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Paid family leave is finally gaining steam in the United States. President Obama and the Democratic presidential candidates universally embrace the idea.  And while a conservative Congress may stymie federal action for years, states from New York to Colorado to Oregon are moving toward implementing their own family leave insurance systems, building on the success of policies already in place in California, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The U.S. Supreme Court has become friendly turf for the powerful.

Over the last decade, an increasing number of cities and states passed laws limiting the use of credit checks in hiring, promotion, and firing. These laws have been motivated by the reality that personal credit history is not relevant to employment and that employment credit checks prevent otherwise qualified workers with flawed credit from finding jobs, and that unemployed workers and historically disadvantaged groups, including people of color, are disproportionately harmed by credit checks.

European countries also differ substantively from the US in terms of the percentage of college attendees that their debt free models serve.

"Germany has a lower percentage of students go on to college than we have here in the US," Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at think tank Demos, told ATTN.

The campaign money chase makes the sliver of Americans who donate large sums the most important citizens.

Political science literature shows: money influences political outcomes and tilts policy in favor of an overwhelmingly white and male donor class.

In a recent report, Demos and the Public Interest Research Group showed how many viable candidates, including many candidates of color, struggle to compete against better-funded incumbents.

That’s not an isolated or fringe view. “The U.S. racial wealth gap is ... driven by public policy decisions,” a recent study from researchers at Brandeis University and the think tank Demos concluded.

The 2016 election is the first Presidential election that will occur since the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Partially because of the weakened VRA, 10 states passed harsh new voting restrictions that will be in full force for 2016, including seven new voter ID laws. New studies suggest that the motivation of these laws is suppressing non-white voters, and worryingly, that they will be successful at doing so.