Rights and Democracy
A California Trend Worth Catching: College for All
California can be an annoyingly trendy state. Think avocado toast, In-N-Out Burger, Hollywood fashion, even legal pot. But Californians are now in the vanguard to fix the serious problem of how to pay for public higher education. Over 44 million households in the U.S....
No, Big Corporations Shouldn’t Get Tax Breaks to Create Jobs
Governors and mayors insist that giving our tax dollars to corporations to lure them to move to our cities is good public policy. The corporations create jobs, those workers pay taxes, and — voila! — the giveaway pays for itself! Does it really work that way?...
Pay Up, Hombres
How One Coal Baron Set an Entire Administration’s Energy Agenda
It's common knowledge that our political system is awash with money. And that money, despite some flimsy legal barriers, comes with strings attached. One coal baron's efforts to set an entire administration's energy agenda are the perfect case study. His name is...
A Battle Over More Than Just a Galaxy
The Last Jedi is a great film if you need to hear and see a fight for the Resistance on the screen. It’s also one of my favorite movies in the franchise. (Come at me, Star Wars fans.) The whole Star Wars franchise rests on the age-old question: When evil rises, how...
Do the Poor Deserve Health Care? These Politicians Say No.
Between 2013 and 2016, the state of Kentucky experienced a veritable medical miracle. In 2013, two of every five low-income people in the state had no health insurance. By 2016, only one in every 13 poor Kentuckians were going uninsured. As a result, the share of...
Shutdown Accomplished
Trump’s Gift for the Unemployed: Kicking Them Off Health Care
On January 11, the Trump administration issued a cruel announcement: If you can’t find a job, don’t count on being able to get health care. Under an unprecedented new policy, the administration will let states kick people off Medicaid for the crime of being...
America, Oprah is Not Your Savior
Oprah Winfrey's remarkable Golden Globes speech rocked not only the event's A-list attendees, but almost all of America. Winfrey cited the under-told story of Recy Taylor, a young black woman who was raped by six armed white men during the Jim Crow era. Despite...
Law, Order, and the Dreamers
Put yourself in the shoes of a typical “Dreamer” — one of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth brought here as small children. When you were six years old, your mother crossed the Mexican border and carried you into the United States. Although you’ve been...
