North Carolina Open Thread: Poor Peoples Campaign, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Cawthorn bonus coverage

Members of Congress, activists and faith leaders join in call to meet the needs and demands of America’s working poor

“This is the real question — what is the cost of inequality?” said Rev. Dr. William Barber during a press conference alongside members of Congress on Thursday in Washington D.C. to unveil a resolution calling for a “Third Reconstruction” to tackle poverty and the effects of low wages across the country.

The resolution aims to achieve a variety of ambitious goals including expanding voting rights and implementing just immigration reform as well as prioritizing the needs and demands of America’s 140 million poor people. It also updates the standards used to measure poverty to reflect what it takes to achieve a decent standard of living; calls for raising the minimum wage; and ensuring paid family and medical leave for all workers. And it would establish a federal jobs program that prioritizes low income communities and redirects spending on the military and prisons to invest in these policies.

“This is a moral issue rooted in the commitments of our Constitution that the first thing we had to do is establish justice, promote the general welfare, and to ensure equal protection under the law,” Barber said. He was joined by several elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who invited their colleagues to co-sponsor the Third Reconstruction resolution.

PW special report: After conservative criticism, UNC backs down from offering acclaimed journalist tenured position

Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn was shredded on Twitter Thursday after attacking what conservatives have called "critical race theory."

It's a topic that has become a state legislature favorite of conservatives who are working to ban teaching that slavery was wrong.

"The language of these bills is anodyne and fuzzy—compel, for instance, is never defined in the Idaho legislation—and that ambiguity appears to be deliberate," reported The Atlantic earlier this month. According to New Hampshire Republican Rep. Keith Ammon, "'using taxpayer funds to promote ideas such as 'one race is inherently superior to another race or sex' … only exacerbates our differences.' But critics of these efforts warn that the bills would effectively prevent public schools and universities from holding discussions about racism; the New Hampshire measure, in particular, would ban companies that do business with government entities from conducting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs."

Madison Cawthorn: Democrats hate the ‘nuclear family’ because they’re criticizing me for performing my ‘service as a husband’ 

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement May 22, 2021

U.S. Rep. David "Madison" Cawthorn (R-NC) is attacking his critics who are disturbed he has already missed 15 votes as a brand new freshman congressman, which has earned him the worst voting record to date.

Cawthorn was prepared with a comeback: performing his "service as a husband" is more important to him than performing his service in the people's House.

When presented with a chart that shows him missing 16.2% of this year's votes, the 25-year old, one of the youngest people ever elected to Congress, told Real America's Voice David Brody on Friday that he had to "laugh."

"It just show how exactly the Democrats feel about the nuclear family in America right now. I will tell you I was doing the only thing that I find more important than my service here in Congress – and that was my service as a husband."