On Father's Day, help the kids ripped from their families at the border by Trump and Sessions

This past week was one of the most jam-packed, dizzying, and disconcerting seven-day stretches in a recent memory filled with surreal and draining bursts of humanity’s war on itself. Donald Trump gave Kim Jong-un the ultimate legitimizing photo opp (and saluted a North Korean general!) last Monday, but it feels like a lifetime ago, given all that’s happened since.



First off, last week was the biggest fundraising week in Progressives Everywhere’s (short) history. Thanks to so many of you, we raised nearly $15,000 for progressive candidates and causes. Most of that money went to three places: progressive Democrats in New York working to shatter the corrupt political machines run by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Rep. Joseph Crowley; candidates challenging the inhumane immigration policies enacted by right-wing bigots; and organizations trying to assist the families (and especially children) being tortured by those policies right this very moment. (Click on those links to contribute to those causes!)

There are so many urgent issues to tackle, including the coming voting purges in red states that were greenlit by an egregiously partisan and misguided Supreme Court decision last week. We’re raising money for Democratic candidates that will stop and roll back those purges — right now, the focus is on helping Kathleen Clyde win the Ohio Secretary of State race — and will get more into that in the weeks to come.

Right now, all of our urgency is trained on the human rights violations happening at the border. Last month, we looked at the controversial case of the missing unaccompanied minors, and the outraged that drew pales in comparison to what’s happening in south Texas right now. Due to Trump and Jeff Sessions’ heartless bigotry and taste for suffering, immigrant children are being incarcerated in a makeshift jail that embodies Trump’s special brand of autocratic, cult-of-personality capitalism. There are over 1500 boys being held in an old Walmart that has been converted into a prison, complete with creepy murals of Trump accompanied by nonsense slogans that would make Orwell sigh with defeat.

CLICK HERE to donate to our ActBlue page supporting nonprofits working to assist abused immigrant families.

The conditions are abhorrent. According to a former caseworker at the facility who resigned in disgust, children — most of whom speak no English — are confined to small spaces and disciplined for the slightest of infractions, including simply hugging one another. A Los Angeles Times interview with the caseworker is stuffed with nightmarish detail.

“During his time at the shelter, children were running away, screaming, throwing furniture and attempting suicide, Davidson said. Several were being monitored this week because they were at risk of running away, self-harm and suicide, records show.

“What was once a transient facility with a staff that was strained and struggling is now becoming a more permanent facility,” and more “prison-like,” Davidson said.

And without our help, it’s only going to get worse. The Trump administration wants to house children ripped from their families in tent cities, which is beyond cruel and veering into concentration camp territory. That’s not just an emotional response. Doctors say this will cause “irreparable harm” to children.



CLICK HERE to support Progressives Everywhere’s slate of candidates who want to help immigrants!

I want to say that this is not who we are as Americans, but the truth is that this is a country built by immigrants and slaves. A country where racism is still the deciding issue in so many elections and state governments, where an insidious sense of tribalism is exploited to incite cultural civil war and further entrench economic inequality. We have done better, but we are sliding backwards again.

Look at what Rep. Steve King, the most bigoted and awful man in Congress, said about family separation. Look at how the Trump administration is flatly lying about why this hateful policy is in place. Watch how Republicans in Congress and state government in Texas do nothing to fix it.

So it’s on us. Progressives Everywhere is working to support Democratic candidates for Congress and the Texas legislature who will stand up to this torture and pass laws that ban it. We are targeting several congressional races, taking on entrenched Republicans who are in positions of power and support this horrible policy but could be in danger this fall. And we’re also looking at several state Senate races in Texas, where Democrats are just two seats away from breaking the GOP’s hold on the legislative agenda. We’re also supporting a Democrat running against Texas state Rep. Justin Holland, because he’s basically Donald Trump Jr. without the rich dad.



There is so much happening in this country, it can be hard to keep track of the outrages. But this should transcend partisanship. We are turning into a police state and returning to the worst moments of our history. We are on the precipice of further calamity. Let's do our best to steer the country away from this evil.



CLICK HERE to support Progressives Everywhere’s slate of candidates who want to help immigrants!

Inspirational campaigns from grassroots progressives to give millions healthcare





Donald Trump’s tweets make clear that he is a terrible egomaniac and likely a criminal. But his administration’s legal maneuvers are what really mark his presidency as an assault on the well-being of average Americans. On Thursday evening, the White House announced that it joined a GOP lawsuit that seeks to fully dismantle the Affordable Care Act. While the Trump administration is only seeking to have some of the Affordable Care Act thrown out, it is targeting the most popular provision: barring insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing medical conditions.

This is a particular danger to low-income Americans, who historically have been in worse health — the link between economic and medical hardship is very direct. That the House of Representatives this week also voted to cut $7 billion from the massively successful and universally popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers 9 million kids nationwide, makes it more clear than ever that we are in an all-out class war.



Healthcare is shaping up to be the number one issue in November’s election, with the power to shape electorates. This week, we want to look at the great campaigns that are going on the offensive, working to expand Medicaid in states that have refused to do so thus far.

As of today, 32 states have used Obamacare's generous offer to expand Medicaid to its citizens, the most recent being Virginia and Maine. The expansion in Maine was triggered by a very successful ballot initiative, and this year, there are several more states with campaigns working hard to get a Medicaid expansion on the ballot.

These are not typically Democratic states, but they have strong grassroots community leaders who are reaching across partisan lines to promote a public good. And so far, it’s looking good.



Click HERE to support Medicaid expansion ballot initiatives in Nebraska and Idaho!

In Nebraska, Gov. Pete Ricketts has not only actively worked against Medicaid expansion, he’s also tried to gut funding to the existing program with vetoes. With little hope of a legislative expansion, the nonprofit Nebraska Appleseed kicked off the Insure the Good Life campaign, which is trying to get the issue on this November’s ballot.

“A majority of Nebraskans support Medicaid expansion,” Meg Mandy, the program director for Insure the Good Life, told Progressives Everywhere. “That is why we decided to bring this directly to voters, and why we feel we are in a strong position to qualify the measure and win in November.”

Mandy says they began collecting signatures in April, and as of early last week, they were halfway to the number needed to qualify for the ballot. The signatures are due on July 5th, and Mandy says they’re on target to beat the deadline. Nebraska ranks 27th in the US in access to healthcare, so victory in November would provide a major boost.

“Expanding Medicaid will give 90,000 hardworking Nebraskans access to critical, life-saving care,” Mandy said. “We know that regular visits to the doctor and preventive care leads to better health outcomes. It's especially beneficial for earlier diagnosis and treatment of conditions like diabetes, cancer, and mental health issues.”

Click HERE to support Medicaid expansion ballot initiatives in Nebraska and Idaho!

In Idaho, the effort is truly a bottom-up, grassroots effort. The progressive group Reclaim Idaho decided last summer to barnstorm the state in a 1977 RV, turning their campaign to expand Medicaid into a grassroots event. Volunteers collected signatures on both the ballot petition and the RV itself, earning tons of statewide attention and ultimately doing what was said to be almost impossible: securing over 60,000 signatures from voters 18 of the 35 districts in Idaho, qualifying for the ballot this November.



The achievement itself is a major one: Idaho Republicans had made the already difficult requirements for getting an initiative on the ballot even more onerous after a 2013 citizen vote on a simple education matter didn’t go their way. This marks the first initiative to even get on the ballot since those changes. Idaho faces 27% premium increases this year, making this a very attractive option to both Democrats and Republicans.

Click HERE to support Medicaid expansion ballot initiatives in Nebraska and Idaho!



The third Medicaid expansion ballot initiative is in Utah, where things are a bit different.

After years of being shut down by a far-right state legislature, a partial expansion of Medicaid was approved earlier this year. But it’s unclear whether the federal government, even under Trump, will accept its controversial provision that limits coverage to people who make poverty wages — just $12,140 a year — and below. The Affordable Care Act provides help for people making up to 138% percent, which is not great, but far better than Utah’s bill.

Unwilling to accept a half measure, a coalition of activists collected signatures to get a full Medicaid expansion on the ballot this November. Utah Decides rounded up support from 140,000 people and last month qualified for the ballot, bringing the state one step closer to providing medical care to 150,000 new people — double the amount the legislature’s bill would cover.



Click HERE to support the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative in Utah!



Huge primary wins for Progressive Everywhere candidates



Tuesday was one of the busiest days of primary season, as voters in eight states cast their ballots to decide who will represent their parties in November. By and large it was a great night for Democrats, who saw a surge in voter turnout from an energized base. Significantly, a number of the very progressive grassroots candidates backed by Progressives Everywhere — several of them decided underdogs — came out on top in their races. The evening's results were yet another sign that people aren't just turning out to reject Republicans, but also to declare loud and clear that the time for spineless corporate Democrats (if there ever was one) has long since passed.



Progressives Everywhere candidates won five races and lost just one on Tuesday night. Here's a look at how things went down and which candidates have the momentum.



Tuesday's winners:



Abby Finkenauer (IA-01): The wunderkind 29-year-old state legislator running for Congress in Iowa's 1st district won a decisive victory, with 67% of the vote. She faces GOP Rep. Rod Blum in what is considered by some to be one of the districts most likely to flip in November. She is on our main slate of candidates.



Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11): A former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor, Sherrill won the Democratic nod for the now-open seat in Northern New Jersey. The primary drew record turnout, with more Democrats going to the polls than Republicans. Sherrill is on our main slate of candidates.



JD Scholten (IA-04): The former pro baseball player won a three-way race to take on neanderthal GOP Rep. Steve King, Congress's annual winner of the bigot triple crown for his odious racism, sexism, and homophobia. Scholten is an exciting young candidate who has a spot on our slate for immigration-focused races.



Cindy Axne (IA-03): Another Iowa candidate, Axne also won a three-way race. A former state government official and small business owner, she takes on David Young, a former chief of staff to confused Twitterer/Senator Charles Grassley and now one of the NRA's top lapdogs. Axne is on our slate of candidates taking on remorseless gun nuts.



Kathleen Williams (MT-AL): An underdog winner in the Democratic primary for Montana's lone Congressional district, Williams raised less money than her rivals but was bolder in her stances. She was defiant against the NRA in hunting-happy Montana and called for an assault weapons ban, a gutsy move that helped earn her the nomination. She will take on GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte, the guy who infamously assaulted a reporter during his special election campaign last year. Williams is also on our slate of candidates taking on remorseless gun nuts.



The one Progressives Everywhere candidate to fall short on Tuesday was Genevieve Jones-Wright, who was running an underdog campaign for District Attorney of San Diego.



Here are the other Progressives Everywhere candidates who have already received the Democratic nomination in their races:



Stacey Abrams (GA-Gov)

Lauren Underwood (IL-14)

Beto O’Rourke (TX-Sen)

Clarke Tucker (AR-1)

Zach Dickerson (OH-HD-42)

Jess King (PA-11)

Marc Friedenberg (PA-12)

Rachel Crooks (OH-HD-88)

DD Adams (NC-5)

Fighting for better, more progressive Democrats





As much as New York is a reliable blue state during presidential and senatorial elections, it is far from being a progressive utopia. We’ve already focused on the problems created by Gov. Cuomo’s embrace of the breakaway IDC in the State Senate, but the problem also extends to many of the state’s national representatives. This week, we’re talking with one candidate who is looking to change the toxic status quo.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign for Congress had earned a little bit of coverage, but her press team couldn’t find any news outlet willing to premiere her new campaign ad. “They were like, ‘no, no, no,’ so I was like, alright, I’m just going to put it on Twitter,” the 28-year-old political organizer tells Progressives Everywhere. “Thankfully it turned out really well.”

That’s a bit of an understatement, as the ad went mega-viral on Twitter, helped out by admiring words from progressive MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes. The entire sequence of events was a pretty tidy summary for Ocasio-Cortez’s career and campaign, a grassroots effort that challenges entrenched powers that no one has dared face down over the last decade and a half.

A Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent, Ocasio-Cortez is running to represent New York’s 14th congressional district, and in doing so, challenging one of the most powerful Democrats in the city and country, Rep. Joe Crowley. She is unbowed by the inherent odds stacked against her; she was an organizer for Bernie Sanders, who was unafraid to take on entrenched Democratic interests. Crowley spent years helping to control who got on the ballot in New York, but once Ocasio-Cortez qualified, it was game on.

Ocasio-Cortez argues that the relatively conservative Democrat, who has designs on Speaker of the House should Democrats retake Congress, has focused on fundraising and his national donors to the exclusion of progressive policy. On the other hand, she is more focused on the needs of the community, as she made clear during her conversation with Progressives Everywhere. The New York Democratic Primary is on June 26th.

What inspired you to take on such a big challenge?

I was at Standing Rock two years ago, I was seeing what was happening on the ground. I was looking at corporations that were literally militarizing themselves against American citizens. And these companies, they give money to Democrats too. And the day that I left Standing Rock, I got a call from Brand New Congress, which is an organization trying to field non-career politicians in the 2018 midterm to get money out of politics, and they asked if I’d be willing to run. I was like, whoa. So I took a look at what was happening in our community.

We have a lot of these Democrats who are just laying as low as possible and hiding under the “D” next to their name, but they really aren’t doing the right thing. That’s our case here with Joe Crowley. He runs a profoundly corrupt local political machine, silences candidates of color, that silences women, that silences working class grassroots candidates in order to rezone New York City for luxury real estate interests. He hadn’t been challenged in 14 years.

The demographics of the area have changed dramatically. The community here was not being serviced for its needs. We have Rikers Island in the district, and we haven’t had a champion on criminal justice reform.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Should you get the nomination, what issue is Rep. Crowley ignoring that you will focus on?

One of the things that he does is takes money from luxury real estate developers and basically translates it into increasing the cost of living in New York City to provide a profit margin for his donors. He does this on a local level and on a national level. One of the only pieces of legislation that he’s even past in the past couple of years involves foreign investment and regulation. The FIRPTA is essentially designed to pad the pockets of luxury developers.

[Note: Crowley’s bill allowed foreign investment in US real estate to jump from 5 to 10 percent without facing a special tax. Crowley received a huge spike in donations from the real estate industry right before introducing this legislation.]

Slowly but surely our affordable housing policies have been tweaked and redesigned in very unsexy and boring wings. But they ultimately result in deregulations for the wealthiest. The United States invests $200 billion dollars in housing every year, but you would never know it because a lot of that money goes to the wealthiest people through things like tax cuts, designed for people who can take advantage of them.

Things like expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Things like permanently funding the Low Income Housing Trust in the United States. We have federal programs in place. NYHCA used to be the crown jewel of affordable housing in the United States. And you look at what happened this past winter, where people living in NYHCA didn’t have hot water. Some of them didn’t even have heat. That’s not because NYHSA doesn’t work, that’s because the federal government has slowly been defunding HUD.

We’ve basically been rolling back and shutting down all of our most progressive housing policy in the US. And it’s terrible because we know that these things work. We know that affordable housing works, we know that low-income housing works and we also know that we don’t have to live in a world of four-year wait lists for people to afford the cities that they live in.

This is very much on money in politics problem. The industries in particular that have completely captured our government and especially the Democratic Party are Wall Street, real estate, big pharma, healthcare. People talk about what quote-unquote Republican industries are and we think of the NRA, we think of fossil fuel corporations, things like that. But the real companies that are eroding our democracy are private equity and real estate. They by far contribute the largest amount of money to compromise both parties, but especially Democrats and Joe Crowley.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Crowley is the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party and has a very formidable machine behind him — The Intercept article about your race laid that out. How do you beat that?

Joe Crowley has not been challenged in 14 years. So when we first started, everybody said there’s no way. He is way too powerful. But as the chairman of the Democratic Party, he has failed. Because as the chairman, he has not been expanding the electorate. He hasn’t been a good steward for the Democratic Party in Queens County. He’s brought in a lot of money, but when you go to an average Democratic Club in Queens, the average age nowadays is about 90. That’s not to be ageist, but there is no diversity in age. So even though he is chairman of the party and he is able to command a lot of automatic endorsements out of fear, that’s just money.

We’ve been doing a really, really good job as organizers. That’s what I am at heart. I’m an organizer. I’m not a big money kind of girl. I was born very working class. My mom cleaned houses and drove school buses. I knew that if I was going to compete in this race, I couldn’t do it on big money. What I could do is out-organize him and so that’s been our main strategy. We have been inspiring and expanding the electorate. This is one of the lowest turnout districts in the United States.

And honestly, if you’re chairman of the Democratic Party and you have presided over the total lowest voter turnout in America, maybe you do deserve to lose your job. Because your one job is to strengthen the Democratic Party and it’s completely languished under your 20-year tenure.

New York has a lot of problems with Democrats who don’t act like Democrats, but instead protect vested interests.

Crowley just endorsed an IDC member while claiming to be a real Democrat himself. We know that for him the only thing that matters is money. And it’s not to dismiss the need for a basic amount of funds to run a campaign. But really when you look at his tenure, when you look at his record, he endorsed the anti women’s rights candidate and put him over the top of Marie Newman in Illinois.

In the places where he actually has the juice, he doesn’t use it for the advancement of social, economic or racial justice. Everything else is just a press release. So with the IDC you have folks that are still taking all of this corporate money and have historically sanitized some of the most progressive legislation in America. Now they’re pretending to have dissolved the IDC, but they still have those corporate interests at heart. He’s kind of like a federal IDC member, he’s not as progressive as he says.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Protect kids in Texas — and everywhere else

It happened. Again. This time in Texas, where eight students and two teachers were murdered by a lone gunman at Santa Fe High School. Thirteen others were injured by the shooter, a disturbed 17-year-old student who had a shotgun and a pistol. The massacre marked the 22nd school shooting of 2018, a spree of pointless and tragic murder that has become a sick routine.



A country has no greater responsibility than protecting and nurturing its children. In America, students are now going to school expecting the worst. In an interview seen around the world, a 17-year-old Santa Fe student named Paige Curry bluntly told a TV reporter that, because “it’s happening everywhere,” she just “kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

Who can blame her? Especially in Texas. It’s an open carry state, which means people can openly possess guns just about anywhere. And instead of rethinking that barbaric law and working hard to protect children, Texas lawmakers are… blaming doors?

Yes, in a quote heard round the country, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that high schools have too many entrances, which he thinks allow shooters to bypass security guards at schools (as if armed security guards at schools isn’t dystopian enough). He wants to redesign 8000 campuses in Texas, making them slaughterhouses and horrible fire hazards, instead of taking action on guns.



If you check out his website, you’ll understand that this wasn’t just a bone-headed comment; he’s absolutely obsessed with the proliferation of personal weapons of mass destruction. He touts his “A” rating from the NRA and offers a long list of insane gun bills that he either authored or sponsored, including laws that eliminated the educational requirements to renew gun licenses. He also continually fought to allow the concealed carriage of guns on college campuses.

Patrick is insane — and up for re-election this year. His Democratic opponent is a moderate businessman named Mike Collier, who comes recommended by the Dallas Morning News and other outlets. We don’t normally actively financially support former Republicans, but he switched parties back in 2011, when the GOP was hijacked by the Tea Party and went to the far right, so give him credit for that. Plus, he supports public education, asking the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes (no small thing in Texas), labor unions (again, no small thing in Texas), and a living wage.

Most significantly for us at the moment, in a tweetstorm on Friday, Collier called for emergency action to prevent more mass shootings, including new sensible gun laws. In Texas, that’s enough to earn our endorsement, especially given his opponent.



Click HERE to donate to the Texas candidates and the rest of our slate of candidates via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page

Beto O’Rourke, the dynamic El Paso congressman running for Senate, was even more active on Twitter in the wake of the shooting. Unlike his cowardly opponent, Senator Ted Cruz, O’Rourke openly called for major reform, including stopping the sale of new assault-style weapons and the banning of high capacity magazines. This is incredibly bold coming from a candidate trying to get elected statewide in Texas, which makes us even more excited about his insurgent candidacy — and glad that we’ve been helping raise money for his campaign for months.

Dig deep enough — or even just take a cursory glance — and you’ll find a plethora of insane lawmakers in Texas. They’ve become comfortable and complacent, unbothered in many places by more than cursory Democratic opposition, and so the Texas GOP has been able to slide to the extreme right on issues like guns. One of the most unhinged, dangerous Republicans in the state legislature is Jonathan Stickland, who represents district 92 in suburban Fort Worth.

This guy is so far right, he thinks Lt. Gov. Patrick is too moderate. He’s pushed for state constitutional amendments that would make carrying firearms an absolute right, which would, in turn, eliminate the state’s (already laughable) gun license requirements. He’s also a terrible person who has voted against employment discrimination laws and advocated for anti-trans bathroom bills, so rest assured we’re not targeting an otherwise productive and responsible government official.

Stickland’s opponent is a businessman and education advocate named Steve Riddell. Yes, another white guy, but one who wants to invest in alternative energy, create a more humane immigration system, and yes, focus on gun control measures. He’d be a far better (and more sane) member of the legislature, so he has our support.

You’ll notice we haven’t touched on Governor Greg Abbott, who is also up for re-election this year. He’s a bad person who has terrible beliefs on gun laws. He just doesn’t have a definite Democratic opponent yet, as the two candidates — Lupe Valdez and Andrew White — will square off in a runoff election on Tuesday. We like Valdez’s positions on many issues, but figure with just two days before the election, it’s better to add the winner and not ask you to invest money in a candidate that may not be able to use it. Check ProgressivesEverywhere.org on Wednesday to see who won!



Click HERE to donate to the Texas candidates and the rest of our slate of candidates via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page

Let's turn New York blue. Like, actually blue.

Alessandra Biaggi is taking on IDC leader Jeff Klein.

is taking on IDC leader Jeff Klein. Jessica Ramos is taking on Jose Peralta

is taking on Jose Peralta Cynthia Nixon is taking on Andrew Cuomohttp://rachelmay.org/

is taking on Andrew Cuomohttp://rachelmay.org/ Zellnor Myrie is taking on Jesse Hamilton

is taking on Jesse Hamilton John Mannion is running for the seat held by retiring John DeFrancisco

is running for the seat held by retiring John DeFrancisco Robert Jackson is challenging Marisol Alcantara

is challenging Marisol Alcantara Rachel May is taking on David Valesky

Support Oklahoma's Teachers on Strike and Running for Office!

When Cyndi Ralston retired after more than three decades as a public school teacher, she could have never imagined that just a few years later, she would be at the center of national headlines and the public figurehead of a major political rebellion. And yet there she was, driving across the state of Oklahoma this past Tuesday, giving interviews and plotting out her nascent campaign for state legislature, fitting in strategy and press in the few hours she wasn’t marching on the state Capitol with her many fellow striking teachers.

After returning to the classroom to help combat Oklahoma’s desperate teacher shortage in 2017, Ralston decided that she also had to help fix the cause of the state’s awful education woes. So on Friday, she filed to run to represent Oklahoma’s 12th house district, officially commencing a race that has already earned national press coverage as a symbol of the political struggle in roiling red states. It is a microcosm of 2018: Ralston is running against a Republican state representative named Kevin McDugle, who drew outrage with a vicious anti-teacher Facebook rant. Ralston had been planning to run for months and was carefully preparing her campaign when that rant went viral, springing her into action ahead of schedule.

“He just was going off on how the students were watching us and we were being a bad example and yada yada yada,” Ralston recalls, still annoyed by McDugle’s diatribe. “And I was like, you're right sir, they are watching us and we're teaching them what freedom looks like, that we can petition our government, that we have the right to be here and peacefully protest.”



Ralston is one of many Oklahoman teachers who has decided to step up and run for office as a Democrat, as the teacher’s strike becomes even more political. They’re campaigning explicitly against the trickle-down economics of that have bankrupted the state government, and fighting to increase the paltry education budget that the legislature just passed. Ralston, who has become a figurehead for the movement, spoke to Progressives Everywhere twice this week, with a follow-up conversation focused on the teacher union’s internal disagreement over a recent call to end the strike.



Click HERE to donate to Oklahoma Teachers via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page for Oklahoma Teachers!



You returned to the classroom because Oklahoma passed a law allowing retired teachers to come back and keep their retirement. But the teacher shortage has had other consequences, right?

Maybe halfway through my career they started allowing “alternatively certified” teachers. The difference in that is that alternatively certified teacher has to have a degree and they have to complete courses like child development and classroom management. Now they have “emergency certified teachers,” and they don't have to have any training whatsoever. They have to have a degree, but no training and education. So they're throwing his people, bless them, into the classroom with no child development, no training on classroom management, no training on how to effectively teach.



I commend the people for trying to step into gaps that have been created because of the lack of funding for schools for the past 10 years. But, that's not fair to them or the kids. We have several classrooms in Oklahoma that are still not filled with anyone at all and they've been served by substitutes all year long, just different people in and out, always a different person in the room. So nobody's making plans. There's no continuity for the kids.

How did this happen?

In 2004, they cut income tax. They lowered the top income tax level down to where a lot of Oklahomans are paying the same tax rate of 5%. It's kind of absurd that Russell Westbrook, as much as we love him, is paying the same tax rate as I am.

They also lowered the gross production tax on oil companies from 7% to 2% percent [on the first three years of a new well]. And they never raised it back with when the 2008 recession hit. They said, if we give the businesses a break and we give corporations a break, that's going to trickle down and more jobs and blah blah blah. Well, it didn't work. It ended up costing major amounts of revenue. And then now that the economy's turned back around, they haven't changed anything.



They passed an education funding bill and raised teacher salaries right before the deadline, but it fell short, which led to the strike, right?

So they passed the bill that raises teacher salaries. But what we had asked for was $200 million to be put in general education. That just brings us back up to the 2008 level of funding. They play games, play games, and then they did pass it — but they gave us $50 million for the general fund.

The raise was nice and we thank them for it after 10 years without a raise. But we cared about the funding and we asked for $200 million because we have not had new textbooks in 10 years. They had allowed them to open the textbook fund, which has never happened before, and opened it up to allow them to use it for general funds to pay for teachers. We have ripped apart, duct-taped books. And we only have 25 reading books per grade level at my school.

The teachers have done an amazing job being creative. We have the kids have rotate from teacher to teacher. One teacher teaches all reading because we only have 25 books. One teacher teaches language and spelling. One teacher teaches math. That starts at first grade and developmentally, children should not be going to three different classrooms during the day. High school kids struggle with that. We're having six and seven-year-olds do it.

Over 70% of Oklahomans approve of the strike, which is incredible.

People are figuring it out from listening to us. They’re also watching the process which they haven't done before and they're tired of it. They want the money in education. That's it. They understand that that's one of the most important things for future and their own children and grandchildren.

It's been amazing to see the kids up there and learning and watching and being in the gallery and going and talking to legislators and realizing these are people. They're not any different than you, they're elected to represent you and you can go and speak to them about what you feel and what you would like them to do. It's been amazing. And yet, McDugle didn't think that we're doing such a great job leading and teaching our students.

The head of the Oklahoma Education Association has called for an end to the strike. Where do you stand on that?

Teachers were very frustrated when OEA had a media event on Thursday evening saying that the walkout was over. They felt like the OEA wasn’t speaking for the collective group. A lot of teachers want to drop their memberships but I’ve asked them not to do that and to actually join the OEA, but call for the resignation of the president of the association. If we lose membership, we will lose our bargaining power. That is extremely important to keep in a Right to Work state. We are continuing our pressure on the Republican legislators that have not allowed the bill that repeals the capital gains tax exemption and another amendment to a bill that just got written Friday by Republican leadership that allows the legislature to pull from already appropriated funds (like teacher retirement) if the revenue brought in that year won’t fully fund their budget for the year.

There have been several years recently that due to tax cuts and restructuring of our tax codes, on top of not having oil and gas companies pay their fair share, that this very thing has happened. This will only compound the problems we are having in our state, not solve them. We are still holding them accountable by sending delegations of teachers from every school district that we can to the Capitol with parents and community leaders every day until the end of the session. We are watching the live feeds of committees and checking votes every day then calling them about their votes immediately.

Ralston's son Josh Martin is also running for office, in OK's 80th House District. With so many great candidates rising to the occasion, Progressives Everywhere has set up a fund specifically for teachers running for office in Oklahoma.



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Take on the religious right hypocrites!



Over the last 50 years, the Religious Right has hijacked Christianity in America, turning the pulpit intended to preach love and charity into a platform for hate speech and punishing capitalist propaganda. Huckster preachers like Jerry Falwell and organizations like Focus on the Family have weaponized faith and its intimate place in people’s psyche to create generations of soldiers in a war on women, LGBTQ Americans, racial minorities, and anyone who cannot afford massive donations to their ministries.

Thanks to Donald Trump, they have more power than ever before — but as we are seeing, our energy and determination is already starting to change that. Just look at how we beat Roy Moore, the pedophile Bible-thumper who everyone thought would be the next senator from Alabama!

We’re taking aim at some of the most intolerant “Christian” lawmakers, who are really false prophets. They may be tweeting Bible verses on Easter, but they’re preaching hate and afflicting the powerless, so it’s time they’re taught a lesson.



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Ryan Watts vs Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC)





Rep. Mark Walker, of North Carolina’s 6th congressional district, is the head of the influential Republican Study Committee. What do they study? How to make life hell for anyone that’s not a god-fearing straight white man born into wealth.

He’s a former Baptist minister who went to Congress to do things like call his female colleagues “eye candy,” support any and all anti-LGBTQ laws, fight against Obamacare, pick fights with Bruce Springsteen, joke about starting wars with Mexico, and even try to take support away from baby ducklings.

Running against him is Ryan Watts, a young Democrat who would provide a breath of fresh air and new energy to stodgy old Washington. He’s already a senior management consultant and runs leadership seminars for groups like Boys & Girls Club, and is focused on economic development, not discriminating against anyone who doesn’t belong to a country club.

His issues page talks about protecting women in the workplace, equal pay for equal work, and guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose, all of which stand in stark contrast to Walker, to say the least. He’s also for a Medicare public option and gun control, making him a mainstream progressive.



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Renee Hoagenson vs Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, of Missouri’s 4th district, was called “the most anti-gay candidate in the country” when she first ran for office, and during her tenure in Washington she has lived up to that billing. And it’s not just the LGBTQ community that she has worked to punish. Not by far.



Hartzler boasts a perfect score from the National Association of Awful Monsters, for taking up every vile far-right position possible over the last decade. She’s a birther, anti-gay marriage, voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, voted in favor of cutting food stamps, supports Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” pushed hard to have transgender soldiers banned from the military (she actually equated them to Putin, North Korea and ISIS) and voted against hate crime legislation. She is literally the worst.

Running against her is Renee Hoagenson, a single mother and businesswoman who is pushed toward a progressive platform by her Catholicism. OK, so her website isn’t much to look at, but her positions are firmly in our wheelhouse. She believes in Medicare for All, forcing pharmaceutical companies to pay their fair share in combating the opioid crisis they helped start, and ending partisan redistricting. And this passage, from her website’s section about family values, really speaks to the difference in both the candidates in this race, and the larger cultural conflict still raging in America.

“To reverse the decline of family values we must first create more good-paying jobs and increase wages for the thousands of Missourians whose wage increases have been outpaced by inflation,” she writes. “When our parents can afford to spend more time with their children they will have the time to help rebuild the moral foundation of our country.”



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Lauren Underwood vs. Randy Hultgren (R-IL)





All you need to know about Randy Hultgren, the congressman from Illinois’ 14th district, is that he said in 2010 that he believes in Intelligent Design. That should enough to disqualify him for national office. It’s insane, but what’s crazier is that he has also been recognized for his work promoting science and STEM education. So what are we to make of this guy?



Well, whatever his stance on the evolution might be, he’s clearly a regressive vote on just about every other issue. He’s an Evangelical Christian who believes God guided him through his initial race for Congress, and presumably, thinks the big man upstairs told him to oppose green energy policies, work against a woman’s right to choose and stem cell research, vote against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and fight to dismantle Obamacare. He chairs the National Prayer Breakfast, but after finishing his omelet, goes to work to make life miserable for just about everyone.



His opponent is Lauren Underwood, a nurse and Obama administration alum who we have already profiled here at Progressives Everywhere. The 31-year-old teaches nurses in a Georgetown online course and works full-time for a Medicaid plan in Chicago, helping low-income families get the medical treatment they need. Plus, she was born with a heart condition, so any attempt to undo Obamacare is not just political to her — it’s personal.