Living in the USA Living in the USA

The Minnesota legislature has passed a sweeping pro-worker labor bill that will require paid sick days, ban captive audience meetings during union drives, and more – Harold Meyerson reports.
Also: Has Planned Parenthood gotten too cautious and too corporate? Are the risk managers running the organization? Eyal Press reports on the courage of independent abortion services, and the failures of Planned Parenthood.
Plus: The secret history of the Koch Brothers: how the key to their empire, and their fortune, is a refinery south of St. Paul. "Kochland" author Christopher Leonard has that story.

Workers won union recognition is some significant places in the past week.  Harold Meyerson reports on interns and residents in Philadelphia joining the SEIU, a bus factory—in Georgia!—joining the Steelworkers, and dancers at a strip club in LA joining Actors Equity.
Plus: Progressives and Biden: what is to be done—about the 2024 election? Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation, comments.
Also: Ron DeSantis is campaigning for president promising to “stop woke history.” That is, to stop teaching about slavery and its legacy of institutional racism. Adam Hochschild found the history guide DeSantis wants: the Hillsdale College “1776 Curriculum.” He reports on what’s in it —and what’s not.

The latest polls indicate voters think Biden is too old. Should the Democrats nominate someone else? Harold Meyerson comments.
Also: an update on the Writers’ Guild strike against the hollywood studios, with Josh Gondelman – he’s an Emmy-award winning writer for his work on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, on HBO. He’s also a regular on NPR’s news quiz show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
Also: one of the Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2024 is Sherrod Brown of Ohio, one of our heroes --we spoke with him in 2020 about politics and history, and how he has won reelection in a state that is increasingly Republican.

At midnight on Monday, 11,500 Writers' Guild of America writers went on strike seeking a new film and TV contract. The writers voted for the strike by a historic margin: 98% in favor; 2% opposed. Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect comments.
Also: Anatol Lieven is back after three weeks in Ukraine, where he found soldiers determined to win, and Russian bombardment doing surprisingly little damage.
Plus: D.D. Guttenplan argues that it’s time to impeach Clarence Thomas, on the grounds of misconduct; also, it's time to remove and replace Diane Feinstein, on the grounds of her inability to perform her duties, especially on the Judiciary Committee, where her absence has denied the Democrats a majority.

Tucker Carlson's audience, 3.5 million, is a lot smaller than his pioneering predecessors in right-wing media; Harold Meyerson comments. Also: recent labor victories in LA.
Plus: A neighborhood in Port-au-Prince fights back against the gangs. Amy Wilentz comments on the news from Haiti.
Also: Anatol Lieven is back after three weeks in Ukraine, where he found soldiers determined to win, and Russian bombardment doing surprisingly little damage.

Fox News created a frankenstein - and the story isn't over yet: Harold Meyerson comments on the Dominion Voting Systems settlement.
Also: Afghan girls who escaped from the Taliban: the boarding school that evacuated its students from Kabul during the chaotic withdrawal of the Americans. SOLA, the School of Leadership Afghanistan is the place where Afghan girls study to become members of the generation that will one day lead a peaceful and united Afghanistan. The founder, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, will explain.
Plus: John Nichols will comment on how the fight for abortion rights will be a key issue for Democrats in the 2024 election, especially after Republican judges have tried to ban medication abortions.