A record number of American Muslims are running for Congress, state, and local office this election cycle, motivated into action in large part by President Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies, a new report by the Associated Press found.
More than 100 candidates ran for office over the past year, more than ever since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to Jetpac, a 501(c)(3) organization working to increase American Muslim civic engagement. Roughly 40 of th...
ThinkProgress
Republican lawmakers advocate for arming toddlers in debut of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show
Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show Who is America? debuted on Sunday by embarrassing several Republican lawmakers.
Cohen portrayed Col. Erran Morad, a former Israeli commando offering a provocative claim: He can prevent school shootings by putting “deadly weapons into the hands of America’s schoolchildren.” After impressing a couple of guns rights advocates with his program providing gun training for children “from the age (of) 16 down to the age (of) ...
University of Michigan nurses hold rally to fight for patients’ equal access to health care
University of Michigan nurses have been negotiating a contract for 90 days, and their employer has not moved on several issues they care about. On Saturday, they plan to hold an informational picket in the hope that it moves their employer at the negotiating table.
The contract with the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council (UMPNC) would cover about 6,000 nurses. The nurses’ last collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30, and now, they are looking for a ne...
How Lori Lightfoot plans to ride the Ocasio-Cortez wave without endorsing her policies
It was a Tuesday in late June when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned the world upside down. The New York machine shuttered to an unexpected halt. A 28-year-old socialist had taken on the King of Queens in the state’s 14th congressional district and won.
Some 800 miles west, in Chicago, mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot was hoping to replicate that victory. A little more than seven months out from the city’s election, Lightfoot and her campaign have tried to paint her as the...
D.C. Council takes step toward overturning ballot measure that eliminates two-tier wage system
This week, the majority of the D.C. Council supported a repeal of Initiative 77. Initiative 77 is the ballot measure voters approved in June that eliminates the tipped minimum wage and would gradually phase out the tipped workers’ minimum wage, so that by 2026, all workers are paid the same minimum wage.
Fifty-six percent of District voters approved of it. States such as California, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, have gotten rid of the subminimum wage, and Economic...
Nebraska lawmakers are suing to block voters’ chance to give more people health care by ballot
In November, Nebraska voters will get the opportunity to vote on whether or not the government should provide more low-income residents health insurance. But a new lawsuit from Republican lawmakers is trying to deny voters their say.
Should Nebraska residents vote to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of poverty level, an estimated 90,000 people statewide will gain health care.
Nebraska is one of four states aiming to expand Medicaid insurance this fall. The others ar...
Here’s what would happen to abortion rights in Collins’ and Murkowski’s states if Roe falls
Now that President Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, the Supreme Court may soon have the five votes necessary to strike down Roe v. Wade.
Whether the Supreme Court upholds restrictive state-level abortion laws or overturns Roe outright, abortion access will become even more dependent on zip code and financial means — particularly as states become further emboldened to pass harsh...
How Kavanaugh will use religion to turn back the clock
It’s a polite fiction that religion isn’t a factor in the American legal system. But religion plays an outsize role, both in judicial decisions and in the decisions of presidents in nominating a judge. President Donald Trump’s latest pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh — a Catholic, whose appointment preserves the Catholic majority on the Supreme Court — will shift the high court dramatically to the right, most noticeably when it comes to religion.
Accordin...
Who is Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s pick to replace Anthony Kennedy?
If you could grow a judge in a vat, and design every moment of their life to appeal perfectly to the Republican establishment, the man who would emerge fully-formed from that vat would be Brett Kavanaugh. A two-time Yale graduate, Kavanaugh clerked for the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, worked for Bill Clinton inquisitor Ken Starr, and served as one of President George W. Bush’s top White House aides.
Kavanaugh was a frequent opponent of President Barack Obama’s Envir...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter clapbacks show the kids are alright
President Donald Trump has credited Twitter for putting him in the Oval Office, but politicians’ attempts to connect with mostly younger constituents on social media are often cringeworthy (Chuck Grassley is the rare exception):
@Sn00ki u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 9, 2010