By Robert Reich Robert Reich Facebook (7/2/17) Trump is using his “gutter” tweets this morning to try to distract you from these major stories of the week: 1) The latest version of Trumpcare stalled in the Senate. The details of the bill were even too much for Republicans to stomach. When Mitch McConnell finally released his version of the bill from behind closed doors, many Republicans balked at the deep cuts to Medicaid. Estimates released on Monday by the Congressional Budget Office that 22 million Americans would lose coverage under the proposal only furthered doubts. Rallies on Capitol Hill and…

  By Jon Queally Common Dreams (6/29/17) Voting and civil rights advocates are ringing alarm bells on Thursday after it was learned that an election commission established by Donald Trump—one which critics feared from its inception would be used to suppress, not protect, voter access—had sent requests to all fifty states demanding personal and detailed information about voters. According to The Hill, a letter was sent from Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State in Kansas and vice chairman of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, asking the states for “several pieces of information about voters, including their names, birthdays, the last four digits of…

  By Jordan Kisner The Guardian (6/23/17) John Di Domenico looks nothing like Donald Trump: he’s 17 years younger, several inches shorter and a natural brunet, though lately he keeps his head shaved to make putting on the coppery wig easier, and his eyebrows bleached to match. Becoming Trump requires a full hour of hair and makeup. He tapes three large photographs of the president, one in profile and two straight-on, to any mirror he’s using, and then uses Ben Nye CoCo Tan foundation to turn his skin the requisite shade of atomic tangerine, dabs on wrinkles, lengthens his nose,…

  By Theo Anderson In These Times (6/21/17) Republicans love to point to their success at the ballot box as proof of their vitality. A party that controls a majority of statehouses and the U.S. Congress, along with the Supreme Court and the presidency, must have the most popular ideas. Right? So the theory goes. And there was more evidence for it on Tuesday, as Republican Karen Handel beat Democrat Jon Ossoff in the special election for Georgia’s 6th District. For a party that’s so successful, though, the GOP sure doesn’t have much confidence in its policies. Hunkered down in…

TheCommonerCall.org Josh Nelson, Deputy Political Director CREDO Action from Working Assets (6/24/17) Sen. Joe Manchin is one of the least-reliable members of the Senate Democratic caucus. He frequently sides with Trump and Republican extremists in opposition to progressive values like fighting for economic justice and defending women’s rights. As a longtime friend of the coal industry, Sen. Manchin is especially bad when it comes to fighting climate change and protecting the environment. Now, a dark money group run by a longtime operative of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is running a TV ad praising Manchin for cozying up to Trump and…

  By Katherin Brewer Freak Out & Carry On Podcast (6/15/17) In Freak Out and Carry On, the new politics and history podcast from WBUR, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Ron Suskind and Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson speak with the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank about Jeff Sessions’ contentious Senate hearing and the historical tension that attorneys general, from Mitchell Palmer to Alberto Gonzalez, have faced. Do they serve the president or the American people? Excerpts: Heather Cox Richardson: It seemed to me that Sessions was performing for an audience of one and that was President Trump. And that says something really interesting about this…

  By Jay Hayden Daily Kos (6/20/17) Randy Bryce is a U.S. Army veteran, cancer survivor, and union ironworker in southeast Wisconsin who’s ready to mount a serious challenge to House Speaker Paul Ryan for WI-01. Yesterday Bryce released a video announcing his candidacy and it is a grand slam. The video focuses on health care, featuring his own mother, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Real life, real families, real struggles. It is one of the best we’ve ever seen, and quite frankly it is a roadmap for Democrats nationwide. The Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act remains deeply unpopular, with only 24 percent of American approving…

  By Emma Green The Atlantc (6/14/17) The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting turned chaotic in Phoenix this week over a resolution that condemned white supremacy and the alt-right. On Tuesday, leaders initially declined to consider the proposal submitted by a prominent black pastor in Texas, Dwight McKissic, and only changed course after a significant backlash. On Wednesday afternoon, the body passed a revised statement against the alt-right. But the drama over the resolution revealed deep tension lines within a denomination that was explicitly founded to support slavery. A few weeks before the meeting was slated to start, McKissic published his draft resolution on…

  By Mike McCabe Blue Jean Nation (6/8/17) Here’s a truth about American politics that never seems to get acknowledged much less discussed: No major party in this country actually wants to outlaw abortion. One says it does, but its actions tell a different story. Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House, so they could make a law banning abortion across the nation. The law surely would be challenged in court but the ideologically conservative Republican appointees who have made up the majority on the U.S. Supreme Court since 1971 would have the final say. You’d expect…

  By Joaquin Sapien ProPublica (6/16/17) WNYC radio reporter Robert Lewis had been hounding New York Assistant Police Chief Edward Delatorre for weeks. He’d called. He’d emailed. He’d gone through the New York Public Affairs office. But he was getting nowhere and he had an urgent question. Lewis had learned that the assistant chief bought property from a missing loan shark, a man named Vincent “Jimmy” Durso, while the police department was actively investigating Durso’s disappearance. Naturally, Lewis wanted to know why. So, when he got no answer, he went to building a Delatorre owned in the Bronx. When Lewis confronted…

  By Rebecca Solnit The Guardian (6/18/17) n this moment, populist intervention is everything, not as hate and attack but as an expression of popular will and power. Or as love, since we defend what we love. It is an extraordinary moment, an all-hands-on-deck emergency in which new groups and coalitions are emerging along with unforeseen capacities in many people who didn’t previously think they were activists. It is saturated with possibility, as well as with danger. Of course there are also people resident in the US who love the dismantling of healthcare, education, environmental protection, and the Bill of…

  The Commoner Call (6/12/17) It’s nothing new that the American mainstream media presents highly edited and selected reporting on domestic violence in countries seen as unfriendly to United State corporate interests. Recently much has been made about the bumbling and often bullying actions of the left wing government led by Nicolás Maduro while opposition forces have been portrayed as plucky and courageous opponents. Empire Files host Abby Martin just returned from Venezuela where she saw first hand how violent opposition protesters actively intimidate reporters – even threatening murder – and thereby give a false impression of what is actually happening….