guatemala and El Salvador for the purpose of initiating it in Nicaragua.
The Game-Changing Promise of a Green New Deal
The Intercept – November 28, 2018 – Naomi Klein
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/green-new-deal-congress-climate-change/
For the first time, I see a clear and credible political pathway that could get us to safety, a place in which the worst climate outcomes are avoided and a new social compact is forged that is radically more humane than anything currently on offer… When other young people are locating their climate voice and their climate rage, there is finally someone to receive their message, with an actual plan to turn it into policy. And that might just change everything.
Past four years hottest on record, data shows
The Guardian – November 29, 2018 – Fiona Harvey
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/four-years-hottest-record-climate-change
The warming trend is unmistakeable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century… The record-high heatwaves, record-low Arctic sea ice, above average tropical cyclones and deadly wildfires are an alarm bell impossible to ignore. We’re in the midst of a climate crisis and this meteorological report spells out the worsening threat in startling clarity. It’s no longer our future that is in peril; our today is at risk.
Fear Is the Emotion at the Heart of Trump and the GOP
Reader Supported News – George Lakoff’s Facebook Page – November 28, 2018
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/53620-focus-fear-is-the-emotion-at-the-heart-of-trump-and-the-gop
Fear of people of color. Fear of equality for women and LGBT people. Fear of religions other than Christianity. Fear of non-existent conspiracies. Fear of the media. Fear of social progress. Ever wonder why? Republicans understand that fear activates conservative attitudes in the brain. So, they stoke fear… Here’s a direct link to the study: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/yale-study-turning-conservatives-in-liberals/
The Demons Within
The Shipler Report – November 30, 2018 – David K. Shipler
https://shiplerreport.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-demons-within.html
As president, Trump has created an environment favorable to the undercurrent of anti-Semitism that American society has long harbored. It has surfaced dramatically since his election in 2016… Trump did not pull the trigger in the Pittsburgh synagogue. Yet his vicious attacks on immigrants as criminals who “invade our country” fed into the stated motive of the shooter, Robert Bowers, and informed the killer’s vocabulary… That hard connection between Trump’s rhetoric and the shooter’s impetus has not deterred the president, who continues to inflame our fears against immigrants, awakening the lurking demons that now stride across this troubled land.
EPA Plans to Roll Back Water Protections
The Intercept – November 27, 2018 – Sharon Lerner
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/epa-water-protection-climate-change/
In many parts of the country, particularly the Southwest, groundwater has been seriously depleted, causing some rivers and streams to run dry for part of the year. Yet the Trump administration is poised to issue a regulatory rollback that will make this already alarming situation much worse… One thing seems clear: Climate change will further threaten our water.
Trump’s move to give states more flexibility undercuts Obamacare, critics say
NPR – WHYY – December 1, 2018 – Julie Appleby
https://whyy.org/npr_story_post/trumps-move-to-give-states-more-flexibility-undercuts-obamacare-critics-say/
“Invariably, the coverage is going to be more expensive for people who really need comprehensive coverage,” said Timothy Jost, a retired Washington and Lee University law professor who follows the ACA closely.
The Violence Against Women Act is set to expire. Not a single Republican co-sponsored it
The Boston Globe – November 30, 2018 – Renée Graham
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/11/30/domestic-violence-should-not-partisan-issue/owUrm6elFJ1wsscxop50XI/story.html
The funding that does come to states helps support the work of community-based rape crisis centers and domestic violence programs. If that were to go away, it would be really devastating… VAWA saves lives, and its reauthorization is a vote for humanity over petty partisan politics.
Sanders Institute Kicks Off Gathering of Progressive Leaders
Portside – November 30, 2018 – Xander Landen
https://portside.org/2018-11-30/sanders-institute-kicks-gathering-progressive-leaders
“We’re going to try to break through the silos that exist within the progressive community because at the end of the day we know what we are fighting for,” Sanders said, delivering the event’s keynote speech. “At the end of the day our vision is a world that works for all the children of this world, not for a handful of billionaires.”
In-Depth Analysis by Team of UMass Amherst Economists Shows Viability of Medicare For All
Portside – Common Dreams – November 30, 2018 – Robert Pollin, Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Jared Sharpe
https://portside.org/2018-12-01/depth-analysis-team-umass-amherst-economists-shows-viability-medicare-all
A team of economists from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) has found that the Medicare for All Act of 2017, introduced to the United States Senate by Senator Bernie Sanders, is not only economically viable, but could actually reduce health consumption expenditures by about 9.6 percent while also providing decent health care coverage for all Americans.
How Climate Change Helped Create the Migrant Caravan
Truth Out – December 2, 2018 – Brian Moench
https://truthout.org/articles/how-climate-change-helped-create-the-migrant-caravan/
El Salvador’s rivers are drying up and Guatemala’s semiarid region is expanding. Temporary relief from the drought has only come from occasional, devastating flooding, which has only added to the destruction of crops. One-third of all employment in Central America comes from agriculture, and that is now failing across the entire region… An inter-agency study from the United Nations interviewed families trying to leave Central America. The report revealed that the driving force for this exodus was not violence per se, but the drought and its downstream consequences — lack of food, no income and no work — all related to crop failures… There is no wall tall enough, or Border Patrol massive enough, to stop either the “global” or the “national” consequences of the climate crisis.
What Welcome Really Looks Like: Softening Hearts to a New Generation of Refugees
Yes! Magazine – November 29, 2018 – Alex Myers
https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/what-welcome-really-looks-like-softening-hearts-to-a-new-generation-of-refugees-20181129
As I listen to and read the stories of this latest exodus, of that big train of migrants… I see: how much we have. How easy it is to lose it all. How sacred it can be to give, to offer, to open your arms.
How to Treat a Stranger in Need: A Moral Response to the Migrant Caravans
Yes! Magazine – November 28, 2018 – Rabbi Ted Falcon, Pastor Don Mackenzie and Imam Jamal Rahman
https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/how-to-treat-a-stranger-in-need-a-moral-response-to-the-migrant-caravans-20181128
Migrants fleeing persecution and violence in their homes and seeking refuge is a narrative often repeated in the troubled history of humankind. As Jews and Christians, we celebrate the biblical story of an entire people taken from slavery to journey toward the Promised Land. Like the Central Americans fleeing violence as well as economic and political instability in their home countries, the Israelites also found themselves unwelcome as they wandered through the wilderness… In the Muslim tradition, the Hijra, the migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina, reflects this same transition… We believe that when called on by our faith traditions to provide that same safety and comfort to strangers, we are obligated to answer that call.