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Economic Policy Institute
Benchmarks to beat in order to claim policy-driven improvements to American wages and employment

Profitable Companies, No Taxes: Here’s How They Did It

Patricia Cohen The New York Times
Among the report’s key findings: 100 companies enjoyed at least one year in which their federal income tax was zero or less, 24 companies paid zero taxes in four out of eight years, 18 companies paid no federal income tax over the eight-year period, Collectively, the 258 corporations enjoyed $513 billion in tax breaks over the last eight years. More than half of those tax breaks, $277 billion, went to just 25 of the most profitable corporations.

19 Women Leading Math and Physics

Natalie Wolchover Quanta Magazine
Top women in mathematics and physics discuss how they got to where they are — and why there aren’t more of them.

Red Cloud, Crazy Horse and a Foreign Policy of Delusion

Conn Hallinan Dispatches From the Edge
The time and place was vastly different, but the men who designed the war against Native Americans would embrace the rationale that currently impels U.S. foreign policy. U.S. exceptionalism, the dangerous delusion that its institutions and its organization of capital are superior, has its roots in the campaigns against Native Americans. While it has fostered many crusades and stupendous violence, it is increasingly unacceptable and unenforceable in a multi-polar world.

Former Koch Agents, Staffing Trump's Federal Agencies

Steve Horn DESMOG
As DeSmog has previously reported, the Trump transition team was loaded with Koch-tied operatives, many from the Institute for Energy Research, a Koch-funded group which helped carve out the Trump White House's energy policy. Mike Catanzaro, a former Koch lobbyist, serves as Trump's top White House energy aide.

Right-Wing Billionaires Have a Project Going to Rewrite Our Constitution

Thom Hartmann Alternet
Their goal appears to be to put into the Constitution specific prohibitions against any programs (from Social Security to Medicare to food stamps) that they've always viewed as "unconstitutional socialism," and to permanently enshrine in the Constitution the "right" of corporations and billionaires to own politicians and spend unlimited monies to influence elections and ballot measures. I

My Mother Cleans and Starts the Gumbo

Karen Maceira Lindenwood Review
"What does it mean to have/a child in prison?" asks New Orleans poet Karen Maceira, observing how her mother answers and can't answer that question.

From Bad to Worse for Puerto Rico

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman Project Syndicate
The plan by the oversight board for Puerto Rico will depress the economy further and fuel a debt spiral, in which Puerto Ricans, US taxpayers, and in the long run, even the creditors will lose