Putting Common Good Over Billionaires and War Profiteers, House Progressives Introduce "People's Budget"...

Offering an ambitious alternative to the House GOP's "morally bankrupt" 2019 budget proposal—which demands over $5 trillion in cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and other life-saving programs—the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) on Tuesday unveiled a budget that calls for massive investments in infrastructure, healthcare, and education while proposing significant cuts to the completely "out-of-control" Pentagon budget.....

While the People's Budget stands no chance of passing the Republican-dominated Congress, Jayapal noted that the CPC plan is a "moral document" aimed at articulating House Democrats' vision and priorities for the months ahead.

PUBLISHED THIS past January, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment was definitely timely.
It came out soon after the Las Vegas massacre that killed 59 concertgoers, and which Dunbar-Ortiz discusses in her chapter on mass shootings. And it arrived on bookstore shelves just weeks before the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.....

nstead of dismissing the Second Amendment as antiquated and irrelevant, or as not actually meaning what it says, I argue that the purpose of the Second Amendment is key to understanding the gun culture of the United States, and possibly the key to a new consciousness about the lingering effects of settler-colonialism and white nationalism.....

She notes that at the time of what she terms her “gun love,” approximately half of U.S. households had a gun, for a total of 112 million guns nationwide. Contrast that to today, when only about one-third of households own a gun, but that number of guns has risen to 300 million.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has just become the richest man in recorded history—surpassing $150 billion in net worth—thanks to his business model of subjecting employees to low wages, brutal working conditions, and scant benefits, and on Tuesday Amazon workers throughout Europe are marking "Prime Day" by walking off the job in massive numbers to call attention to their plight.

A large group of progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives established a new “Medicare for All” caucus on Thursday morning. This was an important step to eventually move universal healthcare legislation through Congress.
With 70 Democrats joining the formal caucus this sends a message to Republicans — and to Democratic Party leaders like Nancy Pelosi — that they are serious about getting something done, and not just talking about it. The formation of the caucus increases the feasibility of passing legislation and it also gives the policy more staying power because there is strength in numbers.

Democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are on a mission to debunk doubters and conclusively show that a bold progressive agenda can spark enthusiasm and win elections in the Midwest.
Helping to prove their case, organizers were forced to relocate one of the pair's joint rallies in Kansas on Friday afternoon after ticket sign-ups—as often happened during Sanders' 2016 presidential run—rapidly exceeded venue capacity.

For all his unpredictable outbursts, Trump’s objective isn’t merely egotism and self-promotion — and still less servitude to Putin — but to advance a right-wing agenda of nationalism, xenophobia and class war against workers and the poor.
If the opposition to Trump is confined to outrage at how he upsets diplomatic protocols and the old ruling order, the right wing will gain more ground — because the right thrives on discontent with this discredited status quo.
The millions of people who hate Trump need to come together in a resistance that confronts all the reactionary atrocities of the right — not so we can go back to the old days before Trump blundered into power, but to work toward an alternative to the system that spawned him.

A prominent Christian think tank has come out fiercely in favor of better family leave policies, defending federally mandated family leave policies on theological grounds.
“Christian families can form themselves along a divine vision of work and family as holistic complements,” a report released Tuesday reads. “As citizens and culture-shapers, Christians should advocate for and develop policies and practices that protect, rather than fragment, family time.”
The report, authored by Katelyn Beaty and Rachael Anderson of the Center for Public Justice, advocates for changes on a federal scale, calling for an expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act. Pushing beyond public policy, though, the report also specifically targets gender imbalances within families.

In an attempt to force Republicans to move beyond "worthless" tweets and speeches in response to President Donald Trump's sycophantic behavior at the Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday outlined a series of steps that can immediately be taken by Congress to shore up the American electoral system and rein in the unhinged commander in chief.