Grad student in urban planning @usc, formerly an editor @theprospect | I thought this was an autonomous collective
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Articles by Sam Ross-Brown
Disrupting Democracy: When Big Tech Takes Over a City
Google’s smart city of the future is in trouble. For the past two years, Sidewalk Labs, Google’s sister company under Alphabet, has been in talks with local officials in Toronto to redevelop 12 acres of neglected land along Lake Ontario into what it calls a data-driven “disruption” of urban life. But as details of the project—dubbed Quayside—have begun to emerge, residents and local officials have expressed alarm about what it might mean for their city and their democracy.
The Facebook Settlement Amounts to Bribery of a Federal Agency
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees, April 10, 2018. Facebook paid—I would call it, bribed—the Federal Trade Commission $5 billion to protect Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability in violating the privacy of millions of users. I didn’t conjure that up. That was the clear statement of James Kohm, the agency’s associate director of the division of enforcement, who conducted the Facebook investigation.
Over 100 Academics Endorse Sanders’s Student Debt Cancellation Plan
Bernie Sanders’s proposal to cancel all outstanding student debt in the United States, roughly $1.6 trillion, received an enthusiastic reception online, but a few education policy experts and even left economists were more lukewarm. They say that Sanders’s failure to eliminate tuition at private colleges and graduate programs, along with expenses outside of tuition like books and room and board, will mean that this debt jubilee will be followed merely by another debt expansion.
Democrats Get Serious About Affordable Housing
Brynn Anderson/AP Images Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks in Miami. As Democratic candidates square off in the first 2020 debates, you might hear about an issue that has long been absent from presidential campaigns: affordable housing. With the cost of living skyrocketing nationwide, Democratic contenders have started to take housing seriously as a campaign issue for the first time in decades, releasing extensive proposals to address inequities for both homeowners and renters.
How Digital Advertising Markets Really Work
The same digital ad, on the same website, at the same time, has a different value depending on the consumer being targeted. This article appears in the Summer 2019 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. A rapid-fire series of announcements in June foreshadow an increase in antitrust scrutiny of the tech companies that shape our economy.
The Inslee Difference
Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Sipa via AP Images Inslee’s unyielding stance on the climate crisis has every wing of the Democratic Party scrambling to keep up. History yields a few examples of presidential candidacies designed not to win office but to raise attention to a pressing issue: “free soil” anti-slavery candidates before the Civil War, Pete McCloskey’s anti-Vietnam War Republican primary challenge to Richard Nixon in 1972, Ellen McCormack’s bid as an anti-abortion Democrat in 1976.
Make Passengers Safer? Boeing Just Made Shareholders Richer.
A worker stands near a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner being built for American Airlines prior to a test flight in Reston, Washington. From time to time, large airliners of different makes, models, and vintages crash—but, fortunately, not very often.
Beto Versus The Barrio
This article is a preview of the Spring 2019 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. EL PASO, Texas – Ever since his near-miss Senate defeat to Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke’s political project has been on hiatus. “Have been stuck lately,” O’Rourke wrote in a post on Medium somewhere between Kansas and New Mexico.
Armed Lifeboat: Government’s Response to Natural Disaster - Politics – Utne Reader
Whether Washington’s response to natural disaster caused by climate change will rely on social solidarity, or on militarized borders and government surveillance, depends on what happens now, says Christian Parenti. By Sam Ross-Brown, Utne Reader | September/October 2013 As extreme weather becomes more frequent and damaging the government’s response could be violent and authoritarian, or it could build on our capacity for social solidarity in the wake of crisis.
Shifting Prospects for a New Farm Bill
Later this year, the federal Farm Bill that was enacted in 2008 is set to expire. Although Congress already has plenty on its plate—not to mention the ongoing kerfuffle over Obamacare at the Supreme Court—there’s a good chance they’ll make room for this. Because of its size and scope, the direction the Farm Bill takes has a big impact not just on agriculture and farming communities, but also on environmental policy, trade, and the overall health and safety of Americans.
Net Neutrality and the Fight for Social Justice
“Historically, the debate over net neutrality has been between techies, public interest groups, and big telecoms,” says activist Steven Renderos. “The real voices of people outside of D.C. haven’t really been heard on these issues up until this last year.” What made this past year different was an overwhelming public push for stronger net neutrality protections.
Transportation Gridlock in the Northeast Bridges over Troubled Partisan Waters
Democrats, Republicans, and independents don’t agree on much in an era when politics is all vinegar and venom. But as the urbanized Northeast Corridor verges on 24/7 gridlock, most people can get over the political divide and agree that getting where they want to go, when they want to get there, is well-nigh impossible.
Scott Pruitt’s Replacement at the EPA Will Likely Be Worse
On July 5, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced his resignation amid more than a dozen investigations into allegations of his ethical misconduct. Pruitt’s brief tenure at the agency was unprecedented both for its aggressive attacks on environmental rules as well as the myriad scandals surrounding his office. The 13 active federal investigations into Pruitt’s office range from misuse of public funds to financial ties with energy lobbyists to attacks on EPA staffers who questioned his actions.
Washington State Shifts into New Ways of Thinking About Welfare and Transportation
It pays to listen. Washington state welfare case workers had heard plenty of stories from individuals in poverty about the hurdles they had to overcome to find and keep steady work, from irregular child care arrangements to physical or mental health issues and unpaid bills. But one problem dominated those conversations: finding reliable transportation.
Amazon's Race to the Bottom Puts Chicago Transit at Risk
Transit has emerged as a key issue in the furious competition between municipalities to land Amazon’s second headquarters. With the company placing a premium on access to rail and bus networks, cities like Chicago put transit front and center in their applications. “If you look at their proposal, Amazon's, and you look at what they're looking for: talent, transportation, training, technology,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared as the city its unveiled its formal bid last September.
Q&A: What Cities Can Do About the Gun Epidemic
In 2008, National Rifle Association sued Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat, after he signed five new gun measures into law. A state court later upheld three provisions, but struck down the two strongest ones that limited gun purchases and banned the purchase and ownership of certain assault weapons.
Not a Drill: Oil and Gas Exploration Dead in the Water for Governors
The Trump administration’s draft five-year plan for leasing most continental shelf areas for oil and gas drilling met with equal parts of horror and consternation from most Republican and Democratic coastal governors.
What Cities Can Learn from Houston Metro’s Hurricane Harvey Experience
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) A Metro train runs along Main Street in downtown Houston on September 5, 2017, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. In early December, two groups of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the World Weather Attribution, a global network of scientists, independently concluded that climate change made Hurricane Harvey’s record-setting torrents far more damaging.
Boston’s Rendezvous with Climate Destiny
When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last August, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh expressed his fear that his own city would have been “wiped out” by a comparable deluge. Scores of people would be rendered homeless, waterfront areas would be ravaged, the damage would run into the multi-billions. Several years earlier, the city dodged a bullet during Hurricane Sandy: Boston was spared the flooding that paralyzed Manhattan only because the storm hit Boston hours after high tide.
L.A. Times: Will Union Vote Conk Tronc?
Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. The American Prospect is co-publishing this piece. Los Angeles Times readers who have been unaware of the paper's endless management turmoil and policy changes can always view the damage in its print edition. Thinner news sections, a dwindling number of bylines and the wrap-around advertising that disguises the front-page all hint at the ongoing upheaval at the top.
GOP Tax Victory Puts Drinking Water at Risk
In the landmark tax reform overhaul, congressional Republicans axed a critical financing tool that cities and towns have used to upgrade aging drinking water infrastructure: advance refunding bonds. These bonds allowed municipalities to refinance outstanding debt at lower interest rates.
GOP Tax Plan Pulls the Plug on Renewable Energy
The GOP tax reform plan barreling toward a vote in the Senate could deal a devastating blow to the renewable energy industry. Unlike the more draconian House version, the Senate bill does not slash renewable tax credits directly, but it does impose steep taxes on the companies that help finance renewable development. Leaders in the wind and solar sector warn that such hikes would undercut the industry’s most important financing tools.
Internet Ad Rules Bring Together Strange Bedfellows
The conservative backlash against proposals on Capitol Hill and at the Federal Election Commission to shed more light on internet political ads has been swift and predictable.
Nebraska Approves Keystone XL Pipeline, But Fight Continues
On Monday, the Nebraska Public Service Commission voted to approve construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, thereby clearing the project's last regulatory hurdle. The decision comes just days after an existing segment of the Keystone pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil in Marshall County, South Dakota.
Nebraska Approves Keystone XL Pipeline, But Fight Continues
Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline demonstrate during rush hour in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 1, 2017. On Monday, the Nebraska Public Service Commission voted to approve construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, thereby clearing the project’s last regulatory hurdle. The decision comes just days after an existing segment of the Keystone pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil in Marshall County, South Dakota.
A Climate Policy for the People
This summer, epic storms and fires in the United States provided some worrisome climate signals. Hurricane Harvey produced rains so strong that meteorologists added new colors to their radar maps. Hurricane Irma maintained Category 5 winds for 37 hours, a record for cyclones. The “unprecedented” wildfires in northern California were a product, in part, of the unusually hot and dry summer. As the newly released Fourth National Climate Assessment makes clear, the planet is under siege.
Scott Pruitt’s Dirty War on Clean Water
Scott Pruitt on June 2, 2017 This week, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case that will determine how far the federal government can go in safeguarding American waterways. At issue are challenges to the Clean Water Rule that began working its way up to the high court two years ago. Yet no matter what the Court decides, the Clean Water Rule’s days are almost certainly numbered as the Environmental Protection Agency finalizes a plan to kill the rule outright this fall.
Why Is There a Budget Crisis in Connecticut?
Connecticut is bleeding red, and no end is in sight. Like Illinois and Kansas, the state has a massive budget shortfall, with a projected deficit of $5 billion over the next two years. Unlike Illinois and Kansas, though, Connecticut has yet to close its deficit. And quite unlike Illinois and Kansas, Connecticut’s problem isn’t just the handiwork of tax-slashing Republicans.
Can Cities and States Step Up to Fight Climate Change?
In mid-July, California Governor Jerry Brown and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg teamed up to announce America’s Pledge, a new coalition of seven states and more than 200 cities and counties that have joined together to continue to support the Paris climate agreement’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Social Networking for a Better World
The rise of corporate-owned social media raises many flags about our online security and the future of the digital commons. The solution, says theorist Michael Albert, is a different kind of network altogether. In many ways, social media seem almost designed for activism. Efficient, user-friendly, and above all, inexpensive, sites like Facebook and Twitter are invaluable communication tools for any activist. Planning a rally outside a college president’s office? Create a Facebook group.
Saving the Planet Goes Local
This article appears in the Spring 2017 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. Of all the Trump administration’s policies, the one most likely to cause damage that can’t be undone may not be deporting immigrants or throwing poor people off Medicaid or outsourcing our foreign policy to the Kremlin. Rather, it could well be a cessation of efforts to combat climate change.
Trumping State Regulators and Juries
This article appears in the Spring 2017 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. In the wake of the 2016 elections, many progressives have sought solace in the prospect of resisting Trump administration initiatives and advancing progressive goals in blue states. In his State of the State address last January, California Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed: “California is not turning back.
The Green Wall Against Trump
On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order to repeal President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which mandated emission reductions from power companies (an estimated 650 million tons by 2025 alone). But since 29 states plus Washington, D.C., have set requirements to adopt more renewable energy (known as renewable portfolio standards), how much impact will Trump’s order have?
Trump’s Crash Course in the African American Experience
The Congressional Black Caucus leadership team did not go to the White House to talk about urban carnage or April Ryan. Instead, over the course of more than a half-hour with the 45th president of the United States, they laid out the full spectrum of issues facing Africans Americans and what he could do about them—if he wanted to get past posturing.
The Republican Climate Science Witch Hunt
Climate change deniers have friends on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Lamar Smith, the House Science Committee chair who has been at the forefront of efforts to incinerate federal global warming research, is determined to provide a public platform for climate skeptics to share their widely discredited views and to step up attacks on federal research work overseen by groups like Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board.
Trump Doesn’t Have the Balls
President Donald Trump likes to wear baseball caps adorned with the words “Make America Great Again” across the front. But offered a chance to wear a real major league baseball cap in a real baseball stadium next week, Trump balked. In yet another break from tradition, Trump declined an invitation to throw out the ceremonial first ball at the Washington Nationals’ opening day game next Monday.
Uber in Trouble Again
Everybody knows that for decades Big Tobacco profited from deception and clever marketing. The companies even conducted their own studies and concluded—surprise, surprise—that tobacco was a safe product with no link to cancer. Now Uber has been caught in a similar ruse. The new revelation, tucked away inconspicuously inside a New York Times story, hasn’t received as much attention as a string of other high profile Uber scandals that has recently shaken the company to its core.
A Solution for GOP Climate Denial
Fifty-two years after the first scientific warning to a U.S. president, the Republican Party still has no official policy to deal with climate change. They say it isn’t happening, or if it is, it’s not our fault, or if it is, there is nothing to be done about it anyway. At the highest level, climate change is said to be a fraud cooked up in China. Of itself, political procrastination is not particularly startling, except for what’s at stake.
Providence Coalition Forces Officials to Think Smarter About Transportation
The massive 6-10 Connector in Providence, Rhode Island, that carries some 100,000 cars every day is one of the Northeast Corridor’s most well-worn arteries. Nine bridges link Interstate 95 with state and local roadways. A decade ago, some of the spans began to deteriorate and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation installed wooden buttresses to reinforce the weakest structures as a temporary stopgap measure.
Photos from the Moral March on Raleigh
The protest movement that has animated millions of progressives since the inauguration of President Trump gave added force Saturday to the North Carolina NAACP’s 11th Annual Moral March on Raleigh. Tens of thousands filled the streets of the state capital for the march, which is also known as the HKonJ (Historic Thousands on Jones Street) People’s Assembly.
Will Big Business Help Fight Trump’s Anti-Environment Agenda?
Environmentalists can be excused for feeling apocalyptic about Donald Trump’s presidency. Compared with Barack Obama, who championed the Paris Agreement, enacted the Clean Power Plan and preserved major swaths of open space, President-elect Donald Trump can come off as the planet’s grim reaper, ready to usher in a new era of dirty water, polluted air, and melting glaciers. Trump’s cabinet selections make crystal clear that his anti-environment rhetoric as a candidate was no mere campaign swagger.
Interregnum
American interregnums are often peculiar times, but none has ever been more peculiar than this one. As autumn subsides into winter, much of the country lies in the grip of a paralyzing chill. Democracy is under threat as never before. Each day brings a fresh report of a high-level nomination by the president-elect, and each new nomination strengthens the impression that Mr. Trump is determined to create a kakistocracy, a government of the worst.
Q&A: After 2016, Will the Electoral College be Abolished?
On December 19, the Electoral College will convene to elect the 45th president of the United States. Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is climbing toward three million, but Donald Trump won more electors, making him the second presidential winner in the last five elections to prevail thanks to an electoral-popular vote split. As in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to George W.
Rex Tillerson: An Oligarch’s Dream at the State Department
If confirmed by the Senate, the next secretary of state will enter into the service of the second employer he has ever had in his life: the United States government. Since his graduation from the University of Texas in Austin, according to The New Yorker’s Steve Coll, Rex Tillerson has known only one boss (in aggregate): the shareholders of Exxon Mobil. Already even Republicans are chafing against President-apparent Donald J.
Incoming EPA Chief Scott Pruitt’s Other Target: Clean Water
Scott Pruitt’s nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn dire warnings about his impact on climate change, but the Oklahoma Attorney General could wreak just as much havoc on another core EPA mandate: the protection of clean water. Pruitt is well known for his legal challenges to President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, but his assault on clean-water protections has been just as fierce.
The Romney Gambit
There are denizens of Planet Media who have worked themselves into a state of high dudgeon over the prospect of Mitt Romney serving as secretary of state in the Trump administration. In these tellings, Romney is either a sellout, a hypocrite, or a suck-up.
The Conservatives Behind the Campus ‘Free Speech’ Crusade
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Last month, I disclosed the conservative-movement funding, premises, strategy, and practices of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which purports to protect “free speech” on college campuses, but expends more energy blaming—and chilling—“politically correct” activists and administrators.
By Jim Sleeper, Harold Meyerson Verified, Barry Yeoman Verified, Justin Miller Verified, Sam Ross-Brown
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The American Prospect
Verified
Black Burdens, White Wages, and the Persistence of Economic Inequality
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently announced that beginning in March 2018, the agency plans to require employers with 100 or more employees to provide wage data broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity. “Collecting data is a critical step in delivering on the promise of equal pay,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said in statement.
When Body Cameras Are Not Enough
When a Charlotte, North Carolina, police officer pumped ten bullets three years ago into Jonathan Ferrell, a black man who had been seeking help after a car accident, the city responded with a push for better training of police in tactics and racial attitudes. On went the body cameras, and in came Kerr Putney, a black police chief unafraid to talk about his profession’s racist history. Good intentions had turned into action. Would action translate into results?
Transportation Secretary Foxx Moves to Heal Scars of Urban Renewal
Pittsburgh’s Hill District has been at the nexus of African American cultural and economic life for decades. As the Great Migration kicked off after World War I, the neighborhood became a destination for blacks escaping the inequality and violence of the Jim Crow South.
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