Voting Yes on Proposition 19 should be a no-brainer. Laws banning drugs, especially those that are mostly innocuous, are discriminatory. Legalizing marijuana will help save lives, and put a serious dent in the power of the drug cartels and criminal gangs preying on the defenseless.

Just a bunch of concerned citizens — like always — as long as they come from the Right, no matter what they say.

Next Friday Saturday, on 10.2.10, a large and diverse coalition of over 200 faith, labor, youth, student and civil rights organizations will mass in Washington and cities all over the country for One Nation Working Together. Organizers expect participants in the six figures to “demand the change we voted for” and build a social movement around Jobs, Justice and Education for All. This event contrasts with the spate of Tea Party rallies and events that we’ve seen over the past year.

It’s unclear what the charges of the lawsuit will be that Shirley Sherrod will bring against Andrew Breitbart — perhaps defamation or libel — but the discovery phase, at least, should be interesting.

When our sideshow news cablists, the White House, the NAACP and others began their carnival barking outside Andrew Breitbart’s tent once again – this time echoing Brietbart’s slander of Shirley Sherrod – the predictable puerility followed. The White House apologized and blamed the media culture, Fox News denied its role, pundits claimed the high ground [...]

We have bigger challenges than at any time since the 1930s, and we’re spending time interpreting two-decade parables from an NAACP banquet. The biggest times of media bread and circus over the past couple decades have been now, and during the Clinton Administration. Whatever do those two eras share in common?

All hail the stupid.

While one Colorado clergyman is fighting his arrest for possession of pot (claiming his status as clergy in the Ministry of THC allows for sacramental reefer use), a pastor in California is up in arms over the NAACP’s support of the November ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use.

A big issue in the Arkansas Senate primary is Blanche Lincoln’s relationship to the African-American community. She has been going around the state touting her “A” rating from the NAACP. But someone has a problem with that – the President of the Arkansas NAACP.

      After he was elected AFL-CIO president in September, Richard Trumka traveled around the country on a listening tour. Here’s one story he heard, which he described this week as the AFL-CIO, along with several key allies, launched a jobs initiative to help get our nation back to work. Last summer at an [...]

It’s still close enough to Labor Day to offer a Labor Day-ish post. I’m offline this week but wish all of you a belated happy Labor Day!

When we think of 20th century U.S. women’s movements, the events that come to mind are the feminist battles of the 1960s and before that, the suffragettes of the early 20th century.

But in between those two eras, working women were not silent.