IMPORTANT READS

THE WALL--United States Customs and Border Protection will begin constructing the first segment of President Donald Trump's border wall in November through a national wildlife refuge, using money it's already received from Congress.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-Perhaps no economic issue — even trade — is as divisive as the energy industry. Once a standard driver of economic progress, the conventional energy industry has become increasingly vilified by the national media, sued by blue state attorneys general and denounced throughout academia. Some suggest that the industry should be demonized and hounded much as occurred in the case of tobacco. 

GUEST WORDS--We have been living with nuclear weapons for 72 years, so that must make them safe and sustainable, right?

EDUCATION POLITICS--Going to college is a good thing, right? That’s at least what I was told as a kid, and what led me to get a college degree. I was the first one in my family to do so.

VOICES--On July 25, the highlight of the Senate discussion and vote to study and repeal/replace Obamacare or do something, anything, to form a new healthcare bill (probably building on the punitive Congressional bill) was the brave Senator John McCain. Even while facing a diagnosis of gioblastoma brain cancer, he made a statement directed at how the Senate should behave, recalling a history of cooperation on both sides of the aisle. It was a welcomed theme and there was raucous applause for some of his strongly enunciated comments. His most important statement seemed to stun this august body, yet it was clearly vital – a remark that was the bravest and most truthful of any that have been made during the disaster of the Donald Trump presidency. 

BRANDING THE TRUMPSTER--I don’t blame the Boy Scouts for President Donald Trump’s bizarre speech at the National Jamboree in West Virginia on Monday.

REPLACING SESSIONS--President Donald Trump is considering appointing Rudolph Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions as head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), White House officials told Axios.

URBAN PERSPECTIVE-I have heard all the arguments about why the slaying of Justine Damond is not the same as the slaying of Michael Brown and police slayings of countless other unarmed blacks. They all come down to race. 

LABOR WATCH--Working families in the U.S. are facing a new set of threats from right-wing corporate interests that are more harmful than anything we have seen in generations. A key part of this very deliberate strategy is the weakening of unions through the passage of so-called Right to Work laws. These laws limit the ability of unions to fund themselves by making it more difficult to collect union dues from members, which are used to fight for fair working conditions, elect progressive candidates, and push for policies that benefit working people. 

THE COHEN COLUMN--This is a  resource to give you a reliable voice of political truth and hopefully will productive activism.

NEW GEOGRAPHY--When President Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accords, embraced coal, and stacked his administration from people from fossil-fuel producing states, the environmental movement reacted with near-apocalyptic fear and fury. They would have been better off beginning to understand precisely why the country has become so indifferent to their cause, as evidenced by the victory not only of Trump but of unsympathetic Republicans at every level of government. (Photo: Leonardo de Caprio.)

GUEST WORDS--Recently, at the Community Church in Woodland Hills, California, a woman sang “Amazing Grace.” She sang slow with sweet, lilting sorrow, letting each dolorous, weighty note saturate the space with sound. She sang right in front of the same pulpit where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once preached, on his birthday, on January 15, 1961.  (Photo above: Ohio Governor John Kasich.) 

I want to be the first to congratulate the Republican Party on passing a health care bill based on conservative principles that will help millions of people. It's called Obamacare. The Democrats passed it for you in 2010.

THE COHEN FILE--A lot of people may not know that Benedict Arnold, the most infamous of colonial traitors, a prominent revolutionary war general who endeavored to sell the surrender of the fort at West Point for a price, had published a series of open letters to the "Inhabitants of the Colonies" justifying himself. Here are some selected excerpts from those letters.

LEANING RIGHT--While it's entirely fair to blame the GOP-led Congress for not having a plan or consensus to replace or improve ObamaCare after years of running for election/re-election against it, it isn't fair to not place the blame that belongs to so many Americans who want their health care for free.  Particularly because so much of the "free" health care that we believe works so preciously well in Europe and Canada is being paid for indirectly by US, the American people. (Graphic above.) 

With the revelation that Donald Trump, Jr. leaped at the opportunity to find some dirt on Hillary Clinton, we have our first clear idea of what his father is hiding concerning the Russia connection.

THE COHEN COLUMN--The person we will support for president in 2020 is the person who will actually introduce a single payer Medicare-For-All bill in the US Senate NOW!

GUEST WORDS--As a lawyer, there's little I've wanted less than to be part of a lawsuit. Contrary to movie and television portrayals, going to court is rarely the best way to fix a problem. There's no Judge Judy to dispense quips and quick resolution. Cases are more likely to drain money and energy without concluding in a way that satisfies anyone. But sometimes going to court is the only way to resolve things. Like when the president of the United States is violating your constitutional rights.

AT LENGTH-Far and wide, we’ve all heard the Republicans’ Obamacare complaints. They have consistently called it a failure and some kind of attack on the freedom to choose our own doctors. 

HUMAN RIGHTS--In some respects, it's easy to claim that LGBTQ rights are thriving in the United States. After all, marriage equality is the law of the land, and, just last year, the country bore witness as the first openly transgender person spoke at a national party convention. Still, too often, apparent progress toward queer equality can obscure an undertow of anti-LGBTQ violence.

EMPLOYEMENT WATCH--What will it take to create the five million apprenticeships in the next five years that President Trump is proposing? Support for the apprenticeship concept is high across the political spectrum, left and right. What have we learned in recent years, though, about the challenges in creating apprenticeships in practice?