LA Progressive

Does the Tea Party Have a New Lease on Life?

Victoria Defrancesco Soto: The issue trifecta of Benghazi, the IRS audits, and the AP investigations has resuscitated the near moribund Tea Party. While each of these issues deals with different agencies and actors they share the common denominator of heightening distrust in the government.
How Eric Garcetti Won

Randy Shaw: Garcetti kept the progressive base he earned from this City Council record and combined it with conservative San Fernando Valley voters angry at the Valley-based Greuel for her campaign receiving million of dollars from unions representing Department of Water and Power workers.
Apple Could Pay for Moore

Tina Dupuy: Because these giant corporations are getting a free pass by the very premise they create jobs, they’re in essence piling their tax burden onto their workers.
Remembering Sakia Gunn: Keeping News Coverage on the Down Low

Rev. Irene Monroe: Not enough is ever accurately reported about hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people of color, and how issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation trigger the type of violence against them. Nor are the reasons for the silence around such violence often explored.
LA County Jail Opponents Take Fight to Castaic

Mary Sutton: Members of the Los Angeles No More Jails Coalition took their fight against the expansion of LA County’s notorious jail system to one of the proposed construction sites at the Pitchess Detention Center in the city of Castaic.
Should the Law Governing the War on Terror Be Changed?

Ivan Eland: Unfortunately, even if the law is not changed, civil liberties groups already have a perpetual war on their hands–despite the decimation of the main al Qaeda group.
Statutory Is Statutory, Same Sex, Opposite Sex

Julie Driscoll: Call me crazy, but I believe firmly that the statutory laws are in place for a reason – to prevent the exploitation of young men and women who don’t have the ability to make informed decisions, who don’t have the ability to “consent.”
Got Milk? No Thanks

Carole Bartolotto: The good news is that you can easily replace cow’s milk with almond, soy, rice, hemp or coconut milk instead. I love Trader Joe’s Vanilla Almond Milk.
Medea Benjamin Calls President to Account

Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program

Events

The House I Live In — May 30

Institute of Black World sponsoring a showing of the award-winning film “The House I Live In” as part of its campaign to educate and involve people in Los Angeles and Southern California regarding the so-called War on Drugs.

Why PDA Paves the Way to 2014 – June 1st Event

Thom Hartmann, Lily Tomlin, Jim Hightower, and John Nichols will speak on June 1st on “Why PDA Paves the Way to 2014″ at the Beverly Hills home of Linda & Syd Leibovitch. Click to RSVP.

Let’s Take Control of California’s Budget — June 22nd

On June 22, 2013, join the ACLU of Southern California’s Economic Justice Committee for a day of organizing and action to join in the fight to take back our budget and our state.

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LGBT

Remembering Sakia Gunn: Keeping News Coverage on the Down Low

Rev. Irene Monroe: Not enough is ever accurately reported about hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people of color, and how issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation trigger the type of violence against them. Nor are the reasons for the silence around such violence often explored.

Hey, Supremes: We’re Here, We’re Queer…

Carl Matthes: June 2013 may well become one of the most remembered Gay Pride months in the amazingly rapid march by the LGBT community towards equal rights under the law.

When Homophobia Trumps Misogyny

Irene Monroe: Joyner points to the ongoing struggle in the African American community with its unresolved homophobia and misogyny that falls on the backs of its women and LGBTQ population, pitting one disenfranchised group against another.

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The Media

Mainstream Media Acrostic

Gary Corseri: Mealy-mouthed assassins state halt-truths/non-truths, swearing they are all-true.

What’s Really Behind All Those Village Voice Layoffs

Michael Sigman: For many old-media types I talked to, there was more resignation than outrage this time around, as though a cherished institution were already gone.

Bill Maher v Glenn Greenwald

JP Sotille: Like so many of the so-called “Left” in America, Maher has basically accepted the key notion that a whole population of like-minded people have decided to kill Americans because of an irrational religious belief system.

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Law & Justice

Medea Benjamin Calls President to Account

Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program

Statutory Is Statutory, Same Sex, Opposite Sex

Julie Driscoll: Call me crazy, but I believe firmly that the statutory laws are in place for a reason – to prevent the exploitation of young men and women who don’t have the ability to make informed decisions, who don’t have the ability to “consent.”

Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians: The Parallel of Honor

Dana Lonehill: If they were not mentally ill before they entered the Canton’s Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians, they soon would be after laying in darkened rooms with windows nailed shut for days at a time.

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Environment

Standing Tall for Landowner Rights

Walter Brasch: “The gas companies pay a one-time fee for your land, but you lose the right to utilize it as anything more than grassland forever. . . . You can never build on those easements. They took my retirement away by eminent domain.”

Urban Farming — An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Urban farming is taking root because it makes sense. It conserves dwindling water supplies, makes little plots of land productive, reduces food bills, provides healthy produce free of salmonella and chemicals and gets people off the couch and in motion.

Big Oil’s War on the Sun

JP Sotille: Just imagine—what if people could stop burning oil and gas and even coal, and just use these miracle devices to transform Old Sol’s sunny disposition into the power needed to run just about everything?

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Veterans

Help Advantage US Vets Put Veterans to Work

By purchasing and dedicating commemorative bricks, Americans everywhere will be helping Advantage US Vets establish the Roots & Sprouts Farmstead as a not-for-profit workplace which will directly hire jobless honorably discharged veterans.

Women Veterans: Celebrating Service and Fighting for Change

Diane Lefer: Keynote speaker, Brigadier General (Ret) Ruth Wong, and the many highly motivated women in attendance were living examples of the positive strengths and attributes employers can find in women vets.

Lieutenant Elle Helmer at the Vietnam War Memorial, US Marine Corps.

Military Sexual Trauma: Beyond Zero Tolerance

Karen Finney: While there is much to celebrate in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act recently passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, the rights of one group of Americans remain inadequately protected: the women and men in our armed forces who are victims of military sexual trauma.

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Elections

IRS, Benghazi “Scandals” Won’t Hurt Dems in 2014

Randy Shaw: Democratic success in 2014 hinges not on the impact of the IRS and other “scandals” but on passing comprehensive immigration reform, rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, and avoiding a budget deal that undermines Social Security.

Cruz vs. Clinton in 2016

Brent Budowsky: Don’t laugh. Ted Cruz is apparently thinking of bringing his ability to outrage a majority of voters and alienate a majority of his Senate Republican colleagues to a campaign to be commander in chief.

Don’t Vent, Organize — And “Primary” a Democrat Near You

Norman Solomon: If there’s a defining issue that now separates the Obama party leadership from social decency, it is the president’s push to cut Social Security benefits.

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