Obama Just Signed a Controversial Puerto Rico Debt Plan Into Law

Osita Nwanevu Slate
“In my view it is a very, very, very bad piece of legislation,” Sanders said at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Washington last week. “[W]e are taking away virtually all of the political and democratic rights of the people of Puerto Rico. We are treating them as an absolute colony.”

Mosul

David Hernandez Kenyon Review
David Hernandez, poet from southern California, brings us to a moment of tragedy--seemingly random, seemingly fated--from the Iraq War.

SKIN DOCTOR ON A NUDE BEACH

Carolyn Raphael White Violet Press
New York poet Carolyn Raphael offers a not-so subtle warning to those summer readers who bake too long on the sand.

Science and Women's Health Win

Andrea Flynn Roosevelt Institute
The Supreme Court protected the right of women and families to make their own choices. And it did so by reminding us that facts are real. Science is real. Evidence is real. And it can’t be willfully ignored or tarnished or fabricated to advance anti-choice ideology that erodes the constitutional right to reproductive health care.

What Bernie Sanders Still Wants

Sam Frizell Time magazine
Sanders aides say that the biggest issue—and the one where they may have the most leverage—is opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade deal that President Obama supports. But Sanders will fight for a battery of other policies, from a fracking ban to a $15 minimum wage.

Homeless Man Joins Busker for Spontaneous Street Jam

Busking in Leeds (England) on New Year's Eve I was joined by a homeless man in a wheelchair who asked if he could sing with me. My spontaneous street jam with Bernard Davey was a soul-affirming, enriching experience that summed up everything I love about street culture.