Reform

Cuts To Animal Protections Aren’t Surprising To Anyone Who Knows David Bernhardt

August 17, 2019 By Alison Cagle, Earthjustice.org Educate! Animals, Reform

Who would want to make it harder for vulnerable species to survive on an increasingly imperiled planet? That would be David Bernhardt, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior. Today, Bernhardt dramatically weakened the rules that implement the Endangered Species Act. He is attempting to weaken the popular environmental law that serves as the last safety net for animals and plants facing extinction. These rollbacks are a gift to industry, removing legal barriers that protect endangered species and their habitats from harmful fossil fuel extraction operations.

Study: Enactment Of California’s Medical Marijuana Law Associated With Sustained Decline In Traffic Fatalities

August 16, 2019 Staff, Norml.org Educate! California, Medical Marijuana, Public safety, Reform, Transportation

Irvine, CA: The enactment of California's 1996 medical cannabis access law is associated with a significant and a sustained decline in motor vehicle fatalities, according to data published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology. A team of investigators from the University of California at Irvine assessed the relationship between the enactment of California's medical cannabis law and statewide traffic fatalities. They estimated that California experienced a greater decline in fatal accidents compared to synthetic controls.

A Litany Of Economic Woes

August 14, 2019 Staff, Benl88.blogspot.com Educate! New Economy, Reform

As one who writes often about the economy, and often hears gasps of bewilderment and groans of boredom, I have tried to find ways to entice readers into the subject matter. But there is no corny joke to start this essay off. A litany is a list, and 8 items should give the reader a quick oversight of the failing economy. Added is a list of 4 reforms, simple and common sense. So let’s plunge in. 1. The “average weekly earnings” of eighty percent of U.S. workers was higher in 1965, 54 years ago, than in 2019, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

EPA Plans To Rewrite Clean Water Act Rules To Fast-Track Pipelines

August 14, 2019 Phil McKenna, Insideclimatenews.org Educate! EPA, Pipelines, Reform

The Trump administration is proposing changes to federal regulations that could fast-track the approval of natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Environmental advocates say the move will weaken the ability of states and tribes to protect their waters. The proposed changes to Clean Water Act permitting rules, announced Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would limit the amount of time states and tribes can take to review new project proposals to a "reasonable period" of no more than one year...

Deficit Hawks Are Enabling The Next US War

August 13, 2019 Lindsay Koshgarian, Truthout.org Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Military Budget, Reform

Back in April, progressives in Congress succeeded in halting a vote that included a military budget increase. In July, most of those same progressives — including powerhouses like Reps. Barbara Lee and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — voted to support a military budget that was slightly larger even than what they’d rejected in April. What changed? As Democratic and White House leadership announced a backroom budget compromise and put it up for a vote in July, congressional progressives faced a seemingly impossible choice...

The USA Is Over-Due For A Do-Over

August 12, 2019 Cindy Sheehan, Cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com Resist! Class Struggle, Reform, US Imperialism

Since its inception over 243 years ago in a hot meeting room, dripping with testosterone, in Philadelphia, the idea of any kind of democracy or equality in the USA has steadily eroded to where, today, those promises are all but non-existant. First of all, the Founders were a pack of human-owning, indigenous-slaughtering elites that forged a new society that would, of course, benefit themselves: where the top would stay firmly at the top and the bottom would be conditioned to believe in the American dream of easily attainable wealth and power.

Sunday 11 August: Extinction Rebellion Successfully Saves The World… At Boomtown!

August 12, 2019 Staff, Rebellion.earth Resist! Extinction Rebellion, Reform

At 5pm on Sunday, Extinction Rebellion successfully overthrew the wealthy banking and oil elites at the close of this years Boomtown Festival. They stormed the palaces of the powerful, bolstered in numbers by countless newly initiated rebels. This horde of new recruits to the Rebellion will put the skills they have learned to good use in real life when Extinction Rebellion storms the Palace of Westminster in October. For those unfamiliar with the Boomtown interactive, immersive theatre experience, the festival provides punters with an exhilarating ongoing narrative.

The Fight For A Green New Deal Can Start With Your Union Contract

August 10, 2019 Jared Odessky, Inthesetimes.com Organize! Class Struggle, Green New Deal, Reform, Unions, Workers

News coverage of the Green New Deal portrays organized labor as a major obstacle to its enactment. But our new report for Data for Progress paints a different picture. In a poll conducted for the think tank by YouGov Blue, union members overwhelmingly favored the proposed reforms, with 62 percent in support and 22 percent against. In a memo for Data Progress, where I am a legal fellow, I show how union contracts can be an effective way to fight for a Green New Deal.

Ed Reform vs. Democracy

August 10, 2019 Staff, Curmudgucation.blogspot.com Educate! Education, Reform, Schools

It was not that long ago that I wrote a piece about how school choice, by shifting the locus of control for the education purse strings, tends to undermine democractic processes. After all, if only parents of school age children, or only rich folks who contribute to tax credit scholarships, get to decide which schools get paid, then the non-parent taxpayers who are footing the bills don't really have much say, and the duly-elected school board has nothing much to do or say, either. School choice is, often...

Truth And Its Consequences:

August 9, 2019 Rupert Read, Medium.com Strategize! Climate Change, Environment, Extinction Rebellion, Reform

This pamphlet is an exercise in true-story-telling. It begins by underscoring the paramount importance of Extinction Rebellion’s (XR’s) Demand 1: for telling the truth underscores everything else. And telling the truth begins at home: we must tell the truth about how dire things are, hard though it is. Only if we do so might we motivate enough widespread buy-in to the truly radical changes that will be needed to prevent (or at least ameliorate) collapse. With truth-force, anything is possible. Without it, game-over.

Big Pharma: Gouges, Casualties, And The Congressional Remedy!

August 9, 2019 Ralph Nader, Nader.org Educate! Big Pharma, Congress, Reform

The Congress can overturn the abuses of Big Pharma and its “pay or die,” subsidized business model for its drugs. Big Pharma’s trail of greed, power, and cruelty gets worse every year. Its products and practices take hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. from over-prescriptions, lethal combinations of prescriptions, ineffective or contaminated drugs, and dangerous side-effects. The biggest drug dealers in the U.S. operate legally. Their names are emblazoned in ads and promotions everywhere.

How Trump’s Political Appointees Overruled Tougher Settlements With Big Banks

August 6, 2019 By Jesse Eisinger and Kevin Wack, Propublica.org Educate! Banks, Reform, Trump Administration

Since Donald Trump’s election, federal white-collar enforcement has taken a big hit. Fines and settlements against corporations have plummeted. Prosecutions of individuals are falling to record lows. But just how these fines and settlements came to be slashed is less well understood. Two settlements with giant banks over financial crisis-era misdeeds provide a window into how the Trump administration has eased up on corporate wrongdoers. In settlements last year with the two big U.K.-based banks, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, political appointees at the Trump administration Justice Department took the unusual step of overruling staff prosecutors...

Reforming Subsidies Could Pay For A Clean Energy Revolution

August 3, 2019 Staff, Iisd.org Create! Clean Energy, Fossil Fuels, Reform

Reforming the USD 372 billion countries spend each year on fossil fuel subsidies and reallocating between 10 and 30 percent of the savings to renewable projects would pay for a transition to clean energy. This is the finding of a new study by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The report authors highlight that the “subsidy swap” concept could not only make the clean energy revolution possible but also save taxpayers’ money for other priorities.

The Politics And Potential Of The Green New Deal

July 27, 2019 Johanna Bozuwa, Onlinelibrary.wiley.com Create! Climate Change, Green New Deal, New Economy, Reform

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have less than 12 years to slash our emissions in half to stand a chance of staying under 1.5 degrees Celsius average global temperature rise. It’s worth noting that those are global emissions – which means that, to keep the transition equitable, the Global North should be moving to cut emissions much faster still. “There is no documented historic precedent”, for the rapid action and scale necessary to curb climate change, wrote scientists in the report.1

To Save Rural Hospitals, Pass Medicare For All

July 25, 2019 Andy Spears, Otherwords.org Create! Health Care, Hospitals, Reform

Medicare for All is a popular idea — 70 percent of Americans say they support it, including 52 percent of Republicans. Why? Because in red and blue states alike, they see the costs of a market-driven system that values profit over patients. There’s perhaps no state in the nation making a better case for Medicare for All than Tennessee. Tennessee leads the nation in rural hospital closures and in the rate of medical bankruptcies. There are now 22 Tennessee counties without an emergency room. Simply having private insurance is not enough to stem the crisis of medical debt.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources