Virginia’s US senators Tim Kaine (D) and Mark Warner (D) late Saturday joined a growing chorus of politicians and organizations calling on Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to resign, after a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook page was published by a right-wing website.
Yasmine Taeb, a progressive candidate for the Virginia State Senate, told ThinkProgress that it shouldn’t have taken them so long.
“The two highest officials in our state are older white men who w...
politics
Ocasio-Cortez inspires Democratic presidential hopefuls to come out swinging on climate change
As the Democratic presidential primary field grows more crowded by the day, something feels a bit different this time: In the face of increasingly dire scientific warnings and a president committed to denying the existence and severity of climate change, Democratic presidential contenders are calling for urgent action to address the crisis in their first appeals to voters.
“Climate change is an existential threat to us, and we have got to deal with the reality of it,” Se...
What single-payer advocates want to hear from 2020 Democratic primary contenders
In the fall of 2017, with more than three years to go before the next presidential election, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced Medicare for All legislation in the Senate. The bill racked up a long list of high-profile co-sponsors, many of whom were already being talked about as 2020 contenders.
Since then, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) — all co-sponsors of Sanders bill — have jumped into the Democratic fray. So, to...
This is how to end government shutdowns forever
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Friday that she supports permanent legislation to ensure that government shutdowns never happen again. Broadly speaking, Pelosi wants legislation providing that “any appropriations bill that does not get agreed upon within a timely fashion by the date, you automatically go into a CR” — a “continuing resolution” that maintains current spending levels.
Basically, Pelosi would replace the current default rule — that governm...
This is why Republicans were so desperate to keep Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker again
Nancy Pelosi has been speaker of the House for just 22 days, and she just humiliated the president of the United States.
Ever since President Donald Trump shut down much of the government last month, Pelosi has delivered a consistent message to Trump — “my offer to you is this: nothing.” On Friday, Trump took that offer, announcing his support for a short-term funding bill that will reopen the government for three weeks without any additional funding for a border w...
BREAKING: Supreme Court will hear the first big Second Amendment case of the Kavanaugh era
In an ominous sign for potential victims of gun violence, the Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will hear New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, a challenge to New York City’s gun licensing regime.
It’s the first Second Amendment case the Supreme Court will hear since 2010, and only the second such case since 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which held for the first time in American history that the ...
Republicans are accidentally doing more to advance progressive values than Democrats
Something strange and unfamiliar has taken root in Washington, DC these past few days. In between segments about Donald Trump’s latest impeachable offense, Republican intransigence in the face of a cataclysmic government shutdown, and whatever other mundanity du jour is on the docket, cable news shows have carved out time to talk about honest-to-God policy proposals.
Specifically, we find ourselves amidst a nationwide conversation about, of all things, marginal tax rates. How we go...
It’s Day 27 of the shutdown, and McConnell is mounting a futile effort to codify Hyde
In the midst of the longest-ever government shutdown in U.S. history, Senate Republicans have instead decided to consider a bill on Thursday to codify existing restrictions that make it harder for low-income people to get abortions.
The bill codifies the Hyde Amendment — a provision that passes annually and prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from covering abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment — among other things. The bill is unlikely to get the ...
Kirsten Gillibrand is looking toward the future, but is she ready to face her past?
During a Tuesday night appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced that she is officially running for president, joining what looks to be a crowded field of Democratic contenders.
“I’m going to run for president of the United States, because as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,” Gillibrand said. “Which is why I believe that healt...
Trump’s rollback of the birth control mandate is blocked nationwide
Cost-free contraception for thousands is safe, after Pennsylvania District Judge Wendy Beetlestone temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s rollback of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) birth control mandate on Monday, issuing a nationwide injunction.
The administration aims to allow virtually all employers (including universities and colleges, by way of student health plans) the right to refuse to cover employees’ birth control by citing religious or moral obj...