WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE — Kristen Grimm has just realized she forgot to clean out her minivan. She gushes her apologies as she pulls open the driver’s side door, revealing a passenger seat littered with palm cards and newspapers. Her backseat, filled with yard signs, an extra coat, and a change of shoes is also not rider-ready.
But her dismay about the messy car doesn’t — or rather, it can’t — last long before she’s on to the next thing: A phone call from a fr...
politics
The US now has more than 56.7 million freelance workers—and they vote
Freelancers are on the rise. And they’re rising up.
A new report from Freelancers Union and Upwork estimates that there are now 56.7 million Americans freelancers, an increase of 3.7 million in the past five years.
“The s...
Republican Attorney General reportedly let his Senate campaign consultants direct his state office
Missouri Attorney General and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley allowed “out-of-state political consultants” to give “direct guidance and tasks to his taxpayer-funded staff,” according to a report by The Kansas City Star.
Among other things, The Star reports that Hawley’s political consultants helped oversee the attorney general office’s rollout of “Missouri’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturers, which Hawley announced in June 20...
“Do you abuse more than one drug at a time?”: Wisconsin to drug screen people on Medicaid
In addition to imposing 80 hours of work per month, Wisconsin will require that Medicaid recipients complete a drug screening questionnaire to keep their health coverage.
While the Trump administration rejected Wisconsin’s bid to drug test Medicaid recipients, the Department of Health Services (DHS) told ThinkProgress on Friday that the state will ask them the same questions they already ask people on cash assistance as a condition of eligibility. The “D...
The economy still matters for US elections, but not in the way many people think
The US economy is doing well. GDP growth is robust and the job market is strong. Yet Donald Trump’s approval rating is low, and his party is expected to lose a lot of seats in midterm elections on Tuesday. So does that mean the economy...
Pennsylvania candidate gets boost from young people drawn to her climate activism
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA — Long before Election Day, young climate activists began gravitating to a positive force for change in Pennsylvania’s 11th congressional district. Jess King had won the Democratic nomination with a clear vision for how she would fight climate change and improve the lives of residents in Lancaster and southern York counties, a significant departure from previous Republican representatives.
King, head of an economic development nonprofit, pledged ...
Pennsylvania candidate gets boost from young people drawn to her climate activism
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA — Long before Election Day, young climate activists began gravitating to a positive force for change in Pennsylvania’s 11th congressional district. Jess King had won the Democratic nomination with a clear vision for how she would fight climate change and improve the lives of residents in Lancaster and southern York counties, a significant departure from previous Republican representatives.
King, head of an economic development nonprofit, pledged ...
Trump brings his long war against legal immigration to the midterm elections
President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to strip many Americans of their legal citizenship by executive fiat, specifically targeting children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents. Such a move would immediately run afoul of the United States Constitution, as well as a federal judiciary whose fringiest right-wing judges have never cottoned on to such a radical revision of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Nevertheless, tearing down the infrastr...
Trump’s Medicare chief: Expanding Medicare to more Americans is scary
Seema Verma isn’t a well-known member of President Donald Trump’s administration, but she is an important one.
As the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Verma is in charge of overseeing health programs that over 100 million Americans rely on.
So it seemed like an odd choice for Trump’s Medicare chief to call the proposal to expand Medicare coverage to more Americans scary in an attempted Halloween joke on Wednesday.
There are not two sides to birthright citizenship. Reporters who say so are committing malpractice.
Reporters, please, for the love of God, don’t do this.
Breaking News: President Trump said he was preparing an executive order to end birthright citizenship. It is unclear whether he can do so unilaterally.https://t.co/uAshSXiP10
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 30, 2018
It is not “unclear” whether Trump can act unilaterally. The Constitution’s text unambiguously says that Trump cannot do this — an...