Going in, I was of mixed views regarding Sunday’s rally in Washington, D.C., to save the earth’s climate from the tar sands pipeline. I still am. Why on a Sunday when there’s no government around to protest, shut down, or interfere with?

Today we have any number of groups who represent any number of interests. They raise funds, recruit members, send out petitions, operate phone banks; but when it comes to putting progressive candidates in office, they can’t seem to organize themselves for a common purpose. Enter Van Jones’ Rebuild The Dream. Jones has some ideas on how to build a movement with enough power to make things happen.

Throughout the three-plus days of panels, training sessions, caucuses and keynotes, attendees quite likely heard no mention of nuclear power, its persistent threats to safety, its drastic drain on the budget, its onerous oppression of workers or its brazen gouging of rate-payers. For, while there were well over 100 panels, and dozens of other training sessions and caucuses, nothing on the schedule even made a passing attempt to address nuclear energy here in the United States or the ongoing (and growing) crisis of radioactive contamination from Fukushima spreading across the globe.

The ghost of the 2008 candidate Barack Obama haunted Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence, Rhode Island. He hovered over every panel — at least the 10 or so panels I attended — and pervaded the general assemblies and closing session in which Van Jones gave the final pitch for progressives not to give up.

Dayen’s news roundup from April 3, 2012, including links to stories on foreclosures, drones, Van Jones, Obama second term?, unions, DADT, Jared Berstein, economic recovery, UN, Syria, auto sales, Hillman Prize, Xavier University, Palestine, Newt, pink slime, and more.

I was at the White House once again yesterday protesting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline along with many of the folks I was arrested with on September 9 including Dan Choi, Jessica, Ari, Scarecrow and Bill McKibben. It was really gratifying to see that our relatively small crew of 65 who were handcuffed, [...]

Bill McKibben is one of the most effective and widely-respected writers on environmental issues today. Starting with The End of Nature in 1989, he’s written and published a long line of powerful works that make complex environmental issues accessible to a general audience.

The Campaign for America’s Future expected their conference to be a launching pad for an American Dream Movement that would be a counterpart to the Tea Party, a left populist movement that would branch out across the country. But it found itself overtaken by the #OccupyWallStreet movement.

Mr President, please don’t mock Donald Trump for his firing skills. Trump may be a circus midway sideshow manager whose trademark catchphrase now defines the Great American Recession’s zeitgeist.

But you, sir, are no standout in the “You’re Fired” department.

You wouldn’t know it from watching the news, but over the past several days thousands of dedicated activists gathered for a conference in Washington, protested throughout the city, took over several places of business in the process, and even secured a meeting with the President of the United States.