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Local moving business owner charged with grand theft, accused of taking thousands in payment and not showing up
IDAHO FALLS — A Bonneville County business owner is accused of taking payment for a job but failing to provide services. Golden Barrett, 44, faces one grand theft charge and, if convicted, could receive up to 14 years in prison. The court set his bail at $20,000. A plea agreement was signed and filed on […]
Email scheme stole thousands from agricultural business
A 44-year-old Decatur woman has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and probation for her role in a business email compromise scheme that stole $158,000 from an agricultural business.
George W. Bush's new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
A new George W. Bush art book spotlights political prisoners and dissidents. “The call of freedom” comes out March 9 with 44 paintings.
Human Rights Watch urges Venezuela to 'protect people's basic rights', release political prisoners
In its first official visit to Venezuela in 18 years, Human Rights Watch said its representatives met with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, foreign diplomats, human rights organizations, journalists, and families of those currently incarcerated.
Eritrea's G-15 political prisoners: 'I don't even know if my parents are alive'
The children of key politicians jailed 25 years ago without a trace in Eritrea want answers.
“That’s So Raven ”star sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to firearm possession
Bobb’e J. Thompson was found with stolen gun in his car during a traffic stop.
No Land to Stand On by Mahmoud Khalil review – a searing account of political imprisonment
The Palestinian Columbia student snatched by ICE writes about his Kafkaesque ordeal with a quiet fury
Arizona asks Supreme Court to block prison health takeover
U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ordered an overhaul in 2023 to correct what she determined were constitutional deficiencies.
Man who sprayed Rep. Ilhan Omar with vinegar sentenced to 14 months in prison
The man who sprayed vinegar at Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar during a Minneapolis town hall was sentenced Thursday to 14 months in prison after reaching a deal with prosecutors.
McCordsville business owner pleads guilty to $600K pandemic relief fraud scheme
INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) - A McCordsville business owner faces prison time after admitting to stealing more than $600,000 through a fraudulent pandemic relief scheme. Sandra Pierce, 42, pleaded guilty to t...
California Eyes Prison Heat Protections That Fall Short of Workplace Standards
California is crafting weaker heat protections for prisons than other workplaces, citing billions in costs to cool aging institutions as climate and health risks increase. It’s a second-class standard, health and safety advocates say, and would leave correctional workers more susceptible to heat illness.
Belarus frees 25 political prisoners in return for US sanctions relief
The Trump administration said more releases would be secured soon amid improved US-Belarus relations.
George W. Bush’s new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
The release will coincide with an exhibition at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.
George W. Bush's new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President George W. Bush has a new book of oil paintings coming out in March that features portraits of political prisoners and dissidents.
George W. Bush's new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
Former President George W. Bush has a new book of oil paintings coming out in March.
George W. Bush's new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
Former President George W. Bush has a new book of oil paintings coming out in March | KNSS Radio
George W. Bush's new book of paintings of political prisoners will be out in March
Former President George W. Bush has a new book of oil paintings coming out in March.
Belarus releases 25 political prisoners after US envoy's visit
Hundreds remain in prison, including journalists, trade unionists and others who supported the 2020 protests against Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s re-election.
Belarus to release 25 more prisoners as US eases sanctions
Belarus will release 25 more prisoners under an interim agreement with the United States, while Washington plans to lift sanctions on two Belarusian companies and pursue broader negotiations.
Belarus' authoritarian leader Lukashenko meets U.S. envoy to push for lifting remaining sanctions
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners in a series of U.S.-mediated deals that also lifted some U.S. sanctions.
Unruffled Prince William is business as usual as he emerges on Prince Harry's birthday
Prince William visited Princetown near Devon near Dartmoor Prison on Tuesday on Prince Harry's 42nd birthday after Meghan Markle shared a gushing tribute
Prominent Greek neo-Nazi exits prison and vows return to politics
Kassidiaris was serving a 13-year sentence as a senior figure in the criminal organisation, linked for years to attacks on migrants and political opponents and to the 2013 murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas.
New York state abruptly withdraws plans to build new prison
Plans to build a new 3,000-plus bed prison in New York were scrapped just days after becoming public.
New York state abruptly withdraws plans to build new prison
Plans to build a new 3,000-plus bed prison in New York were scrapped just days after becoming public.
Brentwood eye doctor sentenced to prison in $6.9M health care fraud case. Here’s what we know
Federal prosecutors said she used her practice, Brentwood Eye Care, to submit false claims to Medicare for services patients did not receive and for wound care products she did not purchase or use.
Convicted sex offender offered opening prayer at rally for GOP Senate nominee in North Carolina
A North Carolina pastor who led the opening prayer at a recent campaign stop for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison. Records
New York state seeking proposals to build new prison
The state is seeking "letters of interest" to design and construct a new 3,000-plus bed correctional facility.
Ex-Arizona Cardinals running back sentenced to federal prison
Ex-Arizona Cardinals running back from 1995 to 1997, LeShon Johnson, was sentenced to five years of federal prison for operating a dogfighting ring.
Virginia Beach sailor pardoned by Trump after weapons conviction
NORFOLK, Va. — A Virginia Beach sailor was pardoned by President Donald Trump last week after spending four years in federal prison for possessing and selling unregistered weapons. Patrick Tate
Michigan Justice Fund pivots to national stage with New York fiscal sponsor
The organization helped spur the state to redirect $200 million from incarceration and achieve the state’s lowest imprisonment rate in three decades.
Epic v. Health Gorilla: “Working as Designed”
We’ve been on a bit of a legal bender since just before Labor Day, so let’s keep a good thing going! As predicted, Epic does not want its case against Health Gorilla consolidated with the data breach cases, so it filed a motion to vacate the conditional transfer. And because they had to explain to the Panel why this case is different, they put a good chunk of previously unseen Epic v. Health Gorilla discovery record on the public docket! Roll the tape! The Case Against Consolidation Before we get to the fun stuff, let’s do the housekeeping. Epic's motion boils down to three arguments (sorted in ascending order of how well they land): A judge has already decided this. Judge Olguin declined to relate the fraud action to another ELU case (Patterson v. UVA Health), holding that the two do not call for determination of substantially similar questions of law or fact. Epic asks the Panel to treat that (a Rule 42 ruling) as law of the case. The overlap is thin. The three common questions Health Gorilla and the Panel identified are neither numerous nor complex (the qualities the Panel looks for before centralizing). Moreover, they are outnumbered by the questions unique to each side: The breach cases turn on security architecture, notification timing, and patient-level access. The fraud action turns on false treatment attestations and breaches of the framework agreements. Consolidation costs more than it saves. 17 of 21 parties in the fraud action do not appear in a breach case. The cases are also at very different stages: Olguin has a scheduling order running through a January 2028 trial while the breach actions are much more nascent. I like the last two more than the first because they attack the basic economics of an MDL: there just may not be enough shared discovery here to justify dragging all the defendants and a relatively mature fraud case all the way to Florida. On the other hand (while I know exceedingly little about MDL and Rule 42), I have a hard time seeing why a district judge's decision about his own docket would control what the Panel does with the separate § 1407 question. I might be reading between the lines too much, but I sorta think Epic's own brief half-concedes this, framing the two provisions as "two sides of the same coin" but then adding "respectfully submit" (which is often lawyer speak for “we know this is a reach”). The Ladder Gets More Rungs Anyway, the arguments are not why you're here (aside from the lawyers, maybe). Back in June, we discussed how Epic was using the smaller defendants to build an evidentiary ladder toward Health Gorilla and Unit 387. Turns out discovery has been adding a few rungs of its own.
Is Elizabeth Holmes posting her way into a pardon?
I read all of Elizabeth Holmes' 6,000 prison tweets. Here's what I learned.
August 2026 Michigan legislative roundup: Money out of politics, prison safety and primary care
Each month, The Michigan Daily publishes a compilation of some of the most relevant bills in the Michigan Legislature for students.
Pritzker defends Logan prison closure; pumps 5-year plan to attract new business to Lincoln
During a media appearance Tuesday in Bloomington, Pritzker said he's the most pro-economic development governor since Jim Thompson, who left office in 1991. He plans to work with Logan County officials to state properties where industry has left, including the pending closure of Logan Correctional Center.
Missy Woods sentenced Tuesday
The former high-profile CBI analyst got a decade in prison on four counts A Jefferson County district court judge on Tuesday sentenced a disgraced former Colorado Bureau of Investigation DNA analyst to a decade in prison. Jefferson County District Judge Andrew Poland sentenced Yvonne “Missy” Woods to 10 years on the most serious felony charge, […]
“Full House” star Lori Loughlin files for divorce from Mossimo Giannulli after nearly 30 years of marriage
Loughlin and Giannulli both served prison time after pleading guilty in the college admissions scandal.
Texas Sunset Review offers chance to address the mental health crisis-to-prison pipeline
Updates in policy for people with developmental disabilities and serious mental illness could reduce repeated cycling through the carceral system, advocates say
Court-appointed CHP leader says jailed Erdoğan rival is not a political prisoner
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, reinstated by a court as leader of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), said Tuesday that jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was not a political prisoner but signaled that the two politicians’ parties could cooperate if İmamoğlu can run for president. “He is not a political prisoner. He was not jailed because of his […]
Alabama representative criticizes ongoing prison mental health litigation
Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa wants information on how much it would cost to settle the ongoing case against continuing to pursue it in court.
This House candidate wants you to know she helped imprison a fellow Democrat
Shannon Taylor touts her prosecutor past as she runs against Rep. Rob Wittman (R) for a battleground seat in Virginia.
Elizabeth Holmes documentary upends Telluride Film Festival
A month before Holmes, the founder of Theranos, reported to prison to begin her 11-year sentence for defrauding investors, she welcomed a camera crew.
Kurdish Political Prisoner Warisheh Moradi Expresses Solidarity with Grieving Sanandaj Families
Warisheh Moradi, a Kurdish political prisoner held in Evin Prison, expressed her condolences to the families of the victims of the Sanan ...
Surprise new Elizabeth Holmes documentary follows Theranos founder's final weeks before prison
The former CEO granted filmmakers extensive access to a project that was kept largely secret for three years.
Political Prisoner Kamal Jafari Yazdi Calls for Immediate Peaceful Transfer of Power in Iran
In an open statement addressing deepening economic collapse, escalating public outrage, and the regime’s desperate manoeuvres to retain ...
Fifty years of the Maison d’Ailleurs: a mecca for science fiction fans
From prison to sci-fi wonderland, Yverdon's Maison d’Ailleurs is more than a museum – it’s an adventure.
UN envoy urges progress toward inclusive political process in Sudan
Pekka Haavisto discusses de-escalation, civilian protection and prisoner exchanges with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan | Anadolu
Talk Business & Politics: Editor Andrew DeMillo and mid-term election analysis
It has been a busy week in Arkansas between the topics of data centers, prison wrangling and healthcare.
Political Prisoners Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Javad Vafaei, and Mohammad Hassani Mark PMOI’s 61st Anniversary
PMOI political prisoners Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Javad Vafaei, and Mohammad Hassani commemorate the 61st anniversary of the founding of the PMOI.
Political Prisoners in Iran Who Refuse to Let the State Own the Future
There are moments when a prison ceases to be merely a place of confinement and becomes a contest over who possesses the future. From Vakilabad Prison in
Letter from Iranian Former Political Prisoners, Writers, Scholars, Activists
We, the undersigned former Iranian political prisoners, activists, writers, artists, intellectuals, academic scholars, researchers, and members of civil society within Iran and in exile, stand resolutely in support of the open letter published in The Guardian on 20 August 2026,
Man sentenced to prison following shootout inside Montgomery business
A man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in a 2024 shootout inside a Montgomery package store.
AG: Former home health employee sentenced to 5 years for submitting over $25K of false Medicaid claims
A former Maryland home health employee was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday after submitting over $25,000 worth of false healthcare claims.
NH inmates can now earn a business degree from UNH
The program allows incarcerated students to put their associate degree credits toward a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
KFile: Swing-seat Democrat deleted posts envisioning ‘a world without police and prisons’
William Lawrence, the Democratic nominee in one of the country’s most competitive House races in Michigan, deleted hundreds of old social media posts in which he embraced police and prison abolition, called for nationalizing fossil-fuel companies to end their production, attacked moderate Democrats and argued for a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution.
South African scientists could face year in prison unless ...
Researchers warn that registration offers little benefit and that the associated costs will disadvantage early-career researchers
Man sentenced to five years in prison for planning business arsons
A man arrested last year with four Molotov cocktails was sentenced Tuesday before a district judge in Grand Rapids and will be facing 5 years in prison.
‘Ghost employee’ scheme earns former senior director at Optum 3 years in prison
As part of a fake job scam where a friend received a six-figure salary despite doing no work, a former senior director at Optum was found guilty of committing fraud and money laundering.
Luzerne County Council zeroes in on inmate health care practices
Luzerne County prison inmate medical care procedures and costs were discussed at length during last week’s County Council work session.
DOJ: Federal jury convicts Jefferson County business owner of COVID relief fraud
Federal authorities say a Jefferson County business owner could spend decades in prison after he was found guilty of committing pandemic relief fraud.Prosecutor
‘Housewives’ Star Jen Shah Finishes Federal Prison Sentence: “I Feel Blessed. I Feel Free” (Exclusive)
The former 'Real Housewives of Salt Lake City' star shares a statement with THR about her release: "For a very long time, I wasn’t in a position to speak for myself while my story continued to be told...
Viral dashcam video leads to prison for insurance scammers
Four people pleaded guilty to charges related to the incident and two other staged crashes for big insurance payouts.
Release of Marine veteran from Russian custody turns focus to other detainees with health concerns
Robert Gilman is the latest in a succession of high-profile prisoners freed by Russia going back years, but his release hardly cleared the decks of Americans behind bars there
Entertainment Mogul Ralph Carr Handed Six-Year Prison Sentence Over Rape Convictions
Ralph Carr has been jailed for six years after he was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a woman.
Losing A Parent Doubles Rates Of Mental Health Problems Among Children
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Aug. 21, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Children who lose a parent develop mental health problems at twice the rate of kids with an intact family, a new study reports. Losing a parent to death, imprisonment or separation all dramatically increase risk of mental ...
After prison release, Tina Peters takes her election conspiracy roadshow to Washington
Two months into her post-prison life, notorious election denier Tina Peters traveled to Washington for high-level meetings this week with Trump administration officials, pitching them on her sweeping plan to declare a national emergency and assert unprecedented federal control over elections before the November midterms.
‘You can’t resist scratching’: Scabies cases identified at NC prison
Men at Neuse Correctional say they've experienced weeks of intense itching and bumps as prison officials worked to identify and contain scabies.
Imran Khan moved to private hospital amid deteriorating health
Former Pakistan prime minister and cricket captain has been serving extended prison sentences | ESPN.com
Former prison healthcare provider denies it fraudulently billed the state
Delaware’s former prison healthcare provider denied allegations it fraudulently requested payment for medical services it did not provide.
Colorado AG Weiser sues ICE contractor GEO over "stonewalling" on public health order
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing the private prison company GEO, which operates the Aurora ICE Processing Center, for noncompliance with a state public health order.
We cannot arrest our way out of a mental health crisis, in Kansas or elsewhere
We cannot arrest our way out of a mental health crisis. Behavioral health professionals can solve problems that police officers cannot.
Russian court jails Kremlin opposition politician for opposing war in Ukraine
A court in Russia convicted a prominent opposition politician for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 11 years and a month in prison in the latest crackdown on dissent ahead of next month’s parliamentary election.
Russia: Anti-war politician Lev Shlosberg sentenced to 11 years and one month in prison amid mounting pressure on his Yabloko party
His arbitrary prosecution and sentencing are blatant reprisals for exercising his right to freedom of expression to call for peace.
Venezuela says 131 political prisoners freed amid post-Maduro talks
As detainees granted 'alternative' to imprisonment, US welcomes release as crucial step for Venezuela's reconciliation.
Lawsuit alleges Newaygo County Jail, prison health providers failed to treat inmate’s MS
When Shane Veltkamp, now 31, entered the Newaygo County Jail in July 2023, he was fully mobile, independent and able to care for himself, although he would be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS, while detained, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the county […]
Wisconsin prisons are struggling to improve mental health care
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections reports obstacles in the way of recommended reforms to prison mental health treatment
Trump's War on 'Antifa' Sends Protesters to Prison for Decades
Autumn Hill left a Prairieland ICE facility protest before it turned violent. She was still sentenced to 50 years as part of Trump's war on "antifa."
As deaths mount at Michigan's women's prison, critics impugn health care
Five women have died at Michigan's women's prison since May, sparking allegations of poor medical care. State officials insist it is adequate.
Former U.S. Marine held in Russia for more than 4 years has been released, advocates say
Before he was flown out of Russia, Robert Gilman had been in “a dissociative stupor” for 47 days due to the abuse he has suffered in prison.
Azerbaijan: Health of imprisoned government critics at risk as another political activist faces extradition threat
The Azerbaijani authorities must ensure that Ali Karimli, Alasgar Mammadli and all other prisoners have immediate access to adequate drinking water, ventilation and all necessary medical care. Ukraine must fulfil its human rights obligations and not extradite Bahruz Hasanli to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan: Health of imprisoned government critics at risk as another political activist faces extradition threat
The Azerbaijani authorities must ensure that Ali Karimli, Alasgar Mammadli and all other prisoners have immediate access to adequate drinking water, ventilation and all necessary medical care. Ukraine must fulfil its human rights obligations and not extradite Bahruz Hasanli to Azerbaijan.
At CoreCivic, immigration crackdowns are good for business
Revenue grew more than 27% for private prison operator CoreCivic due to contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Labour says Farage has ‘no serious answers’ to prisons crisis
Reform says it will free up space in jails in England and Wales by rapidly deporting all foreign offenders
Suburban business owner gets 15 months on prison for failing to pay taxes
A business owner from the Northwest suburbs was sentenced last week to 15 months in federal prison on charges he failed to pay the government more than $1 million in payroll taxes. George Dilles, 55, ...
The American Prison Writing Archive Publishes New Book
The American Prison Writing Archive, led by Director and Professor of Political Science Vesla Weaver, has published its first anthology as part of the Building a Prison Witness Collective initiative. Published by Haymarket Books, the anthology titled Harm and Punishment: Incarcerated Writers on Violence and the US Prison is edited by Elizabeth Hinton and Elsa Julien Lora....
A ‘clown show’ of carpetbaggers and characters has upended a Republican primary in Trump’s backyard
Two scandal-scarred former congressmen from other states. A pair of candidates who once competed against each other in Illinois. An adviser to an Indiana lawmaker and an ex-underwear model imprisoned for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
97th District Debate Spotlights Prison Politics
At a debate between candidates running for an east-side state rep seat, attorney Leland Moore made the case that just because you represent someone, doesn't mean you agree with them -- even if your client is the state's prison system. His opponent, Wildaliz Bermúdez, countered: "But the work that we do becomes who we are."
Sons of jailed Pakistani leader Imran Khan fear for his health
The sons of the imprisoned former leader of Pakistan Imran Khan say they fear for their father’s health, claiming authorities in the South Asian country are preventing them from seeing him.
Judge criticizes Trump's Justice Department as he says he has no choice but to dismiss Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case
The move Tuesday closes the book on the Jan. 6 cases that were wiped out with Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping pardons and commutations last year, freeing from prison people convicted of violent of assaults on police and other crimes.
Top Links 1184 Science for development. Bessent's intervention. Fish in the wrong place & Charlemagne's canal.
Thank you for your support of Chartbook. Your generosity keeps this show on the road. A View of the Sky from a Prison Window Carl Gustav Carus (1789 - 1869), 1823 How important is science for development?
Raleigh business owner sentenced for concealing bankruptcy assets
RALEIGH, N.C. — The owner of a Raleigh paving company will spend more than a year in federal prison for concealing hundreds of thousands of dollars during bankr
Healthcare access dominates complaints from CT's incarcerated
Health services accounted for a third of the nearly 2,000 complaints received by the Correction Ombuds regarding the conditions in CT prisons.
If Not AOC, Then Who?
What do we do if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides not to run for president in 2028? It makes sense that many leftists are currently focused on calling on her to take the plunge. But the absence of a Plan B, or even much discussion about one, is worrisome. The US Left can’t afford to sit out the 2028 Democratic primary. Doing so in 2024 was a disaster: our abstention self-marginalized anti-billionaire politics from the national conversation and thereby gave space for Harris to pivot to the “center” (i.e. the policy preferences of corporate donors, establishment hacks, and AIPAC). Abstaining again in 2028 would be especially counterproductive since democratic socialists now have so much wind in our sails after our big electoral wins in NYC and across the country. It’s time to deepen our momentum, organization, and profile — not to retreat to the margins during America’s single most important political battle. Even more urgently, keeping Trump’s heir out of the White House may depend on whether leftists and the party’s unprecedentedly disenchanted base can force the Democrats in 2028 to take meaningful steps towards a very angry electorate and away from the corporate-consultant blob that has helped get us into this mess. If AOC (or Abdul El-Sayed) decides to run, we should enthusiastically go all in — DSA, fighting unions, progressive organizations, anybody who wants to see a better country and world. But, as far as I can tell from the outside, there’s a real chance that she doesn’t run. And we can’t just wait and see where she lands before discussing alternatives, since AOC’s decision might not come for quite a while, giving us little time to scramble at the last minute for an alternative. So we should start working now on getting a Plan B into motion, and recruiting a good candidate for the role. Here’s one idea. A Worker Candidate — Healthcare Not Warfare 2028 Run a union worker Leftists don’t need to always run experienced, well-known socialist politicians for high-profile contests. Lula, the current president of Brazil, began his political career as a metalworker militant who ran for governor of São Paulo in 1982. Especially in an era of institutional distrust, it’s possible to lean hard into making a virtue out of a working-class comrade’s distance from traditional politics. Experience abroad shows this clearly. Rachel Kéké — an immigrant hotel housekeeper — ran as the candidate of the leftist La France Insoumise for the National Assembly in 2022, defeating a former minister in the Macron government. The Belgian Workers’ Party in 2024 won its first Flemish seat in the European Parliament by running Rudi Kennes, a three-decade veteran of the Opel Antwerp auto factory. And the South Korean left in 2024 elected auto factory militant Yoon Jong-oh to the National Assembly. If a tiny French Trotskyist organization could make such a big splash in 2002 and 2007 by running a well-spoken postal worker cadre for office — the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot received about 1.5 million first-round votes — it’s not far-fetched to expect that a much larger organization like DSA, together with a broader coalition of the willing, could run this playbook to much greater effect. This is especially the case now that almost everything DSA does immediately becomes a national news story. We don’t need someone famous. We just need a charismatic, well-vetted comrade who works in a relatable working-class occupation — e.g. a nurse, or a worker in auto or construction, or at Amazon. Ideally, they have a compelling personal story or have been part of a significant strike or organizing campaign, but even those criteria don’t necessarily have to be deal-breakers. The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union. In any case, there are plenty of ways to signal working-class authenticity without resorting to Platner’s or Fetterman’s performative macho white dude affect. Better to have someone of any gender or race who is actually working class, with firm socialist politics, who can speak from experience about the day-to-day realities of trying to make it in America. There are surely at least a dozen such worker leaders in our movement nationwide; we just need to sit down and convince one that their personal sacrifice for the greater good (i.e. running for president) will be worth it. If we don’t have a frontrunner with a clear path to victory like AOC (or El-Sayed, were he to win Michigan), it’s better to embrace someone whose decision to run in itself tells an important story about US politics: workers have been iced out of our political system and are now fighting hard to break back in. The novelty factor, in itself, would generate press. And it would help democratic socialists signal to the American public that our movement’s defining characteristic is that we represent workers vs. bosses, not that we’re “the furthest left” force in American politics — a framework that suggests we’re extremists and that helps our opponents isolate us from non-college-educated voters by highlighting extremely minoritarian (and misguided) stances included in DSA’s platform like prison abolition. We don’t get many opportunities to speak to tens of millions of Americans; we need to use these opportunities to broaden our appeal beyond those already in our orbit. Run to polarize the 2028 primary and general election around “Medicare for All” and “End All Aid to Israel” Why should democratic socialists use our scarce time and volunteer energy to run in a race we’re unlikely to win? Running in the 2028 primary will not only recruit us scores of members (imagine having a DSA member intervening in eleven nationally televised primary debates!), but — more importantly — it has the potential to be a decisive leap forward towards an America that finally starts meeting the needs of working people instead of HMO and AIPAC billionaire donors. Polarizing litmus tests are good, actually — as long as they’re fought for around popular demands in a thoughtful and strategic way. Democratic socialists have an opportunity and responsibility to make the 2028 primary about two of the most widely and deeply felt issues of our moment: domestically, America’s unaffordable, family-breaking private healthcare system; internationally, America’s bankrolling of the genocidal Israeli government. A candidacy relentlessly demanding Medicare for All and No Aid to Israel would pose a sharp question to the American public, the Democratic Party, and other 2028 contenders: Why can’t working-class Americans afford their healthcare bills at the same time that our government is spending at least $3.8 billion yearly to fund an Israeli regime eager to keep dragging us and the world into more forever wars? Our candidate can agitate around a clear message: I’m running to give voice to all those working-class Americans who are struggling to get by. No matter what state you live in, who you voted for in 2024, or your background, it’s just plain common sense that we should make healthcare more affordable instead of spending billions to enable the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. Every American who agrees with me when I say ‘Medicare for All — Not a Dime for Israel’ should make their voice heard through our campaign. Racking up a high number of votes for this agenda is a crucial way to show the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that we can’t keep supporting a life-destroying status quo in our healthcare system and in the Middle East. If we want to defeat Trump’s handpicked crony this coming November, we need to speak to ordinary people’s frustrations with the status quo — we can’t keep running the same tired establishment playbook and expecting a different result. For those highly engaged voters (or skeptical media pundits) who raise concerns about wasting votes, the candidate can take the time to explain why this isn’t the case: It's true I'm a long shot. But Zohran showed anything can happen — and voting for me is a pragmatic decision, not a wasted vote. In a heavily divided primary with a large number of candidates and a very discredited establishment, my campaign and the democratic socialist movement I’m part of are positioned to be the balance of power if we can get a large enough number of voters to loudly demand Healthcare Not Warfare. Since there’s a high chance no candidate will get to 50% in the 2028 primaries, the Democrats could very well be heading towards a brokered convention, where a disciplined, principled current committed to breaking from corporate donors can play an outsized role in making sure whoever ends up with the nomination raises the banner of single-payer healthcare and cutting aid to Israel. How exactly could running this sort of primary campaign be translated into actual leverage? The candidate replies: I’m aiming to win the nomination, but if I don’t achieve that goal, my delegates and I will pledge our support in the primary only for a candidate who agrees in the general election to call for ending US aid to Israel and establishing Medicare for All at home. These are both winning planks for November against the Republicans, and the only reason I can see that other candidates haven’t yet raised these is that they’re still more scared of the donor class than they are of the people. That needs to change. If Democratic leaders want young people, workers, and those sick of the status quo to show up in big numbers this November, they need to meet us halfway. In this way, whether or not we win the nomination, democratic socialists could still play a decisive role in 2028. The approach outlined here is similar to what radical left parties periodically do in parliamentary democracies like Denmark or Sweden when they find themselves as a junior partner electorally: they dictate to center-left allies what their terms would be for enabling, from the outside, the formation of a new government. Running a Healthcare Not Warfare candidate will make it significantly more likely that the 2028 Democratic candidate stands with ordinary people instead of donors on these two pivotal planks — a shift that will, in turn, make it easier to achieve the existentially important task of defeating MAGA’s heir in November. Look at how much popular traction the Uncommitted movement got with a similar strategy in 2024 with so little on-the-ground organization — surely we can go much further with a working-class candidate, a much bigger DSA, and a Democratic Party base that has turned against Israel, billionaires, and the hacks in the party who prop them up. Objections and Responses There are quite a few objections to this proposal, many of which are very reasonable. Let me briefly address each here. Socialists shouldn’t waste their scarce time and resources on a candidate unlikely to win. This is a good rule in general, but there are important exceptions, and presidential elections are the main one. There’s no other political contest that gets anything like this level of attention and engagement in the US, so if you want to be a serious force in nationwide politics, you basically can’t afford not to have a candidate. Far from being an overall drain on our resources, running a dynamic 2028 campaign would likely result in a major net increase in members and capacity. In that spirit, the very pragmatic Milwaukee sewer socialists — who mostly ran to win at home in Wisconsin — supported Eugene Debs’s propagandistic presidential campaigns, which they correctly saw as a crucial means of recruiting to the Socialist Party. And now that the (post-1972) Democratic Party gives more weight to voters than party operatives in determining its presidential nomination, it’s become feasible to run as a socialist in primaries without risking a split in the vote against the Republicans in November. We should just support Ro Khanna, who also supports M4A and ending aid to Israel. I like Ro Khanna and would enthusiastically vote and canvass for him for president were he to get the nomination. But there’s a real chance that Khanna’s bid for office doesn’t catch on; he lacks the grassroots organizational apparatus of DSA, and, because he’s not really of the Left or labor (despite his current very good positions), he’s unlikely to generate the type of buy-in and enthusiasm that a DSA candidate would. Moreover, Khanna would be running as an individual, not as someone emerging from and building an organized movement — his campaign would not likely focus on building sustained power from below, nor would it likely polarize the 2028 primary around M4A and Israel aid. Also, and not inconsequentially, the poor electoral results for Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti this spring suggest that there’s perhaps not much of a popular appetite in the Democrats’ base to support multi-millionaire class traitors. Much better, then, to run a democratic socialist worker. If by Super Tuesday it’s clear that our campaign has captured the main left lane in the primary, Khanna should drop out and endorse us; conversely, if he’s managed to capture this lane, DSA could at that point transform its Healthcare Not Warfare campaign into an independent campaign to elect Ro Khanna focused on winning (and holding him accountable to) those two critical planks. An openness to consolidating an anti-corporate candidate by Super Tuesday is a necessary component of the strategy I’m proposing, because otherwise we risk splitting the primary votes (per DNC rules, you need at least 15% to get any delegates to convention). We should convince Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson to run for president instead. I agree it’d be great if either ran for president, but my impression is that there’s basically no chance that will happen in 2028, because both are firmly focused on their union leadership duties (and, in the case of Fain, beating back a federal witch-hunt). This plan could have DSA end up endorsing a non-socialist, non-DSAer for president. That’s against our principles. It’s a myth, and bad politics, that socialists can’t ever support candidates who aren’t members of their organization and/or who don’t call themselves socialists. Bernie, after all, was not a DSAer. And socialists abroad regularly make tactical decisions about if and when supporting a non-socialist candidate makes sense from the standpoint of promoting working-class interests, defending democracy, and building a socialist current in the process. If your “principles” prevent you and DSA from helping achieve the momentous stride forward of having a Democratic candidate in 2028 run on Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, those “principles” are not very good. In fact, they actively undermine the causes they’re aiming to support. We shouldn’t confuse principles (working-class independence) with tactics (the best way to advance this in a given context). In my recent article in Catalyst on Milwaukee sewer socialism (I’ve uploaded the full text here), I have a section showing how similarly rigid rules about endorsements had to be eventually discarded in the old Socialist Party nationwide after WWI because they tended to lead socialists towards a sectarian abstention from broader anti-corporate electoral insurgencies beyond their party’s control. For what it’s worth, Lenin’s current under Tsarism frequently backed bourgeois candidates in the second round of elections and Lenin himself advocated that British Communists support Labour Party candidates; for his part, Kautsky in 1912 defended the German Social Democracy’s electoral pact with the Progressives in the runoffs. If our predecessors could be that tactically flexible in an era before the limits of their underlying strategic assumptions about intransigent class politics in capitalist democracies were made clear, then there’s no need to insist on being more tactically rigid today, after a century’s worth of accumulated experience. As long as you maintain your own political profile and organization while engaging in broader coalitional efforts, there’s zero inherent contradiction with the principle of political independence. More specifically: DSA and allied organizations should enthusiastically back Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed if AOC declines to run and he throws his hat in the presidential ring. (I have no idea whether he’s even considering this path, but there’ll surely be chatter about it if he wins his Senate race this November.) Though he doesn’t call himself a socialist, El-Sayed is a principled Berniecrat, a consistent fighter for Palestine, and would have a clear path to victory. Using the “s” word is far less important than whether a campaign fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad — and whether actively participating in it can grow the organized working class and the Left. And the same holds true if a less anti-corporate candidate were, under pressure, to adopt our two Healthcare Not Warfare planks. Why focus only on M4A and ending US aid to Israel? There are so many other important issues to fight for! Obviously there are many pivotal issues beyond healthcare and Israel, and our candidate — and especially our organizations involved in the campaign — should be prepared to speak on all of these. But one of the crucial lessons of the Zohran campaign is that you have to relentlessly stay on message if you want to cut through the noise. CNN and Fox News will want to talk about DSA’s views on Venezuela and abolishing the police; we need to polarize the debate on the widely and deeply felt issues that are most favorable for growing the Left, isolating our opponents, and winning urgently needed changes. One recent poll found 63% of Americans support M4A, even after respondents were told it would raise taxes and eliminate most private insurance. Another found that 74% of Democrats opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” And focusing on two demands sets the campaign up to be able to leverage its mandate to make clear demands upon other candidates (which we can’t do if we run with a laundry list of demands). Talking about a Plan B is a distraction from the more urgent work of building a groundswell of calls on AOC to run. It’s good for DSAers, fightback unionists, and progressive organizations to try to convince AOC to run. This proposal is meant as an addendum to pushes to get AOC to run and to line DSA up for that eventuality, not as a substitute for those efforts. But I’m worried that, like in 2024, we might eventually find ourselves with no time to find a viable alternative unless we start now. DSA, with its abundant deliberative processes, moves slowly. The approach you’re suggesting seems risky. If a DSA candidate runs but doesn’t receive a lot of votes, it’ll undercut our current national momentum. This is a reasonable worry. All big initiatives always carry risks, and the path I’m advocating is certainly not free of these. That said, if a Healthcare Not Warfare campaign doesn’t catch on like we envisioned, it’s a pretty simple pivot in March 2028 to explain that in the future we really need our standard-bearers like AOC, or our growing bench of national electeds, to step up in presidential primaries. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the risk of my Plan B proposal is on the whole significantly less than the risk entailed by an AOC run. We should all back her if she runs, since she’d fire up the base, provide huge openings for organizing, have a real shot at defeating a Republican (especially given MAGA’s unpopularity), be a great standard-bearer for our issues, particularly M4A and ending aid to Israel, and be less willing than mainstream candidates to capitulate to any anti-democratic machinations from Trump and co. But it’s also true that AOC could lose, which would be a devastating setback to the country and the Left. Or she could win and find herself unable to pass much, if any, of her (and our) program, a demoralizing prospect. So if we’re willing to take these risks with AOC (and we should), it follows that we should be able to take lower-level risks if she doesn’t throw her hat in the ring. What’s Your Plan B? The US Left is facing its biggest opening for growth and influence since the 1930s. Initiatives that would have been impossible a few months ago are now potentially feasible. A President AOC is now easier to imagine, but if she ultimately assesses that the risks aren’t worth the potential reward in 2028, we can’t be left flat-footed. So even if you’re not convinced by the specifics of my Plan B, I hope you can at least agree that it’d be a disaster for us not to have one — and not to start getting a Plan B into motion. Hopefully other organizers and political currents will put forward their responses and alternative ideas ASAP. The stakes are too high to just wait and see. More As always, please share this article widely. This newsletter depends on all you lovely people to get the word out. Thank you! I uploaded the full text of my Catalyst article on Milwaukee sewer socialism here (it’s updated and 3x as long as the version published earlier on this substack). If you haven’t yet, please make sure to subscribe to Catalyst here; I read every issue front to back, highly recommend. 🌹🎵 Ivan Lins (arranged by Arthur Verocai) — “General da Banda” 🌹🎵
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