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There’s one political prediction that always comes true: record turnout in one election will be followed by a tidal wave of voter suppression efforts before the next one. So it’s not surprising that, after 2020 had record turnout, 2021 is seeing voting rights under attack nationwide by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Georgia has taken the lead—and Georgia is being challenged in court by the ACLU, along with the LDF and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dale Ho comments: he’s Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.
Also: Joe Biden and Congress should end our forever wars–and they can–by starting with three key steps: Karen Greenberg explains. She is director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School and author, most recently, of Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State. 4-7-2021

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For nearly half a century, America’s leading corporations have offshored work — to lands where labor is cheap, and they’ve also offshored profits — to lands where taxes are low. Now Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to do something about that. Harold Meyerson explains.
Also: Protest continues to grow over the recent displacement by the LAPD of the homeless encampment at Echo Park Lake, which the mayor declared a success. Ananya Roy comments–she’s a professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography at UCLA, and is director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy.
Plus: Critic Ella Taylor reviews “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” the Tunisian film about a refugee that’s been nominated for an Oscar, and the British film “Moffie.”  4-8-2021

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The political transformation of Kyrsten Sinema, the new senator from Arizona: She’s one of the two most conservative Democrats in the Senate—but Aida Chavez explains that she started out to the left of the Party.
Also: Should Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retire? He’s 82, and apparently healthy and competent—but his retirement would give Biden a chance to nominate a younger person—he’s promised a Black woman—while the Democrats control the Senate. Joan Walsh comments.  3-31-21

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The arrival of multiple vaccines against Covid-19 in less than a year after the virus’s emergence is sort of a miracle—but there’s nothing miraculous about the failure of donor nations, along with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, to prepare for, and mount, a global vaccination campaign. Gregg Gonsalves comments.
Also: now that Trump is gone, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has become the leading Republican voice of conspiracy theories and the leading defender of the attack on the capitol on January 6. But will he run for reelection next year? John Nichols explains.  3-24-21

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One of the senate seats being abandoned by a Republican incumbent is in Ohio.  Can Democrats win that seat?  It’s going to be hard  For the last decade Ohio has elected only one Democrat to statewide office–one of our heroes, Senator Sherrod Brown.  Steve Phillips thinks they can send a second Democrat to the Senate from Ohio next year—by following the Georgia playbook and focusing on turning out voters of color.
Also: Black Lives Matter versus the LAPD: a new official report in Los Angeles says the police in LA violated the law by attacking and arresting BLM marchers in last summer’s protests. Civil rights attorney Carol Sobel explains.  3-18-21