Inland Empire Progressive

Democrats were staring down a moment of rare leverage, and they didn't hold the line. Moderates as usual caved. After November's strong electoral performance, the momentum is clearly with the Democratic Party. Yet here we are, with a government reopen with little to show for it. For weeks, Democrats of stripes have made it clear: they won’t fund the government without guarantees that the health-insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act will be extended. Republicans and the Trump White House flatly  rejected  that, refusing to negotiate while the government remains shuttered. Democrat could have kept the government shut forcing the Trump Administration to the table. Now that the moderates have caved, what are Democrats getting for reopening? A promise for a meaningless vote. That’s laughable. Recent elections delivered a message: voters believe Democrats must fight for something real. After wins in places like Virginia and New Jersey, the idea that the party s...

Rep. Jay Obernolte let Inland Empire’s public radio sputter into static by supporting cuts that defunded KVCR by $550,000. KVCR (91.9 FM) in San Bernardino Valley College is a valuable source of local news, local arts, and local accountability. For decades, it has served listeners across Riverside and San Bernardino counties information about events throughout the Inland Empire.  When public radio loses support, it undermines the journalistic independence, kneecaps local reporting, and silences the communities whose stories deserve amplification. But apparently, for Obernolte, silence is cheaper. With these cuts in support Obernolte proudly declares, “I am defunding KVCR!”  Obernolte shouldn’t pretend that this is neutral. It’s a sellout to let listeners go unheard. Radio is more than static and talk shows. It’s accountability: local governments, school boards, environmental hazards, health disparities — these are the stories KVCR covers because too often no one else will. To ...

Conservatives are making this nation weaker. And if you needed proof, look no further than the recent spectacle over Qatar building an air-force facility at a U.S. base in  Idaho . If the conservative idea of patriotism includes rolling out the red carpet for foreign militaries on our sovereign soil, you might want to reassess your “America First” bumper sticker. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed off on allowing the Qatari Emiri Air Force to build a facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, so their pilots can train alongside U.S. soldiers.  Hegseth assured everyone that Qatar will not have their own base in the United States and that the US will control the existing base. let’s surrender the optics of sovereignty while claiming we’re still in charge. It’s like letting somebody crash on your couch, telling them they can’t redecorate, and then being surprised when your home loses all character. What’s the rationale?  Combined training? Increased lethal...

The gloves are off, and Democrats have a fighting opportunity to go on offense in all 52 California congressional districts, not just the competitive races that the consultant class like to obsess over. Conservatives have made their brand so toxic, so extreme, and so wildly detached from California values that even Republicans should be looking for the exit ramp that leads them straight into the Democratic Party.  For too long, Democrats have treated deeply red districts as write-offs with Democrats in those districts left to be sacrificial lambs. That mentality is outdated. California’s demographics have shifted, younger and more progressive voters are turning 18 every day, and even moderate Republicans are exhausted by the extremism dominating their party. Democrats in state leadership should fund organizers to canvass, register voters, and develop strong candidates everywhere from Modoc to the Inland Empire where affordability and opportunity are on the ballot. MAGA is incompati...

Donald Trump doesn’t just neglect rural communities he actively undermines them. Let’s take three concrete examples where his actions have betrayed the people he claims to champion. First, the program known as Essential Air Service ( EAS ), which subsidizes flights into remote and rural airports across the country, is being allowed to collapse on his watch. The U.S. Department of Transportation warns that funding could expire imminently, cutting off vital links to medical care, commerce and connectivity for hundreds of rural communities. If you live in a rural town, losing affordable air links is a lifeline that is being pulled away. Next comes the shocking billion-dollar bailout of Argentina. Trump’s decision to throw billions at Argentina’s economy while U.S. soybean and cattle farmers suffer is a rebuke his promised “America First” posture. U.S. farmers and ranchers are the backbone of rural communities and are watching as their markets are undercut by U.S. policy that benefits ...

Donald Trump’s most recent blunder cultural blunder? His outrage at the selection of  Bad Bunny  to headline the 2026 Super Bowl LX halftime show and admitting he’s never heard of the artist, is a staggering display of how out of touch the Trump administration is with the 21st century culture. This isn’t simply one old man shaking his fist at cultural norms, it’s part of a broader pattern. The Trump administration has made deliberate incursions into cultural institutions: from attempting to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to orchestrating sweeping reviews of museums to whitewash the contribution of Black Americans, the message is clear: art, music, performance are for the people Trump chooses to approve. So, when the cultural moment of the halftime show meets Trump’s cultural gatekeeping, it’s no surprise he seems out of touch with modern times. Bad Bunny is one of the world’s most-streamed artists, and the first primarily Spanish-language s...

During Rep. Jay Obernolte’s August  Spectrum News  interview, Obernolte delivered tidy talking points about House GOP messaging on President Trump’s Big Ugly Bill. But one response stood out like a flare in the dark regarding the question of the Epstein files: “We need to go open kimono.” He used it to emphasize transparency and to argue that government should be honest about its actions. And yet that very principle should mean that Obernolte should be a "Yes" on the upcoming vote to release the Epstein files. If he really believes what he said, then a “Yes” vote shouldn’t that hard. This moment calls for something far more significant than partisan gloss: it demands courage. And courage is exactly what Obernolte will need on the upcoming vote to release the Epstein files a vote he has no excuse to oppose. Transparency should never be controversial, yet Washington’s talent for avoiding accountability turns even the simplest moral choices into political calculus. The...

If the Trump administration invokes the Insurrection Act, it would be another signal that the Trump and Conservatives hate America. The Insurrection Act grants the president sweeping authority to deploy the military in American cities and bypasses traditional law enforcement. Historically, the military has been kept separate from domestic policing because the founders feared too much executive control over the military inside civilian life.  By dangling the threat of activating this old but potent power, Trump is effectively saying that cities and states that resist his will be put down by federal soldiers. Trump has said:  “We have an  Insurrection Act  for a reason … if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”   The threat of using it against normal civil-governance processes, in cities led by Democrats sets a dangerous precedent. Legal scholars  have noted that the act’s l...

  Progressives should adopt taking stakes in companies that align with progressive values like clean energy and strategic minerals. Under the Trump Administration shares in the company  Critical Metals  surged over 60 percent after word spread that the U.S. government might take an equity stake in the company’s Greenland rare-earths deposit. The Trump Administration has created a permission structure for state‐backed industrial policy advancing public ends via market mechanisms. However, his moves are not strategic, incompetent, and more for personal grift than for the benefit of the American people. We are in  end-stage  capitalism and conventional free-markets are failing. Corporate consolidation, stagnant wages, and ecological collapse have all exposed how laissez-faire capitalism leaves society at the mercy of profit-seeking and short-termism. Democrats have spent too long trying to patch the system rather than reshape it. They argue about regulation, redis...