Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars – Clinton’s 2016 bid draws more Wall Street fundraisers than Obama in 2012

WASHINGTON — Democrat Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency has drawn more support from Wall Street fundraisers than President Obama received from the industry four years ago, a new analysis shows. Clinton’s ranks of elite fundraisers include 201 people who work in the securities and investment sector and dozens more who work in other areas of finance and commercial banking, according …

Deepening the Culture of Fear – The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Malaysia

Malaysia’s use of criminal laws to arrest, question, and prosecute individuals for peaceful speech and assembly has deepened in the year since Human Rights Watch published Creating a Culture of Fear: The Criminalization of Expression in Malaysia in October 2015.[1] The Malaysian authorities have moved forward with the prosecutions of many of those featured in that report, and continue to …

Leslee Goodman – A Monthly Income Just for Being Human, and Other Sensible Ideas

Unconditional basic income, a policy option that seems radical by American standards, is gaining new traction across Europe, Canada, and even a few places in the United States. Also known as “universal basic income,” the policy mandates a guaranteed stipend to every resident of a community, with no strings attached. It is promoted as a way to address rising inequality, …

Barbara Ehrenreich – Dead, White, and Blue

The white working class, which usually inspires liberal concern only for its paradoxical, Republican-leaning voting habits, has recently become newsworthy for something else: according to economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the winner of the latest Nobel Prize in economics, its members in the 45- to 54-year-old age group are dying at an immoderate rate. While the lifespan of affluent whites continues …