Media

WASHINGTON, DC – Yesterday, in a letter to President Obama, leaders for nonprofit voting rights organizations Demos and Project Vote alerted the White House that the application process for benefits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) currently violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

In the letter, the groups urge the Obama Administration to take immediate steps to bring federally facilitated health benefits exchanges (FFEs) into compliance with federal law.

There are two market ways to reduce C02 emissions (the other options, like “command and control” would involve more overt government intervention). The first is cap and trade. The U.S. tried, and failed to pass a cap and trade bill in 2009 (Waxman-Markey). In a cap and trade system, the government puts a “cap” on the amount of carbon that can be emitted and allows companies to trade permits that allow them to emit, say a ton of CO2, on a market. The idea is that companies that can cheaply reduce emissions will do so, and then sell their permits to those who can’t do so cheaply.

What I learned from an Al-Jazeera America news segment last night: 16- and 17-year-olds in North Carolina could be arrested and charged as adults, in one of just two states in the nation where this is law.

When millions of Americans stood in lines for hours to vote yet again in the 2012 elections, President Obama recognized that “we need to fix that.” Today, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration released a report with their recommendations on ways to improve election administration. The Commission’s recommendations are welcome but much more work remains to be done to ensure every eligible voter can exercise their right to vote.

I fear that John Boehner is not going to raise the minimum wage. 

As more states across the U.S. (and more countries across the world) begin adopting alternative measures they find that while GDP has been increasing, other measures of well-being have remained flat.

Here we see the trick to undermining any universalistic program: creating an “us against them” narrative.

The people who need attention, and help, are the millions of silent, working poor struggling to put food on the table.