Elder Care Should Be Collective. The Atomization of Aging Is a Giant Mistake.

For twelve years starting in 1982, my partner and I in San Francisco joined with two friends in Seattle to produce Lesbian Contradiction: A Journal of Irreverent Feminism, or LesCon for short. We started out typing four-inch columns of text and laying out what was to become a quarterly tabloid on a homemade light table. We used melted paraffin from an electric waxer to affix strips of paper to guide sheets the size of the final pages.

Eventually, we acquired Macintosh computers, trekking to a local copy shop to pay 25 cents a page for laser-printed originals. We still had to paste them together the old-fashioned way to create our tabloid-sized pages. The finished boards would then go to a local commercial printing press where our run of 2,000 copies would be printed.

Here’s How Much Internet Providers Gave Lawmakers Who Voted To Let Them Sell Your Data

House Republicans voted to overturn privacy rules Tuesday that were introduced by the Obama administration to prevent telecommunications and cable companies from sharing customers’ personal data without their consent or knowledge.

That data may include your web browsing history, Social Security number, information about your health and other sensitive details.

Republicans Just Voted to Let Internet Service Providers Sell Your Browsing History

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on Tuesday repealed privacy rules that would have required internet service providers such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable to get consumers’ consent before selling or sharing their web browsing data with advertisers and other companies.

“Consumers should be in control of their own information,” Rep. Jared Polis, (D-Colo.) said in testifying against the bill. “They shouldn’t be forced to sell and give that information to who-knows-who simply for the price of admission for access to the internet.”

House Republicans Vote To Let Your Internet Service Provider Share Your Web History

WASHINGTON ― House Republicans jammed through a measure on Tuesday overturning the Obama administration’s rules that would have banned telecom and cable companies from sharing customers’ personal information, including web browsing history, without their consent.

The House resolution passed 215-205, mostly on party lines. Its companion passed the Senate last week on a 50-48 vote. If President Donald Trump signs the measure into law, internet service providers will win a regulatory victory. But advocates say consumers can kiss network privacy goodbye.

Republicans move to sell off 3.3m acres of national land, sparking rallies

Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans’ public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling “step two” in the GOP’s plan to offload federal property.

The new piece of legislation would direct the interior secretary to immediately sell off an area of public land the size of Connecticut. In a press release for House Bill 621, Chaffetz, a Tea Party Republican, claimed that the 3.3m acres of national land, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), served “no purpose for taxpayers”.

Congress moves to give away national lands, discounting billions in revenue

In the midst of highly publicized steps to dismantle insurance coverage for 32 million people and defund women’s healthcare facilities, Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans’ birthright: 640m acres of national land. In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens.

Privatizing America’s Public Land

It goes without saying that in a democracy everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions. The trouble starts when people think they are also entitled to their own facts.

Away out West, on the hundreds of millions of acres of public lands that most Americans take for granted (if they are aware of them at all), the trouble is deep, widespread, and won’t soon go away. Last winter’s armed take-over and 41-day occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon is a case in point. It was carried out by people who, if they hadn’t been white and dressed as cowboys, might have been called “terrorists” and treated as such. Their interpretation of the history of western lands and of the judicial basis for federal land ownership—or at least that of their leaders, since they weren’t exactly a band of intellectuals—was only loosely linked to reality.

Liberals Talk Up Unusual Funding Model For Infrastructure

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government's newfound enthusiasm about a big Montreal transit proposal has given Canadians a glimpse at one way Ottawa could fund billions in public infrastructure, like roads, bridges and rail, over the long haul.

In recent days, senior Liberals have been talking up an unusual funding model for the $5.5-billion light-rail plan for Montreal, calling for a partnership that includes Ottawa and a public pension fund.

Who Wins as Endless Shortfalls Destroy Public Education?

It's a cruel rite of spring in British Columbia. School boards are told by government what money they will get for the coming year, and by their own figuring, it's not enough.

The trustees must then decide whom to sacrifice: perhaps teachers, by closing programs; perhaps a community, by closing its school.

Or perhaps themselves, if they refuse to sacrifice anyone else.

Tea Party Wave Washes Up ‘Anti-Parks Caucus’ In Congress

A group of 20 senators and representatives has formed a de facto “anti-parks caucus” in Congress and is waging the most significant legislative and ideological challenge to America’s national parks in decades, says a new report released Monday by the Center for American Progress. The analysis finds that this anti-parks caucus is composed of less than five percent of Congress but is responsible for introducing dozens of bills to block the creation of new national parks, end America’s most effective parks program, and sell off public lands.

Almost Half Of World Heritage Sites Are Threatened, Report Finds

Nearly half of the planet’s world heritage sites are threatened by development, despite international protections, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Wildlife Fund.

The 229 heritage sites in 96 countries include Egypt’s pyramids, Florida’s Everglades National Park and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The WWF report found that 114 of these sites are under threat from oil and gas development, illegal logging, overfishing or other industrial activities.

Utah Congressman Wants To Sell America’s 4th Most Popular Wildlife Refuge To Private Developers

A new bill to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is drawing fire over a controversial provision that would enable the sale and private development of thousands of acres in the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge.

The provision, authored by Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), would give 3,100 acres of the popular wildlife refuge to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to sell off to private interests. Right now, the wildlife refuge is protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but in the hands of private interests, it could end up being developed — a scenario that could threaten the species that call the refuge home.

Keep public services public: The perils of privatization and outsourcing

The results of the recent federal election are a likely indication of what Manitobans want to see from our next government: transparency; stimulus spending on ailing infrastructure, financed by deficits; a transition to a green economy; and respect and support for Canada's public service workers.

India's Water War: City Workers Fight Corporate Privatization Efforts

Rivers and other bodies of water in India are sources of the country's spiritualism. Activists working for water rights say capturing India's waters is akin to capturing the nation's soul. The law in India is that all bodies of water are state property. As such, the government can do whatever it pleases with the waters of India. Right now, India's water war has three fronts.

The first is the battle for drinking water being waged between citizens and corporations. Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi have already gained notoriety for illegal use and overuse of groundwater. There are issues of huge displacements by power projects and dams.

Tenants’ advocates decry proposal to privatize evictions

Tenants’ rights advocates are concerned Ontario might privatize the enforcement of eviction orders, introducing a “U.S.-style” system where profits trump the wellbeing of low-income residents who fall behind on the rent.

Currently, government officers in the “civil enforcement service” carry out eviction orders from the Landlord and Tenant Board, and impose court orders to seize property from people in debt, among other duties. The Ministry of the Attorney General issued a notice in January that it is mulling whether to privatize the enforcement service.

The cost of privatized food in public institutions

Earlier this year, inmates at the Regina Correctional Centre started and ended a second hunger strike over the quality of prison food. In December 2015, the first hunger strike was sparked in part when inmates were served raw eggs. Issues with equipment, quality and the status of a cooking job skills program were resolved.

Premier Brad Wall remarked in early January that if prisoners did not want to eat prison food, they had best avoid prison. Unsurprisingly, reports of the strike garnered little sympathy.

Here's What Happens When Cops Police For Profit, Not Public Safety

A controversial program that allows police to seize private property has become a massive revenue driver for law enforcement departments around the country, an expansive report published Tuesday has found. Under the practice known as civil asset forfeiture, police and prosecutors work together to permanently seize cash and property -- including cars, homes and businesses -- based on the suspicion that it's connected to criminal activity.

While civil forfeiture is regularly touted as an important crime-fighting tool, authorities don't need to charge owners with a crime in order to take their property, and most of the time, forfeiture is approved without any definitive proof of the alleged criminal ties. Once the government takes control of a person's property, it's typically sold off, sending proceeds back the police departments and legal offices that worked the case.

The House GOP Wants Private Debt Collectors To Take Over IRS Jobs

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are pushing to give private debt collectors the right to target all unpaid tax bills, handing a traditional IRS responsibility over to an industry with a long record of consumer abuse.

Debt collection agencies frequently get into legal trouble for intimidating or misleading borrowers over their debts. The GOP is advocating to empower them with tax debts as part of an effort to pay for highway funding without raising taxes. The idea is that private debt collection companies will be more aggressive with tax delinquents than IRS agents, thus generating more money for the U.S. Treasury.

In Arbitration, a ‘Privatization of the Justice System’

Deborah L. Pierce, an emergency room doctor in Philadelphia, was optimistic when she brought a sex discrimination claim against the medical group that had dismissed her. Respected by colleagues, she said she had a stack of glowing evaluations and evidence that the practice had a pattern of denying women partnerships.

She began to worry, though, once she was blocked from court and forced into private arbitration.

Presiding over the case was not a judge but a corporate lawyer, Vasilios J. Kalogredis, who also handled arbitrations. When Ms. Pierce showed up one day for a hearing, she said she noticed Mr. Kalogredis having a friendly coffee with the head of the medical group she was suing.

It’s not too late to nix disastrous Hydro One sell-off

Last week, Stephen LeClair, Ontario’s independent Financial Accountability Officer, untangled months of spin and confusion to reveal the truth about the provincial government’s sale of Hydro One.

It’s a terrible deal for Ontario.

He compared two approaches to financing infrastructure. In the first, the government would borrow money, an approach that Justin Trudeau advocated during his successful election campaign. In the second, the government would sell public assets.