Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), who is ailing and unable to carry out her responsibilities, should step down just as Justice Ginsberg should have stepped down prior to the 2016 election. She’s putting herself ahead of our democracy and country. If she is worried about her legacy, her refusal to vacate her Senate seat won’t help it.

It’s worth noting that TN state legislator Gloria Johnson escaped expulsion by only 1 vote. 65 Yays, 30 Nays.

n my opinion the two young African American legislators who were expelled from the Tennessee legislature – albeit temporarily – are brilliantly and expansively framing their struggle. It could be narrowly cast, but they want no part of that. They’re finding a place for all of us in this struggle and providing a vision of a multiracial democracy.

My intent this afternoon was to watch NBA Today on ESPN – it’s playoff time – but accidentally I landed on MSNBC which was covering the proceedings of the TN legislature. That “august” body dominated by the Republican Party, thanks to gerrymandering, is voting to expel 3 Democratic legislators for the “crime” of joining a peaceful rally for common sense gun laws. And this in the wake of a mass shooting that left 3 nine year old children and 3 teachers dead. Their bodies were filled, as we know, with lethal bullets from an assault weapon wielded by a young man whose head and heart were filled with hate and whose access to such a weapon was sanctioned by law and advocated by the Republican Party in Tennessee and elsewhere.

It seems to me, albeit from afar, that to suggest the mayoral results in Chicago were simply a victory for the left and progressives undercuts the role, reach, and power of the expansive, diverse, and politically heterogeneous coalition that elected Brandon Johnson, the city’s new mayor. The role of the progressive movement was of great import for sure, but acknowledging that fact shouldn’t remove from view what was decisive, what brought Johnson over the finish line a winner in a fiercely contested race — a far larger and diverse assemblage of people and organizations as well as the candidate himself who gave voice to the sentiments and aspirations of the people of the Windy City.

Or, to paraphrase Marx, it was a coalition of the majority in the interests of the immense majority that left its stamp on the Chicago elections.I would only add that acknowledging this political dynamic is not only of significance to understanding the election’s outcome, but also in order to fully grasp the dialectics and requirements of governing going forward.