View this email in your browser ([link removed])
Dear Progressive Reader,

A government shutdown was avoided this week when Democrats and Republicans were able to agree on a stopgap funding bill. President Joe Biden signed the bill ([link removed]) on Thursday night, just hours before a looming deadline, and punting this issue down the road for another nine weeks when we can expect another showdown. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates ([link removed]) , much of the opposition comes from newly minted frugal Republicans who were fine with raising the debt limit when their guy was in the White House. Meanwhile, as humor writer Maura Quint notes ([link removed]) in an op-ed this week, “To really build back better, we need to raise taxes on large corporations, including a minimum tax rate. . . . And we have to close giant tax loopholes for
corporations that earn profits abroad.”

The battle now moves to an infrastructure package ([link removed]) that is already significantly smaller that the spending initially sought by Senator Bernie Sanders and progressives in the House, and probably will need to shrink more before it can move forward. As John Nichols asks ([link removed]) in his cover story for our new October/November issue ([link removed]) of The Progressive, “Biden [and the] Democrats face a ‘pivotal moment’ - can they be pushed into doing the right things?” And as the Reverend William J. Barber II and colleagues indicate ([link removed]) in their contribution to this issue, "As the civil rights leaders of the 1960s so well understood, we cannot secure a bright economic future for all when so many of our people cannot exercise their most basic
democratic right because immoral forces still try to deny and abridge the right to vote."

Across the country, state legislatures and participants in local school board meetings are targeting what they see as the real enemy—education about the past. As Henry Redman reports ([link removed]) for the Wisconsin Examiner, last week, “Joining states such as Texas, Wisconsin passed a bill that bans the teaching of critical race theory.” But, have no fear, he tells us, “The bills [that] would ban the teaching of so-called critical race theory in classrooms, [would also] require cursive [handwriting] to be taught to elementary school students.” Meanwhile, as Andy Heintz writes ([link removed]) in an op-ed, “This is being done at a time when students and youth have little knowledge about the history of slavery. . . . instead of equipping students with this information about these historical blemishes, the right—ironically in the name of truth-seeking and
objectivity—has opted to use the state to punish those whose work undermines the reductive form of patriotism they are determined to preserve.”

The Progressive and our Public Schools Advocate ([link removed]) project will be hosting a panel at this year’s NetRoots Nation virtual conference. Our panel, called “The Truth About the Attacks on Teaching Critical Race Theory in Public Schools ([link removed]) ,” will take place on Saturday, October 9 at 3:45 p.m. Eastern Time. You can get a discounted registration to access more than 100 hours of panels and workshops at this link ([link removed]) (courtesy of The Progressive).
[link removed]

In international news this week, Michael Makowski continues his reporting ([link removed]) from Berlin on the recent German elections, which favored a center-left coalition over the outgoing conservative party. Jeff Abbott looks at the recent deportations of Haitians from the Texas border, and sets it in the larger context of a long failure of U.S. policy toward Haiti. “Despite the changes in administrations,” he notes ([link removed]) , “U.S. policy in Haiti has not changed in decades. The support of democracy has rung hollow, with the United States pushing through their candidates, and civil society being largely left behind.” And James Goodman reports from last week’s Immigrant Justice rally of more than 10,000 in Washington, D.C. “A pathway for undocumented immigrants is essential,” he says
([link removed]) . “A ‘no’ [ruling] by an unelected Senate parliamentarian should not be the last word.”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. –If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today ([link removed]) . Also, if you have a friend or relative that you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change within our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription ([link removed]) .

P.P.S. –We need you now more than ever. Please take a moment to support hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will keep us on solid ground and will help us continue to grow in the coming years. You can use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in sustaining The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.
Donate ([link removed])

============================================================
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Website ([link removed])
Copyright © 2021 The Progressive, Inc.

P.O. Box 1021 • Madison, Wisconsin 53701 • (608)257-4626

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])