Democracy
We Need a People's Bailout NOW
One of every five working Americans – more than 32 million people – have lost their job to COVID-19. A tsunami of evictions will come unless lawmakers take meaningful action now. Unemployment is rising - again. Hunger is rising, too. And cases of COVID are rising...
Policing Is Not A Public Good
Photo credit: Sgt. Joe Davis, Utah National Guard / cc For decades, we’ve been told that policing is a public good: available to all, for the benefit of all. But in practice, that’s never been true. One of the basic measures of a “public good” is that it’s accessible...
Georgia's Primary Election Meltdown
Photo credit: National Archives, USDA / cc The signs kept coming that Georgia’s June 9 primary would not go well. On the last day of early voting, the Friday before the election, Jon Ossoff, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, waited for more than three hours to vote...
Freedom Is Ours To Take: Join Us On Juneteenth
Photo credit: Ted Eytan / Flickr / cc “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man (or woman), you take it.” - Malcolm X So much has changed in our nation’s Capital since my last Letter from D.C. That time of hope...
Education Secretary DeVos Is Using COVID To Get What She Wants
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr / cc As American deaths from COVID-19 crested 100,000, the New York Times reported U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos declared her intention to “force” public school districts to spend a large portion of federal funds they’re...
Protesters for Black Lives Are America’s True Patriots
Photo credit: Rosa Pineda / Wikimedia Commons / cc When demonstrations erupted across the country after George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers, Donald Trump portrayed the protesters as America’s enemies. Trump called them “thugs,” “lowlifes” and...
Justice For George Floyd
Memorial to George Floyd in Minneapolis. Photo credit: Take Action Minnesota / cc First published by Take Action Minnesota on June 4, 2020 Today, George Floyd’s memorial was held in Minneapolis. The pain, rage, and grief across the Twin Cities is palpable. At the same...
The Revolution Is Local In Pennsylvania's Grassroots Politics
Philadelphia politics are being transformed: block by block, and door by door, upstart candidates for the multiracial working class are stepping up. The same grassroots organizers who helped elect a progressive champion as the city’s District Attorney in 2017 – Larry...
Troops: Stand Down for Black Lives
An Open Letter from Veterans to Recently Activated National Guard Troops Attention Members of the National Guard, We write you as fellow veterans and service members with full knowledge of what’s at stake as many of you are being asked to mobilize against civilians in...
Can Democracy Survive Bill Barr?
Photo credit: DOJ, Wikimedia Commons / cc Trump’s first national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, had a phone call with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, just after President Obama had imposed sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016...
