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Why Maryland Needs Medicare for All by Ben Jealous

Right now in 2017, we live in the state with the highest median income in the richest country in the history of the world. At the same time, more than 350,000 of us lack health insurance and total healthcare spending has increased by more than a trillion dollars in the last decade, choking small businesses and pushing our neighbors into poverty.

The current system isn’t working, and we have a moral and economic imperative to act.

Marylanders deserve a better deal on healthcare and if Washington won’t act, we will. There is no structural reason for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders being unable to afford healthcare. We know how to fix our current system and we have the resources available to do it.

But we haven’t. That is unconscionable.

It is long past time for change. A true Medicare for All system that extends affordable and quality healthcare to every Marylander – and saves countless lives in the process – is well within our grasp. Getting it done requires the courage to stand up to both the special interests who profit off our current system’s shortcomings and to those whose lack of political will continues to hold us back.

Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer say Al Franken should resign

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Chuck Schumer said their colleague Al Franken’s announcement scheduled for Thursday should include his resignation following accusations of sexual harassment from more than a half dozen women.

“Sen. Franken has said that he will be making an announcement about his political future tomorrow. The right thing is for him to resign,” Sanders, I-Vt., who ran for president as a Democrat in the 2016 elections, said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.

“We are now at a crossroads in American culture. And it is an important one. The way we treat women in our country has been abysmal in almost every way. We are finally addressing the issue of sexual harassment, and we need to get it right.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader, told the New York Times in a statement that “I consider Senator Franken a dear friend and greatly respect his accomplishments, but he has a higher obligation to his constituents and the Senate, and he should step down immediately.”

A short recap of the inauguration for those who were unable to attend. It is the greatest honor of my life to serve as your mayor. Thank you Birmingham! pic.twitter.com/SeTNTLf3FS

— Randall Woodfin (@randallwoodfin) December 6, 2017

Disabled Americans Lost Voting Rights Under Trump Election Fraud Commissioner’s Law

The head of President Donald Trump’s election fraud commission drafted a law as a Kansas official that led to 23 disabled people not having their votes counted in a recent local election.

The disenfranchisement occurred in Sedgwick County and was a direct result of a law pushed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a member of Trump’s voter fraud commission, which requires disabled voters’ signatures on their ballot envelopes. Until Kobach’s Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act passed in 2011, ballots were not tossed if a disabled person’s signature did not exactly match one on file or if someone else signed on behalf of a physically unable voter.

As a result, 23 unsigned ballots from disabled people were tossed in a local election where only 24,120 votes were cast according to deputy elections commissioner Laura Bianco. Some of the races in the county were decided by far fewer than 23 votes.

“If you’re a person with quadriplegia or a senior and don’t have the same ability to mark a ballot as you did when you were younger,” the ballot would be thrown out, Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, told Newsweek. “It’s really a problem for people with disabilities. We need to get it fixed.”

Dems worry: Were we too slow on sex assault response?

John Conyers resigned. Ruben Kihuen faces intense pressure to do the same. And Al Franken’s own colleagues expect him to step aside Thursday.

Democratic leaders think they have finally found the right response to accusations of sexual assault and harassment against their own lawmakers, after weeks of half-measures and ill-timed gaffes.

But now they must assess the political fallout, knowing that the party’s initially slow-footed response might have undermined its credibility amid a transformative national movement of women revealing their stories of sexual abuse.

It’s an important question as Democrats look to the 2018 midterm elections — especially coming just as President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee decided to once again help elect Roy Moore, a Senate candidate in Alabama who has been accused, by multiple people, on the record, of sexually assaulting children.

“When you’re faced with a situation like the Democratic Party faces right now, then you have to act swiftly and make it known to the public that this is not acceptable,” said Nina Turner, president of the liberal group Our Revolution.

Democrats can’t afford to be hypocrites, Turner said, not after “the tide has turned” on how the public treats allegations of sexual harassment.

Two Months After Nation’s Deadliest Mass Shooting, GOP House Passes ‘Dangerous’ Bill to Undermine Local Gun Control Laws

Gun control advocates denounced a House vote on Wednesday approving major legislation which would allow gun owners to carry licensed concealed weapons across state laws—effectively voiding gun control laws that prohibit hidden firearms in certain states.

The House passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 in a 231-198 vote. The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that the law is “clearly aimed at undermining gun control efforts nationally,” while the National Rifle Association (NRA) called the measure its “highest legislative priority” for the year.

Kristen Rand, Legislative Director of the Violence Policy Center, said after the bill passed, “Today’s winners are the NRA and the gun industry, the losers are public safety and law enforcement. If this bill become law, the body count of innocent victims killed by concealed carry permit holders will only rise.”

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) would make a gun owner’s concealed carry permit issued in states like Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, and others—including 19 states where permit-holders are not required to complete any safety training to qualify for concealed carry—valid in states that have passed more stringent gun control laws.

“In other words, Georgia and other states would have more say than New York in determining how many guns are safe to have on the streets of Manhattan,” wrote the New York Times editorial board on Wednesday.

Hundreds Arrested in Peaceful Protest as Thousands March Demanding ‘Clean’ Dream Act

As undocumented young people lose their temporary protected status and Republican lawmakers push for legislation that would ramp up deportations, an estimated 15,000 people marched on Capitol Hill Wednesday while hundreds—including two lawmakers—were arrested in a peaceful protest to demand that Congress pass a clean Dream Act.

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The protesters also called for the administration to stop its rollback of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is offered to citizens of certain countries impacted by war and violence or natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes. Last month, the Trump administration ended TPS protections for Haitians and Nicaraguans displaced by natural disasters, forcing thousands of legal residents to either leave the United States before their status expires or face deportation.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) addressed the crowd on Wednesday, with Gutiérrez vowing to not vote for the budget unless it includes a clean Dream Act.

Gutiérrez, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), and national leaders of United Farm Workers were reportedly among the hundreds who were arrested for peacefully demonstrating on the steps of the Capitol building.