The Voter’s Self Defense System
The Voter’s Self Defense System Vote Smart provides free, unbiased, in-depth information about current officials, candidates, issues, legislation, and voting. Non-partisan and nonprofit since 1988. Source
Picture Books About Kindness, Compassion and Peace in a Turbulent World
In the last year my young daughters have asked, “Did you know Trump grabs people’s private parts?” and “Did someone shoot Ariana Grande?” and “What is porn?” and “How far away is North Korea?” The year we just said farewell to was a bad one, whose passing certainly warrants four new picture books where love…
Hurricane Aid Package Includes Poison Pills
The U.S. Senate must act on a supplemental disaster aid package for areas affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and the wildfires in the Western U.S. The House of Representatives passed an $81 billion disaster aid package in December, but that bill contains “poison pills” that NRDC and other organizations are not willing to…
Pennsylvania Could Be On The Verge Of Dealing Partisan Gerrymandering A Big…
Pennsylvania’s highest court could be on the verge of setting unprecedented limits on how much politicians can redraw electoral districts to their party’s advantage, a decision that would have profound legal and political consequences both in the state and the rest of the country. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Wednesday in…
Team Trump Cooks Terror Stats for Bogus Immigration Argument
The Trump administration and its Republican allies are pointing to terrorism statistics in order to argue for ending two immigration programs. But those who study terrorism in the U.S. say that the administration cooked the numbers to arrive at its desired conclusion. The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday released a report highlighting foreign-born individuals…
Why Trump voters need the immigrants they want to turn away
The irony in President Donald Trump’s hostility to immigration, expressed again in reports of his vulgar comments about Africa and Haiti last week, is that in appealing to the racial and cultural resentments of his political base he is directly threatening their economic interests. The equation is unmistakable: as America ages, the older and blue-collar…
Foreign governments, candidates, trade groups spent at Trump propertie
Sixty-four trade groups, foreign governments, Republican candidates and others stayed at or held events at properties linked to U.S. President Donald Trump during Trump’s first year in office, a political watchdog group said in a report released on Tuesday. The arrangements represented “unprecedented conflicts of interest” because Trump oversees the federal government and has not…
U.S. Uninsured Rate Steady at 12.2% in Fourth Quarter of 2017
The percentage of U.S. adults without health insurance was essentially unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2017, at 12.2%, but it is up 1.3 percentage points from the record low of 10.9% found in the last quarter of 2016. The 1.3-point increase in the uninsured rate during 2017 is the largest single-year increase Gallup and…
Sanders Says Trump Isn’t Racist, Citing ‘The Apprentice’
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said claims that President Donald Trump is racist are “outrageous,” citing his success as a public figure and his star turn on television as a host on NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice.” “Frankly, if the critics of the president were who he said he was, why did NBC give…
Trump administration will ask Supreme Court to reverse DACA ruling
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is seeking a fast track to the Supreme Court in hopes of reversing a federal judge’s order to restart a popular program allowing young, undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States. The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it will appeal U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s decision both to the…