by State Rep. Mari Cordes (D-VT) | Aug 21, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Leigh Friedman
We all want a new President – but at People’s Action, we know it will take a lot more than one candidate at the top to turn this country around. That’s why we’re recruiting and training more than 500 grassroots community leaders to run for elected office at every...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 20, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE James Mumm All Is Not Lost Reeling from reports on our climate catastrophe, I took a break to recharge my own batteries and see if today’s best speculative fiction writers could imagine us into a better future. There is a growing genre of climate...
by James Mumm | Aug 20, 2019 | Climate, Environment, Featured
Reeling from grim news about climate change, I took a break this summer to recharge my own batteries and see if today’s best speculative fiction writers could imagine us into a better future. There is a growing genre of climate science fiction, or “cli-fi,” which...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 19, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Tom Conway ‘New’ NAFTA Fails Workers On Both Sides Of Border When an American corporation, GM or Nabisco or Carrier, builds a factory in Mexico, NAFTA protects the company from tariffs when it imports the Mexican-made cars or Oreos or furnaces back...
by Tom Conway | Aug 19, 2019 | Blog, Economy, Featured, Trade
Mickey Ray Williams keeps a Goodyear tire in his Gadsden, Ala., conference room. Made in Mexico and imported to Gadsden, that tire induces fear. It’s an Assurance All-Season tire. Those were developed at Goodyear’s Gadsden factory in 2014. Now some, or possibly all,...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 16, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE The AMA Gets Out Of The Way Of #MedicareForAll In a major step forward in the fight for universal health care, the American Medical Association (AMA) has pulled out of a lobbying group that seeks to undermine the growing support for Medicare For All....
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 16, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health
In a major step forward in the fight for universal health care, the American Medical Association (AMA) has quietly pulled out of a lobbying group that seeks to undermine the growing support for Medicare For All. “The AMA has made the right - if overdue - call by...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 15, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-NY) We Win When We Are Genuine We win when we are genuine: That's how we know we're on the right side of history. You are making every single personal sacrifice if you're doing it right (as an elected official). You need to make...
by Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-NY) | Aug 15, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Leigh Friedman
We all want a new President – but at People’s Action, we know it will take a lot more than one candidate at the top to turn this country around. That’s why we’re recruiting and training more than 500 grassroots community leaders to run for elected office at every...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 14, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Robert Borosage Sowing Seeds Of Democratic Unity There’s nothing like the intervention of a true racist to provide a sense of proportion. The public dispute between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the group of four young, electric, progressive female...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 14, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Featured, Politics
Photo credit: office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi There’s nothing like the intervention of a true racist to provide a sense of proportion. The public dispute between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the group of four young, electric, progressive female legislators of...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 13, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Tom Conway Double Or Nothing On Infrastructure Bad news about infrastructure is as ubiquitous as potholes. Failures in a 108-year-old railroad bridge and tunnel cost New York commuters thousands of hours in delays. Illinois doesn’t regularly inspect,...
by Tom Conway | Aug 13, 2019 | Featured, Infrastructure
Photo credit: Matthew Matheson / flickr / cc Bad news about infrastructure is as ubiquitous as potholes. Failures in a 108-year-old railroad bridge and tunnel cost New York commuters thousands of hours in delays. Illinois doesn’t regularly inspect, let alone fix,...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 12, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Justin Vest We Dare Defend Our Right To A World Without ICE Last week, I dropped my kids off for their first day of school in our small Alabama town of not even 7,000 people. The kids were excited, but I was a nervous wreck. Like every dad, my mind...
by Justin Vest | Aug 12, 2019 | Blog, Featured, I Speak, Immigration, Rural
Photo credit: Hometown Action / cc Last week, I dropped my kids off for their first day of school in our small Alabama town of not even 7,000 people. The kids were excited, but I was a nervous wreck. My kids - eight and eleven - are my heart and joy. Would they have...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 9, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE David Hatch What Did You Do And Say Before You Ran For President? Watching presidential candidates spar onstage in their last debate, I shared some of Senator Cory Booker’s frustration. Booker lost his cool when former Vice President Joe Biden tried to...
by David Hatch | Aug 9, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Politics
Photo credit: CNN Politics / screenshot Watching presidential candidates spar onstage in their last debate, I shared some of Senator Cory Booker’s frustration. Booker lost his cool when former Vice President Joe Biden tried to paint himself as a criminal justice...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 8, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Lois Gibbs Trump Needs To Keep His Promises To Superfund 41 years after the nation first heard our cries for help from Love Canal, we are moving backwards. Our government is not keeping its promise to clean up communities affected by toxic waste. This...
by Lois Gibbs | Aug 8, 2019 | Climate, Environment, Featured
“The New York State Commissioner of Health issued an order of evacuation of pregnant women and children under the age of two living in the Love Canal Neighborhood.” That was on August 2, 1978, when the first emergency action was taken to evacuate families from Love...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 7, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Del. Stephanie Smith (D-MD) Your Voice Is Valuable If you have identified a problem in your community that you feel can be addressed through public policy, you do not have to wait to share it, to lift it up, or to make a campaign around it. You have...
by Del. Stephanie Smith (D-MD) | Aug 7, 2019 | Democracy, Election, Featured, Leigh Friedman, Politics
We all want a new President - but at People’s Action, we know it will take a lot more than one candidate at the top to turn this country around. That’s why we’re recruiting and training more than 500 grassroots community leaders to run for elected office at every...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 6, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Jeff Bryant How Teachers Helped Oust Puerto Rico’s Governor Government by the will of the people is very much alive in Puerto Rico, where a prolonged general strike that virtually shut down the island recently forced Governor Ricardo Rosselló to...
by Jeff Bryant | Aug 6, 2019 | Blog, Education, Featured
As Americans lament the current sorry state of democracy in Washington, D.C., government by the will of the people was very much alive recently in Puerto Rico, where a prolonged general strike that virtually shut down the island forced Governor Ricardo Rosselló...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 5, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Tim Wilkins Thoughts And Prayers Are Not Enough Our hearts are broken by this weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. In a matter of seconds – separated by a few hours and 1,600 miles – twenty-nine lives were stolen, and many more injured, by...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 5, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Violence, White Nationalism
Our hearts are broken by this weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. In a matter of seconds – separated by a few hours and 1,600 miles - twenty-nine lives were stolen, and many more injured, by two angry, young white men with automatic weapons. As shocking as...
by Tom Conway | Aug 2, 2019 | Featured, Future of Work
Donald Trump: billionaire of the people. When he ran for office, he said, “The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” And how’s that working out for the American worker? Not very well, actually, not very well. When it...
by Tim Wilkins | Aug 1, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Rachel Hodes What ‘Abolish ICE’ Really Means To most of America, “Abolish ICE” is a cry of the far left. Even Americans who dislike Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants wouldn’t necessarily tell you that ICE should be abolished; that seems far...
by Rachel Hodes | Aug 1, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Immigration
As I stepped inside the Cannon House Office Building on a Tuesday in July, I felt like I was taking a step towards a more just world. The night before, when I told my mother I planned to participate in a “Never Again” protest as part of #JewsAgainstICE, she had one...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 31, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sav Miles Why I STAY In Appalachia “Why would you ever go back?” “Why don’t you move to Los Angeles, or come out to Denver?” “Have you at least considered Birmingham?” Whenever I told someone, be it a stranger or someone much closer, that after...
by Sav Miles | Jul 31, 2019 | Featured, Organizing, Rural
“Why would you ever go back?” “Why don’t you move to Los Angeles, or come out to Denver?” “Have you at least considered Birmingham?” Whenever I told someone, be it a stranger or someone much closer to me, that after graduating from college I was planning to move back...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 30, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Ahniah Selene We Demand Medicare For All Now I’m Ahniah Selene, and I live in Boise, Idaho. I’m also a proud board member of United Vision for Idaho, part of the People’s Action family of grassroots groups. On this day 54 years ago we won Medicare,...
by Ahniah Selene | Jul 30, 2019 | Featured, Health
I’m Ahniah Selene, and I live in Boise, Idaho. I’m also a proud board member of United Vision for Idaho, part of the People’s Action family of grassroots groups. On this day 54 years ago we won Medicare, which opened the door to the comprehensive health care we all...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 29, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Lyn Carver The High Price Of Insulin Is Killing Me I have diabetes. If I don’t have insulin, I die. This should be a no-brainer: Nothing that someone’s life depends on should be for profit. But my life hangs in the balance every day, because of greedy...
by Lyn Carver | Jul 29, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health
Lyn Carver, a member of Down Home North Carolina and People's Action, shared this testimony on Capitol Hill in a press conference with diabetic patients and progressive lawmakers to demand lower prices for prescription drugs. I find myself very grateful that I’m a...
by Miles Mogulescu | Jul 29, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Politics
(Full disclosure: Jerry Nadler and I were on the same high-school debate team and were friends at a that time, but we haven’t spoken in decades.) In announcing that the House Judiciary Committee is effectively commencing an impeachment inquiry, Committee Chair Jerry...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 26, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) Real Change Takes Voices And Votes As highly engaged citizens, you know that we live in a time of great inequality and injustice. The White House and Fox News want to sow fear in each of us and divide us because of the color...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 25, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Andy Spears To Save Rural Hospitals, Pass Medicare For All Medicare for All is a popular idea — 70 percent of Americans say they support it, including 52 percent of Republicans. Why? Because in red and blue states alike, they see the costs of a...
by Andy Spears | Jul 25, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health
Medicare for All is a popular idea — 70 percent of Americans say they support it, including 52 percent of Republicans. Why? Because in red and blue states alike, they see the costs of a market-driven system that values profit over patients. There’s perhaps no state in...
by Jon Queally | Jul 24, 2019 | Blog, Featured
After the questions and answers are complete, then what? Former special counsel Robert Mueller will testify before Congress in a pair of public hearings on Wednesday as he answers questions from lawmakers in both major parties who are eager to hear him say out...
by Tim Wilkins | Jul 23, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sam Pizzigati Opioid CEOs Are Our Nation’s Real Druglords Mexican druglord Joaquín Guzmán Loera was just sentenced to life in prison. The drug cartel he ruled, a jury determined this past February, dumped “hundreds of tons of drugs to the United...
