New Jersey’s Powerful Grassroots Peoples Organization for Progress Takes Bernie Sanders to Heart
with
Larry Hamm, veteran activist, Chairman the People’s Organization for Progress

POP has rarely departed from a long-standing policy of not supporting candidates for office and engaged in a rigorous debate and careful consideration before reaching its position on how to relate to the 2016 presidential election.  POP’s Chairman Larry Hamm acknowledged the struggle of Bernie Sanders to date to build support in urban communities, specifically with Black and Latino voters.  “It did come up and it will continue to come up, but the fact remains that many of his basic positions will benefit black people,” said the activist. “Single payer healthcare, raising the minimum wage, affordable college, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure. Although those specific  platform planks may not be addressed specifically to African-Americans, black people know that they will benefit from those things.”  Sanders, who had a campaign rally stopped by young Black Lives Matter activists, has by far, the most left leaning stance on all of the issues, especially the economic and racial justice issues that matter most to the organization. “Bernie Sanders is the first self-described socialist to ever have gotten this
close to the Presidency of the United States,” said founder and chairman Lawrence Hamm.  “While we should be deeply concerned by how Republican candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have taken the Republican Party so far to the right, we, on the left, should be just as active as they are and should give serious consideration to how the Sanders campaign could possibly take the Democratic Party from the center right to the left,” said Hamm. PlusFormer Secretary of Labor Robert Reich
Six Responses to Bernie Skeptics

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Cracking Open Kleptocrats and Plutocracts Piggy Banks:
The Panama Papers
with James Henry, who has written extensively about global banking, debt crises, tax havens and economic development.  Henry is former chief economist at the international consultancy firm McKinsey & Co. and is now a  senior fellow at the Columbia University Center for Sustainable  International Investment  and senior adviser with the Tax Justice Network, which has estimated in their study, “The Price of Offshore Revisited,” that total wealth in tax havens was between $21 trillion and $32 trillion.  James Henry's books include The Blood Bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy, and the forthcoming The Pirate Bankers. 

Attorney, James Henry takes us through one of the biggest leaks in journalistic history, 11.5 million documents  to reveal  the secretive offshore companies used to hide wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud by the world's dictators, business tycoons and criminals.  This massive leak of documents has blown open a window on the vast, murky world of shell companies, providing an extraordinary look at how the wealthy and powerful conceal their money. The  data breach occurred at a little-known but powerful Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which has an office in Las Vegas, a representative in Miami and a presence in more than 35 other places around the world.  The firm is one of the world’s top five creators of shell companies, which can have legitimate business uses, but can also be used to dodge taxes and launder money.  

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From Hurt and Hope During Holy Week Towards Resurrection
with 
The New Sanctuary Coalition NYC
and
Fahd Ahmed, Exec. Director, DRUM – South Asian Organizing Center  

The U.S. is scheduled to deport over 160 Bangladeshis who had requested asylum. These men have been kept in detention under deplorable conditions, so much so that they were driven to go on hunger strikes to bring attention to their plight. Now, they are fighting for basic human rights against their imminent deportation. But, on Easter Friday, a special day for many Christians a broad
coalition led by faith-based organizations came to Federal Plaza in a pray out to raise up the principles of that holy day by protesting the deportation of their brother Bangladeshis and advocating for changes to our immigration policies that lift up the common humanity of all and provide people with the opportunity to live in dignity.  The protestors surrounded Federal Plaza, speaking the words of pain and suffering that immigrants experience and railed against a system that punishes and destroys families and communities.

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