by Jerad Halcott | Jun 13, 2019 | Blog, Criminal Justice, Featured, Health, Opioid Crisis
To save lives from our opioid epidemic, we have to meet drug users where they are. I know: I’m living proof. My name is Jerad Halcott, and I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. At ten, I was huffing prescription drugs, then I moved on to stronger stuff. At fifteen,...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 12, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Reggie Griffin Why I Chose To Die In Front Of The AMA I never expected to “die” in front of a roomful of doctors. Much less in front of the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, in my hometown of Chicago. But that’s where I found myself,...
by Reggie Griffin | Jun 12, 2019 | Featured, Health
I never expected to "die" in front of a roomful of doctors. Much less in front of the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, in my hometown of Chicago. But that’s where I found myself, along with thirty fellow members of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus,...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 11, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Jeff Bryant Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are A Dumpster Fire Few if any presidential candidates seem willing to acknowledge providing families with an option to choose charter schools comes with crushing costs to everyone else in the community. In...
by Jeff Bryant | Jun 11, 2019 | Blog, Education, Featured
Charter schools have finally broken into the national political dialogue, with presidential candidates in the Democratic Party proclaiming their stances on these schools. But a national debate about charters and “school choice” will be an exercise in empty rhetoric...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 10, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sam Pizzigati A Nation Where Only The Rich Have Homes? San Francisco, recent research shows, now has more billionaires per capita than any other city in the world. By one reckoning, San Francisco also has the highest cost of living in the world, as all...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 10, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Featured, Housing, Inequality
In our daily lives, as anyone who keeps a household budget can attest, the unexpected happens all the time. A refrigerator motor fails. Some part on your car you never realized existed breaks down. A loved one passes away and you have to — you want to — be at the...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 7, 2019 | Blog
MORNING MESSAGE Bill Bianchi The AMA Stops Us From Getting Health Care The American Medical Association needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Because we smell something bad, and it’s you: The way you keep Americans from getting health care is rotten to the core. AMA,...
by Bill Bianchi | Jun 7, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health, Protest
The American Medical Association needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Because we smell something bad, and it’s you: The way you keep Americans from getting health care is rotten to the core. AMA, you can’t fool me, and the millions like me who now know who you...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 6, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Leigh Friedman The ‘Secret Sauce’ For Southern Organizing Hometown Action is the youngest and scrappiest member of the People’s Action national grassroots network. Barely two years old, this Alabama grassroots group was on the front page of newspapers...
by Leigh Friedman | Jun 6, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Election, Featured, Leigh Friedman, Organizing, Protest, Rural
Hometown Action is the youngest and scrappiest member of the People's Action national grassroots network. Barely two years old, this Alabama grassroots group was on the front page of newspapers around the world when they helped lead protests against the state's...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 5, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Michaela Lovegood Whose Lives Matter? Our Lives Matter Twenty years ago, I was a director of youth programs in the Chicago Housing Authority. I ran an afterschool, GED and job training programs for Black youth living in the city’s public housing. In...
by Michaela Lovegood | Jun 5, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Featured, Gender Justice, Race
Twenty years ago, I was a director of youth programs for a subsidiary organization of the Chicago Housing Authority. I ran an afterschool, GED and job training programs for Black youth living in the city’s public housing. In the three years that I ran these...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 4, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Blue Carreker How Do We Fight The Rollback Of Roe? We Organize State by state, the Far Right is chipping away at women’s rights. Extremists are carving out a path for Trump’s Supreme Court to eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion that has been...
by Blue Carreker | Jun 4, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Gender Justice, Politics
State by state, the Far Right is chipping away at women’s rights. Extremists are carving out a path for Trump’s Supreme Court to eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion that has been ours since the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1974. Sadly, a new Supreme Court...
by Tim Wilkins | Jun 3, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Robert Borosage In Search of a Green New Foreign Policy As the 2020 presidential campaign gears up, progressives are forcing a serious and necessary reassessment of foreign policy. Just as they have clashed with the establishment over domestic issues,...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 3, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Election, Featured, Politics
As the 2020 presidential campaign gears up, progressives are forcing a serious and necessary reassessment of foreign policy. Just as they have clashed with the establishment over domestic issues, left-leaning candidates dispute both the “indispensable nation”...
by Tim Wilkins | May 31, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Afua Atta-Mensah We Must Empower, Not Just Praise, Black Women In Politics This election cycle, I want everyone to stop praising Black women for our votes — ask us what we actually want and help us empower Black women in politics. It’s up to us to take...
by Tim Wilkins | May 30, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE David Hatch Co-Governing Puts Us ‘In The Room Where It Happens’ What does it mean to move “from protest to power?” That’s the question People’s Action members like me asked at our national convention in Washington, D.C. two years ago. At that time,...
by David Hatch | May 30, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Organizing, Politics
What does it mean to move “from protest to power?” That’s the question People’s Action members like me asked at our national convention in Washington, D.C. two years ago. At that time, just a few months into the Trump administration, 72 grassroots leaders out of the...
by Tim Wilkins | May 29, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE George Goehl Who Is Blocking 'Medicare for All'? A majority of Americans are in favor of Medicare for All. And why not? Right now, nearly 30 million people in this country are uninsured; 40 million can’t afford health-care co-pays and deductibles and...
by Tim Wilkins | May 28, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Leo Gerard The Koch Brothers’ New Look There’s a new Koch organization in town. Instead of trying to buy politicians to do the bidding of billionaires, as Charles and David Koch have historically done, their rebranded network now says they will support...
by Leo Gerard | May 28, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Featured, Koch Brothers, Organizing, Philanthropy, Politics
There’s a new Koch organization in town. Instead of trying to buy politicians to do the bidding of billionaires, as Charles and David Koch have historically done, their rebranded network now says they will support community groups trying to cure the miseries of eons –...
by Tim Wilkins | May 24, 2019 | Archive, Blog
MORNING MESSAGE Jacob Swenson-Lengyel Organizing For Governing Power In Chicago Chicago’s 2019 municipal elections delivered significant victories for People's Action member groups like The People's Lobby and Reclaim Chicago. These wins come after years of organizing...
by Jacob Swenson-Lengyel | May 24, 2019 | #PeoplesWave, Archive, Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured
Chicago’s 2019 municipal elections delivered significant victories for progressives. These wins come after years of work by unions and People's Action member groups, and may provide a model for organizers in other cities looking to win progressive governing power....
by Tim Wilkins | May 23, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Leo Gerard How To Protect The Right To Organize Workers whose labor makes profits for executives should not live in abject poverty. This is what labor leaders have been saying for two centuries, and it's what Abigail Disney, granddaughter of the...
by Leo Gerard | May 23, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Featured, Future of Work
Abigail Disney, granddaughter of the co-founder of the Walt Disney Co., called out the family business’ current CEO last month for making what’s supposed to be the happiest place on earth pretty darn miserable for its workers. All of the company profits shouldn’t be...
by Miles Mogulescu | May 23, 2019 | Archive, Blog, Featured, Politics
Trump ordering former White House lawyer Don McGahn not to appear before Congress, and McGahn not showing up, is just the latest example of House Democrats appearing to beg Big Daddy Trump for candy, just so he can slap their hands and say, “No Children! Go to your...
by Tim Wilkins | May 22, 2019 | Blog
MORNING MESSAGE Mary Gerisch Why I Got Arrested For Medicare For All Two weeks ago I was in handcuffs, one of six People’s Action members arrested at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office in Washington, D.C.. We engaged in a peaceful protest after we asked Mitch to step out...
by Mary Gerisch | May 22, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health, I Speak
A few weeks ago I was in handcuffs, one of six People’s Action members arrested at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office in Washington, D.C.. We engaged in a peaceful protest after we asked Mitch to step out of the way of #MedicareForAll, and he refused. Why was I there,...
by Tim Wilkins | May 21, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Martha Burk The Most Dangerous Time For Women’s Rights In Decades We’re living in the most perilous time for abortion rights and reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Since President Trump succeeded in elevating Brett Kavanaugh —...
by Martha Burk | May 21, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Gender Justice
We’re living in the most perilous time for abortion rights and reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. While some erosion of abortion rights has occurred over the decades — parental consent laws, waiting periods, procedure curtailment — the...
by Tim Wilkins | May 20, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Jeff Bryant Epic Fail Of Charter Schools In Louisiana Parents in New Orleans are sick of the instability temporary charter schools have brought to their community. Now they are organizing to repeal the state law that legalized charters, calling the...
by Jeff Bryant | May 20, 2019 | Blog, Education, Featured
When Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama, said Hurricane Katrina was the “best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans,” he was no doubt referring in part to how the storm and its aftermath led to the spread of...
by Tim Wilkins | May 17, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Leo Gerard This Is How Medicare For All Will Save Lives Last month, in a Pittsburgh parking lot following a conference on type one diabetes, three women stood crying. Two of them, mother and teenaged daughter, had just handed a stranger, 25-year-old...
by Leo Gerard | May 17, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Future of Work, Health, Jobs and Growth
Last month, in a Pittsburgh parking lot following a conference on type one diabetes, three women stood crying. Two of them, mother and teenaged daughter, had just handed a stranger, 25-year-old Michelle, three shopping bags full of insulin pump supplies. Michelle was...
by Tim Wilkins | May 16, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE KC Vick Alabama Won’t Roll Over To The Rising Tide Of Hate Alabama Governor Kay Ivey just signed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country. Once again, the people of Alabama are left to fend for themselves. This should come as no surprise:...
by KC Vick | May 16, 2019 | Blog, Criminal Justice, Featured, Gender Justice, Health, I Speak
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey just signed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country. Doctors now face up to 99 years in prison for offering to end pregnancies, with nearly no exceptions - including cases of incest and rape. Once again, the people of Alabama...
by Tim Wilkins | May 15, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Ryan Greenwood Change is Coming To A Presidential Forum Near You "Fighting back is not just about removing bad people from power, but electing leaders who share our values into public office," says Laural Clinton, from Des Moines, Iowa. "That’s why we...
by Ryan Greenwood | May 15, 2019 | Blog, Election, Featured, Politics
Evelynne Castillo is eighteen, the daughter of a undocumented immigrant in Mesa, Arizona. Laural Clinton is a widowed mother of three Black boys in Des Moines, Iowa. Brandy Staples lives in Maine, where she was diagnosed with Stage Four breast cancer at age...
