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Supporters of a 2018 ballot initiative to legalize psychedelic mushrooms in California were given the green light by the state attorney general's office earlier this month to circulate petitions and gather signatures. They now have until April 30 to gather and submit 365,880 valid signatures from registered voters in the first state to ever legalize medical marijuana under Proposition 215 in 1996. That ballot proposition, as well as Prop. 64 -- the 2016 voter initiative titled "The Adult Use o

Rod Blum is a rarity in Congress – a member who actually wants a competitive district and a real challenge every Election Day. Blum, a Republican, believes this makes him a better congressman. He says that it requires him to listen to – and represent – the feelings of Democrats and independents as well as his fellow Republicans. In an op-ed in The Hill this fall, Blum wrote that he is “honored to represent a competitive district drawn by a nonpartisan redistricting commission.” That requires h

I remember the exact date I fell in love with Bernie Sanders. It was December 10, 2010. That’s when I happened to tune into a 69-year-old white-haired senator from Vermont in the eighth hour of his famous filibuster against extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. Fast forward to 2015: Bernie Sanders announced his bid for president. Elated, I volunteered with the San Diego for Bernie Sanders group, holding signs on interstate overpasses, making calls to voters, standing on street corners registerin

Actionable Ways to Establish More Successful Third-Party Campaigns It's no secret — American voters are fed up. In the 2016 presidential elections, nearly half of all eligible voters did not bother to go to the polls. A good deal of the frustration stems from the fact that Americans are fed up with our current two-party system. In fact, the number one reason given for failure to participate in the voting process, even more than time constraints, was the fact that neither of the choices in the

To wrap our minds around violence in America, we must step back and look at the whole. Violence has many forms: child neglect and abuse, spouse and partner rage, school bullying, sexual assaults on campus and in the military, violent incidents with law enforcement, harassments and humiliations at work. At the same time, institutional violence impacts our lives as federal policies destroy local economies, poison our air and water, incarcerate unreasonable numbers of people of color, and damage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52hu0ilm4E Video Credit: RT A widely circulated article by Fox News Tuesday reports that the U.S. Army, struggling to meet its recruitment quotas, will be lowering its standards for new recruits by lifting a previous ban on recruiting "people with a history of mental illness, self-mutilation and drug abuse to serve in the military." The Army signed off on the new policy earlier this year because it is behind schedule to meet its target of recruiting 80,000 new

The point of electing Centrist Independents is to empower the political center, to build a bridge between Republicans and Democrats, and to get things done. As I’ve written before in our Finding Common Ground series, there are a host of issues on which Centrist Independents could be the catalyst for productive legislation: infrastructure, health care reform, even gun policy. But there are also times when a handful of Centrist Independents might play a crucial role in stopping a legislative tra

Mass-Care is the name of the Bay State’s campaign to bring affordable health care to all Massachusetts residents under a single-payer system. Such a system could serve as the archetype for all of the US. However, even making strides at the state level can be difficult in the current political climate. Massachusetts lawmakers seem open to the idea. The State Senate recently voted 33-6 (with all Republican senators dissenting) to further explore the single-payer option after prolonged debate and

In September, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation adding a number of countries to his travel ban that made headlines earlier this year. The original list of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen now includes Chad, Venezuela, and North Korea. Taking effect on October 18, this travel ban has restrictions that are indefinite and subject to change, ABC News reports. While there has been much speculation about how this travel ban might affect citizens from these countries, many hope

In a nutshell, here’s how I would describe the state of American politics. The regulators are unqualified to regulate. The parties are unqualified to govern. The political scientists are unqualified to call themselves scientists. A sorry state of affairs. These days it’s very fashionable to require “evidence-based research” to confirm pretty much anything and everything, including things that are obvious to the naked eye. This “standard” has spread like wildfire through the social sciences and