Latest news with #NationalUrbanLeague
CNBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Morial: This bill would significantly disinvest in local communities
Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League, warns the 'big beautiful bill' would hurt local economies, favor the wealthy, and urges tax cuts for Americans earning under $100K.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
LEONARD GREENE: From reckoning to rewind, little change since George Floyd's murder 5 years ago
When I look back on the aftermath of the George Floyd murder five years ago, I recall the weeks after the 9/11 attacks and how New Yorkers responded. Gone was the discord and rudeness that is often synonymous with the Big Apple. In its place was a spirit of unity and kindness, a solidarity born out of unspeakable tragedy. That didn't last long. Before you could say Freedom Tower or Homeland Security, New Yorkers were back to minding their own business and fighting each other over parking spaces. So, too, it is with George Floyd. We were promised a reckoning. What we got was a rewind. 'George Floyd's murder shook the world — but shaking the world is not enough,' Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said in a statement. 'Did we seize the moment to build a lasting movement, or did we squander the chance for transformative change?' Morial's venerable organization, as old and important as any civil rights organization, is behind a new report that examines the years since Floyd's murder, a study that asks the haunting question: 'Was it a movement or a moment?' It certainly started off as a movement. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died May 25, 2020 on Memorial Day, when cops in Minneapolis were arresting him for allegedly passing a counterfeit bill at a grocery store. Cellphone video showed one of the white cops, Derek Chauvin, pressing his knee into Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes while the other officers looked on. Floyd suffocated after telling his tormentors he could not breathe. Yet it took four days before Chauvin was finally arrested. He was later convicted of murder. In the weeks and months after the murder, there were protests across the country, and promises of police reform. But instead of real change, we settled for superficial handouts. We got statues of Confederate generals removed. We got Netflix to show more Black movies. We got Amazon to sell more books about the African American experience. We got Aunt Jemima's portrait off the pancake box. We got Uncle Ben's picture off the boxes of rice. We got 'Gone With the Wind' off HBO. We got newspapers to capitalize the B in Black. What we didn't get was the cops in Memphis convicted for beating Tyre Nichols to death. Among the highlights of the Urban League report is how how initial outrage over Floyd's death sparked corporate pledges of more than $66 billion for racial justice programs. Corporations, higher education institutions and non-profits all chipped in to fund the fight against systemic racism. But those same programs, especially in the months since President Trump returned to the White House, have faced increasing backlash, underlined by recent executive orders eliminating federal diversity programs. According to the National Urban League, DEI job postings declined 44% from 2022 to 2023, and major companies like Google and Meta scaled back programs supporting Black talent. Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, said the report is a 'sobering reflection on America's racial justice journey.' 'Five steps forward, three steps back,' Morial told NBC News after his organization's report came out. 'I'm disappointed, and somewhat shaken by the idea that commitments so significant and so powerful were made and now, too many are backing off.' And the change from reckoning to rewind seems to have happened overnight. One day we're saying that Black Lives Matter, and the next day we're fighting for diversity, equity and inclusion. Translation: It might get worse before it gets better. 'That is the risk,' Morial said, 'that it's five steps forward and eight, nine, 10 steps back.'
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
JB Pritzker and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emerge as Trump resistance leaders
The billionaire heir and the former bartender. Many Democrats have been in and out of the spotlight as the party looks for effective counters to President Donald Trump and his second administration. But two disparate figures, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have seen their national profiles rise by delivering messages that excite a demoralized and fractured party. The governor, a 60-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, and the congresswoman, the 35-year-old with working-class roots, both won their first elections in 2018. Both have urged mass resistance and accused their party of not fighting more. Each has stood out enough to draw sharp retorts from Trump loyalists. But as messengers, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez could not be more different. And their arguments, despite some overlap, are distinct enough to raise familiar questions for Democrats: Should they make their challenges to Trump about threats to democracy and national stability, as Pritzker has done, or portray him as a corrupt billionaire exacerbating an uneven economy, as Ocasio-Cortez does? And beyond the message itself, what qualities should the best messenger have? What links them, said one prominent Democrat, is 'assertiveness.' 'People want Trump and Trumpism to be met with equal passion and force,' said National Urban League President Marc Morial, a former New Orleans mayor deeply connected in Democratic politics. On that front, he added, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez 'are both effective national figures –- but in very different ways.' Pritzker, an establishment power player Pritzker was born at the bridge of the baby boomers and Generation X into a sprawling family now entrenched in Democratic politics. Like Trump, he inherited great wealth, but he lambastes the president as a poser on working-class issues. He chaired Illinois' Human Rights Commission before running for governor. In office, he has signed an Illinois minimum-wage increase and is an ally of unions. His family's hotels are unionized, making them regular options for official Democratic Party events. When Democratic President Joe Biden exited the 2024 campaign, Pritzker was floated as a replacement. He made no visible moves, quickly backed Vice President Kamala Harris and acted as the de facto host of her nominating convention in his home state. 'Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,' Pritzker said in Chicago. Since Harris' defeat, Pritzker has behaved like a future candidate. One of the nation's highest-profile Jewish politicians, he fired up liberals by comparing the Trump administration to the Third Reich. 'If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,' the governor said his joint budget and State of the State address on Feb. 19. 'All I'm saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.' Addressing party faithful in the traditional early nominating state of New Hampshire, Pritzker bemoaned 'do-nothing' Democrats, called for party honchos to set aside 'decades of stale decorum' and urged voters into the streets. 'Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,' he said. Democrats, he added, 'must castigate (Republicans) on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.' It was enough for senior Trump aide Stephen Miller to accuse Pritzker of inciting violence. Pritzker wasted no time returning the volley, calling it 'terrible hypocrisy' for Trump allies to complain given the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump's pardons of the rioters. AOC, a progressive party crasher Ocasio-Cortez is a millennial progressive who earned degrees in international relations and economics and worked as a waiter and bartender before entering politics. With support from the progressive Working Families Party, she ousted a top House Democrat, Joe Crowley, in a 2018 primary. Like Trump, she leverages millions of social media followers. Also like Trump, she is an economic populist. But she comes from the left wing of U.S. politics and without the anti-immigration and cultural conservatism of Trump's right wing or the alliances with billionaire business and tech elites. She has recently headlined 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a two-time presidential candidate. The tour has drawn tens of thousands of people across the country, notably including reliably Republican states, often with overflow crowds outside many stops. Ocasio-Cortez's next political move seems less certain than Pritzker's. She is seen as a potential primary challenger to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, and she only recently became old enough to be constitutionally eligible for the presidency. But she appears poised to inherit the mantle of the 83-year-old Sanders' movement. She freely criticizes Trump. But she leans more heavily into broader economic and social critiques that she's made since her first House bid and that Sanders has offered for decades. 'For years we have known that our political system has slowly but surely become dominated by big money and billionaires and time after time we have seen how our government and laws are more responsive to corporations and lobbyists than everyday people and voters,' she said in Folsom, California. She advocated for 'living wages … stable housing … guaranteed health care,' and blasted 'the agenda of dark money to keep our wages low and to loot our public goods like Social Security and Medicare.' She also played up her roots: 'From the waitress who is now speaking to you today, I can tell you: impossible is nothing.' Little consensus on the left about the better pitch Ocasio-Cortez and Pritzker are allied against a common opponent, Trump, and not each other. Advisers to Ocasio-Cortez and Pritzker did not respond to questions. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, argues Pritzker could be more attractive as a 'traitor to his class' in the tradition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. An East Coast patrician, Roosevelt authored the New Deal's federal expansion to combat the Great Depression of the 1930s. 'How powerful would it be if a billionaire was the one helping to lead the charge against corrupt billionaires and corrupt billionaire corporations that are trying to crack the Constitution and loot the American people?' Green said, adding that 'continued silence' on 'billionaire issues' should disqualify Pritzker. 'We have to be speaking to the shake-up-the-system vibe that people want to see.' Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, which typically backs centrist Democrats, countered that Pritzker could bring a 'more stable' version of Trump's argument that his wealth and success is an asset. Trump's biggest liability, Bennett said, is 'chaos' that negatively affects people's lives. 'People are very mad at Elon Musk, but not because he's rich,' Bennett said of the Tesla CEO who is leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency. 'They're mad at him because he's vandalizing our government and doing it in a destructive way.' A relative of the governor, Rachel Pritzker, chairs Third Way's board of trustees. Ocasio-Cortez is often criticized by more moderate Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has also positioned herself as a thought leader in the party. Slotkin recently suggested the word 'oligarchy' didn't resonate with working-class voters. It was an implicit rebuke of the Ocasio-Cortez-Sanders' tour. Shortly after Slotkin's comments about oligarchy, Ocasio-Cortez posted on X: 'Plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel threatened by rising class consciousness.' Bennett said Democrats who emerge as party leaders, including the 2028 nominee, will be those who offer solutions for voters' frustration 'over their needs not being met.' It's a notion that Green insisted is indistinguishable from criticizing the billionaire class, along with the tax and labor policies that drive wealth and income gaps in the U.S. Whatever direction Democrats choose, Bennett said, Ocasio-Cortez has secured her place as a national voice. 'She's very good at what she does. She's formidable,' he said. 'And anybody on the center-left who denies that is just kidding themselves.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF -
Los Angeles Times
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez: A billionaire and a former bartender emerge as Trump resistance leaders
ATLANTA — The billionaire heir and the former bartender. Many Democrats have been in and out of the spotlight as the party looks for effective counters to President Trump and his second administration. But two disparate figures, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have seen their national profiles rise by delivering messages that excite a demoralized and fractured party. The governor, a 60-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, and the congresswoman, the 35-year-old with working-class roots, both won their first elections in 2018. Both have urged mass resistance and accused their party of not fighting more. Each has stood out enough to draw sharp retorts from Trump loyalists. But as messengers, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez could not be more different. And their arguments, despite some overlap, are distinct enough to raise familiar questions for Democrats: Should they make their challenges to Trump about threats to democracy and national stability, as Pritzker has done, or portray him as a corrupt billionaire exacerbating an uneven economy, as Ocasio-Cortez does? And beyond the message itself, what qualities should the best messenger have? What links them, said one prominent Democrat, is 'assertiveness.' 'People want Trump and Trumpism to be met with equal passion and force,' said National Urban League President Marc Morial, a former New Orleans mayor deeply connected in Democratic politics. On that front, he added, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez 'are both effective national figures — but in very different ways.' Pritzker was born at the bridge of the baby boomers and Generation X into a sprawling family now entrenched in Democratic politics. Like Trump, he inherited great wealth, but he lambastes the president as a poser on working-class issues. He chaired Illinois' Human Rights Commission before running for governor. In office, he has signed an Illinois minimum-wage increase and is an ally of unions. His family's hotels are unionized, making them regular options for official Democratic Party events. When Democratic President Biden exited the 2024 campaign, Pritzker was floated as a replacement. He made no visible moves, quickly backed Vice President Kamala Harris and acted as the de facto host of her nominating convention in his home state. 'Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,' Pritzker said in Chicago. Since Harris' defeat, Pritzker has behaved like a future candidate. One of the nation's highest-profile Jewish politicians, he fired up liberals by comparing the Trump administration to the Third Reich. 'If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,' the governor said in his joint budget and State of the State address on Feb. 19. 'All I'm saying is, when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.' Addressing party faithful in the traditional early nominating state of New Hampshire, Pritzker bemoaned 'do-nothing' Democrats, called for party honchos to set aside 'decades of stale decorum' and urged voters into the streets. 'Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,' he said. Democrats, he added, 'must castigate [Republicans] on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.' It was enough for senior Trump aide Stephen Miller to accuse Pritzker of inciting violence. Pritzker wasted no time returning the volley, calling it 'terrible hypocrisy' for Trump allies to complain given the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump's pardons of the rioters. Ocasio-Cortez is a millennial progressive who earned degrees in international relations and economics and worked as a waiter and bartender before entering politics. With support from the progressive Working Families Party, she ousted a top House Democrat, Joe Crowley, in a 2018 primary. Like Trump, she leverages millions of social media followers. Also like Trump, she is an economic populist. But she comes from the left wing of U.S. politics and without the anti-immigration and cultural conservatism of Trump's right wing or the alliances with billionaire business and tech elites. She has recently headlined the 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a two-time presidential candidate. The tour has drawn tens of thousands of people across the country, notably including reliably Republican states, often with overflow crowds outside many stops. Ocasio-Cortez's next political move seems less certain than Pritzker's. She is seen as a potential primary challenger to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, and she only recently became old enough to be constitutionally eligible for the presidency. But she appears poised to inherit the mantle of the 83-year-old Sanders' movement. She freely criticizes Trump. But she leans more heavily into broader economic and social critiques that she's made since her first House bid and that Sanders has offered for decades. 'For years we have known that our political system has slowly but surely become dominated by big money and billionaires, and time after time we have seen how our government and laws are more responsive to corporations and lobbyists than everyday people and voters,' she said in Folsom, Calif. She advocated for 'living wages … stable housing … guaranteed healthcare,' and blasted 'the agenda of dark money to keep our wages low and to loot our public goods like Social Security and Medicare.' She also played up her roots: 'From the waitress who is now speaking to you today, I can tell you: Impossible is nothing.' Ocasio-Cortez and Pritzker are allied against a common opponent, Trump, and not each other. Advisors to Ocasio-Cortez and Pritzker did not respond to questions. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, argues Pritzker could be more attractive as a 'traitor to his class' in the tradition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. An East Coast patrician, Roosevelt authored the New Deal's federal expansion to combat the Great Depression of the 1930s. 'How powerful would it be if a billionaire was the one helping to lead the charge against corrupt billionaires and corrupt billionaire corporations that are trying to crack the Constitution and loot the American people?' Green said, adding that 'continued silence' on 'billionaire issues' should disqualify Pritzker. 'We have to be speaking to the shake-up-the-system vibe that people want to see.' Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, which typically backs centrist Democrats, countered that Pritzker could bring a 'more stable' version of Trump's argument that his wealth and success is an asset. Trump's biggest liability, Bennett said, is 'chaos' that negatively affects people's lives. 'People are very mad at Elon Musk, but not because he's rich,' Bennett said of the Tesla chief executive who is leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency. 'They're mad at him because he's vandalizing our government and doing it in a destructive way.' A relative of the governor, Rachel Pritzker, chairs Third Way's board of trustees. Ocasio-Cortez is often criticized by more moderate Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has also positioned herself as a thought leader in the party. Slotkin recently suggested the word 'oligarchy' didn't resonate with working-class voters. It was an implicit rebuke of the Ocasio-Cortez-Sanders' tour. Shortly after Slotkin's comments about oligarchy, Ocasio-Cortez posted on X: 'Plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel threatened by rising class consciousness.' Bennett said Democrats who emerge as party leaders, including the 2028 nominee, will be those who offer solutions for voters' frustration 'over their needs not being met.' It's a notion that Green insisted is indistinguishable from criticizing the billionaire class, along with the tax and labor policies that drive wealth and income gaps in the United States. Whatever direction Democrats choose, Bennett said, Ocasio-Cortez has secured her place as a national voice. 'She's very good at what she does. She's formidable,' he said. 'And anybody on the center-left who denies that is just kidding themselves.' Barrow writes for the Associated Press.
Perth Now
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
Tycoon and ex-bartender emerge as anti-Trump leaders
The billionaire heir and the former bartender. Many Democrats have been in and out of the spotlight as the party looks for effective counters to President Donald Trump and his second administration. But two disparate figures, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have seen their national profiles rise by delivering messages that excite a demoralised and fractured party. The governor, a 60-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, and the congresswoman, the 35-year-old with working-class roots, both won their first elections in 2018. Both have urged mass resistance and accused their party of not fighting more. Each has stood out enough to draw sharp retorts from Trump loyalists. But as messengers, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez could not be more different. And their arguments, despite some overlap, are distinct enough to raise familiar questions for Democrats. Should they make their challenges to Trump about threats to democracy and national stability, as Pritzker has done, or portray him as a corrupt billionaire exacerbating an uneven economy, as Ocasio-Cortez does? And beyond the message itself, what qualities should the best messenger have? What links them, said one prominent Democrat, is "assertiveness". "People want Trump and Trumpism to be met with equal passion and force," said National Urban League President Marc Morial, a former New Orleans mayor deeply connected in Democratic politics. On that front, he added, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez "are both effective national figures – but in very different ways". Pritzker was born at the bridge of the baby boomers and Generation X into a sprawling family now entrenched in Democratic politics. Like Trump, he inherited great wealth, but he lambastes the president as a poser on working-class issues. He chaired Illinois' Human Rights Commission before running for governor. In office, he has signed an Illinois minimum-wage increase and is an ally of unions. His family's hotels are unionised, making them regular options for official Democratic Party events. When Democratic President Joe Biden exited the 2024 campaign, Pritzker was floated as a replacement. He made no visible moves, quickly backed Vice President Kamala Harris and acted as the de facto host of her nominating convention in his home state. "Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity," Pritzker said in Chicago. Since Harris' defeat, Pritzker has behaved like a future candidate. One of the nation's highest-profile Jewish politicians, he fired up liberals by comparing the Trump administration to the Third Reich. "If you think I'm overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: it took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic," the governor said in February. "All I'm saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control." Pritzker bemoaned "do-nothing" Democrats, called for party honchos to set aside "decades of stale decorum," and urged voters into the streets. "Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilisation, for disruption, but I am now," he said. Democrats, he added, "must castigate (Republicans) on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box." It was enough for senior Trump aide Stephen Miller to accuse Pritzker of inciting violence. Pritzker wasted no time returning the volley, calling it "terrible hypocrisy" for Trump allies to complain given the Capitol siege on January 6, 2021, and Trump's pardons of the rioters. Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez is a millennial progressive with degrees in international relations and economics. She worked as a waiter and bartender before entering politics. With support from the progressive Working Families Party, she ousted a top House Democrat, Joe Crowley, in a 2018 primary. Like Trump, she leverages millions of social media followers. Also like Trump, she is an economic populist. But she comes from the left wing of US politics and without the anti-immigration and cultural conservatism of Trump's right wing or the alliances with billionaire business and tech elites. She has recently headlined the Fighting Oligarchy tour with Senator Bernie Sanders, a two-time presidential candidate. The tour has drawn tens of thousands of people across the country, notably including reliably Republican states, often with overflow crowds outside many stops. Ocasio-Cortez's next political move seems less certain than Pritzker's. She is seen as a potential primary challenger to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, and she only recently became old enough to be constitutionally eligible for the presidency. But she appears poised to inherit the mantle of the 83-year-old Sanders' movement. She freely criticises Trump. But she leans more heavily into broader economic and social critiques that she's made since her first House bid and that Sanders has offered for decades. "For years we have known that our political system has slowly but surely become dominated by big money and billionaires, and time after time we have seen how our government and laws are more responsive to corporations and lobbyists than everyday people and voters," she said. She advocated for "living wages… stable housing… guaranteed health care," and blasted "the agenda of dark money to keep our wages low and to loot our public goods like Social Security and Medicare". She also played up her roots: "from the waitress who is now speaking to you today, I can tell you: impossible is nothing".
