RootsAction with Ryan

Building power on the left isn’t easy. Progressives and leftists are opposed by not just the GOP, but also corporate-backed Democrats, corporate-backed media, and countless establishment institutions that aggressively fight to uphold the status quo.

So then how did Judith Whitmer and a slate of Bernie-backing progressives sweep the recent Nevada Democratic Party elections? What does Whitmer’s victory mean for Nevada Democrats? How are other states, like New Mexico, building progressive power? And what lessons can progressives learn and apply to our own local and state parties?

Judith Whitmer, Chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, and Pia Gallegos, Co-founder of the Adelante Progressive Caucus of the New Mexico Democratic Party discuss building power for progressives and left in their own state Democratic Parties.

Join our team or progressives challenging the Joe Biden Administration at https://nohoneymoon.org/take-action/​
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Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction, explains why the corporate media (MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc) undermine the progressive left agenda despite the nonsense claim that the media has a "liberal" bias.

#NoHoneymoon​ #VoteTrumpOut​ #m4a​ #Progressives​ #GreenNewDeal​ #BlackLivesMatter​ #GeneralStrike​

Join our team or progressives challenging the Joe Biden Administration at https://nohoneymoon.org/take-action/​
Donate to help keep us going at RootsAction.org
Please LIKE this video and SUBSCRIBE to support our content.

Rahm Emanuel is now being floated as a potential ambassador to Japan or China.

This is a huge mistake. Rahm Emanuel’s history should disqualify him from receiving an appointment to ANY position in the Biden Administration.

A major disqualification for Emanuel is his handling of the killing of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager shot and killed by a white officer in Chicago, when Emanuel was Chicago’s mayor. While Laquan’s family were privately grieving their loss, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's adminstration was figuring out how to keep the video footage of Laquan’s shooting from seeing the light of day — so it wouldn’t harm his reelection campaign.

And there’s more: Rahm Emanuel closed half of Chicago’s mental health clinics, eliminated the city’s Department of the Environment, blocked investigations into lead contamination, artificially raised high school graduation rates, closed 50 black and brown schools, attacked the teachers union and was outspokenly hostile to teachers, subsidized luxury developments, oversaw massive housing failures, did not deliver on the majority of his infrastructure promises, and so much more.

Kenzo Shibata is an activist who writes and teaches in Chicago. He's a founding member of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators and hosts the Class Time Podcast.

#NoHoneymoon​ #VoteTrumpOut​ #m4a​ #Progressives​ #GreenNewDeal​ #BlackLivesMatter​ #GeneralStrike

Wages for working people have stagnated as economic inequality in the United States has exploded in recent decades. The situation has become even more dire amidst the current economic and COVID-19 crises.

The need for a $15 federal minimum wage has never been more pressing, nor has it garnered so much support across the ideological spectrum. The current federal minimum wage is a poverty wage — $7.25 — and has not been raised in more than a decade. We demand that Joe Biden keep his promise to the American people and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Nina Turner is a former Cleveland City Councilor, former Ohio State Senator, Bernie Sanders 2020 National co-chair, author, podcaster, and 2021 candidate for US Congress in Ohio’s 11th District.

Forty-five million Americans are burdened with a collective $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. It is imperative to tell Congress and President Biden that this debt MUST be cancelled.

Student debt cancellation is supported by a majority of Americans and a vast majority of Democrats. It would be a substantial economic stimulus that benefits every corner of the country and Democrats have the power to get it done RIGHT NOW.

The Democrat controlled Congress could pass debt relief through reconciliation.
And President Biden could cancel all student debt with a stroke of a pen via Executive Order.
The question is: Can we apply the pressure to make them do it?

Thomas Gokey is a visual artist, adjunct professor at Syracuse University, and activist. He is an organizer and Co-Founder at Debt Collective, a debtors' union fighting to cancel debts.

Join the team at NoHoneymoon.org and RootsAction.org

In this episode, we discuss ending the war on Yemen, how we can end the war in Afghanistan next, and why we must shrink the military budget. Join the team at NoHoneymoon.org.

Then, we TAKE ACTION together, contacting representatives and senators directly, urging them to REDUCE MILITARY SPENDING and END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

Swanson was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.

Swanson is on the advisory boards of: Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Veterans For Peace, Assange Defense, BPUR, and Military Families Speak Out. He is an associate of the Transnational Foundation.

On this call with Bill Fletcher Jr. we discuss how the Democrats and Joe Biden can and should avoid the mistakes of Obama and Clinton.

Bill Fletcher Jr. has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staff person at the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web.

At the end of the call, we contacted Senators en masse and demanded our $2k checks we were promised.

On the first Zoom ACTION call, we'll hear from RootsAction.org co-founder Norman Solomon to learn about how Biden’s cabinet is shaping up and the biggest challenges ahead.

Then, we'll call Senators and leave voicemails urging them to vote NO on the worst of Biden’s nominations - namely, Tom "Mr. Monsanto" Vilsack for USDA.

Join the team and TAKE ACTION here: https://linktr.ee/RootsAction