Progressive Media Advocates
Jessie Daniels: When I see the cheering from a crowd over people dying – dying by state-sponsored lethal injection or the slower death by neoliberalism from a lack of health care – it frankly makes me question how strong our collective political will might be for ending the death penalty.
Byron Williams: According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75 percent of convictions overturned through DNA testing.
Tim Rutten: “Why the Coming Concentration of News Media Is a Bigger Threat to Your Civil Liberties Than Anything the Government Has in Mind”
Jerry Drucker: The strongest answer to date in stopping the GOP onslaught is to replicate the wonderful and wise voters of Wisconsin.
Wendy Block: My worst long-range political nightmare is watching the next Republican president appoint even one Supreme Court justice (Go Ralph Nader for President in 2000!).
Robert Illes: Time to do something utterly insane ourselves. And I hope Obama does just that on September 8th when Boehner finally allows him to speak before Congress.
Michael Sigman: Picking up on the Supreme Court’s gargantuan gift to Republican candidates in the 2010 Citizens United decision, the Mittster went all Soylent Green on an Iowa heckler, opining, “Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are.”
Robert Reich: Had the President and the Democrats stuck to their guns during the health-care debate and insisted on Medicare for all, or at least a public option, they wouldn’t now be facing the possible unraveling of the new health care law.
Seth Hoy: Amid frustrated shouts of “Yes, You Can!” from advocates in the audience, President Obama again deferred the power to fix our broken immigration system to Congress Monday during a speech at the National Council of La Raza’s (NCLR) annual conference.
Walter Brasch: The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office for defying the Constitution and a federal court order is one of 14 major candidates running for the Republican nomination for the presidency.
Robert Illes: But if Anita Hill’s warnings were not heeded in 1991, in 2011 they seem to have gained some heft. Is Clarence Thomas not just partisan but also dirty – and not in the pubic-hair-on-the-coke-can sense.
Tom Hayden: Why is the United States pursuing Assange as the conspiratorial mastermind of WikiLeaks, when his reputation, credibility and organization have been so damaged?
Hannah Petrie: Even though the rates of drug-dealing and drug-using occurs equally among different races – (think weed here) whites deal to whites, blacks deal to blacks, Hispanics to Hispanics – it’s the people of color who get busted. And once you’re labeled a felon – and denied access to employment, housing, and other rights — your chances of returning to a straight and normal life are extremely low. It is a system designed to keep felons felons.
Elizabeth Knipe: Of course, this most free-wheeling of all the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is probably the most controversial. The old saying, one man’s poison is another man’s remedy might apply here.
Ted Vaill: In less than a month, unless they relent in their effort to destroy the American (and the world) economy to curry favor with their Tea Party wing, the Republicans in Congress will cause the American government to default on its debt, on August 2, 2011 or thereabouts.
Gary Corseri: While the Court has been telling the wealthy “Full speed ahead,” some 45 million Americans have been getting by on food stamps, and several million more are too worried about their jobs &/or foreclosures to help bankroll local or national candidates
Walter Brasch: A controversial Supreme Court decision less than two years ago could have the unintended consequence of significantly reducing the government’s 46-year campaign against cigarettes.
Dan Bacher: Decades of over-irrigation of toxic, saline soils in the district has also contaminated much of the shallow and deep groundwater in the district.
Brent Budowsky: It is time to say we will not let America go, and fall under the one-party state domination of a right-wing extremism that uses words like “liberty” in the service dark visions that would make our Founding Fathers cringe with horror.
Michele Waslin: Advocates are going to expend much time and energy fighting yet another enforcement-only program that—absent legalization and other reforms—does nothing to fix our broken immigration system but has extremely negative consequences for law abiding employers and U.S. workers.
Robert Illes: Grover Norquist, toady of America’s wealthy business class who few but political wonks have heard of, heads the so called “Club for Growth” which requires every Republican who wants to keep his or her government job to promise not to raise taxes.
Sherwood Ross: If you want a glimpse into the soul of a nation, visit one of its prisons. California is no exception. It’s typical.
Andrea Nill: In his dissent, Justice Breyer wrote that “either directly or through the uncertainty that it creates, the Arizona statute will impose additional burdens upon lawful employment”.
Joseph Palermo: It’s kind of funny when we see Republican presidential candidates like Mitt Romeny, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich pandering to the “little guy” denouncing “elites” who are trampling on their rights only to remain mute on the fact that their beloved Republican Supreme Court never, ever rules in favor of the “little guy.”
Walter Brasch: “A promise is a verbal contract,” I said. “I’m sure you read it wrong. The Court undoubtedly upheld O’Reilly’s claims.”
Berry Craig: Nickolaus has further fired up the faithful on the other side. You can bet the recall drives against Walker ‘s willing helpers in the state senate will now shift from Mach II into warp speed.
Joseph Palermo: The “conservatives” and “Tea Partiers” are quite convincing at playing the aggrieved victims, but what, exactly, do they have to be “aggrieved” about?
Miles Blue: Recently, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, over a four year period, failed to report his wife’s rather substantial income. A one-time failure may be human error; a four-time failure is a willful, criminal, act. Thomas deserves impeachment. His behavior is not acceptable for a Supreme Court Justice.
Dan Bacher: Despite intense political pressure by the oil industry, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 29 approved three bills proposing to halt fracking, a controversial method of oil and natural gas extraction, in California.
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
Angola 3 News: Hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.
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What’s Next for Obama and Democrats?
Tom Hayden: Launch a campaign progressive to the core, with no compromises on ending tax cuts for the rich and trillion-dollar wars.