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Post-Comey Firing, Trump Impeachment Is ‘What the Country and the World Need’

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New petition says FBI director’s firing adds “another powerful reason for [Trump’s] impeachment.”

By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams

In the wake of his “Nixonian” firing of FBI director James Comey, calls for Congress to begin an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump have grown.

The Tuesday announcement immediately drew parallels to President Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, and fueled calls for a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate alleged Russian interference in the election.   [Read more…]

Sessions May Revive Harsh Penalties for Low-Level Drug Charges

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If new changes are implemented, it will mark another major pivot by Trump administration to reverse recent efforts to address mass incarceration crisis

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering scrapping Obama-era rules that banned harsh punishments for low-level drug crimes and could direct prosecutors to resume charging severe penalties, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Post on Tuesday.   [Read more…]

Donald Trump Is Radicalizing America’s Court System Before Our Very Eyes

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President nominates 10 judges to the federal bench, the first step in a right-wing corporate takeover

By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet

On Monday, President Trump nominated 10 federal court judges, beginning a process that will take the judiciary in a far-right direction for years to come.

Trump’s appointees—five to federal appellate courts, four to lower district courts and one to a federal claims court—are doctrinaire right-wingers who started as clerks for the most right-wing Supreme Court and federal court justices, and then went on to build careers in corporate practices and academia siding with big business and religious fundamentalists over other Americans.   [Read more…]

ACLU Comment on Trump Firing of FBI Director Comey

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Gabriela Melendez / ACLU San Diego & Imperial Counties

American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero issued the following statement on the firing of FBI Director James Comey:

“The independence of the FBI director is meant to ensure that the president does not operate above the law. For President Trump to fire the man responsible for investigating his own campaign’s ties to the Russians imperils that fundamental principle.   [Read more…]

Take Action: Reform California’s Money Bail System

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By ACLU of California

Every year, California’s money bail system keeps thousands of people in jail before they get their day in court – all because they can’t afford to post bail and buy their freedom. The median bail amount in California is $50,000.

When this happens, people stay in jail for weeks, months, and sometimes years while their cases move forward, or plead guilty to a crime they may not have committed.   [Read more…]

National Monuments Make America Great

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President’s Executive Order Will Strip Public Lands To Allow For More Industrial Uses

Shaun Gonzalez / Mojave Desert Blog

We are all familiar with the swirl of controversy surrounding the designation of national monuments. People hear that all roads in a new monument will be closed. Recreation will be outlawed. That monuments are only created to protect wildlife. I wouldn’t support national monuments, either, if that were true.

I don’t just visit public lands to enjoy the wildlife that share the land with me. I need lonely dirt roads that stretch over the horizon. A remote campsite where I can relax with a beer in hand as the shadows of a mountain range creep across a wide valley at sunset. I need monuments to keep the lights of the city far away, so I can see the the millions of stars above that remind me of my own insignificance in this universe.   [Read more…]

How Crossing the US-Mexico Border Became A Crime

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Kelly Lytle Hernandez / The Conversation

It was not always a crime to enter the United States without authorization.

In fact, for most of American history, immigrants could enter the United States without official permission and not fear criminal prosecution by the federal government.

That changed in 1929. On its surface, Congress’ new prohibitions on informal border crossings simply modernized the U.S. immigration system by compelling all immigrants to apply for entry.   [Read more…]

Repeal of the Affordable Care Act: A Moral Travesty

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Robert Reich / RobertReich.org

Shame on every one of the 217 Republicans who last Thursday voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and substitute basically nothing.

Trumpcare isn’t a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. It’s a transfer from the sick and poor to the rich and healthy.   [Read more…]

A Guidebook for the Resistance: On Tyranny By Timothy Snyder

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Vivian Rothstein / Capital & Main

It’s a small book that can fit into your pocket or purse, and you can read its 126 pages in under an hour. A perfect size for a guidebook that you can pull out on a moment’s notice.

Notably, this book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, is about the rise of totalitarianism and what ordinary people can do to stand in its way.   [Read more…]

Message to House GOP After Trumpcare Vote: ‘See You at the Ballot Box’

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By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

As Republicans joined President Donald Trump for a victory photo op and beer bash at the White House following the passage of the American Healthcare Act (AHCA) in the House of Representatives on Thursday, the overwhelming response from progressive organizations and voters furious over the prospect of losing their healthcare coverage was: “See you at the ballot box.”

With much fanfare, members of the GOP gathered at the Rose Garden to hail the bill—which will strip millions of Americans of their coverage and raise the premiums on individuals with pre-existing conditions—that passed the House with a slim 217-213 margin of victory.

Meanwhile, the condemnations poured in, with vows that voters will seek retribution come 2018, when many of them will be up for re-election. Others focused on the near term, with protests already in the works as legislators prepare to head home for two weeks of Congressional recess.   [Read more…]

Wanted: 1.5 Billion Immigrants

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Surely any country that hoards a planet’s wealth should expect to care for a proportional number of that planet’s people.

By Mona Younis / OtherWords

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump famously promised to deport every person living in this country without proper papers. I have another idea: The 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. should be granted citizenship immediately in a mass induction.

Why?

It’s simple. Let’s say a country consumes 10 percent of the planet’s resources. Well, then it should be home to 10 percent of the world’s people. We have about 4.4 percent of the global population, which means we can consume that much of the planet’s resources guilt-free.   [Read more…]

One Woman’s Story: Why I Will be Enrolling in the ACA (Obamacare) Marketplace

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By Lauree Benton

This 2013 article is a reminder of what is at stake in the efforts to repeal the ACA (Obamacare). The current GOP plan (AHCA) would let employers deny coverage for maternity and other care. Pregnancy would become a preexisting condition–again.

I didn’t know pregnancy was a preexisting condition until I was 8.5 months pregnant.

“You are uninsurable,” says the sales representative from Blue Cross of California. “Pregnancy is considered a preexisting condition.”

“You mean the preexisting condition that allows humanity to survive?” I snapped. I was furious.

To the sales rep’s credit, he thought it was ridiculous too.   [Read more…]

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