Rights and Democracy
Get Ready for More Voter Suppression
When President Trump created the "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity" last spring — and put notorious vote suppressor Kris Kobach at the helm — voting rights advocates had decades of good reasons to be concerned. The panel seemed destined to back...
Bad Bureaucracies Are Fraying the Social Safety Net
I've always believed in government. That is, I believe there are roles in society that can be best performed by a government — to serve the people, rather than a profit motive. But I'm fed up. It's like a crisis of faith. I'm trying to believe the best about the...
Americans Hate the Tax Bill Because It Wasn’t Written for Them
It’s odd that Washington Republicans are so loudly crowing about their passage of the Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax law. Odd because the people outside of Washington hate that law. Yes, hate. With a public approval rating of only 30 percent, the GOP’s trillion-dollar...
What Trump Wants on Immigration Is Ethnic Cleansing
I’ll be honest: I didn’t watch Trump’s State of the Union address when it aired. Instead, I put my baby to bed and watched reality TV with my wife. If that rattled a few brain cells, hopefully I saved a few more by not guzzling the bourbon I’d set aside to steel...
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...
