Progressive Voices

If the Trump Administration and a group of 18 states convince the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), its Medicaid expansion — which covers more than 12 million low-income adults across the country — would end along with the rest of the law.

In the 16 years I’ve lived in this exact spot, I’ve been no stranger to disaster. It’s been two years since Hurricane Florence roared through and devastated my community, and I’m still walking around on barely repaired floors looking up at barely repaired ceilings. Every time I see news of a new storm — in Texas, or Puerto Rico, or Florida, or Louisiana...

[Editor’s note: The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on President Trump’s nomination of appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court this Thursday. Last week, in response to the public hearings the committee held at which it heard from Barrett and a number of outside experts, two veteran journalists – Ruth Conniff of the Wisconsin Examiner and Quentin Young of Colorado Newsline -- published powerful essays (reproduced below) in which they explored Barrett’s extreme views and why they should disqualify her from serving on the high court....

In a time of multiple and unprecedented challenges to individuals and societal well-being, our nation badly needs to pull back from the growing acrimony that plagues us and revisit our many shared values.   It won’t be easy to gradually return to patient talking – and listening – to each other. However, lessons from the ongoing global pandemic provide a critically important opportunity to spring forward to “a better normal” in dealing with the even larger crisis of climate change. 

Potential demise of health care law leaves millions – especially women – on the brink The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been one of the most significant advancements for women’s health and economic security in a generation. The law expanded coverage to millions of uninsured people through financial assistance and public insurance and also improved the quality of existing coverage, including by expanding access to reproductive and maternal health services and by prohibiting discrimination against women and people with preexisting conditions.

The U.S. militia movement has long been steeped in a peculiar – and unquestionably mistaken – interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and civil liberties. This is true of an armed militia group that calls itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently revealed plot to overthrow Michigan’s government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

As we begin the third contest over a Supreme Court appointment since 2016, it’s apparent to more Americans that unelected lifetime appointments to our highest court represent more than just partisan insider political battles. The decisions made at the U.S. Supreme Court can and do impact our everyday lives, and in a democracy we should have a say in these appointments.

Talk from Republican senators about "rules" and "precedent" is nothing but a smokescreen U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has used his leadership position to exercise raw political power in shaping the federal judiciary for many decades to come, and he’s been enormously successful. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought McConnell to the zenith of that power.

For many parents and caregivers, seeing their child struggle through virtual learning can be both frustrating and heartbreaking. However, for those with children who have disabilities, they may also be witnessing a violation of their child’s civil and educational rights.

There has never been a more urgent time for Congress to step up and pass a relief package that acknowledges the breadth and depth of the hardships that North Carolinians and millions across the country are facing. Last week, after months of stalled negotiations, the U.S. Senate put forth a COVID relief bill that cut in half what Senate leaders had agreed to spend as of early August. It was, in effect, an almost empty gesture toward the need for aid to address hunger, job losses, the risk of eviction, and more.

As unemployment has climbed and household budgets have been stretched thinner and thinner, more families and individuals have been forced to make impossible decisions about how to spend limited financial resources.

In HB 1105, General Assembly leadership acknowledges that North Carolina families and communities face enormous hardships, but makes only token gestures to help people survive the COVID-19 pandemic North Carolina can and should allocate the remaining federal COVID-19 relief funds to meet the pre-existing needs that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Early in the COVID-19 epidemic, urban centers like New York city led the nation in COVID-19 burden. Yet, even before shelter-in-place orders were expiring, many of the places with the most cases per capita were small cities and rural communities in the Midwest and South. By mid-May, counties with or near meat packing plants had almost twice the rate of known COVID-19 infections as the national average.

In its latest attempt to confuse the public about the science of COVID-19, the Trump administration has added Dr. Scott Atlas to the team advising the president. Although Atlas may be capable of neurological imaging, he’s not an expert in infectious diseases or public health —and it shows. He’s spreading scientific misinformation in a clear attempt to placate the president and push his narrative that COVID-19 is not an emergency.

Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court broke new ground for a state court in the South. Not only did the justices nullify a death sentence poisoned by racism, they also spoke directly to the death penalty’s “egregious legacy” of racially discriminatory application. “The same racially oppressive beliefs that fueled segregation manifested themselves through public lynchings," the court wrote, "the disproportionate application of the death penalty against African-American defendants, and the exclusion of African-Americans from juries.”