The U.S. election system—and the democracy it was formed to protect—are under siege. If we want to save the promise of “government by the people” we need to do something—and fast.

In case you missed the memo, here’s where we are: U.S. public policy and most of our legislation no longer serve the people. That’s because U.S. politics is dominated by Big Money. Social and environmental progress is being blocked by elected officials who cater to big donors and the corporate-backed special interest groups who control re-election funds.

The United States houses 25% of the world's inmates despite having only 5% of the world's population. This fact prompted former Senator Jim Webb of Virginia to say, "Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the U.S., or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice." The prison industrial complex has a vested interest in keeping people locked up.

Elizabeth Warren warns agreement 'would tilt the playing field even more in favor of big multinational corporations and against working families'

'Owning ExxonMobil stock is not a business Vermont should be in,' declared Gov. Peter Shumlin during State of the State address

"On National Security: We do that in the last few months we've had an airliner blown up - apparently by terrorists. We've had civilians massacred in Beirut - in Paris - in Mali - and then recently in San Benardino. The investigations are still ongoing. But the one thing we do know is that none of these terrorist attacks were caused by Syrian refugees.

Fifty years ago, African-Americans were denied the right to vote. Now the vast majority of Americans are being denied the rightful value of their vote.

Congressmembers Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, both Democrats, have made no secret of their strong opposition to fracking. Last December, for instance, as new rules were being formulated on the opening new areas of public lands to energy exploration and extraction, they introduced a bill to ban fracking entirely on public lands.