Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. has won the Democratic nomination in the Georgia gubernatorial primary Tuesday. The race has been closely watched in recent months, as Abrams faced off with another Stacey, Georgia state representative Stacey Evans.
Should Abrams win in November, she will be the first black woman governor in the United States. Either woman winning in November would have been historic, though: Georgia has never had a woman...
ThinkProgress
Michigan scrapped its racist Medicaid work exemption. But it’s still happening elsewhere.
Michigan Republicans are dropping a plan to exempt 17 overwhelmingly white counties from the state’s proposed Medicaid work requirements.
State Sen. Mike Shirkey (R), the bill’s sponsor, told the Associated Press that lawmakers are removing a provision to exempt Medicaid beneficiaries who live in counties with high unemployment, saying it’d be too difficult to administer. Instead, Shirkey said he is drafting a new bill that lowers the hours of work requirements and...
Religious leaders arrested in Capitol while demanding restoration of Voting Rights Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Revs. Jesse Jackson, William Barber, and other prominent religious leaders were arrested for demonstrating in the U.S. Capitol on Monday, demanding the restoration of the Voting Rights Act and the end of racial gerrymandering.
Dozens of others were also arrested across the country as part of the second week of protests organized by the revival of the Poor People’s Campaign, a movement that originated in 1968 with Martin Luther King Jr. at the helm. The...
Dana Loesch has no clue how Planned Parenthood is funded
National Rifle Association national spokesperson Dana Loesch thinks that, instead of addressing gun violence by talking about guns, America should stop reimbursing Planned Parenthood for providing medical care. Doing so, she claimed, would magically free up $500 million for the federal government to pay for the NRA’s dream of prison-like schools with metal detectors and armed guards everywhere. It would not.
Days after Santa Fe, Texas, became the latest community to see a mass...
Arkansas Democratic primary raises questions about the party’s future
Paul Spencer has known his fellow Democrat Clarke Tucker, for a long time. To hear him tell it, the Tucker he knows is a “man of integrity and values.” But something changed when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) showed up in town.
“Clarke… spent $350,000 over the last couple weeks. He bought a poll, he got some pretty vanilla advertising,” Spencer, who’s running against Tucker in the Democratic primary in Arkansas’ second district said in an interview with Thin...
Trans people suffer from higher rates of suicide. Why are hospitals letting them down?
Lying in a psychosis ward bed, Amelia Perry couldn’t shake thoughts of suicide. The noise blaring from other patients in the hallway and the bright lights above felt like too much. Perry, a 25-year-old trans person, was in the hospital seeking help.
Days earlier, Perry (who asked at admission to be identified by gender-neutral pronouns ze and hir) had been discharged from another nearby hospital following a week-long stay after attempting suicide. That’s how Perry ende...
Trump’s plan to cut Planned Parenthood funding will do a lot more than target abortion
In a proposed regulation expected to be announced this week, the Trump administration plans to fundamentally change the country’s only federal family planning program dedicated to providing reproductive care to low-income people, by cutting funding for clinics that provide abortions and barring doctors from telling patients where they can obtain the procedure.
The aim is to “defund” Planned Parenthood, a top priority for social conservatives. But the practic...
Congress is hyperfocused on opioids. Is it focusing enough on addiction?
Congress is trying to pass legislation that addresses the opioid crisis in an election year, so they’re moving fast, passing a bill through committee Thursday that would free up Medicaid dollars for opioid addiction treatment in institutionalized care. But it could be more harmful than lawmakers realize.
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) is aiming for the House to take up legislation in June. So to keep with schedule, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce — on which Walden se...
A 15-week abortion ban is heading to the Louisiana governor’s desk
The Louisiana legislature has sent Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) a bill to ban abortion after 15 weeks, except in the cases of a medical emergency. The governor is expected to sign the measure into law.
If a doctor performs the procedure, they’d be imprisoned for at least one year (and up to ten years) and fined anywhere between $10,000 to $100,000. The state Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of the bill (24-5) on Wednesday.
Roughly 94 percent of abortions in Louisiana t...
What’s going on with North Korea is a cautionary tale in rushing diplomacy
Amid talks of a historic deal with North Korea and a possible Noble Peace Prize for President Donald Trump (chiefly among his GOP supporters, his aides, and, well, himself), North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seems to be slamming the brakes on the negotiations.
While White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Trump administration is “still hopeful that the meeting will take place,” signalling that the president is ready for “tough negotiations,” it&...