calling for change

But if we step back and look at the longer history of democracy — as we’ll do in this article — we see a broader trend of remarkable progress. The world used to be deeply undemocratic, and despite setbacks, it remains much more democratic than it was only half a century ago.

That progress was never steady or secure. The rights and institutions that many of us now live under were built through many partial victories and outright setbacks.

We do not say this to dismiss the real issues that many democracies face today. Quite the opposite. The longer perspective helps us appreciate the democratic institutions that so many of us around the world continue to value, and the efforts that are necessary to protect and expand them.

Now, 136 of Japan’s media outlets have gone further, joining a public awareness project called “I am one of the 89% who want to stop global warming.” Organized by the UN Information Center in Japan, the project aims “to make visible the voices of prominent figures and people from all walks of life who want to stop global warming, and to amplify them into a collective voice of society.”

The DC Bar accepts disciplinary complaints from any member of the public against any of its admitted attorneys. John G. Roberts Jr. is admitted to the DC Bar, and I am filing a complaint against him today, after this article goes live. The complaint alleges that Roberts violated DC Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c) across sixteen annual federal financial disclosure filings from 2007 through 2022, by mischaracterizing at least $10,323,842.70 in documented commission income from law firms appearing before the Court as salary, with unreported commission income across an additional eight annual filings from 2015 through 2022 estimated at a floor of $11.8 million based on the documented seven-year mean, and with the actual figure likely substantially higher given Macrae’s reported revenue growth during that period. The complaint further alleges that Roberts omitted a material equity interest in his wife’s employer from three consecutive annual filings between 2019 and 2021. The complaint cites 5 U.S.C. § 13106 and 18 U.S.C. § 1001 as the underlying statutory predicates.

All of this movement creates pressure. Pressure creates heat. Enough heat and things will change. Be the heat, be the pressure, and the system will bend. That’s how we take our damn country back.

Ocasio-Cortez said that instead of aiming for higher office, “I get to wake up every day and say, ‘How am I going to meet the moment?’

“And conditions change radically all the time. So I make my response less to an attachment to some positional title or position and working backwards from there.”

She added: “I make decisions by waking up in the morning, looking out the window and observing the conditions of this country. And saying what move or what decision can I make today that is going to get us closer to that future, stronger, faster, better than yesterday.”