Listen to Death Cab for Cutie’s New Anti-Trump Song “Million Dollar Loan”
Listen to Death Cab for Cutie’s New Anti-Trump Song “Million Dollar Loan”
Last year, Death Cab for Cutie released the album Kintsugi. Today, the band have put out a new song called “Million Dollar Loan,” along with its video, directed by Simian Design. The song targets...
Last year, Death Cab for Cutie released the album Kintsugi. Today, the band have put out a new song called “Million Dollar Loan,” along with its video, directed by Simian Design. The song targets Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who famously said his father gave him $1 million to start his business dealings. It’s part of a new program called 30 Days, 30 Songs, created by writer Dave Eggers. Starting today until Election Day (Tuesday, November 8), there will be new songs each day from artists including My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Aimee Mann, Thao Nguyen (of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down), and clipping. In addition, 30 Days will include an unreleased R.E.M. live song.
Below, listen to “Million Dollar Loan,” read Ben Gibbard’s statement on the track, and see the 30 Days, 30 Songs single artwork (featuring an eagle with Trump’s hair). Read 30 Days, 30 Songs’ mission statement here. All of 30 Days’ proceeds will go to the Center for Popular Democracy and their efforts toward Universal Voter Registration for all Americans.
Lyrically, “Million Dollar Loan” deals with a particularly tone deaf moment in Donald Trump’s ascent to the Republican nomination. While campaigning in New Hampshire last year, he attempted to cast himself as a self-made man by claiming he built his fortune with just a “small loan of a million dollars” from his father. Not only has this statement been proven to be wildly untrue, he was so flippant about it. It truly disgusted me. Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unworthy of the honor and responsibility of being President of the United States of America, and in no way, shape or form represents what this country truly stands for. He is beneath us.
By Matthew Strauss
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Nan Goldin, Activists Bring Sackler Protest to Harvard Art Museums
Nan Goldin, Activists Bring Sackler Protest to Harvard Art Museums
“Protestors threw pill bottles on the floor of the atrium, handed out pamphlets, and held banners and posters with phrases like “MEDICAL STUDENTS AGAINST THE SACKLERS,” and “HARM REDUCTION NOW/...
“Protestors threw pill bottles on the floor of the atrium, handed out pamphlets, and held banners and posters with phrases like “MEDICAL STUDENTS AGAINST THE SACKLERS,” and “HARM REDUCTION NOW/TREATMENT NOW.” A number of speakers gave speeches about the Sacklers and the opioid crisis in the atrium, including Jennifer Flynn Walker of the Center for Popular Democracy and Goldin, who began organizing against Purdue and the Sacklers, who are major donors to cultural institutions throughout the United States and Europe, following treatment for opioid addiction last year. She said she became addicted after being prescribed OxyContin in 2014 following wrist surgery.
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Fast-food Labor Expands Scope of Fight for $15
Chicago Tribune - March 31, 2015, by Alejandra Cancino - The group huddled in front of a...
Chicago Tribune - March 31, 2015, by Alejandra Cancino - The group huddled in front of a McDonald's in downtown Chicago, preparing to tell the 100 people who had gathered there how the Fight for $15 had taken on a broader fight on behalf of low-wage workers ranging from airport workers to adjunct college professors.
Many of the people who listened to the speeches were young, too young to recall the 1960s-era protests. But that clearly was the vibe of Tuesday's rally.
Participants in the Fight for $15 movement, who are planning protests on April 15, say they have taken on a broader fight on behalf of low-wage workers ranging from airport workers to adjunct college professors.
"This fight is a fight about racial justice and economic justice," Charlene Carruthers, national director of the Black Youth Project 100, told the crowd. Her organization is composed of black activists ranging in age from 18 to 35.
"For us, the Fight for 15 is also a fight for our lives," Carruthers said. "When we say 'black lives matter,' that includes black workers."
People in the audience held signs that said "Fight 4/15," a reference to April 15, when organizers of the campaign to increase minimum wages plan to bring together 60,000 protesters in major cities across America and in more than 40 countries and at more than 170 college campuses, including the University of Illinois at Chicago.Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which is participating in the Fight for $15 campaign, said its strategy seems to borrow elements from eras of the 1930s and the 1960s.
"It has the feel of the civil rights movement, the feel of the labor movement, but it's 2015 so it's done in a different way," Shurna said. He said this campaign is trying to get corporations to take responsibility for the struggles of their workers and get them to increase wages, offer benefits and improve working conditions.
McDonald's and its franchisees have been the main target of the campaign. Workers have filed lawsuits and complaints at various federal agencies alleging labor law violations, wage theft and unsafe working conditions. Moreover, the campaign, backed by the Service Employees International Union, wants the National Labor Relations Board to declare that McDonald's and its franchisees share responsibility for working conditions, benefits and pay.
"We won't stop until these multibillion-dollar companies pay us a living wage of $15 per hour," said Douglas Hunter, a McDonald's worker.
In a statement, McDonald's said it respects people's right to peacefully protest. "Historically, very few McDonald's employees have participated in these organized events," Heidi Barker Sa Shekhem, a McDonald's spokeswoman, said in the statement.
Matt Hoffmann, an adjunct professor at Loyola University, said faculty members of colleges in Chicago and across the nation have drawn inspiration from fast-food workers and the Fight for $15.
He said adjuncts want to be paid $15,000 per course, a figure that would include wages and benefits. He said he currently is paid $4,500 per course and doesn't receive benefits.
Hoffmann, who spoke at Tuesday's rally, said, "We struggle with our bills; we receive no benefits and we have little job stability."
At an event announcing the actions in front of a McDonald's in New York City's Times Square, organizers said home health care aides, airport workers, adjunct professors, child care workers and Wal-Mart workers will be among those turning out in April.
Terrence Wise, a Burger King worker from Kansas City, Mo., and a national leader of the Fight for $15 push, said more than 2,000 groups including Jobs With Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy will show their support as well.
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60 Years After Brown v. Board of Education
Legal Talk Network - June 3, 2014 - May 17th, 2014 marked the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court Decision that held state laws...
Legal Talk Network - June 3, 2014 - May 17th, 2014 marked the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court Decision that held state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students as unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Today, some six decades later, many parents and teachers are still worried that America’s children are not receiving equal access to education envisioned in that case. On this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams shed light on this issue with guests Christian D’Andrea from the MacIver Institute and Kyle Serrette from The Center for Popular Democracy. Together they discuss private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling vs. the community school model. Tune in to learn more about funding concerns, oversight issues, and the proper role of teachers unions in the school choice debate.
Christian D’Andrea is an Education Policy Analyst with the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy in Madison, WI. He earned his Master’s of Public Policy degree at Vanderbilt University and has previously worked for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice as a State Policy Director and Policy Analyst. He is the author of several studies that examine the fiscal and personal impacts of educational reform, and his work has been featured everywhere from the Huffington Post to EducationNext.
Kyle Serrette is the Director of Education Justice Campaigns at The Center for Popular Democracy and works with their partner organizations to strengthen their public education coalitions, develop strategy to help close the opportunity gaps, and coordinates national and regional campaigns that work to bolster our public education system. Prior to joining The Center for Popular Democracy, Kyle spent over 10 years working on corporate campaigns with groups such as Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He was awarded the 2010 Joe Hill Organizing Achievement Award by the LA Fed and the Los Angeles Orange County Organize Committee.
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Activists to SEC’s White: Step aside on audit regulator appointment
A national coalition of 14 organizations told Mary Jo White, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to take herself out of the selection process for the next chair of the Public...
A national coalition of 14 organizations told Mary Jo White, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to take herself out of the selection process for the next chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the audit regulator.
In a letter sent on Thursday the signers said they believe there’s a conflict of interest created by her decision on an issue that will impact her family’s income. That’s because John White, her husband, is a member of the PCAOB’s Standing Advisory Group, selected by the board of the PCAOB, who are in turn chosen by the SEC and White.
The conflict has existed ever since White was approved as SEC chairwoman. Her spokeswoman told MarketWatch in September that her husband’s role in the PCAOB group was reviewed when she first took the job, and then again when the first PCAOB board appointment during her tenure was required. The conflict rose to the surface in early September, when Bloomberg reported that White was considering potential candidates to replace PCAOB Chair James Doty.
Doty has signaled he would like to return for another term but his industry reform-minded tenure has caused some, including at the SEC, to criticize his tenure. Critics say progress on the “nuts and bolts” of the agency is slow because of Doty’s preoccupation with larger industry-level initiatives focused on greater accountability and transparency for auditors and audits.
Bloomberg’s coverage of the conflict, and White’s admission that she was shopping for alternatives to Doty, led John White’s law firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, to remove marketing-type references to White’s position on the SAG from its website the following day, as reported by MarketWatch.
The organizations are the Alliance for a Just Society, American Family Voices, Campaign for America’s Future, Center for Effective Government, Center for Popular Democracy, Community Organizations in Action, Communications Workers of America, Democracy for America, Main Street Alliance, The Other 98%, Public Citizen, RootsAction, Rootstrikers and MoveOn.org Civil Action.
Source: MarketWatch
Piden expandir ID Municipal a otras ciudades
ciudad de Nueva York quiere que otras urbes de la nación copien el ID Municipal que ha sido un éxito en la Gran Manzana, y por ello este jueves el Centro para la Democracia Popular hizo el...
ciudad de Nueva York quiere que otras urbes de la nación copien el ID Municipal que ha sido un éxito en la Gran Manzana, y por ello este jueves el Centro para la Democracia Popular hizo el lanzamiento oficial de una nueva guía para facilitar la implementación de esa identificación en otras ciudades.
El programa, que comenzó a comienzos de este año, ya ha emitido más de 630,000 identificaciones a neoyorquinos, quienes están disfrutando de una variedad de beneficios.
“Nueva York siempre ha estado a la vanguardia de los derechos de los inmigrantes y constantemente ha empujado el desarrollo por la inclusividad y ha reconocido la contribución que han hecho los inmigrantes a este país”, dijo Shena Elrington, directora de Justicia Racial y de los Derechos de los Inmigrantes, del Centro para la Democracia Popular.
El concejal Carlos Menchaca aseguró que este programa “como habíamos anticipado, ha sido particularmente útil para aquellos que tienen una falta de conexión con los gobiernos en todos los niveles. Para esas personas, esta identificación municipal ha cambiado el juego. Es algo que debe ser imitado por otras ciudades”.
La guía explica detalladamente cómo aprobar una ordenanza municipal para poner la identificación en vigencia, los requisitos que se deben pedir a un solicitante y el tipo de sellos de seguridad que deben llevar las tarjetas de identificación, entre otra información
“Esto es algo que todos necesitamos a nivel nacional. Seamos documentados o no. Tenemos que salir de las sombras, si nosotros lo hacemos aquí, se puede hacer en cualquier otra parte”, dijo Patricia Rivera, miembro de la organización se Hace Camino Nueva York.
Otras ciudades donde se están dando identificaciones municipales incluyen Hartford, Connecticut; Newark, Nueva Jersey; Johnson County, Iowa; Los Angeles, California; Oakland, California; Richmond, Virginia; San Francisco, California. Recientemente en Perth Amboy, NJ, las autoridades anunciaron que estudiarán la posibilidad de otorgar el ID.
Las identificaciones municipales permiten a todos los residentes, independientemente de su condición migratoria, identidad de género u otras características, abrir una cuenta bancaria, cambiar un cheque, identificarse en un hospital, registrar a su hijo en la escuela, solicitar para beneficios públicos, presentar una queja ante el departamento de policía, pedir prestado un libro de una biblioteca, o incluso recoger un paquete de la oficina de correos.
Source: El Diario
Democrats are back in the fight for the Arizona Eighth Congressional District: All Bets are Off.
Democrats are back in the fight for the Arizona Eighth Congressional District: All Bets are Off.
Trump won by over 20 points, the Democrat leads in fundraising as well, aided in part by Ady Barkan, a wealthy Democratic activist with the Center for Popular Democracy who was recently diagnosed...
Trump won by over 20 points, the Democrat leads in fundraising as well, aided in part by Ady Barkan, a wealthy Democratic activist with the Center for Popular Democracy who was recently diagnosed with A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). In speaking with Bill Roe, the First Vice Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, he indicated that this race is unpredictable for several reasons.
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New York City's Undocumented Immigrants Will Get Municipal IDs, Says Mayor De Blasio
Huffington Post - February 10, 2014 - New York City's undocumented immigrants will soon be able to obtain municipal ID cards, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.
"We will protect the...
Huffington Post - February 10, 2014 - New York City's undocumented immigrants will soon be able to obtain municipal ID cards, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.
"We will protect the almost half-million undocumented New Yorkers, whose voices too often go unheard," the mayor said during his first State of the City speech. "We will reach out to all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status -- issuing municipal ID cards available to all New Yorkers this year -- so that no daughter or son of our city goes without bank accounts, leases, library cards… simply because they lack identification. To all of my fellow New Yorkers who are undocumented, I say: New York City is your home too, and we will not force ANY of our residents to live their lives in the shadows."
"La ciudad de Nueva York es el hogar de todos los que vivimos aqui. No dejaremos que ninguno de nuestros residentes viva en las sombras," de Blasio repeated in Spanish, a nod to the city's large Latino population.
A source in the mayor's office told Spanish-language El Diario la Prensa on Monday that de Blasio will officially submit the proposal soon.
The city ID card would not operate as a driver's license, nor would it be accepted as a form of identification by federal agencies.
It does fulfill one of de Blasio's many campaign promises. "These identification cards will also help foster better relations between the police and undocumented people, who often choose not to report crimes out of fear they may be deported," reads a section of de Blasio's campaign website from last year. "In New Haven, Connecticut -- which offers a municipal ID to undocumented people -- crime in the largely-immigrant Fair Haven community declined 20 percent in the two years after the IDs were introduced, even as crime-reporting increased."
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito told Politicker she has “full confidence” that “a universal ID will become a reality as soon as possible.”
Ten other cities across the country including San Francisco, Trenton, and Washington, D.C. have already created their own municipal ID programs.
New York State Senators Adriano Espaillat (D) and Jose Peralta (D), both of New York City, expressed support for de Blasio's proposal in a joint statement. They also took the opportunity to advance another cause: allowing immigrants to apply for drivers licenses. From the statement:
"...it is unacceptable that hardworking immigrants are made to break the law in order to commute to work or take their kids to school," they wrote. "Providing undocumented immigrants the opportunity to obtain drivers licenses will ensure that all New York drivers are properly credentialed, educated and operating registered, inspected and insured vehicles, making our roads safer and benefiting all New Yorkers."
De Blasio himself has previously supported allowing undocumented immigrants in New York to apply for driver's licenses.
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Risking Public Money: Illinois Charter School Fraud
Best Practices to Protect Public Dollars & Prevent Financial Mismanagement
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Executive Summary
In 2010, fourteen years after Illinois passed its charter school law, the U.S. Department of Education raised a red flag about the state’s oversight of fiscal controls at its charter schools, finding that the state “has no system in place for monitoring [charter schools].” Four years later, this problem continues. To date, $13.1 million in fraud by charter school officials has been uncovered in Illinois. Because of the lack of transparency and necessary oversight, total fraud is estimated at $27.7 million in 2014 alone. Our research uncovered three fundamental flaws with the state’s oversight of charter schools:
Oversight depends heavily on self-reporting by charter schools, or by whistleblowers. Illinois oversight agencies rely almost entirely on complaints from whistleblowers and audits paid for by charter operators. Both methods are important to uncover fraud; however, neither is a systematic approach to fraud detection, nor are they effective in fraud prevention. General auditing techniques alone do not uncover fraud. The audits commissioned by the charters and provided to Illinois oversight agencies use general auditing techniques, not those specifically designed to uncover fraud. The current processes may expose inaccuracies or inefficiencies; however, without audits targeted at uncovering financial fraud, state and local agencies will rarely be able to detect fraud without a whistleblower. Adequate staffing is necessary to detect and eliminate fraud. We found evidence that the government agencies tasked with investigating fraud are severely understaffed, which is prohibitive to conducting high quality, time-intensive audits of any type.We propose the following targeted reforms of the existing oversight structure to remedy these flaws:Mandate Audits Designed to Detect and Prevent Fraud
Charter schools should institute an internal fraud risk management program, including an annual fraud risk assessment and audits that specifically investigate high-risk areas; Charter schools should commission audits of internal controls over financial reporting that are integrated with an audit of financial statements; Existing oversight bodies should perform targeted fraud audits focused on areas of risk or weakness through the annual fraud risk assessments; and Auditing teams should include members certified in Financial Forensics trained to detect fraud.Increase Transparency & Accountability
All annual audits and fraud risk assessments should be posted on the websites of charter school authorizers, typically the local school system; Charter authorizers should create a system to categorize and rank charter audits by fraud risk levels to facilitate transparency and public engagement; Charter schools should voluntarily make the findings of their internal assessments public; Charter school authorizers should perform comprehensive reviews once every three years; The Attorney General’s office should conduct a review of all charter schools in Illinois to identify inadequate school oversight by boards of directors or executives and publicize the findings; and The state should impose a moratorium on new charter schools until the state oversight system is adequately reformed.Despite the possibility of almost $30 million lost to fraud in the last year alone, charter schools continue to experience unprecedented growth. Since 2003, charter school enrollment in Illinois has grown by 680 percent. Illinois students, their families, and taxpayers cannot afford to lose a dollar more in public funds as a result of fraud, misspending, or misdirection within the charter school system. The reforms proposed herein require a smart investment and a commitment to the future of Illinois’ youth and all its communities.
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Experts Urge Fed To Pursue 'Genuine Full Employment' Before Rate Hike
The Federal Reserve should pursue "genuine full employment" with "robust wage growth" before raising interest rates, experts from the Center for Popular...
The Federal Reserve should pursue "genuine full employment" with "robust wage growth" before raising interest rates, experts from the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute argue in anew report.
The report authors say the Fed, the central bank of the United States, can help reverse wage stagnation and narrow gender and racial wage gaps through its monetary policy.
Most Americans have faced wage stagnation over the last 35 years, despite there being a 64.9 percent growth in productivity during this time, according to the report. Wage growth also remained sluggish last month, with average hourly earnings increasing only 2 percent in June from one year ago.
A move by the Fed to slow the economy with an interest rate hike before "genuine full employment" is achieved will "hamper the ability of workers' wages to rise," the authors wrote.
"Because the vast majority of American workers have seen near-stagnant wages even as economy-wide productivity growth has constantly risen, there's ample space for wage gaps to close without anyone losing wages," said report co-author Josh Bivens, EPI's research and policy director. "The Fed has a powerful role in shaping labor market trends and raising wages. By pursuing full employment, it could help to close these wage gaps among workers."
In the report, the experts highlighted wage trends over recent decades among men and women as well as racial groups. Over the past 35 years, racial wage gaps between whites and Latinos or blacks have widened, the report says. During the same time period, disparities in median earnings between men and women did narrow by about 30 percent, but over a quarter of that progress was due to a decline of men's wages, according to the report.
For its part, the Fed has a "dual mandate" to keep prices stable and maximize employment. The Fed's current inflation target is 2 percent, and full employment is defined by the financial institution as a jobless rate between 5.0 percent to 5.2 percent. The nation's unemployment rate in June was 5.3 percent.
At some point this year, the Fed could begin to raise short-term interest rates, which were cut to near zero percent during the Great Recession to support the economy.
The report authors argue that the Fed's full employment estimate is "too meek," adding that the financial institution "should experiment aggressively with letting the unemployment rate fall as low as possible before raising interest rates."
"[T]he Fed should allow much lower unemployment levels, so long as no accelerating inflation results," the report adds. "Substantial evidence supports pursuing this more tolerant approach to falling unemployment. The late 1990s saw much lower rates (4.0 percent for two full years in 1999 and 2000) without sparking accelerating price inflation."
According to the experts, annual wage growth should also be in the 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent range before the Fed considers an interest rate hike.
Here are the three key recommendations listed in the report:
The Federal Reserve should set a clear and ambitious target for wage growth, which will provide an important and straightforward guidepost on the path to maximum employment. Wage targeting can be fairly easily tailored to the Fed's price-inflation target and pegged to increases in productivity.
The Fed should maintain a patient, but watchful posture. The history of the past 35 years shows a generally steady downward trend in price inflation and that prematurely slowing the economy results in higher than desirable unemployment.
The Federal Reserve should not consider an interest-rate hike until indicators of full employment--particularly wage growth--have strengthened.
"Failure to aggressively target and achieve genuine full employment by keeping interest rates low and setting a clear and ambitious target for wage growth explains a large part of why wages continue to stagnate," said report co-author Connie Razza, CPD's director of strategic research. "There is increasing talk about raising interest rates, but it would be a terrible mistake for the Fed to do so. Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy and will disproportionately harm women and people of color."
Source: Progress Illinois
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