This is not the campaign site of Bill Humphrey for Governor’s Council. This is a news commentary and research blog affiliated with the Arsenal For Democracy Radio Show (currently on hiatus).
The blog will continue to post at a reduced schedule.
Unusual punishment
BBC News Magazine: “Why is one county handing down one in six US death sentences?”
Judged by the number of death sentences handed down, Riverside [County, California] has ranked no lower than third among the US’s more than 3,000 counties since 2012, and was first in 2015.
“The county is the most glaring example of a phenomenon that is being seen across the US, which is that even though the death penalty is in broad decline across most of America, there are individual pockets that continue to disproportionately use it,” says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
He cites a 2013 report done by the centre which found that the majority of people on death row in the US were sentenced to death by fewer than 2% of the counties.
California had 746 people on death row in January 2015, far ahead of the state in second place – Florida, with 400.
Seems hard to square this with the Constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Former peacekeeping role model tries to reject peacekeepers
Burundi has consistently been one of the largest contributors to African Union peacekeeping forces for years, but when it comes time for an AU deployment in Burundi suddenly Burundi is a champion of national “sovereignty” and freedom from peacekeeper interference…
“Burundi lawmakers reject AU peacekeeping offer despite spiralling violence” – France24:
Burundi’s parliament on Monday criticised a proposed African Union peacekeeping mission already dismissed by the government as an “invasion force”.
Compaoré wanted for 1987 Sankara murder
Burkina Faso’s former longtime dictator Blaise Compaoré, still in exile since his October 2014 ouster, now faces an international arrest warrant for his role in the bloody 1987 coup that brought him to power against his once-friend Captain Thomas Sankara. The body believed to be that of Sankara, while still not positively identified, is “riddled with bullets” according to an autopsy released in October 2015.
NBC: “Hate Attacks On Muslims in U.S. Spike”
Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.
“Hate Attacks On Muslims in U.S. Spike” – NBC News:
The number of crimes against Muslims’ mosques and business have tripled since Paris attacks, and activists say Donald Trump is fanning the hate.
We must all fight intolerance and stop these hate crimes.
In mid-2015, 17% of student loans hadn’t been paid in a year
Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.
“School-Loan Reckoning: 7 Million Are in Default” – The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2015:
Nearly 7 million Americans have gone at least a year without making a payment on their federal student loans, a high level of default that suggests a widening swath of households are unable or unwilling to pay back their school debt.
As of July, 6.9 million Americans with student loans hadn’t sent a payment to the government in at least 360 days, quarterly data from the Education Department showed this past week. That was up 6%, or 400,000 borrowers, from a year earlier.
That translates into about 17% of all borrowers with federal loans being severely delinquent, a share that would be even higher if borrowers currently in school who aren’t yet required to repay were excluded. Millions of other borrowers are months behind but haven’t hit the 360-day threshold that the government defines as a default.
There are 40 million Americans with some outstanding student debt.
Unlike credit card, auto, mortgage and other personal debts, student debts are rarely dischargeable in a personal bankruptcy.
This unusual exception to U.S. bankruptcy law was implemented as part of the so-called “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act” passed in 2005. Lenders lobbied Congress heavily for the law’s passage.
In the 10 years since that law’s creation, the share of bachelor’s degree holders with student debt after graduation rose from 64% to 71%. This potentially exposes even more young people to personal debt crises they cannot discharge.
Another key issue in U.S. student debt is how much of it has come from “for-profit” colleges, diploma mills and shady online universities. In fact, 10 of the 20 institutions that generate the most student debt fall under one or more of those categories.
They represent about 19% of the total 2014 student debt load. That is all the more astounding as they account for only 9% of the total U.S. student body. Evidently, the cost of enrolling at these institutions is high, but the payoff for graduates is low or zero.
This post was produced in conjunction with The Globalist Research Center.
Collective
Massachusetts has historically been at the forefront in the United States on worker safety and labor rights, compensation, activism, and organizing. Organized labor has been and must remain a fundamental component of our economic structure. Without it, there is no significant force representing our workers on an equal level with management and owners.
Our courts must uphold the rights of workers – including state and municipal workers – to organize themselves and bargain collectively and cooperatively for compensation and benefits proportionate to their productive work, as well as safe workplaces and fair scheduling.
Our courts must uphold contracts signed with workers’ unions, particularly by the state or municipal governments. It is the responsibility of employers to negotiate contracts they can actually execute.
We cannot achieve economic justice without securing the rights of organized labor to fight for fair and living wages in our society.
