Environment and Health
Are We Tired of ‘Winning’ Yet?
Can we stop pretending that leading Republicans care about anything beyond winning and power? To be sure, there are some in the party who are guided by conservative "principles." House Speaker Paul Ryan said he's been "dreaming" of gutting Medicaid — the program that...
Free As You Can Afford to Be
I think of freedom in positive, aspirational terms — as in FDR's "Four freedoms," or in the uplifting songs of freedom sung by oppressed people everywhere. But right-wing ideologues have fabricated a negative notion of "freedoms" derived from their twisted concept of...
Making Utility Bills Rise Again
It’s summer and the mercury is soaring. Temperatures are higher than ever, it turns out. Last year was the hottest year since humanity started recording temperatures, and it’s going to get much worse in the years to come, as a recent University of Hawaii study shows....
America Needs Service Workers — And They Need Health Care
Our country is founded on a myth that anyone can succeed so long as they work hard. That's the story of Alexander Hamilton that has swept Broadway: how a "bastard orphan" can become "a hero and a scholar." According to the lyrics he did it by working harder, being...
Repeal and Destroy
Tongue Tied
Mad about the Climate? Don’t Cheer Up!
On June 1, President Trump announced that he'll withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. If that makes you mad, good. If that makes you outraged and disgusted, even better. We have good reason. Even for a president whose administration has quickly...
Rural Communities Have the Most to Lose With Health Care Repeal
For thirty years, I’ve helped people fight for health care. In one of my proudest moments, I worked with people in small towns across Idaho to expand Medicaid for children. So I’ve seen what people can accomplish when we demand that elected representatives do the...
The ‘Why’ Behind Bad Grades
The end of the school year has a tendency to bring crises to my attention. I'm a graduate teaching assistant, which means I have more face-to-face contact with the students than the professor I work for. I know their names and I know them as individuals. There are...
Saving America’s Great Places
I'm writing this from Yellowstone National Park. Established in 1872, this was our first National Park. The world's first, in fact. In an interesting window into how politics worked then (and now, arguably), Congress agreed to preserve this land only after being...
