Library

This is where we will put all the links to articles we dig.

Campaign Finance Reform/Citizens United Iowa Senate Sends Corporate Meddlers A Message: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/2/171243/7845?new=true

This guy totally gets it: http://trueslant.com/michaelpreston/2010/03/09/this-is-why-people-were-worried-about-the-citizens-united-decision/

The revolving door keeps on spinnin’ – former DNC Chief Counsel to advise corporations on new campaign finance law landscape: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/85311-trade-group-hires-democratic-lawyer-to-lobby-on-campaign-finance-reform

Corporations already on the march: http://trueslant.com/michaelpreston/2010/03/09/this-is-why-people-were-worried-about-the-citizens-united-decision/

Michael Wilson discusses a potentially terrible byproduct of the Citizens United decision- will it allow employers to put more political pressure on their employees? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-j-wilson/businesses-can-now-legall_b_480028.html

Increased corporate spending on election ads will be less than transparent: http://www.propublica.org/article/higher-corporate-spending-on-election-ads-could-be-all-but-invisible

CitizenshipPeter Levine reminds us that Obama’s campaign was built around a call for “active citizenship” because organized social movements can makore more change than the government alone. So, let’s do that: be organized and active! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-levine/the-path-not-taken-so-far_b_437317.html

Fascinating article on the decline in public trust in America- from 76% in 1964 to just 17% under President Bush, bouncing back to only 19% today. This is the pessimism we will face, and that will be our biggest challenge, and require us to think about new ways to engage people: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto030320101534009307

Corporations Being Shady

Disney can’t handle the heat, forces mental health center to kick out critical childhood advocacy group: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/education/10baby.html?hp

How Big Tobacco continues to intimidate those who stand its path, including its prolonged harassment of a historian. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100315/wiener

Corruption/Ethics Charles Rangel (D-AT&T/Verizon) is facing major pressure from inside the Democratic Party to step down as Ways and Means Chairman for tax and ethics violations. Asked whether he’d remain Chairman, he answered “You bet your life.” Let’s see how that turns out. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/nyregion/03rangel.html Update: He did, in fact, step down as Chairman, and may not run for re-election.

Joe Conasan does a great job taking Republicans to town for this “phony indignation” over Charles Rangel’s actions, including a recap of their stalling during the DeLay investigations and John Boehner’s golfing junkets with commodities traders. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2010/03/04/rangel/‘

House Dems block earmarks to for-profits:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11earmark.html?hp

A message of fear to those brave enough to blow the whistle on the big banks: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/

Mrs. Clarence Thomas takes leadership role in the Tea Party. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/14/virginia-thomas-tea-party_n_498283.html

Education Diane Ravitch, famous educator, turns againt No Child Left Behind, charter schools, teaching to the test and other threats facing the integrity of the public school system: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?em

Economy and Financial Regulation Matt Taibbi explains how the investment banks got away with everything, and how they continue to rob the treasury and gamble on America’s future.  One of the must-read articles of the year: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/

Woops- turns out the Dept. of Labor has been miscalculatinig “productivity” for decades. Maybe it actually wasn’t that efficient to send all those jobs overseas. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/opinion/06Tonelson.html

“We saved the economy, but we kind of lost the public doing it.” -Simon Johnson http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/844311/-Simon-Johnsons-Most-Powerful-Words-Since-The-Quiet-Coup

Winners and losers: Senate kills summer jobs program and benefits for the poor with 45 votes; Schumer plans to join Republicans and centrist Dems in killing Wall Street bonus tax: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/senate-drops-funding-for_n_491493.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/another-wall-street-bonus_n_491749.html

Healthcare Luke Mitchell breaks down “regulatory capture”, the way that corporations take over the very regulatory agencies designed to monitor them, and discusses how Big Pharma and the insurance companies “captured” the healthcare debate. http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082740

A grim story of how prison healthcare privitization leads to ghastly results: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5274/death_by_privatization/

Media Sebastian Jones wonders why it’s so hard for media outlets to make “commentators” and “analysts” to disclose their corporate ties when they are being interviewed: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/jones

Sebastian Jones’ interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman is here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100308/jones_video

Military/Pentagon Waste Franklin Spinney explains one reason for the Pentagon budget continually escalating: The 20-member Quadrennial Defense Review oversight group is composed of eleven people with direct ties to weapons industry, and six from hawkish think-tanks: http://counterpunch.org/spinney03032010.html

DC residents fight corporate giveaways for a defense contractor:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/12-8

Regardless of how you feel about Iran sanctions, it seems that a number of corporations are flouting U.S law by doing business with Iran, and still winning federal contracts. Next time you hear that “sanctions aren’t working,” ask how of it has to do with corporations not respecting them: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/0…

Prison Reform:  Michigan is heading in the right direction on prison reform. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/us/05parole.html?hpw

A grim story of how prison health-care privatization leads to ghastly results: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5274/death_by_privatization/

Mass incarceration of people of color = new Jim Crow
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/alexander

Social Security

Before you freak out about Social Security being underfunded, take a peak at why:   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/16/846434/-Who-Is-Our-Biggest-Creditor-Hint:-Its-Not-Japan-or-China

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