Once every ten years, following the census, New York’s district lines are re-drawn. Right now, they’re re-drawn in a highly politicized process that helps incumbent legislators keep their district safe from any real competition. The NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) has recently released a proposal that is clearly unfair to [...]
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*** The Housing is a Human Right Committee of Metro Justice is looking into pursuing a similar policy for the Rochester-area. Tuesday, October 19, 2010— With three of the nation’s leading mortgage lenders admitting to questionable and perhaps illegal practices in their mortgage foreclosure actions, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced Tuesday he will [...]
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By Robert Reich Last week Rick Santorum called the President “a snob” for wanting everyone to get a college education (in fact, Obama never actually called for universal college education but only for a year or more of training after high school). Santorum needn’t worry. America is already making it harder for young people of [...]
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By Michelle Chen, In These Times India’s economic ascent seems like it should be the envy of the world’s richest nations; with rocketing growth rates and gargantuan consumer and labor markets, India’s destiny as Asia’s next superstar looks beyond a doubt. Except Indian workers just gave the boosters of global capitalism a few million second [...]
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By Vanessa Baird, The New Internationalist ‘You can’t evict an idea,’ read a sign posted in the window of 21-29 Sun Street, in the City of London.Occupy Boston in the US. The grey concrete office block, owned by the Swiss bank UBS, had been invaded and turned into a ‘Bank of Ideas’ by members of London’s [...]
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By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation Over the last thirty years, anti-government arguments by conservative pundits and politicians have gained prominence, and the rhetoric this 2012 campaign season seems more toxic than ever. Republicans are relentlessly pushing the notion that lower taxes, less regulation and small government (except for defense) will magically end the recession [...]
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By Paul Buchheit Before getting into the best reason, here are some of the usual — and always good — reasons. First of all, for every dollar the richest 1% earned in 1980, they’ve added three more dollars. The poorest 90% have added ONE CENT. The richest million families have not worked three times (let [...]
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By Kai Wright for Colorlines.com Someone broke the financial system, and evidence that the break was willful is now piled as high as banking execs’ bonuses. An old Eddie Murphy bit, made famous in his raunchy 1980s album “Raw,” tells you all you need to know about the foreclosure crisis. In the bit, a cheating [...]
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By Seth Freed Wessler, Colorlines.com First came the shock. Then the deep retrospective anxiety. “I’ve spent the last four days rethinking every single interaction I’ve had here. Everything I’ve said in Middle East Studies class … in the cafeteria,” said a student at Columbia University who asked he not be named. “I don’t even know [...]
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By Rinku Sen, for Colorlines.com This Sunday night, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Oscar watchers will be mooning over their favorite celebrities, frowning about the fashion world’s latest, and discussing the legacy of Jim Crow on the livelihoods of today’s domestic workers. That’s not a combination we see very often, but it represents the culmination of [...]
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