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What you won’t read elsewhere
I share sources of inspiration—from powerful poets and timeless teachers, to insightful investigators and renowned revolutionaries—challenging the corrupt bipartisan establishment around the country.
Chronicles of a Dying Empire also features analysis of current events reaching beyond the headlines. Readers have learned about the reclamation of land by indigenous communities, compelling documentary films exploring issues including climate justice and indigenous rights, contemporary labor leaders who have battled capital in the U.S. and emerged victorious, and more.
As a writer, I aim to share what I’ve learned from 20 years working as a constitutional lawyer and public interest advocate. I’ve been an immigrant longer than that, and have been told that the intersection of my work experience and my life experience offers a case study in democracy—and its limits.
A unique voice
After graduating from Stanford Law School in 2003, I spent decades working at the intersection of grassroots organizing, legislative advocacy, and non-profit leadership.
My work helping establish marriage equality for same-sex couples—a losing opening battle in an ultimately victorious struggle—began in 2004.
Conversely, I helped win a crucial battle against corporate money in politics, only to watch the notorious Citizens United decision lay waste to that phase of my career—along with the vestiges of democracy in America.
Later, I worked for an organization dedicated to defending judicial independence from the right wing, before coming to focus on ethnic & religious profiling alongside mass surveillance and the executive secrecy that enables all of those crimes against the public.
My work challenging the bipartisan surveillance state helped establish the first restrictions across the U.S. on mass surveillance at the municipal level, in communities from San Francisco to Providence, RI.
My career could offer a case study in how to use the First Amendment. While I was working in Washington to help mold the law, I also organized collectives of politicized performance artists to frequently reclaim public space in cities including San Francisco and Washington, DC. My debut—and so far, only—album was a collection of Bush-era protest songs that I’ve performed hundreds of times in settings from rallies to protests and concerts.
My 2020 congressional campaign made me the only Leftist to ever face former Speaker of the Hose Nancy Pelosi in a November election over the course of her nearly 40-year career in Congress. Over 80,000 San Franciscans voted for me to replace the most powerful voice in Congress, despite a racist character assassination embraced by “journalists” across the political spectrum that forced me to confront the pervasiveness of white supremacy, and its tragically bipartisan roots.
In each of these struggles, I confronted the disappointing—even outrageous—complicity of figures from both major political parties in not only corruption, but also continuing constitutional violations, and the rise & consolidation of fascism.
Peer through smoke & mirrors
Since 2005, my writing has appeared in popular online outlets including Huffington Post, Truthout, and Common Dreams. I’ve also written in academic journals like the Journal of Law & Politics, the Loyola Public Interest Law Reporter, and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s Symposium on Domestic Intelligence.
While my comments have previously appeared in outlets including Salon, The Intercept, and Rolling Stone, a character assassination effectively silenced me in 2020. I continue to write on Substack to offer my voice to readers who are unafraid of confronting the reality of bipartisan corruption across the United States.
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This newsletter is powered by Substack.com, and inspired by voices including Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Gilbert du Motier, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Mother Jones, Stevie Wonder, Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Harry Bridges, and Chuck D.
