Melissa McEwan
Founded Shakesville, an intersectional feminist progressive political blog, in 2004. Follow her on Twitter @shakestweetz.
Kiggans has flirted with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
By Jesse Valentine - March 08, 2024Ohio voted to protect abortion rights. GOP senate candidate Bernie Moreno doesn't care.
By Jesse Valentine - March 07, 2024Syngenta AG owns approximately 1500 acres of U.S farmland.
By Jesse Valentine - March 04, 2024Hovde is running for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin despite primarily residing in California.
By Jesse Valentine - February 26, 2024McCormick says we need leaders with the moral clarity to condemn antisemitism.
By Jesse Valentine - February 09, 2024Of the nearly dozen gun bills lawmakers will soon take up, one is particularly noteworthy because it’s backed by unlikely allies: mental health advocates and a pair of House members who’ve long been at opposite ends of firearm legislation.
By Annmarie Timmins, New Hampshire Bulletin - January 31, 2024The United Auto Workers of America endorsed the re-election of President Joe Biden Wednesday, just months after he became the first sitting U.S. president to walk a picket line with striking autoworkers in Michigan.
By Ashley Murray, States Newsroom - January 24, 2024Gunter has repeatedly referred to Brown as “Scam Brown”
By Jesse Valentine - January 17, 2024The state of Texas robbed Amanda Zurawski of her fertility and almost her life when it wouldn’t permit her an abortion so she’s gone to the state’s Supreme Court to change the law - “this is why I’m on earth”
By Bonnie Fuller - January 10, 2024Health care-focused organizations across the state are hopeful that the 2024 legislative session will be a year that reins in health costs and allows patients to have greater access to the care they need.
By Danielle J. Brown, Maryland Matters - January 08, 2024Five people died on January 6, 2021 – including a police officer who was bludgeoned to death.
By Jesse Valentine - January 05, 2024On Wednesday, the New Hampshire House passed a bill that would make registering to vote an online experience.
By Ethan DeWitt, New Hampshire Bulletin - January 04, 2024Most Americans believe wealthy individuals and big corporations don’t pay their fair share in taxes.
By Jesse Valentine - December 22, 2023Even the Republican senator's home county gave Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear a larger share of the vote than four years earlier.
By - December 15, 2023Republicans Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton have taken thousands of dollars in donations from chemical companies and their affiliated PACs.
By Jesse Valentine - December 08, 2023Eric Hovde's proposal is similar to Sen. Rick Scott's unpopular 2022 plan to make every American pay income taxes.
By Jesse Valentine - December 07, 2023A bipartisan package of bills in Michigan signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, creates specified criminal penalties for assaulting health care workers.
By Anna Liz Nichols, Michigan Advance - December 06, 2023Both former President Donald Trump and former U.S. Rep. George Santos have lied about their records and been accused of defrauding veterans.
By Jesse Valentine - December 05, 2023Millions of Texas families’ health and well-being would be jeopardized if the legislation were repealed.
By Jesse Valentine - December 04, 2023More than 3 million Floridians will lose their health insurance if Scott and Trump succeed.
By Jesse Valentine - November 30, 2023Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves took $98,000 from Mississippi Power and executives of its parent company.
By Jesse Valentine - November 06, 2023The Republican gubernatorial nominee also broke his promises to make the office more frugal.
By Jesse Valentine - November 03, 2023It might not surprise Mississippians that The Cook Political Report, regarded as one of the nation’s preeminent elections experts, shifted their 2023 Mississippi governor’s race forecast on Monday in Democrat Brandon Presley’s direction.
By Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today - October 24, 2023President Obama’s full letter to the American people: It’s a long-standing tradition for the sitting president of the United States to leave a parting letter in the Oval Office for the American elected to take his or her place. It’s a letter meant to share what we know, what we’ve learned, and what small wisdom […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 19, 2017Donald Trump started his day by tweeting someone else claiming that he is not divisive: "It wasn't Donald Trump that divided this country, this country has been divided for a long time!" Stated today by Reverend Franklin Graham. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2017 In an expected irony, the man he quoted, Franklin […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 19, 2017An increasing number of House Democrats will be skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration in an act of principled protest. Rep. Gwen Moore will not be among them, because she has chosen a different path of resistance. In a statement Wednesday, she explained her decision (emphasis mine): I support my colleagues in their decision to boycott the […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 18, 2017At the end of his last (scheduled) press conference today, President Obama handed the final question to the LA Times’ Christi Parsons, who has been covering Obama since he was a state senator in Illinois. She asked him about his daughters, and how they had responded to the election. The President started his response by […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 18, 2017Donald Trump spent the weekend preceding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day attacking Rep. John Lewis, a lifetime Civil Rights activist, because Lewis criticized Trump and questioned the legitimacy of his presidency. This morning, without a shred of irony or self-awareness, Trump tweeted: Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 16, 2017Reince Priebus, who will serve as Donald Trump’s chief of staff, is, like many of his fellow Republicans, outraged that Democrats would, based on a consensus view of the intelligence community that Russia intervened in the presidential election on Trump’s behalf, question the legitimacy of his presidency. Brushing aside the breathtaking hypocrisy that his party, […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 15, 2017As a second week of confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s nominees proceeds, many Americans have watched with disbelief and horror as a parade of unqualified, corrupt, and/or destructive candidates have submitted themselves for (limited) questioning, offering answers that are at turns offensive and chilling, but rarely reflective of the radical changes Trump has threatened to […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 18, 2017After President-elect Donald Trump attacked Rep. John Lewis in response to Lewis saying Trump’s presidency is not legitimate, Democrats outpoured messages of solidarity with Lewis. The strong and widespread support for Lewis is now being denounced by Democratic opponents as partisan politicking. This could not be more wrong. It is wrong because there is nothing […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 14, 2017In a powerful statement on Attorney General-designate and her Senate colleague Jeff Sessions, Senator Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq veteran, shared her deep reservations about Sessions’ commitment to protecting disability rights. As an American living with disabilities, my life isn’t like many of my colleagues’ in Congress. Getting around can be difficult; you saw what […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 13, 2017In this clip from an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, which will air in its entirety on Meet the Press, Rep. John Lewis said, like his Congressional colleague Rep. Barbara Lee, he will boycott Donald Trump’s inauguration. “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” Lewis said, telling Todd he believes that Russian interference […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 13, 2017The Washington Post reports that D.C. National Guard Commander Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz has been ordered to vacate his post during the inauguration. Schwartz, whose removal was ordered by the Pentagon for reasons which remain unclear, has served in his position since being appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008. The U.S. Army […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 13, 2017President Obama is making fine use of his final days in office. He has issued a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in much of the Arctic and Atlantic Seaboard; signed landmark mental health care legislation; issued a ban on withholding federal funds from family planning clinics; and designated two national monuments protecting […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 13, 2017Days ago, senior officials in the incoming Trump administration said that the White House press briefing room would be moved from the West Wing. The ostensible justification for the move was that Donald Trump is so popular, the small room cannot accommodate all the press who want access. But, given Trump’s infamous enmity toward the […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 18, 2017Rep. Barbara Lee issued a statement announcing that she will be boycotting Donald Trump’s inauguration, and explaining her reasons why. Below, that statement in its entirety, as every word deserves to be read. Inaugurations are celebratory events, a time to welcome the peaceful transition of power and honor the new administration. On January 20th, I […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 12, 2017During his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) was asked by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) if he would comply if Donald Trump asked him to reinstate torture. “Absolutely not,” he replied. Pompeo’s answer signified a major break with Trump, who bluntly advocated resuming the use of waterboarding and “much worse” in […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 12, 2017After Senate Republicans schemed to protect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees from ethics scrutiny, fast-tracking their confirmation hearings, they continued their brazen campaign to assist Trump’s dreadful nominees by limiting Senate Democrats’ questions, and the time in which they had to ask them, at Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos’ hearing. Ahead of the hearing, the […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 18, 2017Following two days of testimony during Senator Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General — which included Senator Al Franken catching Sessions in rank misrepresentations of his civil rights record; Senator Pat Leahy busting him on trying to rewrite his LGBT record; Senator Dianne Feinstein grilling him on his dismal reproductive justice record; and […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 12, 2017Giving his first press conference since last July, Donald Trump seemed rattled when he first appeared in front of reporters. Though the presser was ostensibly called to present how he would address his vast conflicts of interest as a result of his business, he almost certainly expected to be grilled about new reports on his […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 11, 2017Donald Trump has been waging an appalling — and deeply self-serving — campaign to discredit the U.S. intelligence community. The end game is, as was admitted by his senior advisor Kellyanne Conway, to replace the intelligence community with “his own people.” Now, following a report that Trump may be compromised by Russia, and that his […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 11, 2017Every sworn-in House Democrat has now signed on to sponsor Rep. Elijah Cummings’ and Rep. Eric Swalwell’s Protecting Our Democracy Act, which would establish a “12-member, bipartisan, independent commission empowered to interview witnesses, obtain documents, issue subpoenas, and receive public testimony to examine attempts by the Russian government or others to use electronic means to […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 10, 2017Donald Trump is creating havoc with our European alliances by virtue of his radical diplomatic shift that favors Russia, and stands to leave the United States isolated and much less safe. His abrupt departure from the “One China” policy, followed by a continuing, reckless escalation of such provocations, has also risked the delicate relationship with […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 17, 2017Senator Jeff Sessions, if confirmed to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s Attorney General, will be tasked with enforcing the laws of the United States, and a major concern of his critics has been that he does not seem to understand or concern himself with those laws, especially around protecting equality. In an yet another alarming […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 10, 2017Senator Al Franken is not a lawyer. He made this point repeatedly while grilling Senator Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing, in order to underscore that Sessions’ carefully parsed questions about his claimed involvement sounded like nonsensical rubbish to his layman’s ears. But Franken laid out his case that Sessions has exaggerated his civil rights […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 10, 2017During a fiery interview with MSNBC’s Tamron Hall, Rep. Maxine Waters did not hold back about her profound reservations about Donald Trump. She passionately urged for further investigation into Trump’s sinister affinity for Vladimir Putin, his advisors’ ties to Russia, and whether there was collusion with Russia to interfere in the election to affect its […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 17, 2017At the end of the last Congressional term, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, the ranking member of the CIA Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced legislation calling for the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 10, 2017In the two months since I observed that Donald Trump won the Electoral College, but is losing by every other metric, his then-terrible 42 percent favorability rating has dropped to an even worse 40 percent in the new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Trump will enter the Oval Office on Friday with his image upside down. […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 17, 2017For the first time, a sitting Senator will testify against another sitting Senator when Cory Booker (D-NJ) appears before the Judiciary Committee during Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) nomination hearing for Attorney General. Booker explained his remarkable decision to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: .@CoryBooker will testify against his colleague @SenatorSessions: “These are extraordinary times” #inners https://t.co/7uhCLf8PaX — All […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 10, 2017Senate Republicans are proceeding full steam ahead to railroad Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees through a fast-track confirmation process, shielding them from ethics scrutiny and financial disclosure requirements. Voters have raised their voices in opposition, and Democrats — including Senator Elizabeth Warren — have forcefully criticized Senate Republicans for abetting the Trump transition ethics crisis. Senator […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 09, 2017Team Trump loves ethics loopholes, like the one it claims exists to allow Donald Trump to employ his son-in-law as an advisor, despite a federal anti-nepotism statute. Now, it has remarkably found yet another ethics loophole, to justify announcing the expansion of Trump’s Scottish golf resort, mere days after having promised there would be no […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 16, 2017Meryl Streep was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes, and, during her acceptance speech, she criticized President-elect Donald Trump for having mocked disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition, on the campaign trail. There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank […]
By Melissa McEwan - January 09, 2017