David Sirota is editor-at-large at Jacobin. He edits the Lever and previously served as a senior adviser and speechwriter on Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign.
After pushback, at the presidential debate last night, Biden thankfully dropped his deficit hawkery and made a strong statement in favor of public investment. Will he be held to his new position if he wins?
Democrats finally pressed Amy Coney Barrett to commit to recuse herself from oil company cases. In response, she is now refusing — and reiterating her absurd assertion that climate science is “controversial.”
Amy Coney Barrett told senators that she is impartial and that her views on climate science are irrelevant. But she showed a dangerous bias against environmental action that would make the climate crisis far worse.
Amy Coney Barrett refuses to agree that humans contribute to climate change, while Democrats fail to ask her to recuse herself from a landmark climate case involving Shell, the oil company that employed her father. Democrats must bring up the climate in Barrett’s confirmation hearings — the future of our planet is at stake.
Yesterday, Amy Coney Barrett told lawmakers she doesn’t have “firm views” on climate change. For decades, her father was a lawyer at Shell Oil, which now has a major climate case in front of the Supreme Court.
To court pack, or not to court pack? That is the question Democrats are doing everything they can to avoid answering — even though Republicans have been successfully packing the courts for years.
Donald Trump is deeply corrupt. That corruption is a product of the larger kleptocratic system, created by a judiciary that would favor the rich even more with Amy Barrett on the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump wants to suppress the vote, and Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers want to help him — by limiting the vote-by-mail system they themselves helped create in 2019.
Polls show Pennsylvania voters support important restrictions on fracking. There was no reason for Kamala Harris to tout Joe Biden’s endorsement of fracking at the vice presidential debate last night or for Beltway journalists to claim the election hinges on the position.
New data shows that COVID-19–related deaths followed after workers requested help from federal safety officials. Instead of helping, Donald Trump reduced enforcement of workplace safety laws.
Mitch McConnell desperately wants unanimous consent to pass a measure keeping Trump’s Supreme Court nomination on track. Democrats could potentially stop it. The question is whether they’re willing to.
If the roles were reversed, Mitch McConnell would use his power to to stop a Democratic president’s Supreme Court pick. Democrats now face pressure to fight Trump’s nominee just as vigorously.
The lesson of Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis is not that he deserved it or that anyone should celebrate — it’s that you can’t pretend that the basic laws governing the universe don’t apply to you forever.
Even though Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, raked in billions in profits last year, new documents show their tax rate actually went below zero. This may help explain why CEO Stephen Schwarzman has spent nearly $25 million to help Trump and GOP senators win: to ensure the tax breaks enriching Blackstone stay in place.
It’s tempting to turn the new reporting on Donald Trump’s tax shenanigans, paying only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017, into a story about Trump as a singular villain. He’s despicable, but he could only get away with it because we live under a system that allows the wealthy to rip off $266 billion from the country every single year.
Donald Trump says he expects the Supreme Court to decide the 2020 election, as it did in Bush v. Gore. If Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, the court will have three justices who worked directly on the case that undemocratically determined the 2000 election.
In August, Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett delivered a key ruling blocking many gig workers from suing in court when tech companies deny them overtime pay. It’s just one in a long history of decisions that favored corporate interests.
A memo is circulating on Capitol Hill that spells out exactly the kind of tactics that could slow Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nomination. Will the Democrats use them?
Donald Trump is making it very clear that he has few qualms about using undemocratic, authoritarian means to stay in power. If they’re serious about stopping him, Democrats will have to stop cowering in fear and act like a real opposition party.
Much of the discussion around Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointment after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has been about crucial issues like abortion. But the court also rules regularly on issues of corporate power in America — and whoever Trump’s replacement is will be a steadfast friend to corporations.