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Federal Judge Blocks Election Demands Tied to Public-Safety Funding
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has an essential public mission: helping communities prepare for emergencies, terrorism and other serious threats. Running elections is not part of that mission. FEMA does not register voters. It does not select voting equipment. It does not count or certify ballots. Yet the agency attempted to use money intended to protect communities from terrorism as leverage to make states and local governments change how they administer elections.

Walter Sundiata
6 days ago5 min read


Democracy Watch: Supreme Court Blocks Missouri Congressional Map as Voters Prepare to Decide Its Fate
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked Missouri from using a Republican-drawn congressional map designed to improve the party's chances of gaining another U.S. House seat, bringing at least temporary clarity to an extraordinary legal battle that has moved through state and federal courts just weeks before the November midterm election.

On The Corner
Sep 106 min read


Democracy Watch — Federal election enforcement is expanding
Two consequential developments emerged September 1, although neither has yet changed the rules voters must follow. On The Corner | September 2, 2026 Two consequential developments emerged September 1, although neither has yet changed the rules voters must follow. USPS whistleblower alleges a dangerously unreliable ballot system A whistleblower disclosure sent to Congress describes the Postal Service’s new Federal Ballot Mail Portal as rushed, inadequately tested and capable o

On The Corner
Sep 22 min read


DEMOCRACY WATCH: Trump weaponizes the IRS against liberal nonprofits
In a recent article for The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner warns that the Trump administration’s reported effort to use the IRS against liberal nonprofits could reach far beyond a handful of prominent foundations. It could threaten the civic work that nonprofit and faith-based organizations have performed in American communities for generations.

On The Corner
Sep 22 min read


‘Unshackle Springfield’: Faith leaders demand ICE stop ‘siege’ on city, release pastors
“Springfield is under siege.”
That’s what multiple faith leaders said the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 28, during a passionate press conference calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cease its “humiliating” treatment of local Haitian immigrants.
Springfield Sun-News
Sep 15 min read


America at 250: The Promise Series - The Promise Demanded
On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to insist that America honor promises it had written into its founding documents but repeatedly denied to Black citizens. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave that demand its most enduring language. But the day was never only about a dream.

Walter Sundiata
Aug 289 min read


America at 250: The Promise Series - The Promise of the Ballot
The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, had already declared that the right of citizens to vote could not be denied because of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
But between a constitutional promise and the lived reality of Black Americans stood nearly a century of organized resistance.

DJ Ten
Aug 147 min read


The Weaponization of Justice and the Attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center
The recent federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center has sent shockwaves through the legal community, civil rights organizations, and advocates for democracy across the country. The Department of Justice under the second Trump administration has accused the SPLC of fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and making false statements related to an informant program the organization used to monitor violent extremist groups.

Walter Sundiata
May 93 min read


BLACK HISTORY MOMENT: Strength Is a Strategy — The Vision of Jesse Jackson
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a preacher turned movement-builder, whose life’s work consistently challenged America to confront the pervasive injustices that existed within its borders. While simultaneously calling upon Black America to recognize and harness its own power, in the struggle against systemic oppression.

Walter Sundiata
Feb 216 min read


‘Has the world gone mad? It has’: foreign reporters share a view of Trump from abroad
Journalists from countries that have seen challenges to democracy give their views on the second Trump presidency

The Guardian
Jan 20, 20256 min read
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