Deaths of Despair and Support for Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election

Shannon M. Monnat Pennsylvania State University Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Trump over performed the most in counties with the highest drug, alcohol and suicide mortality rates. Much of this relationship is accounted for by economic distress and the proportion of working-class residents. However, this relationship should not be interpreted as causal. What these analyses demonstrate is that community-level well-being played an important role in the 2016 election.

A Public Investment Agenda That Delivers the Goods For American Workers Needs to Be Long-Lived, Broad, and Subject to Democratic Oversight

Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair Economic Policy Institute
Promises that a free lunch can be had by relying heavily on private investors for infrastructure should be viewed skeptically. Tax credits dangled to entice private financiers and developers to provide infrastructure provide no compelling efficiency gains and mostly just open up possibilities for corruption and crony capitalism.

Quarter of Inmates Could Have Been Spared Prison Without Risk

Jamiles Lartey The Guardian
Analyzing offender data on roughly 1.5 million US prisoners, researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that for one in four, drug treatment, community service, probation or a fine would have been a more effective sentence than incarceration. The study also concluded that another 14% of incarcerated individuals had already served an appropriate sentence. These people could be released within the next year “with little risk to public safety”.

Environmentalism Was Once a Social Justice Movement

Jedediah Purdy The Atlantic
The Trump Administration is likely to see the greatest revival of environmentalism as a confrontational, grassroots, and perhaps radical movement since the 1970s, as ever more people who believe the fate of the environment has become a life-or-death issue are going to start acting like it. But to be successful this movement will have to embrace environmental justice and incorporate the struggles for economic and racial equality and for the rights of indigenous peoples.

Weapons Discharge Report

Dan Albergotti storysouth
"Complete this report as fully as possible to the best/of your recollection. Do not consult video evidence." So the Carolina poet Dan Albergotti introduces the absurdities and illogic of bureaucratic obscurity that allows a person to avoid responsibility for discharging a deadly weapon.

Staying on the Battlefield: The Feminist Wire Statement on the Election

The Feminist Wire The Feminist Wire
We recognize that our democracy has long been compromised by capitalism, neoliberalism, militarization, and special interests, and has been, since the founding of our nation, interwoven with white supremacy and imperialism. The U.S. is a nation of brutal-made-to-be-normalized violence. On this front, Trump’s election is nothing new. Nor are the fissures revealed by the election.

Fidel Castro Left Cuba a Green Legacy

Stephen Zunes National Catholic Reporter
Castro's biggest test was in the 1990s, when the sudden end of subsidized trade with the Eastern Bloc, combined with sanctions from the United States, led to a severe economic crisis. His response - which history may judge as his greatest legacy - was to launch an ambitious program in organic agriculture, environmental planning, renewable energy and other sustainable development practices.