Lance Simmens: California’s Senate race may be a bellweather for rejecting the orthodoxy of party leaders and embracing wholesale change in the direction of the Democratic Party.
Feedback Friday: That Progressive Case for Senator Feinstein
Clifford J. Tasner: Her biggest donors over the years have been Defense Contractors, which is why she enthusiastically embraced every war and military action that the Senate has been allowed to vote on.
A Progressive Case for Senator Feinstein
Hans Johnson and Karen Suarez: Senator Feinstein has secured votes in an often closely divided Senate by courting conservative colleagues when she can. Unequivocal defiance, the posture du jour of the Trump era, is not her style. That has drawn criticism from some Democrats, including her main challenger, state Senator Kevin de Leon.
Hey, Californians: Let’s Side With the Refugees, Not the Terrorists
Joe Mathews: Our state needs a hard and immediate U-turn, which starts with recognizing how the attacks connect California to the rest of the world.
CIA: Fourth Branch of Government?
CIA Oversight: The oversight institutions charged with protecting the public from CIA abuses have been rendered dysfunctional .
Moonwalking the Assault Weapons Ban
Anthony Samad: Most Congress members are pollwatchers. When polls favored gun control, they favored gun control. Now that the polls are slipping, suddenly Congress is slipping. In fact, Congress is doing a total moonwalk… they look like they’re stepping forward on the issue but they’re actually moving backwards.
Tyranny of the Minority and the Demise of the Assault Weapons Ban
Sylvia Moore: When the punditocracy constantly complains about Beltway gridlock, they don’t acknowledge the obvious structural flaws staring right at them in the face. America needs a new form of democracy. Our version has run its course.
CPAC and the Conservative Crack-Up
Brent Budowsky: Regarding the conservative crack-up, can you believe that CPAC honors the ubiquitous birther Donald Trump and insults the most popular national Republican, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie?
Progressives Face Uphill Climb Designed to Make Them Fail
Paul Hogarth: In Washington, the filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate have stalled our federal agenda. In Sacramento, the two-thirds vote requirement has given us a blue state with an Alabama budget.
Health Care Reform? Yes We Can!
Although health care nightmare stories abound across the United States, we don’t have to focus simply on the negative. Why not cultivate a positive vision for the kind of health care we deserve as a nation?
Progressives Bear Blame for California’s Woes
As California faces a fiscal meltdown, Democrats blame Republicans for opposing essential tax hikes. But progressives own failures should not be ignored. California Republicans have been anti-tax zealots since the mid-1990’s, yet progressives failed to prioritize passing a ballot measure eliminating the two-thirds requirement for budget passage in 1998, 2000, 2004, or 2008, each of […]
Pardon Me: Is Our Long National Nightmare Over, or About to Begin Again?
by Gene Rothman — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in response to the issue of potential legal actions against the Bush administration’s for violations of the U.S, Constitution, wrote: “Thank you for your letter concerning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush and his authority to grant pardons. I appreciate the time you took to write […]
Where Is California’s Barack Obama?
Fresh off a thrilling presidential campaign, California Democrats face a Governor’s race without a candidate that can rally a multi-racial, class-crossing grassroots base. The three most talked about candidates — Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom — neither offer a sharply new direction nor provide the transformational message that was at the heart of […]
