Americans are under siege in a class war — and it’s far more brutal and more urgent than our political establishment wants to admit.

The late 20th century brought optimistic promises about globalization and free markets leading to widespread prosperity. While there have been undeniable advancements in technology and living standards for many, it’s clear that not all of these expectations have been fully realized.  

We are being crushed by a broken economic system and betrayed by corrupt politicians who pretend to represent us while serving the interests of billionaires and war profiteers.

Progressive leader Lisa McCormick delivered this fiery address at New Jersey's "No Kings" Day of Defiance Rally on June 14, 2025 - a politically charged date marking both Flag Day and Donald Trump's 79th birthday, as well as the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army's founding - joining two dozen Garden State demonstrations in a nationwide protest movement against Trump's authoritarian policies and what organizers called his "creeping monarchical ambitions."

My fellow Americans, we gather today under a flag that does not belong to tyrants—it belongs to us. 

As Samuel Adams once thundered: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.” His words in 1776 were a rebuke to those who sided with the British Crown.

Today, they are a rebuke to every politician trading our freedom for corporate cash and every citizen silent in the face of authoritarianism.

The Trump administration’s decision to deploy 700 Marines on U.S. soil—against the objections of local leaders and law enforcement—is not just an overreach; it’s a chilling authoritarian power grab.

Since when does the U.S. military exist to intimidate American citizens rather than defend them? Since Donald Trump decided that fear and brute force are his preferred tools of governance.

This is not how a democracy functions. The U.S. military is a sacred institution, bound by duty to protect the Constitution—not to serve as Trump’s personal intimidation squad. The idea that the military should not be used as a weapon against the American people is a principle rooted in American law and tradition.

Lisa McCormick, a passionate advocate for consumer rights, the future of innovation, and the safety of our children, issued a scathing call for action to break up Big Tech—an industry whose unchecked power has grown so immense it now surpasses the GDP of entire countries. From Google to Meta, Apple to Amazon, these tech giants have accumulated extraordinary economic and political power, and it’s high time they are held accountable for the harms they continue to inflict on the American public.

“Every day that passes without curtailing the power of Big Tech is another day that we put our children, our economy, and our national security at risk,” McCormick said. “These companies have become too big to govern. They are now private governments, unaccountable to the people they harm. They need to be broken up, and their executives held personally accountable for the lawlessness they have unleashed on America.”

While the technological success of these companies is undeniable, McCormick insists that it is not just a story of American innovation, but one of monopolistic behavior and harm to consumers, small businesses, and the future of innovation. Big Tech’s dominance has not just stifled competition but has also created an environment where innovation within their own companies is no longer encouraged. Engineers, bogged down by corporate bureaucracy, and managers, disincentivized from disrupting the status quo, are shackled by their own success.

"Cory Booker, the U.S. Senator from New Jersey, deserves scrutiny for his close ties to the tech industry, including receiving substantial campaign contributions from tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook,” McCormick said. “His financial reliance on Big Tech and its leaders, combined with Booker’s history of supporting tech-friendly policies, has influenced his stance in subtle yet substantial ways." 

We live in an age of extraordinary possibility—and profound peril. The same technologies that connect us can be weaponized against us. The same global ties that fuel our prosperity can carry threats to our shores. The same freedoms we cherish can be exploited by those who seek to divide us.

Yet we need not choose between safety and liberty, between strength and compassion, between vigilance and the open society that makes us who we are. America has always been at its best when we meet challenges not with fear, but with resolve—not by retreating from the world, but by shaping it.

America has promised liberty, prosperity, and justice for all, but all that requires security because there are people who would take away our freedom, refuse to share our wealth, or impose upon us corruption or unfairness. 

Americans stand at a crossroads in history. The challenges before us—cyberattacks that can cripple our infrastructure, pandemics that can sweep across continents, the rising tide of climate displacement, and the specter of extremism both foreign and domestic—demand not just vigilance, but vision. Not just strength, but wisdom. Not just power, but principle.

The security of our nation can no longer be measured solely by the might of our military, though that strength must never be in doubt. True security in this century requires more—an unshakable commitment to innovation, to justice, to the dignity of all people, and to the preservation of this planet we call home.

President Donald Trump's reckless abuses require us to examine a growing controversy surrounding presidential pardons and their impact on public trust in government.

Trump has granted a full pardon to Scott Jenkins, the former sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia, who was convicted of accepting $75,000 in bribes in exchange for appointing businessmen as auxiliary deputies. A federal jury found Jenkins guilty of conspiracy, fraud, and bribery, sentencing him to 10 years in prison—a sentence now erased by executive clemency.

Donald Trump doesn't respect law and order—he respects loyalty. He doesn't care about justice—he cares about power. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to pay nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump-loving terrorist rioter who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer during the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

As Donald Trump unleashes a brutal, unprecedented assault on the backbone of American government, progressive warrior Lisa McCormick is tearing off the gloves and exposing the MAGA regime’s all-out war on federal workers—and the devastating consequences for every American who relies on their vital services.

MAGA sabotages the federal workforce in a radical second-term power grab, and as citizens we must meet our responsibility to make the society we deserve.

On May 26, 1865, the last major Confederate field commander, General Edmund Kirby Smith, along with the rest of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, surrendered to Union forces in Galveston, Texas. The surrender finalized the end of organized Southern resistance in the west. This came more than a month after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. 

In a wider sense, the Civil War has not ended. 

The guns fell silent at Appomattox and Galveston in 1865, but the conflict never truly ended. The South surrendered its armies, but not its cause. The battlefields went quiet, but the struggle over what America would become—a multiracial democracy or a white man’s republic—continued in courthouses, legislatures, and the streets.

The Confederacy lost the war, but as Edward Alfred Pollard, the Richmond newspaper editor who coined the term The Lost Cause, boldly declared in 1866, the fight for white supremacy endured.

Hidden in the labyrinth of a thousand-page budget reconciliation bill—a bill that Congressman Tom Kean Jr. twice cast the deciding vote to pass—lies a sinister provision: a 70% slash to the budget of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the only federal agency solely dedicated to protecting working Americans from financial predators.

“This is defunding the police, not just a cut,” said anti-establishment progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick. “It’s a deliberate dismantling. Combined with relentless Republican efforts to kneecap the CFPB’s enforcement powers, this move ensures that Wall Street banks, payday lenders, and credit card giants can once again exploit hardworking families with impunity.”

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the Republican Party’s pro-slavery Black conservative, has once again proven that his loyalty to corporate greed outweighs any semblance of compassion for working Americans.

In a staggering display of callousness, Scott recently declared that anyone relying on Medicaid—the lifeline for millions of low-income families, children, and disabled Americans—should be forced to work like enslaved people.

“If you’re on Medicaid, you should be able to work. If you can work, you should work,” said Scott during an interview on Fox News’ Hannity. “Having the restoration of work requirements saves billions of dollars. We can keep the integrity of Medicaid while putting in place work requirements and eliminating illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid.”

But progressive firebrand Lisa McCormick isn’t having it.

McCormick, the anti-establishment Democrat who stunned New Jersey politics by garnering more primary votes than any statewide challenger since 1980 in her 2018 Senate bid against the disgraced former US Senator Bob Menendez, tore into Scott’s heartless rhetoric with the fury of a movement that’s sick of watching Republicans kick the poor while they’re down.