Prisoners Need the Chance to Speak at Their Parole Hearings
Time Magazine – February 13, 2020 – Glenn Freezman
https://time.com/5783728/parole-hearings-board-preparation/
There is an ongoing and complicated conversation about whether parole hearings should be a part of the criminal justice process in the first place. But in states where these hearings are the designated method by which an individual’s fate is decided, it is a moral duty to equip inmates with at least the basic tools and direction needed to present their case… If parole hearings are meant to evaluate the likelihood of an individual reoffending and ending up back behind bars, then inmates need to have a chance to speak. Providing every inmate with a case manager would be a good start.
‘I Think People Will Starve.’ Experts Are Worried About the Hundreds of Thousands Who Could Lose Food Stamps Come April
Time Magazine – February 14, 2020 – Abby Vesoulis
https://time.com/5771169/food-stamp-rule-work-requirements/
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, recently finalized a rule that will make it harder for all states to make concessions for able-bodied adult SNAP beneficiaries in struggling areas going forward. Nearly 700,000 people across the country could lose their food stamps once the new rule kicks in in April, according to USDA’s own estimates… The tightening of the food stamp program is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reduce government spending on social safety net programs. “We need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand, but not allowing it to become an infinitely giving hand,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in a press release announcing the rule change in December… While many of the president’s proposals will not be considered by Congress, his stances on low-income communities, families and children reflect a disturbing theme of leaving America’s most vulnerable behind.
Who’s Profiting From Your Outrageous Medical Bills?
New York Times – February 14, 2020 – Elisabeth Rosenthal
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/opinion/sunday/surprise-medical-billing.html
Major sectors of the health industry have helped to invent this toxic phenomenon, and none of them want to solve it if it means their particular income stream takes a hit. And they have allies in the capital. That explains why President Trump’s executive order, issued last year, hasn’t resulted in real change. Why bipartisan congressional legislation supported by both the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health Committee to shield Americans from surprise medical bills has gone nowhere. And why surprise billing provisions were left out of the end-of-year spending bill in December, which did include major tax relief for many parts of the health care industry. Surprise bills are just the latest weapons in a decades-long war between the players in the health care industry over who gets to keep the fortunes generated each year from patient illness — $3.6 trillion in 2018.
This Is How Scandinavia Got Great
The New York Times – February 13, 2020 – David Brooks
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/scandinavia-education.html
What really launched the Nordic nations was generations of phenomenal educational policy. The 19th-century Nordic elites did something we haven’t been able to do in this country recently. They realized that if their countries were to prosper they had to create truly successful “folk schools” for the least educated among them. They realized that they were going to have to make lifelong learning a part of the natural fabric of society.
A Nun’s Journey in the Amazon
The New Yorker – February 17, 2020 – Elizabeth Barber
https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-nuns-journey-in-the-amazon
Jean Bellini is a nun who believes that God made us free, and that we’ve used our freedom poorly. We’ve used it to create colonialism, capitalism, and other systems that exploit the poor and reward the rich; we’ve used it to build a world in which some people have too much and others have nothing. Now, we’re in a fix. When terrible things happen, Bellini sometimes hears people say that they might turn out all right, “God willing.” She thinks, I wouldn’t put that burden on God. He made us free, and it’s not His job to save us.
Documentarian Ken Burns warned Trump’s rise would be ‘Hitler-esque’—here’s what else he predicted
The Daily Kos – February 16, 2020 – Leslie Salzillo
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/16/1919687/-Documentarian-Ken-Burns-warned-Trump-s-rise-would-be-Hitler-esque-here-s-what-else-he-predicted
I have never in my professional life ever spoken out in this way. I certainly have my own opinions and have a yard sign at elections and make sure I vote. But I spoke out because he represents the greatest threat to American democracy since the Second World War. He is so fundamentally un-American, and not only because he is unqualified, but because he is mentally unsuited. He represents a kind of strong man, narcissistic thing that represents the potential death of the Republic. All of my films are about the United States and all of them are about trying to understand how it works and how it doesn’t work, and I just felt compelled to speak out… He has tapped a dark unconscious, in which it is easier to vilify the other than to see what you share in common. It’s easier to be afraid than to welcome change… He’s appealing to that in the most venal and vulgar ways.
In His Assault on Justice, Trump Has Out-Nixoned Nixon
The Guardian – February 16, 2020 – Robert Reich
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/donald-trump-richard-nixon-department-justice-william-barr-roger-stone
Now we’re back to where we were 50 years ago. Trump seems determined to finish Nixon’s agenda of rigging elections and making the justice department a cesspool of partisanship. In Trump’s 2016 campaign, even Stone was back to his old dirty tricks of issuing lies and conspiracy theories, and seeking dirt on a Democratic opponent… Trump’s view is that he has ultimate power – an “absolute right” – to control the justice department. That’s as wrongheaded now as it was when Nixon held the same view. If a president can punish enemies and reward friends through the administration of justice, there can be no justice. Justice requires impartial and equal treatment under the law. Partiality or inequality in deciding whom to prosecute and how to punish invites tyranny… Trump neither understands nor cares about justice. He cares about nothing but himself. Like Nixon, he has usurped the independence of the Department of Justice for his own ends.
America’s ‘recycled’ plastic waste is clogging landfills, survey finds
The Guardian – February 18, 2020 – Erin McCormick
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/18/americas-recycled-plastic-waste-is-clogging-landfills-survey-finds
“This report shows that one of the best things to do to save recycling is to stop claiming that everything is recyclable,” said John Hocevar, director of Greenpeace’s Oceans Campaign. “We have to talk to companies about not producing so much throw-away plastic that ends up in the ocean or in incinerators.”… If manufacturers are going to make these products, they should be buying them back. They can be the ones closing the loop.
Torture’s Legacy of Impunity
Tom Dispatch – February 18, 2020 – Rebecca Gordon
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176664/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_torture%27s_legacy_of_impunity/
Rebecca Gordon uses the latest testimony in pre-trial hearings at Guantánamo Bay to give us a deeper sense of how impunity entered our world long before Donald Trump got elected. After all, in that offshore Bermuda Triangle of injustice, a previous administration had already “broadened” — that is, banished — the very idea of the rule of law to create a lawless universe of American injustice, one that in our age has spread to our borderlands, to the mainland, and above all to the White House.
Methane is a hard-hitting greenhouse gas. Now scientists say we’ve dramatically underestimated how much we’re emitting
The Washington Post – February 19, 2020 – Chris Mooney
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/02/19/were-vastly-undercounting-methane-emissions-fossil-fuels-scientists-say/
Scientists and governments alike have been greatly underestimating emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations, according to new research published Wednesday, suggesting both a threat and also an opportunity to curb leaks of the hard-hitting molecule. The contention emerges in a new study in the influential journal Nature, which draws on samples of ancient air extracted from within the Greenland ice sheet to measure levels of atmospheric methane before humans started burning fossil fuels.
Study Suggests Fossil Fuel Use Emits Up to 40% More Climate-Heating Methane Than Previously Thought
Common Dreams – February 19, 2020 – Jessica Corbett
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/19/study-suggests-fossil-fuel-use-emits-40-more-climate-heating-methane-previously
While methane doesn’t stay in the atmosphere nearly as long as carbon dioxide, it is 84–87 times more potent over a 20-year period. The latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in November 2019 showed that globally averaged concentrations of the top two greenhouse gases increased in 2018. “If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would still persist for a long time,” explained University of Rochester researcher Benjamin Hmiel, lead author of the new paper (pdf). “Methane is important to study because if we make changes to our current methane emissions, it’s going to reflect more quickly.”
Every Child on Earth Faces ‘Existential Threats’ From Climate Change, Report Finds
Time Magazine – February 19, 2020 – Mahita Gajanan
https://time.com/5786395/climate-change-children-threatened/
“Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse,” said Helen Clark, co-chair of the Commission and the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, in a UNICEF statement about the report. “It has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting and poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.”
Arizona migrant detention facilities, where some sleep in bathroom stalls, are unfit for humans, judge rules
The Washington Post – February 20, 2020 – Meagan Flynn
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/20/arizona-detention-facilities-unconstitutional/
“It’s just unfathomable that in our nation we have a Constitution that says all human rights should be protected, and that we were seeing these images,” Alvaro M. Huerta, an attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, said in an interview. “We’re not treating people with the dignity that every human being deserves. It was important that the judge was able to see with his own eyes what’s happening day in and day out.”
Medicare For All Would Save More Than 68,000 Lives And $450 Billion Every Year, According To New Study
Popular Resistance – February 19, 2020 – Katy Pallister
https://popularresistance.org/medicare-for-all-would-save-more-than-68000-lives-and-450-billion-every-year-according-to-new-study/
Epidemiologists from the Yale School of Public Health, University of Florida, and University of Maryland School of Medicine, have calculated that a single-payer universal health-care system in the US would likely lead to a 13 percent saving in national health-care expenditure and prevent more than 68,000 unnecessary deaths. By replacing premiums, deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket costs with a progressive tax system, Medicare for All will not only save the average family around $2,400 a year, but also give lower-income families access to the services they need, the researchers say.
‘We should be very afraid’: Admiral who oversaw Bin Laden raid hits out at Trump over sacking of intelligence chief
The Independent – February 22, 2020 – Oliver O’Connell
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/william-mcraven-trump-joe-maguire-intelligence-a9352486.html
Retired navy admiral William McRaven, writing in The Washington Post about the dismissal of director of national intelligence Joe Maguire, decries the fact that Mr Maguire was apparently ousted simply for doing his job – the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials. He writes: “As Americans, we should be frightened – deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security – then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
The Donald Trump Phenomenon: The Drift Towards an Autocratic Presidency in the United States
Global Research – February 20, 2020 – Prof Rodrigue Tremblay
https://www.globalresearch.ca/donald-trump-phenomenon-drift-towards-autocratic-presidency-united-states/5704170
Wednesday, February 5, 2020 will come to be remembered as a date of historic significance for the United States.Indeed, this is the date when a Senate majority of 52 Republican Senators (with the notable exception of Sen. Mitt Romney), voted against convicting President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of justice, in the impeachment trial of the latter. That is also the date when Donald Trump interpreted such exoneration as a blank check to move towards a fully autocratic presidency… “Experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go”. —Montesquieu (1689-1755), 1748… “Where you have a concentration of power in a few hands —all too frequently —men with the mentality of gangsters get control.” —Lord Acton (1834-1902), 1866… “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” —Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), American author (in ‘It Can’t Happen Here’, 1935, a novel about the election of a fascist to the American presidency)… It is time for Americans to hear a wake up call before it is too late.
A Very Hot Year
The New York Review of Books – February 22, 2020 – Bill McKibben
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/03/12/climate-change-very-hot-year/
It is far too late to stop global warming, but these next ten years seem as if they may be our last chance to limit the chaos. If there’s good news, it’s that 2019 was also a hot year politically, with the largest mass demonstrations about climate change taking place around the world… In mid-January the world’s largest financial firm, BlackRock, announced that it was taking broad, if still tentative, steps to include climate change in its analyses of potential investments. “Awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” its CEO, Larry Fink, wrote in a letter to CEOs of the world’s largest corporations. That’s perhaps the most encouraging news about climate change since the signing of the Paris climate accords, because if these pillars of global capital could somehow be persuaded to act, that action could conceivably be both swift and global. Anything is worth a try at this point, because we’re very nearly out of time.
We’ve Got a Better World in Mind
Yes! Magazine – February 19, 2020 – Christine Hanna and Berit Anderson
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/world-we-want/opinion/2020/02/19/world-vision-future/
We have the technical and policy tools to implement sweeping changes to existing human systems. The problem has been that, until recently, we haven’t had the political will. But that too is changing. As children, we believe someone is “in charge,” tracking what’s happening in the world and what to do about it. But the last three years have taught us that there’s no one in charge. Regardless of our age, we are the grownups. And we, the grownups, are angry at the ways in which the “adults” in the room have lied to us. We’re angry at inaction on climate change and inequality, corporate complicity with authoritarian regimes, voter disenfranchisement, police brutality, and mass shootings. Our anger has reared its head on the streets, at the ballot box, and on our screens… Building the world we want will be one of the hardest things any of us will ever do. But guided by these principles, and working together, we can make 2020 the year that everything changed.