As we continue our effort to keep you up-to-date on how money corrupts American government and politics, as well as other news of the day, we’re pleased to publish this daily digest compiled by BillMoyers.com’s Michael Winship.
“I will light you up!” –> The police dash cam video was released late yesterday showing the arrest of Sandra Bland, the African-American woman who died in her Texas jail cell last week. It shows a traffic stop escalating into an angry, physical confrontation. Jaeah Lee at Mother Jones has the latest.
Dodd-Frank plus 5 –> Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the banking reform act that among other pluses created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Democratic staff of the House Financial Services Committee issued a report on the law’s “Accomplishments, Threats and Next Steps.” One of its conclusions: “… Small financial institutions could benefit from additional regulatory relief. As Congress intended for Dodd-Frank to help struggling communities, bridging the recovery gap for these persons and institutions should be the next phase of reform.”
And at the policy and analysis think tank Demos, senior fellow Wallace Turbeville writes, “Over the ensuing half decade, financial sector lobbyists have enlisted the aid of many in Congress — even some relatively progressive members — to impede implementation and roll back the law. Astonishingly, despite a financial sector that cost the world almost one full year of income seven years ago, the fight for sensible regulation is still very real.” ALSO: Here’s a fifth anniversary video with Elizabeth Warren, produced by Americans for Financial Reform.
Kids are “the most important indicator of our long-term economic and social future.” –> Yesterday, the 25th edition of the “KIDS COUNT Data Book,” produced by the child advocacy group the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was released. Associated Press: “A new report on child welfare that found more U.S. children living in poverty than before the Great Recession belies the fanfare of the nation’s economic turnaround.” The Christian Science Monitor: “Problems are most severe across the southwestern and southern states, while states in New England and the Midwest (particularly between Wisconsin and Utah) generally occupy the top 10 spots in the ranking.” Poverty rates are nearly double among African-American and American-Indian children.
The $153,000 snakebite –> Read this latest chapter in the saga of spinning out-of-control health care costs in The Washington Post.
John Kasich crowds into the clown car –> And then there were 16. Molly Ball at The Atlantic says the Ohio governor’s pitch to GOP voters will be the “twin pillars of trickle-down economics and Christian compassion.” And Tim McDonnell at Mother Jones reviews candidate Kasich’s wishy-washiness on climate change.
More on Netroots Nation and Bernie –> The political science blog, The Mischiefs of Faction describes itself as “Reflections on Parties and Their Place in Politics” and its title is a reference to Federalist Paper #10, “in which James Madison famously warned about the dangers of selfish political groups but conceded their inevitability in a free nation.”
Two new articles at the blog place last weekend’s dispute between Bernie Sanders and the #BlackLivesMatter movement in historical perspective. In “Ideology is a coalition,” Georgetown professor Hans Noel writes, “… What Black Lives Matter wants is to make racial equality a bigger part of the progressive cause… I doubt most white liberals would argue with that… But it probably isn’t police violence that is pushing white liberals to Sanders rallies. It’s Citizens United and health insurance and student debt. White liberals are, well, white. They don’t have the daily reminders of racism that black activists have.” And in “The fractured left? Bernie Sanders, #BlackLivesMatter, and the future of liberal ideology,” Julia Azari of Marquette University examines “whether economic and racial justice activists will be likely to create a cohesive ideology on the left.”
ALSO check out “The Value of Protest” by climate activist and Moyers & Company guest Tim DeChristopher, a Sanders supporter, at his blog.
RIP –> Theo Bikel, actor, singer, political and labor activist, the original Captain von Trapp and longtime Tevye. ALSO: “Literary time traveler” E.L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate. Bill Moyers spoke with Doctorow on this 1988 episode of A World of Ideas.
You can get our Morning Reads delivered to your inbox every weekday! Just enter your email address below…
