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I, too, believe that each individual has the moral duty to defy any law that he or she deems unjust.

Of course, he or she must do so nonviolently. And he or she must do so publicly, willingly accepting all the legal and personal consequences. These two requirements separate the nonviolent dissenter from the terrorist or the common criminal, who scheme in the darkness and do everything they can to evade capture.

No liberal should deny these basic tenets of justice-seeking. All the great sages are unanimous on this point, from Thoreau to Gandhi.

It is hypocritical for those of us on the left to suggest that this moral duty falls upon the shoulders only of liberals pursuing liberal aims. The duty to resist unjust laws falls upon every human being. It is, in fact, the final check against tyranny -- on the right or left.

But that said: There are different kinds of laws. Thus there are different kinds of lawbreakers.

And this is where I part company with Kim Davis and her most vocal supporters, including my friend Gov. Mike Huckabee. They compare her defiance to the actions of Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

These comparisons are misguided.

Parks, King, Fannie Lou Hamer, the freedom riders and countless others went to jail in defiance of bigoted local laws and practices. They broke local laws -- often (though not always) to extend the protections of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in places that refused to honor those rulings.

Yes, Kim Davis is a lawbreaker, for reasons of conscience. That in itself is no dishonor.

But Davis is a particular kind of lawbreaker -- one who is using her local authority to try to block federal, judicial rulings. And those decisions are specifically designed to recognize the rights of a historically despised minority group.

That kind of lawbreaking puts Kim Davis more in the tradition of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, not of Martin Luther King.

Wallace was an ardent segregationist. He notoriously stood in the schoolhouse door, to keep African-American students from integrating white schools. Just like Kim Davis, Wallace was trying to use his local powers to defy the courts.

The federal courts in the 1950s and 1960s were newly asserting that a despised out-group had basic rights. That's exactly what our Supreme Court is doing today, regarding gay men and lesbians.

Just like Kim Davis, Wallace's objections were guided by his own moral compass and his own reading of scripture. So Davis does stand in a tradition of scripture-based civil disobedience, and she should claim it.

But it is dishonest to try to cloak her in the same garments as Parks or King.

To the contrary: Kim Davis is the living heir to the long tradition of local segregationists, whom King specifically denounced at the 1963 March on Washington. He accused them of having their "lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification" because they refused to obey federal court orders to protect the vulnerable minority group of that day.

The key to nonviolent civil disobedience is the willingness to step forward honestly and accept all the consequences, legal and otherwise, for one's stand.

Kim Davis and her supporters should do so. And one of the consequences is that future generations will view her as exactly the same kind of person Wallace was.

And rightly so.

Source: CNN

Well, I am not perplexed. The new generation of civil rights activists never accepted "trickle-down economics" from conservatives. Today they are rejecting "trickle-down justice" from the liberals.

I love and admire Sanders. But until the Black Lives Matters activists started snatching away their microphones, economic populists like him rarely spotlighted the specific pain that has been building in the African-American community. Instead, they focused mainly on so-called "class issues" -- including the need to defend Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, rein in Wall Street and the Koch Brothers, and tax corporations and rich people.

Many African-American leaders support those policies. But we have needed and wanted more. Our economic problems include an unemployment rate that is double that of whites, racially biased policing and court systems, predatory lenders who deliberately target black neighborhoods and public schools that expel black children at staggering rates for minor offenses.

Over the years, many black leaders have asked the populists to include specific remedies for our specific ills. We have done this politely and behind closed doors. Often we would hear that their "progressive economic policies" would disproportionately help black folks, so we should be fine with our community's needs never being addressed by name.

It was infuriating. Sometimes, it seemed some Democratic politicians were happy to publicly name and embrace every part of the Democratic coalition -- immigrants rights defenders, womens' rights advocates, environmentalists and champions of LBGT equality. But not black people.

At least, not explicitly -- and certainly not comfortably. We were just supposed to sit there and hope that race-neutral rhetoric and race-neutral proposals might somehow fix our race-specific problems.

I starting calling this dubious strategy "trickle-down justice."

Today's young activists simply are not having any of it.

In case anyone missed the memo after Ferguson, Baltimore and Charleston, here it is: the Obama era of black silence on issues that matter to us is over.

And the entire Democratic Party needs to sit up and take notice.

Black Lives Matter has elevated the national discussion of anti-black racism more dramatically than any movement in decades. It is the only "progressive" force besides Hillary Clinton that the GOP was forced to acknowledge in its first debate last week. By any measure, and especially for such a new phenomenon, that's an extraordinary achievement.

Pundits tend to portray the modern Democratic Party as having only two factions: the pro-business/Wall Street "moderates" (traditionally represented by the Clintons) versus the economic populists (now represented by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders).

But a third force is rising: a growing, racial justice wing (best represented by the Dreamers and Black Lives Matter) that is highly suspicious of both -- and finds the clueless hypocrisy of the second to be particularly grating.

Here are some things to consider.

1) Black Lives Matter is not a single organization.

Black Lives Matter is not a single organization -- at least not in the conventional sense. It represents the expression of tens of thousands of activists, doing what they think makes sense, in hundreds of different places.

In that regard, it shares some features with Occupy, the tea party and the Arab Spring uprising. It is a "swarm" -- a decentralized network, using an "open source" brand. Such phenomena are notoriously messy and difficult. But they are powerful and necessary to change anything in the present era.

So I will not agree with every single choice, in every time and every place, made by every activist who is inspired by Black Lives Matter. But I don't have to endorse or embrace every tactic for me still to speak with deep respect and warm regard for a force that is becoming the most important movement against anti-black racism in decades.

I would hope that would be true of everyone.

Whatever injury befell Sanders this weekend, worse injuries have fallen upon the young women who grabbed the microphone -- perpetually made to feel wrong, out of place, less than, even criminal their whole lives purely based on the color of their skin. Obviously, that sad fact does not excuse anything and everything that any BLM-inspired activist does. But it is something that is useful to keep in mind, as we search for pathways to unity.

2) It is not just about Bernie Sanders...

It turns out the Seattle activists' actions were aimed less at Sanders himself and more at racistpractices and policies being tolerated by local liberals in a supposed progressive bastion like Seattle. The Seattle Police Department has been under investigation for years for racist scandals and problematic use of force. Black children in King County schools are suspended at higher rates than their white peers. And the region is wasting $210 million on a new jail instead of investing in communities.

The gulf between the region's political reputation and its racial reality is not surprising to me. Nor is Seattle unusual. Far too many progressives are working within social networks that are almost monolithically white. In my experience, too few have focused on building authentic bridges beyond their monochromatic comfort zones.

Therefore, they are not really any more tuned in to the daily lives of people of color than the average moderate or even conservative. That's why their prescriptions for change often ring hollow and fall flat -- at least outside their own company.

3) ... but it is fair to hold Sanders to a higher standard.

Some argue that the #BlackLivesMatter movement should focus its fire on Republicans. But the GOP generally does not pretend to be a champion of the economic underdog. And unlike Hillary Clinton or Martin O'Malley, the central conceit of Sanders' campaign is that he represents a voice of moral clarity against skyrocketing inequality.

For example: any fair discussion of "income inequality" must necessarily include a denunciation of our racially biased criminal justice system. Always.

After all, it is hard to get a job after a judge labels you a felon. African-Americans and white people do drugs at the same rate. But the system incarcerates African-Americans at SIX TIMES the rate of whites, for the exact same behavior. This injustice is a major driver of economic inequality in the black community. It should be a part of ANY speech about economic inequality in the United States -- and not just in speeches made to black audiences.

Therefore nobody should have had to push Sanders to tackle criminal justice issues. To the contrary, especially given the turmoil of the past year, the devastating impact of the incarceration industry should have been a key part of his very first speech as a presidential candidate.

To his credit, Sanders has quickly and admirably adapted. Since BLM protesters disrupted his time on stage at Netroots Nation, Sanders has made powerful speeches and statements. He has posted important, relevant policy prescriptions on his website. Sanders' 2015 rhetoric may finally start to match his pro-civil rights voting record in Congress. Of course, he could go further. And I suspect he will.

4) Bernie's supporters have failed to keep pace with Sanders' progress

Unfortunately, the vitriol from many of Sanders' incensed backers is not helping his cause. It pains me to say this. But I continue to observe shocking levels of racial paternalism, arrogance and condescension in my personal and online interactions with Sanders' outraged supporters. They remain tone deaf or worse on issues that specifically or disproportionately hurt African-Americans. And the situation seems to be getting worse, not better.

One first-person account of the Sanders rally in Seattle says the mostly white, liberal crowd "turned ugly" after the activists spoke up. If this behavior had taken place at a tea party rally, Sanders' supporters would have condemned it.

Some so-called "progressives" even took to combing through the social media accounts of the young women who have protested Sanders, in search of damaging statements. These are the same tactics that progressives denounce right-wingers for employing -- when they try to smear any unarmed, young black person whom the police have killed.

I do not know what kind of relationship the local white activists in Seattle actually have with young black/brown/native activists. But I bet it falls into one of three categories: nonexistent, tokenizing or condescending/condemning. Because, sadly, those are the only choices on the menu in most U.S. cities.

Today's young activists won't put up with that relationship any longer.

5) Beyond emotions -- here is the hard math

The challenge for all Democrats now is not raw emotion -- but hard math.

For Democrats to win the White House in 2016, African-Americans must give 90-95% of our votes to that party's nominee.

Not 50+1% of our vote.

Not even 75%.

To put another Democrat in the White House, black folks must be practically UNANIMOUS in our support for a Democrat.

AND then we will have to overcome hundreds of racist obstacles just to get to the poll: being unlawfully purged from voter rolls, getting targeted for voter ID harassment, being forced to stand in understaffed voting lines for hours and hours and more.

AND after all that, we still must turn out in record numbers.

Or the Democrats will lose. Period.

Given that fact, younger African-Americans rightfully expect each and every Democratic candidate to explicitly, loudly and enthusiastically address the pain and needs of black lives -- to THEIR satisfaction.

That's fair -- since those very candidates will expect those same young activists to turn out millions of voters for them in just a few months. And in pursuit of this goal, I think that most (if not all) of Black Lives Matters' tactics -- including and especially the iconic protest at Netroots Nation -- are laudable, praiseworthy and inspired.

Perhaps this generation of young black folks will be the last one the Democrats (and economic populists, generally) can simply presume to take for granted.

If Black Lives Matter succeeds in that and nothing else, it will have built one of the most meaningful political movements of the 21st century.

Click to read on CNN.

But here's the worst part: Thursday's debate will include a carnival barker who grabs headlines by throwing racial bombshells. But it will exclude a former governor who is demonstrating that conservative principles can reach across racial and party lines.

To be sure: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is not my cup of tea, personally. After all, his main economic achievement is a flood of low-wage jobs not fit to support a family. His approach to detaining immigrants, especially children, in poor conditions in private prisons has been callous and unconscionable. I could go on.

But compared to Donald Trump, Perry is a titan of tolerance and inclusion. And Perry's actual good works deserve a fuller hearing and a bigger platform.

Instead, we will hear more bloviating from the ubiquitous Trump. This is a man who kicked off his campaign with a speech declaring that Mexican immigrants are drug pushers and rapists, has relied on racist tropes to attack President Obama's faith and birthplace, and blamed recent urban unrest on the President "inciting violence." Nonetheless, Trump declaims that "I have a great relationship with the blacks" and insists he will win the African-American vote. Not going to happen.

But here's something that may help Republicans make headway with black voters: actually addressing our concerns.

One major concern is the out-of-control incarceration industry, which locks up massive numbers of black youths out of proportion to their numbers or even their crimes.

And when it comes to reforming the system, Perry has said the right things, backed his words up with action and has been willing to reach across the aisle.

"You want to talk about real conservative governance?"he commented at last year's Conservative Political Action Conference. "Shut prisons down. Save that money." He has spoken at length about cruel and unnecessary mandatory minimums and has embraced drug courts.

He even submitted a video message to the Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform. (Full disclosure: Newt Gingrich's organization and mine co-sponsored that event in March.)

His reforms lowered crime rates and incarceration rates at the same time, saving the state money. Under his leadership, Texas was actually able to close three prisons.

Perry is not alone. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, both Republicans, have also made headway. For years, right-wing activists like Pat Nolan, Marc Levin and Right on Crime have been building up conservative momentum for smart policies that reduce incarceration, recidivism and cost while keeping us safe.

In my view, Republican debate organizers should have the sense to realize that excluding voices like Perry's and including Trump's does voters of all parties a disservice.

I hope for all of our sakes that we hear a lot more from leaders like Perry moving forward -- and a whole lot less from bomb throwers like Donald Trump.

Click to read on CNN

Today, the administration is publishing the plan to do something about it.

If you live, work or breathe in the United States, Obama's new national Clean Power Plan is good news for you. Unfortunately, you would never know that -- if you listened to all the big polluters screaming bloody murder about it.

The clean power plan is a smart approach -- because it is both powerful and flexible. It requires that U.S. power plants reduce their emissions 32% below 2005 levels by 2030. But each state gets to decide how best to do that. They can invest in renewables like solar and wind, switch to natural gas, or simply upgrade coal plants to produce more electricity with lower emissions.

This is smart federal policy-making. President Obama is setting a clear goal, but he is leaving it to the laboratories of democracy to decide how best to get there.

Of course, that fact will not stop the bellyaching from fossil fuel companies and their puppet politicians. Big polluters are already pulling out all the stops, trying to convince you that this plan will somehow doom the republic.

Don't believe the hype. Here are the myths -- and the facts.

Fact 1: Obama has full authority to make this move

Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency have 100% of the authority they need to do this. You know who gave them the power? Hippie environmentalists like Richard Nixon and John Robert's conservative Supreme Court.

Nixon created the EPA. He also signed the Clean Air Act, which gave the executive branch authority to regulate air pollution. And in 2007, the Supreme Court found in Massachusetts vs. EPA that carbon counted as an "air pollutant." Under that case, Obama has the authority -- and perhaps the duty -- to act boldly to protect public health.

Somewhat ironically, Obama would have preferred to co-create a comprehensive solution with Congress. That's why he has refrained from using his executive authority until now. That's why he spent the better part of his first term begging members of Congress to pass climate legislation.

And House did pass a comprehensive "cap-and-trade" bill in the summer of 2009. But Republicans sided with well-heeled, pro-pollution donors like the Koch Brothers and blocked all progress in the Senate.

Shaking off this defeat, the President is simply recognizing his responsibility to act under existing law. So today Obama is using powers granted to the president during the Nixon era and approved for this very purpose by the Supreme Court in the conservative Roberts era.

Fact 2: Obama's clean energy rules will save Americans money on the energy bills

This plan is going to save everyone money. Right now, your utility bill is going to inefficient, dirty energy. That will change.

Under the Clean Power Plan, states will have incentives to bring down utility bills while putting up solar panels. It will also encourage energy producers to become more efficient.

More efficient production and cheaper energy sources will add up to saving. The EPA estimates consumers will save $8 per month. Another study finds some Americans will save $14 for month. The White House estimates the average American will save $85 on their utility bill by 2030.

Fact 3: Obama's plan will help poor and minority communities

Suddenly Republicans and polluters are sounding like #BlackLivesMatter activists -- full of passion to defend people of color from Obama's plan. Well, if you are feeling skeptical, you should.

The clean power plan will massively help minorities and low-income Americans. After all, one in six black kids and one in nine Latino children has asthma. Seventy-eight percent of African-Americans live within 30 miles of a dirty, polluting coal plant. African-Americans are also more likely to live in coastal areas and die during heat waves.

In fact, health concerns are already driving a move away from coal. Since 2010, more than 200 coal plants have been shut down or had their retirements announced. Do not blame Obama. Communities most affected by polluted air led those fights.

A grassroots movement, supported by organizations like the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, took the fight to the streets, courthouses, and legislatures. Hard-hit communities like Little Village in Chicago and North Omaha, Nebraska, led the way, organizing campaigns to retire the coal plants in their backyards and chart a course to a healthier, more sustainable future.

Obama's clean power plan will save both lives and bucks spent on hospital bills. It also opens the door to clean-energy jobs for struggling communities. It rewards states that focus on helping low-income communities.

Separately, the Obama budget includes a program, POWER+, to invest in coal workers affected by the transition to cleaner energy.

On top of it all, the administration recently announced a low-income solar program. This initiative will lower utility bills, raise solar panels, and make solar the most diverse energy sector in America. It will do so through a national partnership between solar companies, housing authorities, rural electric co-ops, and states and cities.

America's government today limits the amount of mercury and arsenic that polluters can spew into our skies. But right now, carbon polluters can dump as much greenhouse gas as they want. They just pass the high costs along to the rest of us, in the form of dangerous weather, health risks, and higher utility bills.

But the free ride for dirty energy is coming to an end. The clean power plan is dramatic leap toward a healthier, more prosperous America. If anyone tells you otherwise, help them get their facts straight.

Click to read on CNN

Wrong.

By year's end, President Barack Obama could sign into law major criminal justice reforms -- passed because of the leadership and full engagement of the congressional GOP.

On Thursday, key leaders took a major step toward that outcome as Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, and Bobby Scott, D-Virginia, introduced the Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act of 2015, a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill that will start chipping away at our unjust, unaffordable system of mass incarceration.

Over the past 40 years, the United States has fought the drug war in the worst way possible -- by jailing those who simply needed help with their addiction or mental illness. Meanwhile, we have targeted and disproportionately sentenced black and brown Americans, as well as those from poorer neighborhoods. And we have created a system that costs too much, imprisons too many, and does too little to truly keep us safe.

Now, nearly 25% of the entire world's prison population is behind bars right here in the land of the free. The federal prison population in particular has skyrocketed, soaring more than 800% since 1980.

With all this in mind, there are three reasons we should all be excited about the SAFE Justice Act.

First, the act will safely and smartly reduce our prison population over time. It will refocus our prison system on those who are an immediate threat to others, not people caught in a police sweep with a small amount of marijuana. The act will also reform mandatory minimums to help snag big traffickers -- but without condemning nonviolent offenders to long prison sentences. Instead, it will expand the use of alternative sentencing like probation, drug courts, and medical treatment for addiction or mental illness. And finally, it will help people get their lives back on track when they get home.

It does all this in smart, sensible ways that have already been piloted and proven at the state level. Both red and blue states have shown that you can lower prison populations, reduce costs, and cut crime by instituting evidence-based alternatives to sentencing, giving judges more discretion, and allowing targeted releases of those who are unlikely to offend again.

In short, the SAFE Justice Act will bring those who pose no danger back to their families by taking the best of state policy and implementing it at the federal level. That is how our system should work.

Second, the act offers a chance at comprehensive justice reform legislation.

The reality is that our system of mass incarceration is simply too interconnected and complex to fix piecemeal. It makes little sense, for example, to send people home from prison without changing the way the "felon" label marks them for life -- preventing them from voting, getting jobs, or even having roofs over their heads. Reforming re-entry into the community without revising mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug crimes leaves too many in jail for far too long -- far longer than other advanced nations. Reinvent prisons without transforming policing and sentencing, and you simply replace one generation of the needlessly jailed with another.

There are a number of good bills that have been introduced in the Senate that do in fact accomplish pieces of what the SAFE Justice Act does. But to reform an interlocking and tightly woven system, we need comprehensive fixes like this one.

Finally, the SAFE Justice Act presents a chance for bipartisan justice reform.

Both parties created this mess. Both parties must fix it. Richard Nixon may have declared the war on drugs, and Ronald Reagan may have turned it into a war on the impoverished, but Bill Clinton also helped create today's mass incarceration nightmare.

Republicans control both houses of Congress, meaning nothing will move without bipartisan support. Indeed, in the real world, there is no functional difference between holding out for justice reform with no Republicans involved and opposing reform altogether. It is time to come together, because suffering families do not have the luxury of waiting for ideological purity.

In states across the nation, leaders have taken a deep breath, stepped across the aisle, implemented serious reforms -- and it has worked. In fact, a range of existing justice reform legislation in the U.S. Senate has bipartisan co-sponsors. Criminal justice is one of the few issues where right and left agree, most recently demonstrated by a huge Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform in Washington.

That potential is coming together in a big way. Can such promise be fulfilled? I believe there is nobody more trusted to fix the prison system than Bobby Scott. And there is nobody more committed to cheaper, more effective government than Jim Sensenbrenner. If these two men can work together, then so can everyone else.

The next year will be full of partisan bickering and political grudge matches. But, just maybe, it will also see real bipartisan reform, sparked by two leaders who dared to think big.

Read full article at CNN 

"As Violence Spikes in Some Cities, Is 'Ferguson Effect' to Blame?" asks NBC News. "How many New Yorkers must die before the mayor brings back stop-and-frisk?" blares the New York Post. In the Wall Street Journal, longtime defender of bad cops Heather MacDonald penned an utterly misleading piece on "The New Nationwide Crime Wave" blaming agitation on the part of those upset about the criminal justice system's failure to hold police responsible for the killing of innocent citizens.

The strategy is simple. First, gin up fears of a new nationwide crime epidemic with cherry-picked or misleading stats. Second, blame the supposed epidemic on protests against police violence or on reforms of policing tactics long sought by black, brown and poor Americans. Just don't provide any objective evidence of a link.

Do not be fooled -- this is nothing more than a deliberate campaign to demean Americans for daring to speak out against unlawful police violence.

Apologists for law enforcement brutality start with hyperbolic claims about a new nationwide crime epidemic. But their arguments are hilariously riddled with holes.

For starters, Heather MacDonald's piece is a classic example of how apologists cherry-pick the data. Even if crime is increasing in some cities, what about all the others? If it has jumped in certain neighborhoods, what about the others? Is crime staying flat? Is it decreasing? The people shouting loudest about an all-expansive crime wave never say.

Here is something else they never say: Crime reached historically low levels in 2013 and 2014 in many places. So any increase in 2015 is more likely to be a simple "return to the mean." Like a ball bouncing down the stairs, the yearly numbers will go up and down even as crime rates decline overall.

I could go on. Overall crime is actually down 6.6% in New York City. Small numbers are routinely twisted into scary statistics -- one murder in 2014 and three in 2015 could mean violence levels are historically low, but still be presented as a misleading "300% increase." And statistics are often given completely false interpretations.

The New York Post recently claimed: "You are 45% more likely to be murdered in Bill de Blasio's Manhattan," basing their claim on an increase in murders from 11 to 16. This is hysterically bad math. Even if the increase is something other than statistical noise, someone needs to explain to them that a 45% increase does not make every single person 46% more likely to face violence.

I'm reminded of the old Mark Twain line, of unknown origin: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

What then of claims that this alleged "crime wave" is the fault of protesters in Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, and elsewhere? Or that it is the inevitable result of curtailing mass racial profiling and unconstitutional stopping and searching of African-American, Latino, or poor Americans? These claims are even more flimsy.

MacDonald does not even try. She says "the most plausible explanation" is agitation against police departments, but provides exactly zero evidence of this fact. None at all.

Let us actually examine the evidence. The Ferguson protests erupted in the summer of 2014. But by MacDonald's own admission, crime continued to decrease through the end of the year. Shouldn't we have an immediate increase, if African-Americans were to blame for lawlessness?

Or take stop-and-frisk in New York. From 2011 to 2013, the number of police stops dropped by 75%, but the number of shootings and murders also decreased, by 29%. Murder in New York City was at a historic low in 2013. In 2014, in de Blasio's first year in office police stops declined, and yet the murder rate also fell to another historic low.

For better or worse, stop-and frisk has not disappeared, it has simply been curtailed. For more than a decade, the NYPD stopped nearly 4 million people, most of them with black or brown skin. And the gun recovery rate was a pathetic 0.016%. Last year, police stopped only 46,235, but 18% resulted in an arrest or summons, up from 12% in 2013. And even now, black leaders point out that innocent people are still caught up in the police dragnet.

Finally -- say that there is, in fact, an increase in crime. Could it not simply be statistical noise after historic lows the past years? Could it have something to do with the eighth year of a struggling economy in which unemployment in communities of color is double that of white America? Could it have something to do with an unseasonably warm year, with more young men out in the streets earlier than ever?

Apologists for police abuse never say. Instead they make the far more tenuous leap that violence must be the result of hurting the feelings of police.

I have no doubt that some police officers feel slighted. And I am also sure that great teachers are hurt when their entire profession is attacked. America's public servants who protect us abroad, preserve our air and water, and help our seniors with Social Security undoubtedly suffer low morale when they are criticized. But they continue to do their jobs, and no one blames those who spoke up for bad results. By contrast, today, there is compelling evidence and local citizen complaints of deliberate slowdowns on the part of police.

If police stopped and frisked entire Tea Party rallies to catch one militia member, there would be unending screams of oppression. If teens in tricorner hats and "don't tread on me" shirts were stopped, arrested, beaten, or murdered by law enforcement, it would be widely agreed that it represented government tyranny.

And yet, this has been the reality for many black communities for decades. And when we engage in our constitutional right to protest, the same people who profess to love the Constitution so much declare us responsible for a new nationwide crime wave that may not even exist.

It would be laughable -- if it were not so despicable.

By Van Jones and Newt Gingrich

(CNN) Before Paton Blough got his bipolar disorder under control, it nearly cost him everything.

The Greenville, South Carolina, resident was arrested six times in three years, each for an episode related to his illness. Instead of receiving treatment, he was thrown in jail. In the rough prison environment and without proper treatment, he ended up with two felony convictions for crimes committed while incarcerated.

Blough managed to find a path to treatment. That makes him one of the lucky ones. Today, mentally ill Americans are disproportionately more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, suffer solitary confinement or rape in prison and commit another crime once released.

Quick: Name the largest provider of mental health care in America. If you guessed "our prisons and jails," you would be right.

A 2006 U.S. Department of Justice study found that three out of four female inmates in state prisons, 64% of all people in jail, 56% of all state prison inmates and 45% of people in federal prison have symptoms or a history of mental disorder.

America's approach when the mentally ill commit nonviolent crimes -- locking them up without addressing the problem -- is a solution straight out of the 1800s.

When governments closed state-run psychiatric facilities in the late 1970s, it didn't replace them with community care, and by default, the mentally ill often ended up in jails. There are roughly as many people in Anchorage, Alaska, or Trenton, New Jersey, as there are inmates with severe mental illness in American prisons and jails, according to one 2012 estimate. The estimated number of inmates with mental illness outstrips the number of patients in state psychiatric hospitals by a factor of 10.

Today, in 44 states and the District of Columbia, the largest prison or jail holds more people with serious mental illness than the largest psychiatric hospital. With2 million people with mental illness booked into jails each year, it is not surprising that the biggest mental health providers in the country are LA County Jail, Rikers Island in New York and Cook County Jail in Chicago.

Our system is unfair to those struggling with mental illness.

Cycling them through the criminal justice system, we miss opportunities to link them to treatment that could lead to drastic improvements in their quality of life and our public safety. These people are sick, not bad, and they can be diverted to mental health programs that cost less and are more effective than jail time. People who've committed nonviolent crimes can often set themselves on a better path if they are provided with proper treatment.

The current situation is also unfair to law enforcement officers and to the people running our prisons, who are now forced to act as doctors or face tense confrontations with the mentally ill while weighing the risk to public safety. In fact, at a time when police shootings are generating mass controversy, there is far too little discussion of the fact that when police use force, it often involves someone with a mental illness.

Finally, the current approach is unfair to taxpayers, because there are far more cost-effective ways for a decent society to provide care to the mentally ill. Just look at Ohio, where the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is projected to spend $49 million this year on medications and mental health care, on top of nearly $23,000 per inmate per year.

Paton Blough is proof that there is a better way. After eventually getting the treatment he needed, he is out of jail and now helps teach law enforcement officers effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs.

His focus is just one of a surprising number of proven, effective solutions with broad support. Both advocates for the mentally ill and the law enforcement community have lined up in support of increased training for officers. The psychiatric community as well as those focused on reducing crime can all agree on expanding mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and veterans' courts.

A new initiative, "Stepping Up," unites state and local governments and the American Psychiatric Foundation to promote research-based practices to tackle our overreliance on jail as mental health treatment, such as in-jail counseling programs that reduce the chances of repeat offenders.

State and local officials have shown us the way.

We've seen large communities such as Miami-Dade County, Florida, completely redesign their systems at every level, training police officers in crisis intervention, instituting careful assessments of new jail admissions and redirecting their mentally ill populations into treatment, effectively reducing the rates of re-arrest.

We've seen smaller rural counties faced with tight budgets collaborate with neighboring communities to pool their limited resources to pay for new programs and properly track progress to promote accountability.

Perhaps most surprisingly in these partisan times, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are standing shoulder-to-shoulder to support mental health reform. The bipartisan Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the Senate, passed unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month.

The legislation includes simple measures that would fund alternatives to jail and prison admissions for those in need of treatment and expand training programs for law enforcement personnel on how to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis.

The notion of bipartisan, comprehensive criminal justice reform is not just idle talk. It is happening.

Both sides see practical alternatives to incarceration that can reduce prison populations, improve public safety, save lives and save money. If Congress moves swiftly to pass the great ideas now percolating in the House and Senate, it will become a reality.

Take it from a conservative and a liberal: A good place to start is by addressing the needs of our mentally ill citizens in jails and prisons.

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Our out-of-control criminal justice system has forgotten about justice.

Last Tuesday, eight Atlanta Public Schools employees were sentenced to prison in one of the largest school cheating scandals in American history. But you wouldn't know they were cheaters based on how they were treated in court. The educators were convicted of racketeering — a felony typically reserved for mob bosses, drug kingpins and terrorists.

The Atlanta teachers are now the latest victims of overcriminalization. They were charged under a law that had nothing to do with their actions. For years, the educators quietly changed students' answers on the Georgia Criterion-Referenced CompetencyTest, dramatically boosting the scores. They did so because the tests are tied to the state's funding for schools affecting their pay and employment.

The educators should be held responsible for their actions, but the punishment should also fit the crime. While similar scandals have occurred in 39 different states and Washington, D.C., the offenders have rarely been prosecuted as criminals. Yet in an unprecedented move, the prosecutors in Atlanta charged the educators under Georgia's "Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act" — a law passed in 1980 specifically to combat the scourge of organized crime. RICO laws, which exist at the federal level and in 33 states, empower prosecutors to go after the leaders of organized crime who order but do not personally commit crimes such as robbery, money laundering and murder. Individuals convicted under such laws can face up to 20 years in prison.

As nonviolent first-time offenders, the Atlanta educators would not likely have received any jail time but for prosecutors' unprecedented use of RICO. Three were sentenced to seven years in prison, two received two-year sentences and two will sit in jail for a year. Two others accepted plea deals with lighter sentences. Most must also pay a fine and serve probation and community service.

These punishments do not fit the crimes. Yet this is not a rarity — similar stories play out all too frequently around the country.

Overcriminalization is rampant in America's legal system. A Florida fisherman disposed of undersized fish yet was convicted of violating a law passed to prevent destruction of business records. An Arkansas company ran children's clothing consignment sales staffed by parents and volunteers and was charged with violating federal employment policies. A jilted wife in Pennsylvania doused over-the-counter chemicals on the doorknobs of her husband's lover's house and was prosecuted for violating an international treaty meant to prevent chemical warfare. The list goes on.

These and countless other examples are the result of America's unwieldy and unjust criminal code. Today, there are estimated to be about 4,500 federal crimes scattered throughout the U.S. Code's 54 sections and 27,000 pages. Add state laws plus the federal regulations that include criminal penalties and this number grows into the hundreds of thousands.

The criminal code is so broad and so confusing that Americans sometimes can't help but run afoul of it. Once they do, their lives can quickly and permanently be ruined. A staggering number of criminal laws and regulations lack "intent" and "knowledge" requirements, which protect unwitting Americans who have no reasonable way of knowing they committed a crime. The list of nonviolent offenses is so broad that everyday activity can often be criminal. And many federal and state crimes are accompanied by mandatory minimum sentences that force minor lawbreakers into unjust prison terms.

The lawmakers and regulators who created this system were well-intentioned, but we can see the harmful results all around us.

America, with over two million prisoners, now accounts for a quarter of the world's prison population. No other industrialized nation comes close.

This mass imprisonment worsens America's poverty crisis. According to a Villanova University study, "had mass incarceration not occurred, poverty would have decreased by more than 20%" in recent years. This makes sense, given that a stint in prison leads to nine fewer weeks of annual work and 40% lower annual earnings for former inmates, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Overcriminalization hurts the Americans who can least afford it.

These problems will get steadily worse until policymakers reform the broken criminal justice system. State and federal elected officials can start by cutting the criminal laws that go too far — especially for nonviolent offenses — and clarifying the ones that are overly broad and subject to frequent abuse. When new laws are established, lawmakers should ensure that they enhance public safety and satisfy the requirements laid out in the Bill of Rights. And they should only expand the criminal code when there is broad consensus.

The need for action is urgent. Eight Atlanta educators are on their way to prison because they were prosecuted and convicted as if they were mob bosses, which their actions, while reprehensible, did not warrant. How many Americans have to be similarly mistreated — and how many people's lives have to be ruined — before policymakers act?

Van Jones, founder of Dream Corps/Rebuild The Dream, is a former special advisor to President Barack Obama. Mark Holden is general counsel of Koch Industries which supports the Coalition for Public Safety.

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• Will iconoclastic senators such as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz catch fire and bring sweeping change to the Republican Party?
• Will Jeb Bush be able to shake off the brand damage from his brother's presidency?
• Will Hillary Clinton, formidable after so many years in the spotlight, survive the coming onslaught and break that glass ceiling?

But there is an even more important question: Will 2016 be about big personalities -- or big proposals for change?

The scary truth is that the problems we face as a nation are so monumental, we cannot afford to put proposals second place to even the most intriguing of personalities.

That is why I was so proud to stand with Mayor Bill de Blasio at Gracie Mansion in New York recently as he announced a major effort to force a national discussion about how to curtail income inequality.

"How is it that it's already April 2015, and there is no serious debate on income inequality in this country?" de Blasio asked at the event. "We are not talking about the things that would actually address the situation."

The mayor is going out on a limb. Lots of cautious political insiders would advise him to hunker down, focus on New York and avoid making waves.

Instead, he is using his national standing to develop a template for attacking the massive wall separating the middle class from our dreams. He plans next month to roll out a major set of policy initiatives.

De Blasio is right: This is a moment for big ideas. The long-term decline in wages and the unprecedented hoarding of wealth is only one of the immediate challenges facing our nation.

The good news is that progressives appear to be taking the moment seriously.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have leveled broad critiques of how our economy is structured. The Campaign for America's Future has launched "Populism 2015" to craft a new progressive agenda. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched the Big Ideas Project, and liberal stalwart MoveOn.org has partnered with Robert Reich to call attention to critical problems that too often fly under the radar.

Four years ago, my own organization, Rebuild the Dream, showed the potential of this concept with a crowdsourced "Contract for the American Dream" -- signed by more than 311,000 Americans.

Progressives realize that if Democrats had spelled out a broad, ambitious, far-sighted agenda in 2014, they would not have gifted Republicans the U.S. Senate. So they are setting out to correct course -- learning from past mistakes.

Unfortunately, the Republicans appear to have learned nothing from the disastrous war in Iraq, a Wall Street meltdown, the billion-dollar toll of freak weather and superstorms, and the electoral damage of abusing faith to justify discrimination.

Instead, the 2016 Republican primary is shaping up to be a contest over who hates President Barack Obama more.

The truth is that the cautious nature of modern politics makes it unlikely that either party will spell out a vision that truly reflects the pace of technological and societal change we will face over the coming decades.

It can be hard for a candidate to talk honestly about automation, bioengineering, sustainable economies and the survival of the middle class in a high-tech age.

But we do need to try. Our nation has a chance to face down the threat of climate disruption, seize the opportunity of a green economy, give our kids the skills to compete in a high-tech world, end mass incarceration and open doors of opportunity for all Americans.

America has faced such mighty challenges before. To do it again, we need to be less obsessed with big personalities -- and more engaged with big proposals.

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Heavyweights from both parties are attending the March 26 Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform. The event is co-produced by Gingrich Productions (on the right) and by my project, #cut50 -- an initiative that aims to safely halve the number of people behind bars within 10 years.

Attorney General Eric Holder will be speaking. So will Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, will be there. So will Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Donna Brazile, a co-host of the summit.

Republican power players like former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, will address the gathering by video.

So will President Obama.

Progressives like myself will rub shoulders with representatives from Koch Industries.

Everyone keeps asking me, "How is this possible?"

I have five words for you: "Liberty and justice for all."

The ever-expanding incarceration industry has begun to violate some of the deepest and most sacred principles of BOTH major political parties.

Therefore, conservatives, libertarians and liberals have their own objective interests in reform -- and their own values-based incentives to make real changes.

For example, the right takes very seriously the concept of "liberty." Conservatives and libertarians want to defend the rights of every individual to pursue his or her dreams. They favor limited government. They hate massive, failed, bloated government bureaucracies that suck up more and more money and get more and more power, no matter how badly they perform.

In America today, we have 5% of the world's population -- but we have nearly 25% of the world's incarcerated people. Nearly 1 in 100 American adults is behind bars. One out of every four people locked up anywhere in the world is caged in America's prisons and jails.

And most people come out more damaged, more hopeless and less able to thrive than when they went in. (So much for "corrections"!)

That's the opposite of limited government -- and liberty.

On the other hand, progressives like me care passionately about the "justice for all" part -- including racial justice and social justice. We are incensed by a system that locks up the poor and racial minorities in numbers that are massive -- and massively disproportionate. We oppose a system that forever tars people as "felons," deemed permanently unfit for employment or the right to vote, possibly because of one mistake, early in life.

When any system violates the principles of both "liberty" AND "justice," Americans of all stripes should stand together to change it.

That is exactly what is starting to happen. This year, we are seeing the birth of an honest-to-goodness "Liberty and Justice for All" coalition.

Still struggling to believe me? I was on "Anderson Cooper 360" on Monday night to discuss the movement for criminal justice reform.

Here is a quote:

"A lot of kids I grew up with, grammar school, middle school, high school, were in prison. They were the poor kids and they had drug addictions. They had drug problems, they didn't have any money, they got caught, and they got caught in the poverty cycle, and they are at the bottom of society and they can't get out of it. ... People with drug problems, people who have mental illnesses, they probably shouldn't be in the criminal justice system. And people who make mistakes, let's not write them off forever, let's give them a chance to reintegrate and reenter society."

There is just one catch: I'm not the one who said that. That is a direct quote from Mark Holden, senior vice president of Koch Industries.

On practically every other issue, the Koch brothers and I are still fierce opponents. I doubt if we will ever agree on tax policy, campaign finance reform, environmental rules or the Keystone Pipeline, to name a few. But on criminal justice reform, it's different.

Mark speaks eloquently about the way the criminal justice system violates the Bill of Rights and criminalizes behaviors that should not result in prison terms.

And he is not alone, on the right.

Fiscal conservatives decry the money wasted on a system that is too expensive and produces poor results. That's one reason that red-state governors, like Georgia's Nathan Deal, have acted boldly. Leaders with roots on the religious right, including summit co-host Pat Nolan, insist on the Christian value of redemption and second chances for those behind bars.

Our values may not always be identical, but they can find common expression in fixing this broken prison system. Progressives and conservatives don't have to trust each other -- or even like each other -- to vote together on this issue.

Usually, "bipartisanship" is just another word for cheap, political gamesmanship. It is too often invoked by one side, simply to gain advantage and to cloak a more narrow set of interests.

But on criminal justice reform, something different is happening. Criminal justice reform is the one place where many Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians actually agree -- and are willing to work together to get something done.

Over the last 30 years, both parties helped lead us down the path to mass incarceration. It will take both political parties to reverse course.

Perhaps the March 26 Bipartisan Summit will represent the first major bend in the road back toward sanity.

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