From the White House to Congress to liberal think tanks, recent Democratic proposals would substantially alter the rules of the marketplace. These include major revisions of the tax code, legislation to pressure corporations to increase pay to match productivity growth and an expansion of refundable tax credits to include low-income workers as well as households making as much as $80,000 a year"
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Jeb Bush Smoked Marijuana And Was A Bully In High School, Say Former Classmates - Typical conservative, rules only apply to those other people"
“It was pretty common," Bush said of his substance use during that time. A former classmate of Bush's, Peter Tibbetts, recalled to the newspaper that the first time he ever smoked marijuana was with Bush, in some woods near their dorm.
“The first time I really got stoned was in Jeb’s room,” Tibbetts told the Globe. “He had a portable stereo with removable speakers. He put on Steppenwolf for me.” Tibbetts was eventually forced to leave the boarding school after being accused of using drugs.
As a politician, Bush has not embraced marijuana. He spent much of his time as Florida governor championing jail instead of treatment for nonviolent drug offenders, and pushed for mandatory prison sentences for drug offenders -- with the exception of his daughter, Noelle, who has struggled with crack cocaine use."
Jeb Bush Smoked Marijuana And Was A Bully In High School, Say Former Classmates
Friday, January 30, 2015
Let the All In 2016 Fantasy Candidate Draft begin! Chris Hayes has assembled an all-star cast of political experts to compete against each other as they try to build teams of presidential contenders with the most staying power. In Round 1, rules are contested and the everything gets off to a fierce start.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Sarah Palin and her onetime fans on the right: It’s so over - The Washington Post
Sarah Palin’s odd, rambling speech last weekend before an audience of committed conservative activists in Des Moines has many influential voices on the right saying that the time has come to acknowledge that the romance has gone cold and the marriage is dead.
Sarah Palin and her onetime fans on the right: It’s so over - The Washington Post
Sarah Palin and her onetime fans on the right: It’s so over - The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Voyage of the Damned - Holocaust Ship of Shame.
As the St. Louis steamed toward Havana from Hamburg, Germany, with nearly 1,000 Jews fleeing the Nazis aboard, Recha Weiler desperately nursed her dying husband, Moritz. While other passengers enjoyed the elegance of the civilized cruise after the repressions and humiliations of Germany, Weiler spent most of the voyage in her cabin with Moritz. But her efforts failed. The university professor died aboard the ship and was buried at sea.
An estimated half of the passengers were to die later, after both the US and Cuba rejected their pleas for refuge and the cruel 40-day journey sent them back to Europe to face the Nazis. Some 59 years after the St. Louis's desperate passage back and forth across the Atlantic, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and its Survivors' Registry are trying to trace the fates of its passengers, including Recha Weiler, the 61-year-old widow originally from Cologne.
Voyage of the Damned - Holocaust Ship of Shame.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Running for Daylight (Obama, Not Brady) - NYTimes.com
"Our sleek, techie president, whose battery dies faster than an iPhone’s, was fully charged Tuesday night for the State of the Union.
He was so puffed up, with such a bristling sense of self, that it was hard to believe this was the same guy who spent the last year clenched like a fist, beset by ISIS, beheadings and Ebola, shunned by his own party and slammed by the other party in the fall election.
The murmur went up from grateful Democrats gathered at the Capitol: “Wow, he’s got a pulse.”
Proving once again that he is a different kind of cat, Barack Obama is oddly pumped by his party’s defeat. Even in the House chamber, surrounded by hundreds of people and watched by millions, he seemed to delight in his detachment as he laid down his own markers to drive up his own numbers.
He doesn’t mind splendid isolation. He really thinks it’s splendid. He’s free to revert to being the consummate outsider who doesn’t see himself in the context of a system."
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Recommended read from Salon.com: Fox News is self-destructing: Islamophobia, Obama's Reagan moment and Roger Ailes's new humiliation
"Convinced that last year's midterm losses for Democrats signaled the effective end of Barack Obama's presidency and a resounding victory for all things conservative and Republican ("On Fox News, there were smiles all around"), just three weeks into the new year Fox News is left wondering what happened to the "lamest" of the lame duck presidents. The one Fox News was going to mock for two more years while trying to tarnish his legacy.
Rebounding to approval ratings not seen since 2013, instead of floundering, Obama is riding a crest of post-midterm successes, while Americans reward him for the country's rebounding economy. The result: Obama's the one quietly circling the victory track.
"You can hardly tell from our NBC/WSJ poll that the Republican Party was the big winner from the midterm elections just two months ago," noted NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann this week. "Somehow, Obama and the Democrats stole the Republicans' post-election honeymoon."
If that didn't sting badly enough, Fox continues to wrestle with the unfolding crisis over the network's demonstrably false and stunning claim that some parts of Europe, including in France as well as Britain's second largest city, Birmingham, have become Islamic and are "no-go zones" for non-Muslims, including for British law enforcement."
Bernie Sanders Got Republicans To Make His Argument For Universal Health Care
"WASHINGTON -- In their ongoing efforts to roll back or hamstring Obamacare, Republicans probably weren't hoping that the first Senate hearing on the matter this year would feature a self-described "democratic socialist" getting GOP witnesses to back a key argument for universal health care.
Thursday's hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions was devoted to the question of moving the full-time work standard under the Affordable Care Act from 30 hours a week to 40 hours, and whether more workers would be hurt by the higher or lower limit.
But to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long supported the creation of a universal health care system, battling over that particular point began to seem absurd, and he opened his remarks by noting that in every other developed country, such a debate would make no sense at all."
How Black Middle-Class Kids Become Poor Adults - The Atlantic
The key factor that this article ignores is that middle class Americans with the same education as whites or with a higher level of education make less money than comparable whites. The curtailing of affirmative action programs, which helped to alleviate this problem has exacerbated the gap. Just study the jobs obtained by graduates at top professional schools. White with poorer grades consistently get better paying jobs. This is an example of how white privilege permeates American society and continues to transfer wealth from African Americans to their white brethren.
How Black Middle-Class Kids Become Poor Adults - The Atlantic
How Black Middle-Class Kids Become Poor Adults - The Atlantic
Friday, January 23, 2015
WATCH: Jon Stewart Decimates Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union | Alternet
<div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><iframe src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:thedailyshow.com:7e177e4d-2aff-40fa-8522-c65d17223b66" width="512" height="288" frameborder="0"></iframe><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><b><a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/">The Daily Show</a></b><br/>Get More: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a>,<a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos">Daily Show Video Archive</a></p></div></div>
WATCH: Jon Stewart Decimates Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union | Alternet
WATCH: Jon Stewart Decimates Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union | Alternet
It’s How You Finish - NYTimes.com
"But back to the miracle finish last Sunday, and the lesson beyond pro football: It’s not about the miracle, it’s about the finish. Obama has been sleepwalking through the middle part of his presidency. The brutal midterm electoral crushing, with Republicans gaining their largest House majority since Herbert Hoover, slapped him from his stupor.
No longer does he care about pleasing the insiders, or playing nice with the opposition, or conforming to the expectations of a lame duck. He said it’s the fourth quarter of his presidency, “and I’m going to play offense.” He’s decided to be Russell Wilson after throwing four interceptions.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Bye-bye, Reagan conservatism: Why Obama’s speech was more significant than it seems - Salon.com
"But as much as the president’s address was characterized by a growing economy finally giving him a chance to say what he’d like to do with the fruits of his labor, the synoptic nature of the speech was also a consequence of Obama’swell-known preference for thinking about the “long game.” For the first time in more than six years, he had an opportunity to boast of changing the “trajectory” of the country like few presidents before him and none since Ronald Reagan. Crucially, he could do so while pointing to benefits that were tangible in the here and now, rather than being likely to occur in the indeterminate future, as has often been the case. He seized the opportunity, and made his case for what it would mean to be a citizen in the United States that Barack Obama helped make."
Jon Stewart blows open Mike Huckabee's hypocritical, evangelical, narrow minded hypocrisy. He destroys him on Beyonce. He plays a clip of Huckabee playing bass with Ted Nugent on the vulgar "Cat Scratch Fever"- The Daily Show - Video Clip | Comedy Central
Can Capitalists Save Capitalism? - NYTimes.com
"Key Democrats have reached agreement on a set of policies known as “inclusive capitalism”: a forceful market-oriented economic agenda intended to counter inequality, restrain the accrual of vast wealth at the top and provide the working and middle classes with improved economic opportunities.
Can Capitalists Save Capitalism? - NYTimes.com
Can Capitalists Save Capitalism? - NYTimes.com
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
Negroes and the Gun: The early NAACP championed armed self-defense - The Washington Post Debunking another myth about American history.
When W.E.B. Dubois patrolled his home with a shotgun after the 1906 Atlanta race riot, he was an aberration. But not how you think. Dubois reports that he was unusual among his contemporaries because until that point he did not own a gun.
Dubois’s gun purchase and his aggressive statements following the riot were not passion-of-the-moment things that he would regret. They were part of a continuing engagement of the practice and philosophy of armed self-defense. As editor of the NAACP’s flagship magazine The Crisis, Dubois continued to champion armed self-defense as a core private interest. Indeed, in some instances, Dubois seemed to cast self-defense as a duty.
Negroes and the Gun: The early NAACP championed armed self-defense - The Washington Post
The Charlie Hebdo cartoons no one is showing you.
This cartoon by Cabu depicts and quotes the racist demagogue politician Jean-Marie Le Pen of the Front National party (with the eye patch). The caption reads: "We want to be able to go out in the evening without being afraid." The armed thugs in the background are racist skinheads and their ilk. The cartoon leaves little doubt as to who is afraid.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoons no one is showing you.
Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did
"My father told me with a sort of cold fury, "Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south."
Please let this sink in and and take my word and the word of my late father on this. If you are a white person who has always lived in the U.S. and never under a brutal dictatorship, you probably don't know what my father was talking about.
But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches.
Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Perpetuating Guantánamo’s Travesty - NYTimes.com
“Guantánamo is a betrayal of American values,” the former military officers wrote. “The prison is a symbol of torture and justice delayed. More than a decade after it opened, Guantánamo remains a recruiting poster for terrorists, which makes us all less safe.”
Is a Climate Disaster Inevitable? - NYTimes.com
"The physicist Enrico Fermi first formulated this question, now called theFermi paradox, in 1950. But in the intervening decades, humanity has recognized that our own climb up the ladder of technological sophistication comes with a heavy price. From climate change to resource depletion, our evolution into a globe-spanning industrial culture is forcing us through the narrow bottleneck of a sustainability crisis. In the wake of this realization, new and sobering answers to Fermi’s question now seem possible."
Is a Climate Disaster Inevitable? - NYTimes.com
Is a Climate Disaster Inevitable? - NYTimes.com
Saturday, January 17, 2015
More Than Half Of American Schoolchildren Now Live In Poverty
"For the first time, more than half of U.S. public school students live in low-income households, according to a new analysis from the Southern Education Foundation.
Overall, 51 percent of U.S. schoolchildren came from low-income households in 2013, according to the foundation, which analyzed data from National Center for Education Statistics on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Eligibility for free or subsidized lunch for students from low-income households serves as a proxy for gauging poverty, says the foundation, which advocates education equity for students in the South."
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2503338/original.jpg
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ - The Washington Post
"At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.
The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They include the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean."
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ - The Washington Post
The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They include the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean."
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ - The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Stephanie Grace: Scalise’s pitch to Duke supporters seems plausible | State | The New Orleans Advocate — New Orleans, Louisiana
This is what I remember about the first time I met Steve Scalise nearly 20 years ago: He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage.
I was a new reporter covering Jefferson Parish, and Scalise, now the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, was just starting out in the Louisiana Legislature (I’m going from memory, but the exchange obviously stuck with me). It would be several years before I would fully decode just what he meant by the sentiment, which is similar to statements he would later make to at least one Washington news outlet, and what it said about Jefferson Parish and Louisiana politics.
The “baggage,” of course, was Duke’s past, his racist and anti-Semitic views and his former role as a KKK grand wizard. Scalise disavowed Duke then, as he did once again this week, when blogger Lamar White Jr. revealed that Scalise had spoken in 2002 at a meeting hosted by a Duke-founded white nationalist group.
But the other part of the sentence, the part about their similarity, was the rub. Scalise may have been naïve about how to express himself to a newcomer, but he was already a savvy politician who knew that, even though Duke had lost the governor’s race a few years earlier, Duke voters were still around. And those Duke voters also were potential Scalise voters.
This is, in effect, a dirty little secret of Louisiana politics, and the context in which Scalise made the fateful decision to show up at the EURO conference in 2002. The truth, as Scalise suggested that day, was that the actual governmental philosophy Duke espoused isn’t far off from what was becoming mainstream conservative thought, what with its suspicion of taxes, set-asides and safety net programs such as welfare. The problem in his view was the messenger, not the message.
Stephanie Grace: Scalise’s pitch to Duke supporters seems plausible | State | The New Orleans Advocate — New Orleans, Louisiana
Monday, January 05, 2015
SCIENTIFIC METHOD / SCIENCE & EXPLORATIONEarth-sized planets discovered by Kepler may really be Earth-likeHigh accuracy measurements reveal the ingredients for making a compact planet.
by Nicole Gugliucci Jan 5 2015, 7:00pm EST
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With the right starting ingredients, you can mix up an Earth-like planet.
David A. Aguilar (CfA)
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With the right starting ingredients, you can mix up an Earth-like planet.
David A. Aguilar (CfA)
Ever since exoplanets were first discovered in the 1990s, astronomers have dreamed of finding an Earth-like planet amongst the stars. Better detection techniques have allowed us to find smaller and smaller exoplanets. But when we spot a planet beyond our Solar System, does “Earth-sized” really mean “Earth-like?” A new study presented at this week’s American Astronomical Society meeting shows that the smallest exoplanets are much more likely to be similar to Earth than we thought.
Saturday, January 03, 2015
Americans Disagree With Obama On The State Of Race Relations | FiveThirtyEight
I have to disagree with the President and agree with the poll finding of the Five Thirty eight Blog . "In an interview with NPR published Monday, President Obama said race relations have improved during his presidency. A look at polling data shows that the public disagrees — particularly after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions. Americans’ assessments of race relations are worse than at any point since the 1990s.
For more than a decade, polling had found that a majority of Americans thought race relations were “generally good.” Optimism spiked with Obama’s election. But pessimism has grown after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island. In a CBS News survey conducted this month, 45 percent of respondents said race relations are “generally good” in the United States. That compares to 43 percent who said race relations are “generally bad.”
Americans Disagree With Obama On The State Of Race Relations | FiveThirtyEight
For more than a decade, polling had found that a majority of Americans thought race relations were “generally good.” Optimism spiked with Obama’s election. But pessimism has grown after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island. In a CBS News survey conducted this month, 45 percent of respondents said race relations are “generally good” in the United States. That compares to 43 percent who said race relations are “generally bad.”
Americans Disagree With Obama On The State Of Race Relations | FiveThirtyEight
Thursday, January 01, 2015
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