https://znetwork.org/author/sonalikolhatkar/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:32:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/sonalikolhatkar/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anti-ice-resistance-sprang-up-across-red-states-in-2025/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anti-ice-resistance-sprang-up-across-red-states-in-2025/#respond Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292913 Grassroots organizations around the United States, with little to no support from local authorities, have spent much of the past year defending themselves against President Donald Trump’s deployments of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the National Guard. While community defense efforts in large urban metropolises such as Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/anti-ice-resistance-sprang-up-across-red-states-in-2025/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americans-arent-traumatized-enough-by-gun-violence/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americans-arent-traumatized-enough-by-gun-violence/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292681 The December 14 mass shooting in Sydney, Australia, aimed at the Jewish community during Hanukkah celebrations on Bondi Beach, stunned the world. Fifteen people were killed, including a 10-year-old child. Instead of tackling antisemitism and more strictly regulating guns, right-wing and liberal pundits immediately politicized the incident by blaming pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide activism for fueling [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/americans-arent-traumatized-enough-by-gun-violence/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/if-people-are-going-hungry-why-cant-we-feed-them/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/if-people-are-going-hungry-why-cant-we-feed-them/#respond Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291961 The recent government shutdown was a stark reminder that 42 million people across the United States rely on federal food benefits. That’s 12 percent of the nation’s population that lawmakers and President Donald Trump threw under the bus, cutting off SNAP benefits in an attempt to force a deal. The shutdown has ended, but SNAP remains [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/if-people-are-going-hungry-why-cant-we-feed-them/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/#respond Thu, 27 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291697 Baristas have launched the largest strike in their company’s history and are standing firm until their demands are met. Thousands of baristas at nearly 100 Starbucks locations are on strike this holiday season, picketing outside the iconic cafes for a contract. While the corporate coffee chain has claimed little to no disruption to its bottom line so far, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/montana-has-an-ambitious-plan-to-end-dark-money-in-elections/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/montana-has-an-ambitious-plan-to-end-dark-money-in-elections/#respond Sat, 15 Nov 2025 14:07:10 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291293 Fifteen years after a landmark Supreme Court case turbocharged corporate spending in the political process, a group hopes it may have a way to finally rein in some of the outsized influence of the ultrawealthy. The 2010 ruling on Citizens United v. FEC opened the floodgates of political spending in elections. Every year since then, untraceable financial political [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/montana-has-an-ambitious-plan-to-end-dark-money-in-elections/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rage-against-the-ice-machine/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rage-against-the-ice-machine/#respond Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290626 Trump’s ICE forces are facing militant and organized opposition everywhere they turn. A New York City woman wearing a navy blue polka-dot dress has gone viral for her defiant resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a raid in lower Manhattan on October 21, 2025. Appearing as though she was on her way from work—the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rage-against-the-ice-machine/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rfk-jr-threatens-a-century-of-medical-progress/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rfk-jr-threatens-a-century-of-medical-progress/#respond Sat, 04 Oct 2025 14:43:32 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289502 Arguably the most important medical innovation of the 20th century is under attack, in part because it’s been so effective. We live in an era when diseases such as polio are incredibly rare — because of childhood vaccines. Now, thanks to the antivaxxer-in-chief at the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rfk-jr-threatens-a-century-of-medical-progress/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascists-dont-deserve-space-our-humanity-is-not-up-for-debate/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascists-dont-deserve-space-our-humanity-is-not-up-for-debate/#respond Sat, 20 Sep 2025 15:00:29 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288804 “The proper way to respond” to white supremacist fascism “is to have a backbone,” says Tariq Khan, a historian and lecturer at Yale University, in an interview on September 17, a week after the assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk. As the author of The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascists-dont-deserve-space-our-humanity-is-not-up-for-debate/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-fund-real-public-safetynot-ice/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-fund-real-public-safetynot-ice/#respond Sun, 31 Aug 2025 16:14:20 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287987 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a recruitment message on social media this summer saying, “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.” Setting aside the racist overtones of this messaging, even DHS itself says it’s not true. Border crossings have fallen to an all-time low — DHS’s own [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-fund-real-public-safetynot-ice/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-we-protect-our-children-from-the-government/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-we-protect-our-children-from-the-government/#respond Wed, 27 Aug 2025 19:19:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287797 As summer winds down, kids all over the United States are starting the school year. In addition to the standard back-to-school trepidation, children of color are facing the unimaginable terror of being snatched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. In Southern California, which has been an epicenter of ICE activity since early summer, federal [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-we-protect-our-children-from-the-government/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/public-funding-is-the-solution-to-media-bias-not-the-driver/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/public-funding-is-the-solution-to-media-bias-not-the-driver/#respond Sat, 26 Jul 2025 15:19:05 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286598 If ever there was a sign that democracy in the United States is in dire straits, it was Congress’s rescission of $9 billion in funding for public media and foreign aid, achieved via a party-line vote of 216 to 213 on July 18, 2025. The vote took place despite the fact that millions of people wrote [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/public-funding-is-the-solution-to-media-bias-not-the-driver/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-will-it-take-to-end-trumps-ice-raids/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-will-it-take-to-end-trumps-ice-raids/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:58:41 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285436 Donald Trump is not the first president to unleash the terror of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on immigrant communities across the United States. But he’s the most blatant in his use of a federal armed unit as a tool of terror, fulfilling multiple goals at once: to reinforce white supremacy, to undermine his [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-will-it-take-to-end-trumps-ice-raids/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-the-nations-highest-minimum-wage/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-the-nations-highest-minimum-wage/#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284530 Tourism workers in Southern California just won a historic battle for the highest minimum wage in the nation—a perfect counterpoint to the Republican-led tax bill that rewards billionaires at the expense of low-income Medicaid recipients. The union-backed campaign is a powerful lesson in creative, proactive, and long-term mobilizing for economic justice. Southern California’s tourism industry [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-the-nations-highest-minimum-wage/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-the-right-really-hates-the-postal-service/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-the-right-really-hates-the-postal-service/#comments Wed, 14 May 2025 12:28:08 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283710 President Donald Trump has tapped a former board member of the private mail delivery corporation FedEx to be the next United States Postmaster General. David Steiner’s appointment as head of the public service agency is a signal that Trump is going to take another stab at something he tried and failed to do during his [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-the-right-really-hates-the-postal-service/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-can-be-useful-but-not-how-trump-is-using-them/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-can-be-useful-but-not-how-trump-is-using-them/#respond Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:51:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281949 President Donald Trump has said “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” He claims tariffs will restore American trade supremacy, bring lost jobs back to the United States, and most bizarrely, replace income taxes. Tariffs can be a useful tool to regulate global trade in the interest of jobs, wages, labor rights, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-can-be-useful-but-not-how-trump-is-using-them/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/first-they-came-for-the-venezuelans/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/first-they-came-for-the-venezuelans/#respond Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281686 President Donald Trump promised to unleash mass deportations on immigrants during his presidential campaign. But he has gone much further, with the disappearing of hundreds of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to El Salvador’s notorious gulag. It’s a warning shot—one that has serious consequences for all of us, immigrant or not. The method and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/first-they-came-for-the-venezuelans/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/only-the-people-can-save-the-people-say-migrant-workers/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/only-the-people-can-save-the-people-say-migrant-workers/#respond Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280315 The National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) embodies an ethos of “solidarity, not charity,” in both fire relief and immigrant rights. When the Eaton Fire began on January 7, 2025, in Altadena, California, it blazed through residential neighborhoods, destroying thousands of family homes. On the morning of January 8, as businesses burned on North Lake [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/only-the-people-can-save-the-people-say-migrant-workers/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/7-ways-to-rise-up-against-trumpism-2-0/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/7-ways-to-rise-up-against-trumpism-2-0/#respond Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280007 Since Donald Trump’s second term began on Jan. 20, 2025, his administration has aggressively launched a deluge of multipronged attacks on immigrants, transgender people, racial equity initiatives, federal workers, climate regulations, and more. “It is a fire hose right now,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) told the Associated Press. “That’s what he does. He creates a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/7-ways-to-rise-up-against-trumpism-2-0/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-embrace-our-instinct-for-collective-action-in-bad-times-and-good/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-embrace-our-instinct-for-collective-action-in-bad-times-and-good/#respond Thu, 30 Jan 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279084 When my multigenerational family of six evacuated our home this January, we wondered if the fires visible from our front porch would engulf our house as we fled. Text reports of friends losing homes bombarded my phone as we settled into a cramped hotel room for the next three nights. Our home was just spared, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lets-embrace-our-instinct-for-collective-action-in-bad-times-and-good/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ive-covered-climate-disasters-for-decades-now-i-live-on-the-front-lines/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ive-covered-climate-disasters-for-decades-now-i-live-on-the-front-lines/#respond Mon, 27 Jan 2025 15:59:16 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278950 In January, I am ordinarily making lemon curd, lemonade, lemon bars, lemon salad dressing and every citrus-infused dish I can think of. It is the time of year when my decades-old dwarf lemon tree is overflowing with intoxicating Meyer lemons, hanging on spiky branches like yellow baubles on a Christmas tree, heavy and sweet with [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ive-covered-climate-disasters-for-decades-now-i-live-on-the-front-lines/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/abolish-climate-disasters/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/abolish-climate-disasters/#respond Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278830 “Under racial capitalism, land is treated as nothing more than a natural resource to be extracted, and violence is committed against the climate and the waters,” said Leah Penniman, who runs Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York and is the author of the acclaimed book Farming While Black. Penniman’s words have been echoing in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/abolish-climate-disasters/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kill-the-nonprofit-killer-bill/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kill-the-nonprofit-killer-bill/#respond Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277320 This fall, shortly after the election, the House passed a dangerous piece of legislation that many are calling the “nonprofit killer” bill. The bill has an incongruous title: the “Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act.” Among other things, it would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally accuse nonprofit organizations of supporting [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/kill-the-nonprofit-killer-bill/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-our-collective-solution-to-health-injustice/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-our-collective-solution-to-health-injustice/#respond Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:55:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277292 The December 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the public outrage over the state of healthcare it sparked, is a tale of many competing narratives: the killer’s story, the public’s story, the industry’s story, and the politicians’ and punditocracy’s story. Which one wins out determines whether the United States ultimately replaces the healthcare [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-our-collective-solution-to-health-injustice/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-already-rewarding-fossil-fuel-ceos-thats-not-good-for-consumers-or-the-planet/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-already-rewarding-fossil-fuel-ceos-thats-not-good-for-consumers-or-the-planet/#respond Sun, 08 Dec 2024 15:34:31 +0000 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-already-rewarding-fossil-fuel-ceos-thats-not-good-for-consumers-or-the-planet/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-truthful-narratives-on-immigration/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-truthful-narratives-on-immigration/#respond Sat, 07 Dec 2024 15:49:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1276794 A quiet panic has broken out within immigrant communities across the United States ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Mixed-status families are expecting to be separated, DACA recipients foresee their status being revoked, those with Temporary Protected Status are pessimistic about the program remaining valid, and asylum seekers fear the worst. Indeed, if Project 2025’s anti-immigrant agenda is fully enacted, the horrors of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-truthful-narratives-on-immigration/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/its-up-to-us-to-stop-trump-from-selling-our-future-to-his-billionaire-oil-buddies/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/its-up-to-us-to-stop-trump-from-selling-our-future-to-his-billionaire-oil-buddies/#respond Sun, 01 Dec 2024 18:28:28 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1276475 During his campaign, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump publicly promised to reward oil and gas executives handsomely in exchange for funding his campaign. Within weeks of winning the election, he’s making good on his promise by tapping oil and gas executive Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy. Wright has zero experience in running a federal agency. And as The Associated Press reports, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/its-up-to-us-to-stop-trump-from-selling-our-future-to-his-billionaire-oil-buddies/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-musk-are-a-match-leading-us-to-hell/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-musk-are-a-match-leading-us-to-hell/#respond Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:31:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1274444 Elon Musk’s recently announced scheme to bribe voters into backing his favorite presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is a symbol of the economic worldview Republicans are promoting: one where the lines between corporate interests and public regulators are blurred, where government officials and commercial actors scratch each other’s backs so they can gobble up taxpayer dollars. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-and-musk-are-a-match-leading-us-to-hell/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-are-young-working-class-men-more-conservative/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-are-young-working-class-men-more-conservative/#respond Mon, 21 Oct 2024 16:07:56 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1274044 It has been a safe assumption for generations that young people tend to be more liberal than their elders. However, in today’s United States, some of the conventional wisdom around age and ideology is being upended. Young women are moving farther to the left than expected while their male peers are disturbingly tending toward conservatism, even in comparison [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-are-young-working-class-men-more-conservative/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/scapegoating-immigrants-hurts-all-of-us-except-elites/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/scapegoating-immigrants-hurts-all-of-us-except-elites/#respond Wed, 16 Oct 2024 18:27:15 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273763 Republicans are counting on fears of immigrants to draw white conservatives to the polls. This calculation is dangerous — and it lets the real villains in our politics off the hook. There’s a direct line between Donald Trump’s 2015 declaration about Mexican “rapists” and his 2024 lie about Haitians eating pets. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), has echoed the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/scapegoating-immigrants-hurts-all-of-us-except-elites/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-we-can-learn-from-gen-z-workers/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-we-can-learn-from-gen-z-workers/#respond Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273069 My oldest born is a high school junior, taking his first steps into the hypercompetitive and bewildering world of undergraduate college applications and future careers. So, I was drawn to a recent headline in Fortune proclaiming, “Bosses Are Firing Gen Z Grads Just Months After Hiring Them—Here’s What They Say Needs to Change.” The story [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-we-can-learn-from-gen-z-workers/feed/ 0