Pinboard (matthewmcvickar) https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/public/ recent bookmarks from matthewmcvickar PublicAlerts 2020-09-11T00:41:38+00:00 https://www.publicalerts.org/signup matthewmcvickarPublicAlerts sends emergency alerts via text, email, or voice message. It's a *free service for anyone who lives, works, or visits the Portland-Vancouver Region. Personal information is kept secure and private. (*Message and data rates may apply depending on your provider and phone services.)]]> government disaster https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1f4262de90c1/ Aaron Gordon: Superheroes (The Mail) 2020-08-27T07:04:54+00:00 https://themail.substack.com/p/superheroes matthewmcvickarWe, as a country, need to agree on something important: that the post office is not a business but a service every American directly benefits from, and therefore every American should pay into. In fact, it is difficult to imagine anything more deserving of tax dollars than a peaceful, civil service that binds every American together, promotes commerce, and serves as a link of last resort to vulnerable populations. Instead of feeding the good thing, we, as a country, have decided to starve it. Reversing this policy would require not just reversing a bad law, but admitting we were wrong about some very big ideas. That is what makes it so difficult, and also so important.]]> mail usps government america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:15726e65dbbd/ Aaron Gordon: Why Louis DeJoy's One Big Change to the USPS Backfired (Vice Motherboard) 2020-08-27T07:03:10+00:00 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bv8axw/why-louis-dejoys-one-big-change-to-the-usps-backfired matthewmcvickarDeJoy testified that his only big change at the post office was to order mail trucks to run on time. But that was never the problem to begin with. --- "The truck leaving on time is a good thing if the mail is in it," one employee at a distribution facility told Motherboard. "But this is not the case." Under DeJoy, the USPS has accomplished its goal of spending less money—by delivering less mail. […] But the most telling element of DeJoy's plan is that, despite his fondness for citing this report as the impetus for his disruptive changes, he did not follow the report's recommendations. There are two different "Recommendations" sections, and neither of them suggests a sudden mandate to run all truck trips on time. Instead, the report recommends a slate of extremely mundane bureaucratic tweaks to get the distribution facilities to run better, such as putting signs on or near the machines that clearly lay out mail processing schedules and truck departure times.]]> usps mail government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b57a11313b1a/ Black Socialists in America Resource Guide 2020-07-17T16:48:07+00:00 https://blacksocialists.us/resource-guide/ matthewmcvickarThese are the official writings, videos, and more that BSA recommends all Socialists explore, regardless of skin color.]]> socialism politics government america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ad59bd354328/ Joe Pinsker: America Is Already Different Than It Was Two Weeks Ago (The Atlantic) 2020-06-17T03:51:23+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-already-changed/613000/ matthewmcvickarThough it remains to be seen whether these changes will be catalytic or merely cosmetic in fighting institutional racism and police violence, the swiftness of their accumulation has been remarkable—and demonstrates how quickly changes can be made when those in power have the will to make them. ]]> blm police government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:31242d029de2/ George Monbiot: Airlines and oil giants are on the brink. No government should offer them a lifeline (The Guardian) 2020-05-02T21:46:11+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/29/airlines-oil-giants-government-economy matthewmcvickarThis crisis is a chance to rebuild our economy for the good of humanity. Let’s bail out the living world, not its destroyers, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot. --- Governments should provide financial support to company workers while refashioning the economy to provide new jobs in different sectors. They should prop up only those sectors that will help secure the survival of humanity and the rest of the living world. They should either buy up the dirty industries and turn them towards clean technologies, or do what they often call for but never really want: let the market decide. In other words, allow these companies to fail. […] The only meaningful reform is fewer flights. Anything that impedes the contraction of the aviation industry impedes the reduction of its impacts. […] In other words, let’s have what many people were calling for long before this disaster hit: a green new deal. But please let’s stop describing it as a stimulus package. We have stimulated consumption too much over the past century, which is why we face environmental disaster. Let us call it a survival package, whose purpose is to provide incomes, distribute wealth and avoid catastrophe, without stoking perpetual economic growth. Bail out the people, not the corporations. Bail out the living world, not its destroyers. Let’s not waste our second chance.]]> government economy climatecrisis https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:7a0ccbbb9114/ Uri Friedman: New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet (The Atlantic) 2020-04-28T16:59:58+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-leadership-coronavirus/610237/ matthewmcvickarJacinda Ardern’s leadership style, focused on empathy, isn’t just resonating with her people; it’s putting the country on track for success against the coronavirus. --- Ardern’s style would be interesting—a world leader in comfy clothes just casually chatting with millions of people!—and nothing more, if it wasn’t for the fact that her approach has been paired with policies that have produced real, world-leading results. Since March, New Zealand has been unique in staking out a national goal of not just flattening the curve of coronavirus cases, as most other countries have aimed to do, but eliminating the virus altogether. And it is on track to do it. COVID-19 testing is widespread. The health system has not been overloaded. New cases peaked in early April. Twelve people have died as of this writing, out of a population of nearly 5 million. […] Ardern’s government also took decisive action right away. New Zealand imposed a national lockdown much earlier in its outbreak than other countries did in theirs, and banned travelers from China in early February, before New Zealand had registered a single case of the virus. It closed its borders to all nonresidents in mid-March, when it had only a handful of cases. […] The success, of course, isn’t all Ardern’s doing; it’s also the product of an impressive collective effort by public-health institutions, opposition politicians, and New Zealanders as a whole, who have largely abided by social-distancing restrictions.]]> government covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c2c0133117f1/ Peter C Baker: ‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world? (The Guardian) 2020-04-13T16:07:52+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis matthewmcvickarThe long read: Times of upheaval are always times of radical change. Some believe the pandemic is a once-in-a-generation chance to remake society and build a better future. Others fear it may only make existing injustices worse. --- It’s not just the size and speed of what is happening that’s dizzying. It’s the fact that we have grown accustomed to hearing that democracies are incapable of making big moves like this quickly, or at all. But here we are. Any glance at history reveals that crises and disasters have continually set the stage for change, often for the better. […] The argument, in its simplest form, is this: Covid-19 has revealed the political status quo to be broken. Long before anyone had heard of the new coronavirus, people died of diseases we knew how to prevent and treat. People lived precarious lives in societies awash with wealth. Experts told us about catastrophic threats on the horizon, including pandemics, and we did next to nothing to prepare for them. At the same time, the drastic measures governments have taken in recent weeks testify to just how much power the state does have – the extent of what government can accomplish (and quickly!) when it realises it must act boldly or risk being seen as fundamentally illegitimate. As Pankaj Mishra recently wrote: “It has taken a disaster for the state to assume its original responsibility to protect citizens.” For years, in mainstream politics the conventional line – on everything from healthcare to basic living expenses such as housing – has been that even if the world has its problems, expansive government intervention is not a feasible solution. Instead, we have been told that what works best are “marketplace” solutions, which give large roles to corporations motivated not by outdated notions like “the public good” but by a desire to make a profit. But then the virus started spreading, governments spent trillions in days – even going so far as to write cheques directly to citizens – and suddenly the question of what was feasible felt different. From this perspective, the task today is not to fight the virus in order to return to business as usual, because business as usual was already a disaster. The goal, instead, is to fight the virus – and in doing so transform business as usual into something more humane and secure. […] For anyone making this argument, the contrast between 2008 and the present crisis is striking. Compared to the opaque financial crisis, with its credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations, the coronavirus is relatively easy to understand. It is a dozen crises tangled into one, and they’re all unfolding immediately, in ways that cannot be missed. Politicians are getting infected. Wealthy celebrities are getting infected. Your friends and relatives are getting infected. We may not quite all be “in it together” – as always, the poor are hit worse – but there is more truth to the idea than there ever was in the wake of 2008. In this, the optimists believe, there is hope that we might begin to see the world differently. Maybe we can view our problems as shared, and society as more than just a mass of individuals competing against each other for wealth and standing. Maybe, in short, we can understand that the logic of the market should not dominate as many spheres of human existence as we currently allow it to. […] Although Covid-19 is likely the biggest global crisis since the second world war, it is still dwarfed in the long term by climate change. Yet the two problems have suggestive similarities. Both will require unusual levels of global cooperation. Both demand changes in behaviour today in the name of reducing suffering tomorrow. Both problems were long predicted with great certainty by scientists, and have been neglected by governments unable to see beyond the next fiscal quarter’s growth statistics. Accordingly, both will require governments to take drastic action and banish the logic of the marketplace from certain realms of human activity, while simultaneously embracing public investment. In other words, to think of this new level of state intervention as a temporary requirement is to ensure that we continue barrelling down the path to climate disaster. […] The world feels awfully strange right now, but not because – or not just because – it is changing so fast and any one of us could fall ill at any time, or could already be carrying the virus and not know it. It feels strange because the past few weeks have exposed the fact that the biggest things can always change, at any minute. This simple truth, both destabilising and liberating, is easy to forget. We’re not watching a movie: we’re writing one, together, until the end.]]> politics government society covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:994028fabedd/ Ed Pilkington and Tom McCarthy: The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life (The Guardian) 2020-04-09T04:07:15+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster matthewmcvickarThe president was aware of the danger from the coronavirus – but a lack of leadership has created an emergency of epic proportions. --- The White House had all the information it needed by the end of January to act decisively. Instead, Trump repeatedly played down the severity of the threat, blaming China for what he called the “Chinese virus” and insisting falsely that his partial travel bans on China and Europe were all it would take to contain the crisis. […] This week Fauci was asked by a Science magazine writer, Jon Cohen, how he could stand beside Trump at daily press briefings and listen to him misleading the American people with comments such as that the China travel ban had been a great success in blocking entry of the virus. Fauci replied: “I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?”]]> trump government america covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:31746b95adff/ Zeynep Tufekci: Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired (NYT) 2020-04-07T17:06:14+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html matthewmcvickarTo help manage the shortage, the authorities sent a message that made them untrustworthy. --- As the pandemic rages on, there will be many difficult messages for the public. Unfortunately, the top-down conversation around masks has become a case study in how not to communicate with the public, especially now that the traditional gatekeepers like media and health authorities have much less control. The message became counterproductive and may have encouraged even more hoarding because it seemed as though authorities were shaping the message around managing the scarcity rather than confronting the reality of the situation. […] It is of course true that masks don’t work perfectly, that they don’t replace hand-washing and social distancing, and that they work better if they fit properly. And of course, surgical masks (the disposable type that surgeons wear) don’t filter out small viral particles the way medical-grade respirator masks rated N95 and above do. However, even surgical masks protect a bit more than not wearing masks at all. We know from flu research that mask-wearing can help decrease transmission rates along with frequent hand-washing and social-distancing. Now that we are facing a respirator mask shortage, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that surgical masks are “an acceptable alternative” for health care workers — again, obviously because some protection, even if imperfect, is better than none. In the face of this, publicly presenting an absolute answer — “You don’t need them” — for something that requires a qualified response just makes people trust authorities even less. […] Since the W.H.O. and the C.D.C. do say that masks lessen the chances that infected people will infect others, then everyone should use masks. If the public is told that only the sick people are to wear masks, then those who do wear them will be stigmatized and people may well avoid wearing them if it screams “I’m sick.” Further, it’s very difficult to be tested for Covid-19 in the United States. How are people supposed to know for sure when to mask up?]]> health government covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d8a06ae6b9d0/ David Roth: America’s Diseased Politics (The New Republic) 2020-04-01T16:31:41+00:00 https://newrepublic.com/article/157039/americas-diseased-politics-coronavirus-legislation matthewmcvickarThe Republicans are confronting the coronavirus with nihilism—and the Democrats are responding with impotence. --- Metaphors fail daily: Trump really would sooner risk the lives of a million strangers than do his job, and his party is quite willing to go along with it. In the absence of an opposition party willing and able to point any of that out or call it what it is, the nation is more or less left to take him at his word. Where and when the media takes up the challenge of doing the basic civic work that Democrats can’t or won’t, it lets Trump spin a once-in-a-generation crisis as Another Media Thing. And that renders the whole episode as just another argument to have on television. […] At this moment, erring on the side of saying or doing too little instead of too much would be not just infuriating in the typical Democratic ways but devastating and damning in essential ones: The crystalized threat presented by this crisis and this moment requires a clear and commensurate response in both words and deeds. Strategically lying low or working the angles—such as gaming the outcomes within the denser stretches of mundane appropriations bills—doesn’t work terribly well in comparatively normal circumstances. But the Democrats’ usual tactics are terrifyingly insufficient when they’re deployed in response to business interests and reactionary politicians opting into a holocaust in the best interests of a market. It is ghoulish in the most contemporary of ways that this sort of thing is even up for debate, but it’s most important to see the effort to counter it as what it is: not a political campaign but an existential one, and so not the sort of thing that you get to do twice.]]> government america covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:26c5f4ccaf01/ David Roberts: The moral logic of coronavirus (Vox) 2020-03-25T16:56:37+00:00 https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21180256/coronavirus-covid-19-trump-response-bernie-sanders-moral-logic matthewmcvickarWhy helping people victimized by forces outside their control is a good idea. --- The only villain is an impersonal natural force; everyone with a face is a victim, an Us to be tended. In the face of a virus, only the conventionally feminine approach of mutual care is useful. That leaves the lens through which the authoritarian sees the world (domination and submission) blind, and the tools available to him (scapegoating, exclusion, retribution, violence) impotent. There is no one to punish, no one to make suffer. Without that, the authoritarian is scarcely able to process the threat as a threat at all. A threat without an Other is like a wavelength of light that is invisible to him. […] Trump, his administration, and his coalition are in politics to help friends and destroy enemies. All they know is zero-sum competition, domination, and submission — and with no one to dominate, no one upon whom they can impose ritual cruelty to appease the bloodlust of their base, they are ... adrift. They simply aren’t confident, or competent, in expressing, organizing, and administering care. Many thousands of lives will likely be lost as a result. […] All across America, millions of people live in precarity, one step ahead of financial ruin, with lives that can be upended overnight by a health or employment twist entirely outside of their control. Metaphorically speaking, this country is full of viruses — poverty, poor health care, inequality, systemic discrimination, loneliness, and isolation — that infect innocent victims every day by the thousands. Those victims deserve care as well, and not churlish, moralistic, “means-tested” care. Just care, enough to get by and to live a life of dignity.]]> socialism government healthcare covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8474125250c7/ Meghan McCarron: As Restaurants Go, So Goes Everything Else (Eater) 2020-03-23T04:59:31+00:00 https://www.eater.com/2020/3/17/21184114/restaurants-shutter-economic-impact-aid matthewmcvickarTo fight the pandemic, restaurants are shuttering across America with no aid in sight. What will happen to the rest of us? --- The boldest action on the parts of government includes eviction bans and more funding for paid sick leave and relaxed liquor regulations. What do these regulations offer an undocumented dishwasher who just got laid off, beyond the hope that his landlord might not demand four months’ back rent in due time? What do they offer business owners trying to keep their employees employed, beyond hope for a fraction of the revenue needed to pay for rent, supplies, and staff? Restaurants are suffering from this pandemic because they’re the center of communal life in America, but the awful cascade of consequences lays bare how broken American life has become. American restaurant culture is a glorious public-works project, like a train station or a bridge, built during more prosperous times; its rusting supports and cracked concrete would have been tough but possible to fix oh, any time, for decades. But no one did. And now, the earthquake has come. Without major and unprecedented government intervention and responsible community support, independent food culture could go the way of the neighborhood pharmacy and department store in the wake of this pandemic. In high-rent neighborhoods in American cities, the transition is already underway, with high-rent blight stuffing neighborhoods with chains, fancy and otherwise. And as restaurants go, so will independent stores of all kinds, whether it’s repair shops or clothing stores or bookstores like the one I worked in, which are now struggling to survive and temporarily laying off staff. Any retail that’s not a grocery store is in serious danger. In the aftermath of the Great Shuttering, without help, the only operators with capital to reopen will be the same massive corporations whose irresponsible treatment of their workers is threatening to worsen the outbreak.]]> food restaurants government health covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5aec76d96aaf/ Rob Davis: Polluted by Money (The Oregonian) 2020-03-07T17:39:48+00:00 https://projects.oregonlive.com/polluted-by-money/part-1 matthewmcvickarOregon once aimed to be the greenest state in America. Its leaders adopted the nation’s first bottle deposit. They controlled urban sprawl. They declared ocean beaches public property. But in the last four years, Oregon’s most powerful industries have killed, weakened or stalled efforts to deal with climate change, wolf recovery, disappearing bird habitat, cancer-causing diesel exhaust, dwindling groundwater, industrial air pollution, oil spill planning and weed killers sprayed from helicopters. What changed Oregon? Money. Lots and lots of money. […] The consequences of Oregon’s logging practices are clear. State and federal scientists have blamed major population declines in species including the coastal Coho salmon, northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet on timber harvesting and state policies governing it. The Oregon Department of Forestry found 242 plants and animals listed or at risk of listing under the Endangered Species Act as of 2012. The trend was getting worse. Then the state agency, whose mission includes promoting the timber industry, stopped publishing the numbers and deleted past reports from its website.]]> music democracy government politics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a22f5920208c/ David Roberts: Oregon Republicans are subverting democracy by running away. Again. (Vox) 2020-03-05T05:38:59+00:00 https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/2/29/21157246/oregon-republicans-walk-out-climate-change-cap-trade-democracy matthewmcvickarThe latest escalation mirrors growing anti-democratic sentiment in the national GOP. --- In a nutshell, Oregon Republicans are exploiting an arcane constitutional provision in order to exert veto power over legislation developed by the Democratic majority, on behalf of an almost entirely white, rural minority. Five times in the past 10 months, they have simply refused to show up for work, preventing the legislature from passing bills on guns, forestry, health care, and budgeting. The fifth walkout, over a climate change bill, is ongoing. It is an extraordinary escalation of anti-democratic behavior from the right, gone almost completely unnoticed by the national political media. Nevertheless, it is a big deal, worth pausing to consider, not only because it is preventing Oregon from addressing climate change, but because it shows in stark terms where the national GOP is headed. […] Republicans’ objections have been heard and addressed. They just haven’t stopped the bill, and that’s what they want. It was never really about process, it’s about state government doing something they don’t want it to do (pricing carbon) in a state where they believe they ought to have veto power. They believe that rural white people and the kinds of jobs they do are more authentically Oregonian than those of city dwellers working service jobs, and thus they ought to have a greater voice in politics. […] “We must get our way, no matter what” is not a reasonable premise to carry into a dispute in a democracy. […] Republicans don’t just get to arbitrarily decide, as a defeated minority, how the majority’s bills pass, or what form they take. Their enormous sense of entitlement notwithstanding, they don’t get to rewrite the rules of democracy on the fly as it suits them, from bill to bill. […] Oregon has the country’s loosest laws on money in politics, with no restrictions whatsoever on what corporations or individuals can donate to politicians. This has led to a flood of cash into state politics and the steady erosion of the state’s once-proud pollution and environmental laws. Oregon is now first in the country in per-capita corporate donations to politicians; almost half the total money donated to Oregon legislators comes from corporations, far more than comes from unions or individuals. […] There is simply no precedent for what Oregon Republicans are doing, treating walk-outs as routine, using them to prevent passage of what is a fairly milquetoast set of carbon policies (less stringent than in many other states) and even to set the pace of work in the legislature. Democrats have never done anything like this, anywhere. […] This is an extraordinary situation. An overwhelmingly white, rural minority of voters is holding an entire state’s business hostage. Oregon Democrats played by the rules, got more votes, and developed legislation through appropriate channels. Now fewer than a dozen lawmakers, heavily funded by the very industries they are defending, are blocking it, at will, using an anachronistic quirk of the state constitution. There is no conceivable justification for it, no possible democratic rationale. It only makes sense in the context of white supremacy: the notion that rural white Americans are more authentically American than other groups and deserve outsized representation in its politics and veto power over its legislation. It is no surprise that there are copious ties between the Oregon GOP and the far right. Consider TimberUnity, which passes itself off as a grassroots group of rural Oregonian loggers and truckers against the climate bill. At a January 11 “Vanguards of Victory” awards ceremony, the Oregon GOP gave the group an award. […] It’s all an interconnected network in the state: the far-right groups, the GOP, and the resource industries that fund them. Over and over again, this minority is allowed to assert its will at the expense of its fellow citizens, the norms of conduct that hold state government together, and democracy itself — without consequence or accountability. […] For example, have a look at this story from the Associated Press. It is positively surreal in its devotion to the exhausted tropes of mainstream political coverage. The debate in Oregon has become “pitched” and the episode “reveals sharp divisions.” Republicans say this, Democrats say that, he says, she says, the end. Nowhere in the story will the reader be told that Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature. Nowhere will they be told that a small, demographically homogeneous minority is using once-extraordinary measures to routinely thwart the will of the democratically elected majority. Nowhere will they be told that the white minority holding the state hostage has been backed in the past year by the threat of far-right militia violence. Mainstream political coverage, as we’ve seen again and again in the Trump years, is simply incapable of communicating a sense of crisis. There is only one model of story — what each side says, in equal measure — and it only serves to blur and obscure a situation in which one party, not the other, has lurched in a radically anti-democratic direction. (The local coverage from outlets like OPB is much better.) Meanwhile, Democrats in state government wring their hands and cave to Republican demands again and again, as though it is simply a matter of course that a large majority must bend the knee to a small minority. […] In national US politics, as in Oregon, it’s increasingly clear that the population is urbanizing and diversifying and there simply aren’t enough rural and suburban white Christians to constitute a majority anymore. If that demographic — which has now become an intense, all-encompassing political identity — is to maintain its traditional hold on power, it can only do so through increasingly anti-democratic means. In Oregon, that means exploiting the quorum rule and unlimited corporate money. At the national level, it means exploiting rural overrepresentation in the Senate, the electoral college, voter suppression, the filibuster ... and unlimited corporate money. In national politics, as in Oregon, anti-democratic tactics and rhetoric are escalating on the right, but there is little pushback or accountability. They pay no penalty for lying, violating norms, or taking legislative hostages, so they keep doing it, keep escalating. The institutions around them seem unwilling or unable to draw lines in the sand, and when they do, as when Democrats impeached Trump, they find those lines blown aside by partisan unity.]]> democracy government oregon portland farright racism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a814daf87745/ CIVIC Platform 2020-02-24T22:43:12+00:00 http://civicplatform.org/ matthewmcvickarCIVIC Platform is a technology environment that makes institutional data more accessible, enabling creative applications and analysis. We connect resources and a nationwide network of collaborators with complex information challenges in the public interest to build projects on CIVIC’s open technology frameworks. Our vision is for public data to be available as a vital resource for collaboration and group problem solving -- accessible programatically, in common formats, with excellent documentation, using secure and reliable technology. The technology is only part of the challenge. Custodians of this data in government, nonprofit, and academia face barriers of limited funding, access to talent, and unique compliance. We’re building the teams and systems to make it happen.]]> politics government portland technology internet data urbanplanning https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:687e88cceacf/ De-risking custom technology projects: A handbook for state grantee budgeting and oversight 2020-02-12T18:05:07+00:00 https://github.com/18F/technology-budgeting/blob/master/handbook.md matthewmcvickarOnly 13% of large government software projects are successful.1 State IT projects, in particular, are often challenged because states lack basic knowledge about modern software development, relying on outdated procurement processes. Every year, the federal government matches billions of dollars in funding to state and local governments to maintain and modernize IT systems used to implement federal programs such as Medicaid, child welfare benefits, housing, and unemployment insurance. Efforts to modernize those legacy systems fail at an alarmingly high rate and at great cost to the federal budget. […] This handbook is designed for executives, budget specialists, legislators, and other "non-technical" decision-makers who fund or oversee state government technology projects that receive federal funding and implement the necessary technology to support federal programs. It can help you set these projects up for success by asking the right questions, identifying the right outcomes, and equally important, empowering you with a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of modern software design.]]> government technology software internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:33b2c7d20724/ Catie Gould: Accounting for our commitment to climate action (Bike Portland) 2019-10-03T04:51:44+00:00 https://bikeportland.org/2019/09/19/editorial-accounting-for-our-commitment-to-climate-action-305092 matthewmcvickarIn 1993, Portland was the first city in the US to create a climate action plan, yet we still don’t consistently report our results. This lack of basic accounting allows government agencies to control the progress narrative and doesn’t allow for the honest reckoning this issue demands. This lapse in basic accountability begs us to ask whether the city’s Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS, who compiles the report) or the Mayor who oversees them, is either not competent enough to monitor the biggest crisis of our generation, is trying to spin the truth, or simply doesn’t care enough to prioritize it.]]> portland government climatecrisis https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:9d006ee08775/ Robert H. Frank: Why Single-Payer Health Care Saves Money (NYT) 2019-07-22T14:55:41+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/upshot/why-single-payer-health-care-saves-money.html matthewmcvickarTotal costs are lower under single-payer systems for several reasons. One is that administrative costs average only about 2 percent of total expenses under a single-payer program like Medicare, less than one-sixth the corresponding percentage for many private insurers. Single-payer systems also spend virtually nothing on competitive advertising, which can account for more than 15 percent of total expenses for private insurers.
The most important source of cost savings under single-payer is that large government entities are able to negotiate much more favorable terms with service providers. In 2012, for example, the average cost of coronary bypass surgery was more than $73,000 in the United States but less than $23,000 in France.
]]> healthcare america politics government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:09ae348e9c67/ Here’s What Ta-Nehisi Coates Told Congress About Reparations (NYT) 2019-06-20T16:12:15+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/ta-nehisi-coates-reparations.html matthewmcvickarMany of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for. But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach. It would seem ridiculous to dispute invocations of the founders, or the Greatest Generation, on the basis of a lack of membership in either group. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust, as inheritance and the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that: a dilemma of inheritance. It’s impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery.]]> slavery america history speech politics government reparations https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a285f2fe6e3d/ Laurie Penny: Four Days Trapped at Sea With Crypto's Nouveau Riche (Breaker) 2018-12-06T00:29:54+00:00 https://breakermag.com/trapped-at-sea-with-cryptos-nouveau-riche/ matthewmcvickarIt’s only my first day, but it’s clear this is not the Burning Man-style celebration of the liberatory potential of decentralization I was promised. This is a locked-room, hard-sell pitch session to a literally captive audience of high-roller crypto investors, whose only escape is the lifeboats. The whole place smells of aftershave and insecurity. But if you want to know how power actually operates in any community, watch the women.]]> misogyny class money government cryptocurrency https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:34f67984840f/ Sarah Jaffe: Nationalize Amazon (The Outline) 2018-11-23T00:00:35+00:00 https://theoutline.com/post/6587/nationalize-amazon-make-bezos-our-bitch?zd=1&zi=mqibxi3u matthewmcvickarIs this a realistic demand? Perhaps not yet, but that’s the point. — Amazon gets what it wants by being so big and powerful that it can bring state governments to heel. No one company should have all that power. ]]> america capitalism business industry government taxes https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1aa55ace7542/ Kanishk Tharoor: Walls Against Heaven (Popula) 2018-11-18T18:49:54+00:00 https://popula.com/2018/11/14/walls-against-heaven/ matthewmcvickarSuch walls are built because they can be, because a ruler can make the implausible real.]]> government politics world https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:9c2b14bdc76d/ Tom Scocca: These Are the Bad Times (Hmm Daily) 2018-11-18T18:48:22+00:00 https://hmmdaily.com/2018/10/30/these-are-the-bad-times/ matthewmcvickarThe Resistance and the Democratic Party say “Vote,” but the voter purges have already been done, the polling places restricted, the prohibitive I.D. laws put in place. The national press is writing about it after the fact and before the election, when they can seem to take it seriously without changing anything. For the press do anything more would mean moving beyond its crabbed sense of “politics,” to engage with the reality of the situation. The legacy media have been browbeaten into a perpetual terror of being seen as serving as partisans for the Democratic Party, until those are the only terms on which they understand the world and the work they’re doing.]]> government politics journalism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:afb99417a9ad/ This Is All Donald Trump Has Left (Deadspin) 2018-11-14T17:24:16+00:00 https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/this-is-all-donald-trump-has-left-1830329753 matthewmcvickarHis politics, to the extent that they’ve ever been legible, have always been off-the-rack big city tabloid bullshit—crudely racist exterminate the brutes/back the blue authoritarianism in the background and ruthless petty rich person squabbling in the front. His actions since becoming president have been those of a dim, cruel child playacting at being a powerful man—giving orders without quite knowing what they mean or how they might be carried out, taunting enemies, beating up the people he can afford to beat up without having to be called to account for it, lying as needed or just for yuks. He hasn’t changed a thing since graduating from punchline to president. It’s been clear for decades that Trump was both an asshole and a dummy; this is now a problem not just for the odd unlucky cocktail waitress and his staff of cheesy apparatchiks but for literally every person on earth.]]> trump america culture politics government media https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:59aa93da266b/ Thread by @RinChupeco: “Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one.” 2018-06-29T17:34:52+00:00 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1011459751660552192.html matthewmcvickar[The Philippines’] Ferdinand Marcos' greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered. These white people & journalists talking about being civil? These were the rich people, the Fil-Chinese, the mestizos in the Philippines who knew they won't be affected by many of Marcos' policies, and therefore could ignore them even as the killings started. Marcos was also adept at convincing regular Filipinos that "as long as you don't commit crimes I won't come for you. I'm only getting rid of the 'filth'." He lied, of course. He jailed his most vocal opponents, people whose businesses he wanted to confiscate for his use.]]> politics dictatorship government democracy trump https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2855757d1708/ Debbie Chachra: Gratitude for Invisible Systems (The Atlantic) 2017-06-26T05:10:46+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/gratitude-for-invisible-systems/526344/ matthewmcvickarOne way to improve democracy is for more people to appreciate its complex technological underpinnings.]]> democracy government infrastructure community https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d4eac800be50/ Cloak VPN Blog: Congress, ISPs, and You 2017-03-29T17:18:51+00:00 https://blog.getcloak.com/2017/03/28/congress-isps-you/ matthewmcvickarHistorically, we haven’t advocated for using Cloak full-time at home. In general, we think that you should trust your home network; if you don’t, you probably have bigger fish to fry. Alas, if this resolution becomes law, there may be no alternative. We might genuinely start telling our customers “yes, you should use Cloak at home, all day, every day”. From our perspective, that day will be an unhappy day indeed.]]> vpn internet government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d7a08b95c2f9/ Erica Chenoweth: It may only take 3.5% of the population to topple a dictator – with civil resistance (The Guardian) 2017-02-12T20:38:51+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/01/worried-american-democracy-study-activist-techniques matthewmcvickarThe United States has a rich history with effective uses of nonviolent resistance. It’s time to become familiar with it.]]> activism government politics trump https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:0314fe711f80/ Ronald A. Klain: Zika is coming, but we’re far from ready (Washington Post) 2016-05-23T15:31:04+00:00 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zika-is-coming-but-were-far-from-ready/2016/05/21/380ec54e-1dc3-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html matthewmcvickarIt is not a question of whether babies will be born in the United States with Zika-related microcephaly — it is a question of when and how many. For years to come, these children will be a visible, human reminder of the cost of absurd wrangling in Washington, of preventable suffering, of a failure of our political system to respond to the threat that infectious diseases pose. … These are not random lightning strikes or a string of global bad luck. This growing threat is a result of human activity: human populations encroaching on, and having greater interaction with, habitats where animals spread these viruses; humans living more densely in cities where sickness spreads rapidly; humans traveling globally with increasing reach and speed; humans changing our climate and bringing disease-spreading insects to places where they have not lived previously. From now on, dangerous epidemics are going to be a regular fact of life. We can no longer accept surprise as an excuse for a response that is slow out of the gate.]]> history disease america politics government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d01b5c8d664b/ Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Champion Barack Obama (The Atlantic) 2014-06-02T20:32:10+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-champion-barack-obama/283458/ matthewmcvickarThe president is correct that there is a long history of black leaders addressing "personal responsibility." But as a diagnosis for what has historically gone wrong in black communities, the tradition is erroneous. ]]> history obama racism politics government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:22c638b52d4f/ Why Universal Health Care Is Unambiguously Necessary for America 2013-10-04T00:12:12+00:00 http://www.mrdestructo.com/2009/09/why-universal-health-care-is.html matthewmcvickarGiven the importance of medicine, I feel that it would be useful to clarify this issue. I will explain clearly, and with evidence, why it is that universal healthcare of any sort would be better than the current system in every significant way. If you find yourself disagreeing with this assertion, I ask that you read on before replying, as all conceivable objections will be addressed and resolved.]]> healthcare america government society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a8a13570e2e7/ Greg Kaufmann: The Expert Testimony of Tianna Gaines-Turner (The Nation) 2013-09-07T22:38:47+00:00 http://www.thenation.com/blog/175674/week-poverty-expert-testimony-tianna-gaines-turner# matthewmcvickarGaines-Turner closes by saying that “millions of Americans just like me will work with you to help you with the answers to poverty that you seek.” “We invite you to come to Philadelphia to see where and how we live, to come to our grocery stores, childcare centers, and elder homes, and to visit with my neighbors. And then we can talk like equals, and join in the idea of putting poverty in the past, of investing in helping American people do and be their best. It’s the patriotic thing to do.”]]> poverty america government policy https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:30f296010ba3/ Conor Friedersdorf: All the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama (The Atlantic) 2013-06-24T18:20:04+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/all-the-infrastructure-a-tyrant-would-need-courtesy-of-bush-and-obama/276635/ matthewmcvickarAmerica has stepped back from the brink in the past when wars ended. But we've never had a "war" go on this long -- and there's no end in sight. It's time for the people to pressure their elected representatives, so that, through Congress, we can dismantle the infrastructure Bush and Obama have built. In less than four years, an unknown person will start presiding over the national-security state.]]> government america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:7e93a50dc2db/ Maciej Ceglowski: Persuading David Simon (Pinboard Blog) 2013-06-19T17:56:00+00:00 https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/06/persuading_david_simon/ matthewmcvickarsecurity privacy nsa government america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:bd5a5afccc7a/ Crushing Debt Drove Me to Kosovo — And Then to Iraq (The Billfold) 2013-03-01T18:59:20+00:00 http://thebillfold.com/2012/09/crushing-debt-drove-me-to-kosovo-and-then-to-iraq/ matthewmcvickar war world government work money debt https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:11950787d490/ Anne-Marie Slaughter: Why Women Still Can'€™t Have It All (The Atlantic) 2013-03-01T01:44:25+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/ matthewmcvickar women business government success capitalism work https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:cb2cffb93236/ Ezra Klein: The most important issue of this election: Obamacare (Washington Post) 2013-01-29T19:01:32+00:00 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/10/26/the-most-important-issue-of-this-election-health-reform/ matthewmcvickarWhich is all to say that, yes, this election matters more than most. It matters more politically because the party in power will likely see their agenda affirmed by a cyclical recovery. But it matters more to actual people because the Affordable Care Act is poised to reshape American health care in two years. A vote for Obama is a vote for the law to take effect and for 30 million Americans to get health insurance they won’t get otherwise. A vote for Romney is a vote for the law — and its spending and its taxes — to be repealed. There are few elections in which the stakes are so clear.]]> politics obama government obamacare healthcare america history https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:13ff321faf15/ Andrew Cohen: No One in America Should Have to Wait 7 Hours to Vote (The Atlantic) 2013-01-29T18:52:39+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/no-one-in-america-should-have-to-wait-7-hours-to-vote/264506/ matthewmcvickarThere is no hidden agenda here. The strategy and tactics are as far out in the open as those voters standing in line for hours waiting for their turn to vote. This transparency—of motive and of evidence—is also what distinguishes the complaints that Democrats have about Republican tricks on voting from Republican complaints about Democratic tricks on voting. Widespread "in-person" voter fraud or voting by illegal immigrants exists mostly in the minds of conspiracy theorists. Yet proof of voter suppression is visible to all of us with the naked eye. All we have to do is look. There is no political equivalence here—only more lamentable false equivalence.]]> election politics voting america government society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f4170f595ab9/ Glenn Greenwald: Obama and progressives: what will liberals do with their big election victory? (The Guardian) 2013-01-29T18:51:03+00:00 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/07/obama-progressives-left-entitlements matthewmcvickarWith last night's results, one can choose to see things two ways: (1) emboldened by their success and the obvious movement of the electorate in their direction, liberals will resolve that this time things will be different, that their willingness to be Good Partisan Soldiers depends upon their core values not being ignored and stomped on, or (2) inebriated with love and gratitude for Obama for having vanquished the evil Republican villains, they will follow their beloved superhero wherever he goes with even more loyalty than before. One does not need to be Nate Silver to be able to use the available historical data to see which of those two courses is the far more likely one.]]> obama america history politics government election https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:594c93a9a0ef/ Doug Henwood: Why Obama lost the debate 2012-10-06T00:09:41+00:00 http://lbo-news.com/2012/10/04/why-obama-lost-the-debate/ matthewmcvickarMore broadly, the political problem of the Democrats is that they’re a party of capital that has to pretend for electoral reasons sometimes that it’s not. All the complaints that liberals have about them—their weakness, tendency to compromise, the constantly lamented lack of a spine—emerge from this central contradiction. The Republicans have a coherent philosophy and use it to fire up a rabid base. The Dems are afraid of their base because it might cause them trouble with their funders. Romney believes in money. Obama believes in nothing. Most liberals want to write off Obama’s bad performance as a bad night. It’s not just that. It’s a structural problem.]]> politics government obama rhetoric election history liberals democrats republicans america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8bb3329f3307/ Can-Do Honolulu 2012-08-04T22:48:19+00:00 http://can-do.honolulu.gov/ matthewmcvickar‘Citizens Analyzing Numbers Discover Opportunity’]]> data hawaii civic city government local https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b6696a01fc54/ Max Read: There Is No Such Thing as 'Politicizing' a Tragedy (Gawker) 2012-07-23T16:53:42+00:00 http://gawker.com/5927847/there-is-no-such-thing-as-politicizing-a-tragedy matthewmcvickarBefore he entered the theater, he purchased guns, whether legally or illegally, under a framework of laws and regulations governed and negotiated by politics; in the parking lot outside, he was arrested by a police force whose salaries, equipment, tactics and rights were shaped and determined by politics. Holmes' ability to seek, or to not seek, mental health care; the government's ability, or inability, to lock up persons deemed unstable — these are things decided and directed by politics. You cannot "politicize" a tragedy because the tragedy is already political. When you talk about the tragedy you're already talking about politics.]]> guns usa government media https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:3f7fa39740b5/ Adopt-a-Siren 2012-07-23T16:37:37+00:00 http://sirens.honolulu.gov/ matthewmcvickarYou agree to listen for the siren test and report any problems.]]> honolulu government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ef98ed476039/ CaspianX2: "Obamacare" explained very well (Reddit) 2012-07-03T09:39:23+00:00 http://www.reddit.com/tb/vbkfm matthewmcvickarhealthcare health politics government history obama america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4204602d2346/ David Graeber: Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit (The Baffler) 2012-06-23T06:20:21+00:00 http://www.thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars/P5 matthewmcvickarThat pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone. Most will turn up nothing, but one or two may well discover something. But if you want to minimize the possibility of unexpected breakthroughs, tell those same people they will receive no resources at all unless they spend the bulk of their time competing against each other to convince you they know in advance what they are going to discover.]]> future society government capitalism invention https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:86ffede31aa2/ Tim O'Reilly: Before Solving a Problem, Make Sure You've Got the Right Problem 2012-04-01T03:47:43+00:00 https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/BEDukdz2B1r matthewmcvickarI was pleased to see the measured tone of the White House response to the citizen petition about SOPA and PIPA, and yet I found myself profoundly disturbed by something that seems to me to go to the root of the problem in Washington: the failure to correctly diagnose the problem we are trying to solve, but instead to accept, seemingly uncritically, the claims of various interest groups.]]> internet piracy sopa pipa government economics media film music https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6a1211f7264a/ Sarah Lai Stirland: Expert Labs: Putting The 'Public' Into Public Policy Wasn't Easy (TechPresident) 2012-03-31T06:23:55+00:00 http://techpresident.com/news/21987/expert-labs-crowdsourcing-policy-and-thinkup-look-back matthewmcvickarTwo years and several reports later, we thought we’d try to look at how Expert Labs fared. The premise behind the project was that the federal government could and should engage in conversations with people on their existing social networks. The idea was to use existing commercial social networks to crowdsource policy decisions and to synthesize the responses in an intelligent manner.]]> government internet technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:65146a3545e9/ Yancey Strickler: Kickstarter and the NEA 2012-03-07T04:07:54+00:00 http://yancey.tumblr.com/post/18391152408/kickstarter-and-the-nea matthewmcvickar kickstarter art government society america money statistics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c48e3c53a933/ Susan P. Crawford: Internet Access and the New Divide (NYTimes.com) 2012-02-13T02:27:10+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?_r=2&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimesopinion&pagewanted=all matthewmcvickar government internet class society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:082ac2ac58a3/ Squashed: "Some people shouldn't own houses" 2012-02-06T01:26:06+00:00 http://squashed.tumblr.com/post/16179115006/some-people-shouldnt-own-houses#fnref:p16179115006-2 matthewmcvickar racism poverty property government america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c7c074b924e0/ Jay Rosen: A Brief Theory of the Republican Party, 2012 2012-01-29T07:52:59+00:00 http://jayrosen.posterous.com/a-brief-theory-of-the-republican-party-2012 matthewmcvickar republican government history usa https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:52af21cf18ef/ Coyote Tracks: The enemy of my enemy 2012-01-23T08:08:28+00:00 http://tracks.ranea.org/post/16198633857/the-enemy-of-my-enemy matthewmcvickar piracy internet government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:055ecaea9bc0/ Paul Carr: Costolo is Right: Wikipedia’s SOPA Blackout is a Terrible Idea (PandoDaily) 2012-01-18T21:37:10+00:00 http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/16/dick-costolo-is-right-wikipedias-sopa-blackout-is-a-terrible-idea/ matthewmcvickar sopa pipa government internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e4b5b5a1a5ad/ Dena Levitz: The Awkward Art of Neighborhood Naming (The Atlantic Cities) 2012-01-13T00:52:46+00:00 http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/01/awkward-art-neighborhood-naming/843/ matthewmcvickar city urbanplanning government community https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2dc74caf5c1f/ Andrew Rosenthal: Keeping College Students From the Polls (NYTimes.com) 2011-12-28T05:14:13+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/opinion/keeping-college-students-from-the-polls.html?_r=1&hp matthewmcvickar government voting students https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:79cc8589e6d0/ Eric Lichtblau: Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill (NYTimes.com) 2011-12-28T05:05:24+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/politics/economic-slide-took-a-detour-at-capitol-hill.html?_r=2&hpw matthewmcvickar government congress wealth money corruption https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:977a7bbd411c/ Information Diet: Dear Internet: It's No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works 2011-12-26T07:37:11+00:00 http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/dear-internet-its-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-congress-works- matthewmcvickar congress government lobbying politics sopa https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:9f1f35ea87bb/ Information Diet: How to talk to Congress 2011-12-26T07:05:13+00:00 http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/how-to-talk-to-congress matthewmcvickar sopa internet government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:364c3d179af5/ Joshua Kopstein: Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works (Motherboard) 2011-12-18T21:07:43+00:00 http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/12/16/dear-congress-it-s-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-the-internet-works matthewmcvickar congress internet politics government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:847847617b93/ On Shari'a Law 2011-12-15T01:49:44+00:00 http://mohandasgandhi.tumblr.com/post/14125659817/i-have-to-say-i-dont-think-ive-been-quite-as matthewmcvickar shari'a Islam government law https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4f0bbe3ef9d6/ Squashed, Occupy, Inequality, Envy, and Class Warfare 2011-12-12T20:23:25+00:00 http://squashed.tumblr.com/post/14031490326/occupy-inequality-envy-and-class-warfare matthewmcvickar finance corporations government america poverty class occupywallstreet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:bc094844cf19/ Eric Lichtblau: For-Profit College Rules Scaled Back After Lobbying (NYTimes.com) 2011-12-12T20:16:58+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/politics/for-profit-college-rules-scaled-back-after-lobbying.html?pagewanted=all matthewmcvickar education america government lobbying corporations https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:214cf17efd64/ Anil Dash: Questions for the Republican Candidates 2011-12-12T02:56:36+00:00 http://dashes.com/anil/2011/12/questions-for-the-republican-candidates.html matthewmcvickar gop republicans government 2012 america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:021bb9e88f74/ For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice by David M. Uhlmann 2011-12-11T03:27:28+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?hp matthewmcvickar business government crime corporations https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6e18089621b6/ The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy (by Naomi Wolf) 2011-11-28T02:48:40+00:00 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?CMP=twt_gu matthewmcvickar government occupywallstreet https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a109c7680e29/ Rortybomb: Parsing the Data and Ideology of the We Are 99% Tumblr 2011-10-31T07:02:05+00:00 http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/parsing-the-data-and-ideology-of-the-we-are-99-tumblr/ matthewmcvickar 99% occupywallst data society government history america 2011 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:aed8ec14e7f1/ The Awl: Why Should We Demonstrate? A Conversation 2011-10-25T19:55:43+00:00 http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/ask-an-activist-why-should-we-demonstrate matthewmcvickar occupywallst politics government https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f65fbfbaf120/ Squashed: We are the 99 Percent 2011-10-10T15:54:07+00:00 http://squashed.tumblr.com/post/11274810300/we-are-the-99-percent-i-highly-recommend matthewmcvickar occupywallst finance america government money https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ff74826150b8/ Expert Labs: The Democracy Gap 2011-10-06T20:45:41+00:00 http://expertlabs.org/2011/10/the-democracy-gap.html matthewmcvickar democracy government history occupywallst internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ab723457e971/