Reform

Speak-Out Held In Senator Sanders’ Office For Critical Improvements To His Bill

April 14, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Healthoverprofit.org Resistance Report Electoral Politics, Health Care, Legislation, Reform

Ed Klein from Freeport, IL is currently on Medicare, but he has found it does not pay the cost of a very expensive essential medicine he needs. He wants Medicare to be improved to cover those costs and emphasized that for-profit insurance companies have no place in health care, as they put their profits before the health needs of people. Phil Ateto from Annapolis, MD is with the Backbone Campaign, which gave Sanders an award a few years ago for moral courage. He was a strong supporter of Sanders’ presidential campaign but feels that even supporters need to urge him to fix the shortcomings in his Medicare bill. He wants a strong bill that will excite the single payer movement and that we can enthusiastically champion.

French Civil Servants And Rail Workers Strike In Test For Macron

March 23, 2018 Staff, France24.com Resist! Class Struggle, France, Labor, Reform, Strikes, Transportation, Workers

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in the streets of France on Thursday and strikes caused travel misery for millions in a showdown between trade unions and President Emmanuel Macron that could be decisive for his reform efforts. Seven unions representing staff in the public sector had called for strikes and protests on Thursday, while a third of railway workers walked out to join the demonstrations against 40-year-old Macron's bid to shake up the French state. The strikes meant that less than half of the country's high-speed TGV trains were running, while flights, schools, daycare centres, libraries and other public services such as garbage collection were disturbed to varying degrees. Police fired teargas and water cannon in central Paris during sporadic clashes between security forces and groups of students which appeared to have been infiltrated by far-left anarchists.

Gun Laws Since Sandy Hook Have Favored The Gun Lobby

March 5, 2018 By Matt Vasilogambros, Pewtrusts.org Educate! Gun Control, Guns, Legislation, Reform

In the two weeks since the Florida school massacre, state lawmakers around the country have introduced bills to ban bump stocks, ban assault weapons, and expand background checks — and also to arm teachers, lighten penalties for carrying without a permit, and waive handgun permit fees. If history foretells, the gun-rights bills will have a better chance at success. In the years since Sandy Hook, when 26 were slain in 2012, states have enacted nearly 600 new gun laws, according to data compiled separately by the National Rifle Association and the Giffords Law Center to Reduce Gun Violence. Nearly two-thirds of those were backed by the NRA. It is “indisputably true” that there have been far more new laws that loosen gun restrictions than tighten them, said Michael Hammond, the legislative counsel at Gun Owners of America, a Virginia-based “no compromise” gun lobbying organization.

Argentine Truckers Block Capital Streets To Protest Macri Reforms

February 26, 2018 Hugh Bronstein and Nicolás Misculin, Reuters.com Resist! Argentina, Protests, Reform

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine truck drivers paralyzed parts of Buenos Aires, throwing up road blocks in some of the city’s busiest downtown neighborhoods, in a protest on Wednesday against President Mauricio Macri’s market-friendly economic policies. The protest was seen as a test of the president’s ability to keep pushing legislation in Latin America’s No. 3 economy after a violent outcry over pension reforms he got through Congress late last year. Macri, who took office in December 2015, is trying to cut Argentina’s fiscal deficit by gradually reducing subsidies for home heating gas and transportation, moves that have triggered an unpopular increase in utility bills and bus fares. “Mister President, don’t continue with policies that force the most vulnerable parts of our society - retired people, old people - to go hungry,” Hugo Moyano, head of Argentina’s largest umbrella union, the CGT, shouted at an afternoon protest rally.

Corrupt Gun Unit Shows Why Policing Can’t Be Reformed

February 13, 2018 Stephen Janis, Therealnews.com Educate! Corruption, Guns, Police, Reform

With the revelations of corruption in the Gun Trace Task Force, we talked to Dr. Lawrence Brown of Morgan State University about the future of policing. Despite new and troubling allegations of corruption, from the recent trial of two members of the now notorious Gun Trace Task Force, the business of policing in Baltimore goes on. During the trial, witnesses, some of them former members who had pled guilty, alleged that departments, command staff, was well aware of overtime abuse and false reports. Those allegations only added to the already historic levels of malfeasance from a unit that dealt drugs, stole cash from residents and overtime from the city. But even as doubts grow, recently appointed Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa announced a new command staff structure, an overhaul of an institution that is already under federal consent decree for practicing unconstitutional policing.

City Takes Major Step To Reform Oppressive And Inhumane Bail System

February 10, 2018 By Mehreen Kasana / AlterNet.org Create! Atlanta, Bail, Cities, Reform

Atlanta's City Council just unanimously voted and adopted a move to reform Atlanta’s cash bail system, which frequently targets, jails and ultimately upends the lives of its poorest citizens for some of the most minor and non-violent misdemeanors. The decision took a heated six hours to reach a 13-0 vote, and has become the latest protest in a growing number of concerted efforts against the American justice system's notorious bail scam. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed the proposal that stipulated people guilty of nuisance offenses should not be jailed for unnecessarily lengthy durations—think in terms of days, weeks and months—simply because they do not have the financial power to pay fines starting at $100 and going up to $500 and more.

Chinese Leadership On U.N. Reform

January 10, 2018 Rene Wadlow, Transcend.org Create! China, Reform, United Nations

6 Jan 2017 – There have been a number of periods when proposals for new or different United Nations structures were proposed and discussed. The first was in the 1944-1945 period when the Charter was being drafted. Some who had lived through the decline and then death of the League of Nations wanted a stronger world institution, able to move more quickly and effectively in times of crisis or the start of armed conflict. In practice, the League of Nations was reincarnated in 1945 in the U.N. Charter but the names of some of the bodies were changed and new Specialized Agencies such as UNESCO were added. There was some dissatisfaction during the San Francisco negotiations, and an article was added indicating that 10 years after the coming into force of the Charter a proposal to hold a U.N. Charter Review Conference would be placed on the Agenda – thus for 1955.

5 Ways The Republican Tax-Reform Plan Hits Black Folks The Hardest

December 5, 2017 Charles D. Ellison, theroot.com Educate! New Economy, Racism, Reform, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Charles D. Ellison for The Root - Right now, at this very moment, the single biggest threat to the group of people already in a compromised position because of their race is the congressional Republicans’ tax-reform plan. Not the sound of the police. Not lead in your water and not a jail cell. The tax-reform plan that both Congress and the White House are pushing seems obscure. It’s that thing only geeky Washington, D.C., insiders pass crush notes over, so you glance away from the television screen because it sounds irrelevant. It’s so innocuous, you ask, “What’s a tax cut got to do with me?” especially when shit is already tight. So long as you get that refund check for a down payment on that next car, you could care less. As the latest YouGov poll (pdf) shows, you are among the vast majority of Americans who hate Congress, yet you’re probably in that 46 percent who don’t follow what congressional lawmakers do, including the nearly 70 percent of whom are black. But black folks should be paying the most attention because we’ll feel the most hurt as congressional Republicans, along with an oligarchic Trump White House, try to make the plan into law (House Republicans passed their version of the bill on Thursday). Not only is black America the least likely to see a tax cut, but it’s also the most likely to see future tax increases, shredded safety nets, and a flurry of fines and fees to make up the difference.

TPP Now ‘Comprehensive & Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership’

November 18, 2017 Staff, otherwords.org Educate! Capitalism, Reform, TPP, Trade

By Staff of Flush The TPP - On November 11th, the TPP-11 countries announced reaching an agreement on reforms that have been negotiated since the United States exited the deal. The most evident one is its new name which is meant to appease world-wide criticism as one of the worst trade deals for the people ever negotiated. They now want to call it the ‘Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership’ or CPTPP. We are well aware of how world leaders are intentionally trying to avoid easy to remember acronyms due to the brand-busting campaigns that have caused the global opposition to corporate trade deals. Re-branding it as a progressive deal cannot hide what remains behind the deal, such as the ISDS. An official announcement declared that “Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.” This reformed deal eliminated 20 sections of the original TPP text, including provisions related to pharmaceutical products, patent protection, copyright and intellectual property. However, the agreement is still far from progressive and far from being signed as Canada is insisting it will not be pressured into a deal that is not good for Canadians. An analysis of the deal by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) welcomes the suspension of the Intellectual Property provisions, which were amongst the most dangerous of the provisions in the original TPP deal.

Current Taxes And Tax Reform Undermine Social Security & Medicare

October 26, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, www.otherwords.org Educate! Medicare, New Economy, Reform, Social Security, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Other Words - You probably pay about four times more of your income to Social Security than millionaires, who want to cut their taxes and your benefits. How much did your paychecks total last year? You know the answer, of course. So does the Social Security Administration. The totals for every American’s paycheck income are sitting in Social Security’s computers. Once every year, Social Security does a serious data dump out of those computers to let us know just how much working Americans are actually making. The latest totals — covering 2016 — have just appeared. Most of us, the new numbers show, are simply not making all that much. In fact, nearly half of our nation’s employed — 49.3 percent — earned less than $30,000 in 2016. A good many of these Americans lived in poverty. In 2016, families of four that earned less than $24,339 ranked as officially poor. We don’t have an “official” figure for middle class status. But the Economic Policy Institute has calculated the costs of maintaining a no-frills middle class existence in various parts of the United States. In Houston, one of our nation’s cheaper major cities, a family of four needed $62,544 in 2016 to live a bare-bones middle class lifestyle.

As We Close Rikers, Essential State-Level Reforms Needed

October 19, 2017 Glenn E. Martin, www.gothamgazette.com Create! Prisons, Reform, Rikers

By Glenn E. Martin for Gotham Gazette - Anyone following New York City politics knows about JustLeadershipUSA’s mission to close the jails at Rikers Island. In less than a year, the #CLOSErikers campaign successfully pressured Mayor Bill de Blasio to commit to shuttering the jail complex. It is no longer a question of if Rikers will close, but when. But the campaign has always known that closing Rikers would require reforms at the state level as well. An overhaul of our statewide bail, speedy trial, and discovery statutes is necessary to reduce the population at Rikers so that it can finally and expeditiously close its doors. Even if Rikers was closed tomorrow, these reforms would still be necessary. While New York City has successfully reduced its jail population over the past few years, county jail populations across the state are growing. Today, 63% of people held in jail in New York State are held in jails outside New York City. Of those 25,000 husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, and loved ones who are sitting in jails across our state, 70% have not been convicted but remain unjustifiably caged while they await the outcome of their cases. This reality is a consequence of punitive and discriminatory criminal justice policies that have decimated communities, primarily poor communities and communities of color, for decades.

Here’s What Real Tax Reform Looks Like

September 26, 2017 Paddy Quick, www.indypendent.org Create! Los Angeles, Protests, Reform, Taxes, Trump Administration

By Paddy Quick for Indypendent - President Donald Trump will not succeed in carrying out any significant tax “reform,” but it is likely that he and the Republican majority in Congress will further skew the existing tax structure to benefit the rich, the top 1 percert, at the expense of everyone else. This will continue the policies that have made the federal tax system significantly less progressive over the past several decades and thus contributed to increasing income inequality. The fundamental cause of that growing inequality is that the income created by the increase in productivity that has taken place over the past 40 years has gone almost exclusively to capital, while wages have remained stagnant. In contrast, the growth in productivity between 1945 and 1975 led to increases in both wages and profits. The main cause of this is the globalization of production, as multinational corporations transfer work to countries with much lower wages. Workers in the United States, however, have suffered more than those of many other “developed” countries such as Canada. The assault on the working class has worked systematically at both federal and state levels to undermine working-class organizations, in particular, trade unions. It has defeated hard-won restrictions on the power of money to influence elections, such as in the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that granted “free speech” rights to corporations and thus abolished limits on their financing of electoral campaigns.

Health Care Lobbyists Bankrolled Senate Democrats

September 15, 2017 David Sirota and Lydia O'Neal, www.ibtimes.com Educate! Congress, Health Care, Lobbying, Reform

By David Sirota and Lydia O'Neal for IB Times - As Bernie Sanders worked to finalize his Medicare-for-All Act of 2017, corporate lobbyists representing the traditional opponents of single-payer health care — including the nation’s major private insurers and drug companies — poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Senate Democrats’ fundraising accounts. Now, many of those lawmakers have refused to sign on to the Medicare bill. Sanders has faced questions about whether or not the bill would garner solid support among Senate Democrats. So far, 16 Senate Democrats have said they will sponsor the legislation — which the insurance industry slammed after he announced it. A new study from campaign finance watchdog group MapLight found that since 2010, Democratic senators who have refused to sponsor the bill have, during their careers, raised twice as much insurance industry cash as those who support the legislation. As Republicans took over the White House earlier this year, significant campaign funding for Democratic senators has continued to come from lobbyists. According to federal campaign finance records reviewed by International Business Times, lobbyists, lobbying firms and one other corporate political action committee collectively delivered nearly $2 million in bundled campaign contributions to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during the first half of 2017.

Tens Of Thousands March In France Against Anti-Worker Reforms

September 13, 2017 Jake Johnson, www.commondreams.org Resist! France, Labor, March, Reform, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Jake Johnson for Common Dream - Led by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), France's second largest trade union, demonstrators flooded Paris and other major cities chanting: "Macron you're screwed, the slackers are in the streets." The "slackers" label came from Macron himself, who in a recent speech vowed to not "give any ground [on his labor reforms], not to slackers, nor cynics, nor hardliners." Union leaders and France's left opposition seized upon Macron's comments and used them to rally workers ahead of Tuesday's planned actions, which included around 180 protests and 4,000 strikes—the first nationwide demonstrations of Macron's young presidency. In an interview on Monday, former Socialist Party presidential candidate Benoit Hamon slammed Macron's "slacker" remarks as "insulting" to French workers. "Lazy people are the independently wealthy, who don't need to work for a living," Hamon retorted. "And a lot of independently wealthy picked Emmanuel Macron as their champion."

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