Search query: michigan

For the last several years, I’ve been spending time in rural Wisconsin in a small farmhouse set on 130 heavily-wooded acres on County Road T, Polk County. This is the northwestern Wisconsin of hardscrabble dairy farming, bitter winters and luminous springs. I’ve come here because my companion — a Minnesota-born outdoorsman of Swedish extraction who lived much of his adult life in Alaska and wears a thin fleece jacket in the cold while I layer up in Canadian Goose — inherited this property from

Seven score and sixteen years ago, President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in all of human history in his Gettysburg Address, though he wrongly presumed the world would not “long remember what we say here.” His triumph was to clarify just what was at stake in such a devastating internal war that killed around 750,000 Americans. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and

With politics in a permanent state of chaos, we might have to look outside the political sphere to be grounded politically. At least I do. Sports is a good place to turn -- real sports, not the blood sport of partisanship and governance. Like a lot of people, I spent my Sunday night glued to the television. Not to watch 60 Minutes and its pompous narrative of “what Americans should be concerned about.” Heaven forbid. But to watch the women’s basketball teams of Notre Dame and Baylor battle it o

A Roadmap to A Better Democracy By: Wes Messamore Reform activists from around the country gathered in the Country Music Capital of the World –– Nashville, Tennessee –– over the last weekend in March to celebrate an absolute tidal wave of policy victories in 2018; listen to inspirational speeches; share and learn the nuts and bolts of policy reform; and even to air fierce differences of opinion over the best way to reform elections in America and over other areas of public policy. How they buz

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. And once we put it all together, it’ll be news you can use — an easy way to join the Second American Revolution, now in progress. First, the bad news: You are being violated by your own government. Hustled and conned. We all are. Our voices and our votes. Our tax dollars, too. On a piece of parchment that birthed this country, our founders emphasized that lawmakers would derive “their just Powers from the consent of the governed.” That’s us. But those

San Diego, Calif.- After more than 25 years of political and communications strategy, Jason Cabel Roe has confirmed to IVN that he is all but leaving politics. Roe says he "does not plan to be active in 2020 except for Gaspar," a reference to San Diego County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar, who will be on the 2020 November ballot. The nationally recognized strategist has won numerous awards for his work on campaigns and advising candidates for President, Congress, Governor, and state and local offi

“The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the (European) past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening the concept to include black men.”-  James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son" From the founding onward, race has been the American fulcrum, the nexus by which the country is united or divided, with the African American community pivotal in the long struggle for a broad-based inclusive American democracy. Race and place perpet

Spoiler alert! As we get closer to 2020, a number of Democrats are going to preach about how they will bring national unity, while beating their chests to be the King or Queen of everything that is not “right.” Trump will do the same from his soapbox against everything that is “left.” Meanwhile, Schultz must rid himself of the biggest scarlet letter in US politics, which BOTH sides use to derail a viable third option from emerging. Independent voters, however, are not letting their opinions

As a business owner and lifelong resident of Michigan, I am proud to have stood with so many of my fellow citizens soliciting signatures for days and weeks on end to get the “Nonpartisan Redistricting” and “Promote the Vote” initiatives on the ballot and successfully passed in the 2018 midterm election. They were a big win for Michigan democracy and important steps on a journey to a more representative government. Yet, there remains a large obstruction in our path to achieving a healthy, functi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWUXpMO3-88 Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute convened the Terminate Gerrymandering Summit on January 10 at the University of Southern California. The Summit brought together campaigns, academics, activists, and redistricting commissioners to celebrate the victories of the 2018 midterms. The first panel from the Terminate Gerrymandering Summit and Fair Maps Incubator Launch featured Arnold Schwarzenegger and le