This man served for thirty-six years in the United States Senate, eight years as Vice President of the United States, and has established an outstanding record of achievement as the 46th President of the United States. He’s already proved that he’s qualified for the job. Donald Trump never was and never will be. Period.
United States Senator Susan Collins (R) Maine (Photo credit: Evan Vucci/AP)
By Susan Collins
I will not be voting for Donald Trump for president. This is not a decision I make lightly, for I am a lifelong Republican. But Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor the inclusive approach to governing that is critical to healing the divisions in our country.
When the primary season started, it soon became apparent that, much like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mr. Trump was connecting with many Americans who felt that their voices were not being heard in Washington and who were tired of political correctness. But rejecting the conventions of political correctness is different from showing complete disregard for common decency. Mr. Trump did not stop with shedding the stilted campaign dialogue that often frustrates voters. Instead, he opted for a constant stream of denigrating comments, including demeaning Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) heroic military service and repeatedly insulting Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
With the passage of time, I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize. But it was his attacks directed at people who could not respond on an equal footing — either because they do not share his power or stature or because professional responsibility precluded them from engaging at such a level — that revealed Mr. Trump as unworthy of being our president.
Rauner makes me long for Blagojevich, who tried to sell Obama’s senate seat, or Quinn, one of the most incompetent governors in Illinois history. Hell, I’d take Ryan over Rauner, given the choice. Illinois politics suck more than at anytime I can remember, in the 61 years I have lived in Illinois (all my life!). Personally, I want Rauner to be impeached or otherwise forced from office.
Last fall, Illinois GOP candidate Bruce Rauner spent $63.9 million — $27.3 million of his own money — to buy the right to occupy the Illinois Governor’s mansion.
Now that he’s in office his first moves have confirmed that he is the poster boy for the War on the Middle Class.
Rauner is a hybrid of the worst traits of Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. In fact, you could say he personally embodies the reason why — even…
The progressive group says it will “mobilize aggressively” for the Vermonter in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and wife, Jane, smile as the crowd cheers at a town hall on January 9, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo / Jae C. Hong)
By John Nichols
With polls suggesting that the Democratic race is getting tighter in the first-caucus state of Iowa and the first-primary state of New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders has won the support of one of the nation’s most prominent progressive networks.
The activist group MoveOn endorsed the Vermont senator after 78.6 percent of its members backed him last week in an online “primary”—which drew 340,665 votes, a greater total than is likely to participate in the February contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“This is a massive vote in favor of Bernie Sanders, showing that grassroots progressives across the country are excited and inspired by his message and track record of standing up to big money and corporate interests to reclaim our democracy for the American people,” MoveOn.org Political Action Executive Director Ilya Sheyman said Tuesday. “MoveOn members are feeling the Bern. We will mobilize aggressively to add our collective people power to the growing movement behind the Sanders campaign, starting with a focus on voter turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
The advocacy of quality public education has long been a core progressive cause. For progressives, the relationship of education, of social and economic opportunity, to the sustained viability of a democracy have always seemed clear and obvious.
This newly released study by the Southern Education Foundation underscores the significance of these relationships. The growth of economic inequality in the United States now threatens the very foundations of our society by destroying and diminishing the prospects for the future success of our youngest citizens–and of our nation.
Three-year-old Saria Amaya waits with her mother after receiving shoes and school supplies during a charity event in October to help more than 4,000 underprivileged children at the Fred Jordan Mission in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Children from low-income families now make up a majority of public school students in the nation, according to a new report. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
By Lyndsey Layton
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of public school students across the country are considered “low-income”, according to a new study by the Southern Education Foundation. While poor children are spread across the country, concentrations are highest in the South and in the West.
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications…
Islamist fighters in the Libya Dawn coalition guarded the main airport in Tripoli, Libya, after its capture on Sunday. Credit Mahmud Turkia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ERIC SCHMITTAUG in The New York Times
CAIRO — Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly launched airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a major escalation of a regional power struggle set off by Arab Spring revolts.
The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied to American diplomats that their military played any role in the operation, the officials said, in what appeared a new blow to already strained relations between Washington and Cairo.
The strikes in Tripoli are another salvo in a power struggle defined by Arab autocrats battling Islamist movements seeking to overturn the old order. Since the military ouster of the Islamist president in Egypt last year, the new government and its backers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have launched a campaign across the region — in the news media, in politics and diplomacy, and by arming local proxies — to roll back what they see as an existential threat to their authority posed by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
With the threat of the Supreme Court striking down the most important progressive domestic initiative in a generation, we should be talking about impeaching Supreme Court Justices who engage in such right-wing judicial activism.
Impeachment? Many progressives shrink back in horror at such a supposed affront to judicial independence. For an example, see Ruth Marcus’s tizzy over President Obama’s rather mild (and accurate) statement that unelected judges striking down such a core economic regulation would be unprecedented in the post-1930s legal environment.
But we need to be talking about impeachment if we are not to see every progressive economic regulation struck down by the courts as outside the supposed intent of the Constitution’s Founders — the regular rhetoric of those promoting rightwing legal theory.
What we have been witnessing in recent years is the rising use of anti-democratic means by corporate-backed interests to…
Three-year-old Saria Amaya waits with her mother after receiving shoes and school supplies during a charity event in October to help more than 4,000 underprivileged children at the Fred Jordan Mission in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Children from low-income families now make up a majority of public school students in the nation, according to a new report. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images) 
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