On April 4th, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City, Martin Luther King delivered one of his most famous speeches. It was called “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” The speech confronted the deeply rooted racism, militarism and materialism of the United States and describes our country as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

Trump’s executive orders at the end of January had an immediate and traumatic impact on the immigration community. Under the guise of protecting America from “acts of terror or criminal conduct” by undocumented immigrants, the ramped up ICE raids and deportations have targeted DREAMers, as well as those protected under DACA - a law Trump wants to get rid of, of course. According to the organization Free Press, in just the first week of February, immigration officers arrested 680 people.

Just a few days ago, North Dakota’s governor forced the Water Protectors to leave their camp at Standing Rock. Forty-six Protectors remained peacefully and were arrested - peacefully - while more than 200 police officers showed up. Then, the camp was demolished. 

The sad news is that if Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison is elected as DNC Chair he has pledged to leave the US House of Representatives. The good news is, if he wins, he will be dedicating all of his time to launching a county-focused, grassroots effort to re-build the Democratic Party from the bottom up.

As Trump continues his assault on the press, some have suggested that there might be a silver lining: maybe the mainstream corporate media will work harder, do real reporting and as a result become a better resource for citizens. Maybe...

As we heard Professor Richard Wolff explain in Edition #1079 ("If you're not at the table, you're on the menu"), President Obama’s Fiduciary Rule - which aims to protect people with investments from self-serving financial advisors - is under threat.

The reality is that we are playing defense now and that means that as activists we must adapt in the moment, much faster than we can alert you to what's going on. It's not the way we would want it but there's no choice but to practice fast-paced "react-ivism" as the Trump administration drops unconstitutional bombshells and blatant lies multiple times a day, every day.

Edition #1074, "The corruption of Donald Trump," focuses on executive and federal level corruption -  and the lawyers are already hard at work filing lawsuits as we speak. But as you’ve probably been hearing: more than ever, our activism efforts need to shift to the state level in order to make progress. 

It’s time for a refresher. 

In Best of the left Edition #1072, we talked about a new vision for our economic future and we even heard some policy proposals to help make this vision a reality - but we still need more than that. We need people like you to get organized and make it happen.

Jeff Sessions has been around for a long time. In the 1980s, Reagan tapped Sessions for a judgeship, but the Republican Congress at the time rejected him due to his long history of racist comments and questions surrounding his unfounded prosecution of a black civil rights activist for voter fraud. Yea, he was too racist for 1980s Republicans.