I remember the stunned reaction of so many Americans back in the summer of 2005 when legions of poor black people in desperate circumstances seemed to have suddenly and inexplicably materialized in New Orleans during the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
Expressions of disbelief poured in from around the nation: "How can this be happening?" "I had no idea conditions were that bad." "My God, is this America?"
On Aug. 12, 2013, a federal court in New York found that the NYPD’s use of the stop-and-frisk practice was unconstitutional racial profiling. Almost one year to the day later, police gunned down Michael Brown — an 18-year-old, unarmed black man — during a street stop in Missouri. Don’t miss the connection, or the cycle of government violence against black Americans might never end.
From here to the Midwest, the actions of law-enforcement authorities form the big political topic of the summer of 2014.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — often labeled a tea party conservative — drew particular attention for his statements on the troubles in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer. He linked a “militarization of law enforcement” to a more general “erosion of civil liberties and due process.”
The Federal Communications Commission has extended the deadline for feedback on the issue of net neutrality by five days, making the new deadline September 15.
This follows reports that the Writers Guild of America was pushing for more feedback on the issue.
In 2010 and 2011, Maryland and New York took bold steps to correct the problem known as prison gerrymandering, a problem resulting from the United States Census Bureau’s practice of counting incarcerated individuals as residents of their prison cells rather than their home communities.
Workers at many of the nation’s largest and most profitable employers struggle to get enough work hours (and sufficiently stable hours) to make ends meet, making fair scheduling as important as raising wages for millions of workers.
There's little debate that college costs have risen over the past decade and that the increase has hit the wallets of families hard — especially those in the greatest need.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called for "peace and calm on the streets of Ferguson," one day before Missouri authorities were expected to release the identity of the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
Last night's police violence against citizens of Ferguson, MO was an affront to democracy. There is nothing more American than a community uniting in the face of tragedy, than ordinary people organizing to peacefully protest injustice. The police reaction—to protests of their own violence—has been more violence, less transparency, and an active suppression of first amendment freedoms.
In response to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and subsequent police action, Demos President Heather McGhee issued the following statement:
When a government does not represent its people we have no demos, and therefore no democracy.
In May 2013, low-wage workers in federal buildings in Washington began walking off the job in a series of one-day strikes. Employed by concessionaires and janitorial contractors at places like the Smithsonian and the Ronald Reagan Building, the workers said their rock-bottom wages weren't enough to survive on. Like the Walmart and fast-food workers also going on strike, they asked for better working conditions and a greater share of the spoils.
Los Angeles lawmakers were expected to vote Wednesday on a proposal to renegotiate or terminate an interest rate swap deal from the mid-2000s that critics say now costs the city millions of dollars a year in fees. If successful, the initiative could make the city the nation's largest to challenge ballooning Wall Street levies that accompany similar interest rate swap deals throughout the nation.
Medical debt is different. Typically when consumers borrow money, they can consider how much they’ll owe, shop around for the best interest rate, and usually have at least a little breathing room to reassess whether the goods or services they want to purchase are worth going into debt for in the first place. All that goes out the window, however, if your child is rushed to the emergency room in need of life-saving treatment.
Reformers in Washington are looking for a few good scandals.
Watergate led to the biggest overhaul of campaign finance law in the past century. Outrage over donors sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom and Enron influence peddling helped spur the 2002 McCain-Feingold overhaul. And the Jack Abramoff affair got Congress to act quickly on lobbying and ethics reform.
Earlier this week Vox gave welcome attention to whether CEO pay would benefit workers, but it didn’t go far enough in examining the company's wage inequality. In response to recent news of a college president giving up part of his compensation to give lower-wage workers a raise, Danielle Kurtzleben pivoted to Walmart, asking "what if Walmart's CEO took a pay cut for his workers?"
Every rule of government budgeting — not to mention common sense — says using a one-time windfall to finance ongoing commitments is a very bad idea.
It’s the political equivalent of hitting the lottery for $1,000, then rushing to put a down payment on a Ferrari.
So it was disturbing that Gov. Cuomo — when asked how he would spend an unprecedented $4.2 billion in legal settlements flowing into state coffers this year — threw out the following list of options:
