by People's Action | Mar 13, 2019 | Breakfast
New Budget Includes Massive Cuts To HUD New HUD budget proposes massive cuts to affordable housing programs. ThinkProgress: "The federal government would largely abandon its longstanding commitments to keeping the poorest people in the country off the streets if...
by Jessica Juarez Scruggs | Mar 13, 2019 | Blog, Climate, Election, Protest
My name is Jessica Juarez Scruggs, and I recently joined the Sunrise Movement and a courageous group of young Kentuckians who took over the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to demand he stop playing political games and take real action to address our...
by People's Action | Mar 12, 2019 | Breakfast
White House Wants 'Medicare For Less' Medicare-for-all v. Medicare-for-less: Trump’s proposed cuts put health care at center of 2020 race. WaPo: "A new proposal by President Trump to slash Medicare spending puts Republicans in a political bind ahead of the 2020...
by Olivia Alperstein | Mar 12, 2019 | Blog, International, Violence
In a matter of minutes, as easily as sending a tweet, a sitting U.S. president could decide to launch a nuclear attack, without anyone else’s approval or authorization. In a matter of minutes, millions of lives would be lost, and millions of futures halted...
by People's Action | Mar 11, 2019 | Breakfast
Trump Budget To Slash Social Spending The real national emergency is not at the border. CNN: "Unlike Donald Trump's manufactured crisis and his vanity wall at the Mexico border, severe income inequality and economic greed are true national emergencies. Still, the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 11, 2019 | Blog, Economy, Inequality
America’s billionaires have suddenly realized they just may be facing an existential crisis. A good chunk of the American people, they now understand, would rather billionaires not exist. Every billionaire, as a key aide of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has famously...
by People's Action | Mar 8, 2019 | Breakfast
Why International Women's Day Isn't Going Away Why International Women’s Day isn’t going away. NYT: 'After a series of historic firsts and long-overdue breakthroughs, 2018 was called “the Year of the Woman.' A record 36 women won seats in the United States House of...
by Miles Mogulescu | Mar 8, 2019 | Blog, International, Politics
Progressives and Democrats must agree to disagree among themselves about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Otherwise, they could split apart in mutual recriminations. This could lead to losing the chance to regain political power and implement a progressive agenda...
by Warren Tidwell | Mar 8, 2019 | Blog
Last Sunday, I was driving home up highway 169 in Lee County, Alabama. We decided not stop at a local business in the countryside, to stay ahead of a tornado in the area. Ten minutes later, that business was destroyed by 170 mile-per-hour winds. Trees turned into...
by People's Action | Mar 7, 2019 | Breakfast
Investigations Pave Path To Impeachment House Democrats poised to take the baton from Mueller, move toward impeachment. NBC: "Washington is waiting with bated breath for special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into the Trump operation's ties to...
by Leo Gerard | Mar 7, 2019 | Blog
Standing out among the bald pates and grey hairs crowding into a Congressional hearing room on Thursday morning with “Protect our Pensions” stickers will be 26-year-old Ben Trusnik. The son, grandson and great-grandson of labor union members, Ben will travel to...
by People's Action | Mar 6, 2019 | Breakfast
GOP Packs Courts With Conservative Judges McConnell preps new nuclear option to speed Trump judges. Politico: "President Donald Trump’s stream of judges is about to become a torrent. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP caucus have long prioritized...
by Will Tanzman | Mar 6, 2019 | Blog
The wave of victories by a new generation of progressive leaders in Chicago's Mayoral and City Council elections mark the most impressive results for movement candidates in the city since the 1980s. Candidates supported by grassroots organizing groups and unions won...
by People's Action | Mar 5, 2019 | Breakfast
Congress Ready To Rebuke Trump's 'Emergency' Congress on verge of rejecting Trump's border emergency. Reuters: "The U.S. Congress was on the verge of issuing a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump over his declaration of an emergency at the border with Mexico, with...
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 5, 2019 | Blog
The guardians of our conventional wisdom on taxing the rich have messed up — and they know it. They slacked off. They started believing their own tripe. Average Americans, they assumed, would never ever smile on proposals to raise tax rates on the richest among us....
by People's Action | Mar 4, 2019 | Breakfast
Selma Activists Demand Voting Rights After 54 years, the fight for voting rights in Selma is ongoing, organizers say. USA Today: "Fifty-four years after the brutal beating of black civil rights protesters in Alabama catalyzed the passage of sweeping voting rights...
by Robert Borosage | Mar 4, 2019 | Blog
There is a dizzying array of potential presidential nominees for Democratic primary voters to choose from—so many that they won’t even fit on one debate stage. But there is one basic choice the party will have to make: Will it nominate someone based on perceived...
by Leo Gerard | Mar 3, 2019 | Blog
It took grit to get this far. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer explained that to Congress last week. So, he said, no one in the administration is backing down now. They’ve managed to confront Beijing, a trade renegade, and do it with a powerful tool that...
by Tim Wilkins | Mar 1, 2019 | Uncategorized
Rep. Cummings Plans More Oversight Of Trump Democrats in U.S. Congress take aim at Trump with multiple probes. Reuters: "In addition to Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other federal prosecutors, several U.S. congressional committees are pursuing investigations...
by Lizeth Chacon | Mar 1, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Organizing, Politics
The 2020 presidential election, for many of us, will be the fight of our lifetime. We need a president who will take bold action on the issues shaping the lives of people in the multiracial working class. Design by Matt Whit That means building an economy that works...
by Roger Hickey | Feb 28, 2019 | Blog
Suddenly Americans are debating big ideas that used to be off the table. New ways to raise taxes on the rich and big corporations have been proposed by candidates Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders. A Medicare-style public health system to expand...
by People's Action | Feb 28, 2019 | Breakfast
Cohen Testifies Trump Is Racist, Conman, Cheat The Trump Organization's coming "proctology exam". Axios: "Near the end of Michael Cohen's testimony yesterday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the former fixer whether President Trump had ever run an insurance fraud....
by Mehrdad Azemun | Feb 28, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Politics
Here in Chicago, our beloved City by the Lake, the People’s Wave is gaining momentum. What began in Philadelphia and New York last November continues in Chicago, as more machine politicians fall by the wayside and voters choose an unprecedented number of progressive...
by People's Action | Feb 27, 2019 | Breakfast
Jayapal Introduces Medicare For All Medicare For All bill unveiled: 'Complete transformation' of health care. NBC: "As the debate over Medicare For All heats up on the 2020 trail, House progressives are opening a new front in Congress with a detailed single-payer bill...
by Barb Kalbach | Feb 27, 2019 | Blog
Rural America is facing a health care emergency – and Medicare for All is the answer. Hospitals in rural Iowa, where I live, are closing or teetering on the brink of closure at an alarming rate. Over a hundred have shut down since 2005, and hundreds more are on life...
by People's Action | Feb 26, 2019 | Breakfast
Pharma Execs Face Senate Questions Congress to square off against pharmaceutical CEOs in showdown over drug prices. USA Today: "Expect sparks to fly Tuesday as senators get a rare chance to grill the heads of seven major pharmaceutical companies under oath about the...
by Devin Duffy | Feb 26, 2019 | Blog
Click here to watch pharmaceutical executives testify to the Senate Finance Committee on February 26, 2019 at 10:15 a.m. Rebecca Hovde from Wellman, Iowa, has taken medicine to treat her rare autoimmune disease for years. Recently, she learned the drug her life...
by People's Action | Feb 25, 2019 | Breakfast
Structural Racism Drives EPA's Response To Air Pollution EPA’s Bungled Response to an Air Pollution Crisis Exposes a Toxic Racial Divide. The Intercept: "After a crucial division of the Environmental Protection Agency reassessed the dangers of two key pollutants —...
by Griffin Sinclair-Wingate | Feb 25, 2019 | Blog
Winter can be a miserable time in New Hampshire. When it’s cold outside, all you really want to do is curl up with a warm dog on your lap. This was especially true for me last Monday, when my phone rang after a long day at work. Instead of taking a breather, I found...
by People's Action | Feb 22, 2019 | Breakfast
House Dems Press Resolution To End 'National Emergency' House Democrats push ahead with bid to terminate Trump's emergency declaration. NBC: "House Democrats planned to push ahead Friday with a measure that seeks to terminate President Donald Trump’s emergency...
by Sarah Schulz | Feb 22, 2019 | Blog
Midland, Michigan, where my husband and I are raising our two young children, is a small town surrounded by rural communities. Many of us living here have seen, generation-by-generation, that we’re falling behind. Our anxiety is real, but we wholeheartedly reject...
by People's Action | Feb 21, 2019 | Breakfast
White Supremacist Arrested In Plot To Murder Journalists, Democrats Coast Guard officer plotted to kill Democrats and journalists, prosecutors say. NYT: "A Coast Guard lieutenant and self-described white nationalist who was arrested in Maryland last week was plotting...
by Jock Toles | Feb 21, 2019 | Blog
Jock Toles in Chicago. Photo credit: Diego Morales, Chicago DSA The polar vortex froze Chicago’s city streets with temperatures as low as minus 23 degrees. It was subzero for 52 hours straight. This was hard on everyone, but it hit the city’s 80,000 homeless the...
by People's Action | Feb 20, 2019 | Breakfast
IL Signs $15 Minimum Wage Illinois workers celebrate 'Life-Changing' $15 minimum wage. Common Dreams:NJ Signs Paid Family Leave Big changes coming for paid family leave in N.J. as Murphy signs law. NJ.com: "Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Tuesday an extensive...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 20, 2019 | Blog
The trade relationship between China and America is destructive: China’s deliberate trade violations drain America’s strength. Beijing is to America what Delilah was to Samson. Chinese trade officials are in Washington, D.C., this week in high-stakes negotiations....
by People's Action | Feb 19, 2019 | Breakfast
States Sue To Stop Trump's Border Wall 16 states sue to stop Trump’s use of emergency powers to build border wall. NYT: "A coalition of 16 states, including California and New York, on Monday challenged President Trump in court over his plan to use emergency powers to...
by Adrienne Evans | Feb 19, 2019 | Blog, Featured
This President’s Day, I stood with two hundred and fifty Idahoans on the steps of our State Capitol in Boise to protest our president’s demand to build a wall between the United States and the the world. We’re in a national emergency, he insists, one that can only be...
by People's Action | Feb 15, 2019 | Breakfast
Trump To Declare National Emergency For Wall Trump evokes executive powers, to dismay of Congress. CNN: "Republicans might be resorting a lot more often to prayer -- the new strategy several senators have adopted for dealing with their capricious President -- because...
by Alexis Pleus | Feb 15, 2019 | Blog
As a New York State Trooper handcuffed me at our State Capitol, I told him, “I lost my son. This is for him.” Alexis Pleus, founder of TruthPharm, under arrest at the N.Y. State Capitol in Albany Jeff was an amazing kid, a chef, who was 28 when he died of a heroin...
by People's Action | Feb 14, 2019 | Breakfast
Congress Races To Avert Shutdown Congress rushes to avert shutdown amid hopeful signs from Trump. Politico: "Congressional negotiators finalized a massive funding package just before midnight Wednesday, confident they'll have enough support to deliver it to President...
