Congress’s Incentive Cease-Fire

How a COVID relief bill could temporarily slow the tax break race to the bottom

_____ Though corporate tax giveaway problems often arise at the state and local level, federal lawmakers could technically implement a fix for the whole nation. For decades, in fact, a few policymakers have pushed for Congress to use its power to regulate interstate commerce to end the race to the bottom ...
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Congress’s Incentive Cease-Fire

Up To Heaven and Down to Hell

Fracking, freedom, and community in an American town

_____ The following excerpt is from Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town by Colin Jerolmack and was reprinted with permission of Princeton University Press. From page 229, Fig. 10.3b. Fracking in the Tiadaghton State Forest. Photograph ...
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Up To Heaven and Down to Hell

Data Cooperatives for Pandemic Times

To avoid ‘co-op whitewashing,’ experiments with data co-ops should be co-developed with communities connected to the long history and analysis of the various forms of cooperatives.

To avoid 'co-op whitewashing,' data cooperatives must be shaped by those who need them most, rooted in cooperative principles and localized data....

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Data Cooperatives for Pandemic Times

Joe Biden Embraces Liberalism

But is he returning to a New Deal vision? Comparisons to Harry Truman may be more apt

_____ Yesterday, the Biden administration issued a proclamation on Black Maternal Health Week. It noted that African American mothers die from pregnancy-related complications at two to three times the rates of white, Hispanic, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women, no matter what their income or education levels. President Joe Biden and ...
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Joe Biden Embraces Liberalism

Reflections on Violence

In defense of rioting, looting, and vandalism

_____ What follows is an excerpt from a longer interview with AK Thompson, conducted by E. Colin Ruggero, and published as part of a special edition of Theory in Action titled “Revisiting the Riot: 10th Anniversary of A.K. Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot.” Thompson’s book was first published in 2010 by the ...
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Reflections on Violence

Dan Crenshaw’s Eye

As he recovers from sight-saving surgery, will the second-term Texas congressman reflect on the health insurance that other Americans don’t have?

_____ Last week, Representative Dan Crenshaw (R, TX-2) sent out a quietly heartbreaking press release. It notified constituents and colleagues that Crenshaw would be temporarily out of commission as doctors work to save his one partially-functioning eye. OK, you may not like Crenshaw very much: I don’t. He is a Trump baby, elected ...
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Dan Crenshaw’s Eye

Brazil

Land of despair

Brazil faces two threats, both lethal. On top of COVID-19, the country faces another virus, lethal to democracy: the virus of autocracy. The pandemic is brutally sweeping Brazil. Almost 4000 deaths per day, according to official data. There is no reason to doubt that we will reach more than 500,000 ...
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Brazil

Biden Must Fire IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig

Trump cronies have no place in the new administration

_____ Like many of former President Trump’s appointees, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig made a name for himself combatting the very agency he would later lead. Before getting appointed to the position in 2018, Rettig worked for over 30 years as a tax attorney in Beverly Hills representing some of ...
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Biden Must Fire IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig

Is Corporate America Rebuking the Republican Party?

Georgia’s voting rights laws are forcing unlikely alliances between the Democrats and Big Business

_____ The Republican outrage over Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia after the passage of the state’s new voter suppression law reveals a bigger crisis in American democracy: the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority. Consumer-driven corporate America is increasingly throwing ...
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Is Corporate America Rebuking the Republican Party?

Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

But the GOP will oppose this important jobs bill and the taxes one billionaires that could redistribute wealth to millions of Americans

_____ This week, President Joe Biden unveiled a new $2 trillion infrastructure proposal titled The American Jobs Plan. The statement introducing the plan notes that the United States currently ranks 13th in the world for the quality of our infrastructure, and that our public domestic investment as a share of the ...
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Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving