Healthcare, Prisons, Racism, Ageism, Politics, LGBTQ
Georgianne Nienaber: Religious fundamentalists have long attempted to make sense of human suffering by twisting the existential argument and blaming suffering upon the victim. How Haitians have managed to avoid incorporation of shame into their collective psyche is truly a wonder.
Nomiki Konst: The United States of America has a dirty little secret. We’re addicted to a drug. A drug dealt everyday in the halls of Congress, on the streets of Washington, and at the exclusive Georgetown soirees. That drug is corruption, pure and simple. And the dealers are lobbyists. The year 2009 was record breaking for the lobbying industry, mostly due to the health care debate, with total spending on all issues at more than $3.47 billion.
Jane Baek: Upon reading scientific studies that showed animals that were given GMO food on a regular basis developed cancer, tumors, lesions, obesity, and infertility problems, I was left shocked. I also discovered that GMO food was contaminating our environment affecting natural plants and killing insects and animals.
Jim Fuller: It is all but certain that someone prominent, probably a member of Congress or a family member or aid of a member of Congress, will be physically attacked and quite possibly murdered soon by a fanatical right-wing knuckle dragger. It’s entirely possible that several people, or even many people, as in Oklahoma City in 1995, will be slaughtered by one or some of the cretins who feed their rage on right wing radio and television and the speeches of Republican hate mongers in and out of Congress.
Mario Solis-Marich: Latino voters, long weary of the harshness of the conservative attack on immigration reform, have grown accustomed to GOP games on the issue. However, never has a message been so clearly articulated across the social, cultural, and ethnic divide as the Spanish / English word chosen by the GOP to define itself.
Ron Wolff: How ironic (and unfortunate) it is that Toyota’s massive current crisis was caused, by its own admission, by a switch from the traditional Japanese model of high quality to the Western desire for growth and profit.
Georgianne Nienaber: “The problem with public affairs reporting in poor nations is that for the western media there is no news unless horror is ongoing. Real media has vanished.” Let’s hope that the infants in Haiti can miraculously avoid the looming horrors. If they begin dying by the thousands, rest assured mainstream will be there, detailing every last dying breath and the valiant attempts of their celebrity doctors to save lives.
Ivan Eland: Even though George H.W. Bush’s and Clinton’s original intentions of protecting international food aid using U.S. forces might have been high-minded, they then engaged in mission creep—with Clinton eventually taking sides in the Somali civil war, chasing around a warlord who was in U.S. disfavor, and ignominiously withdrawing U.S. forces when the warlord killed a small number of U.S. Rangers in the “Black Hawk Down” incident.
Andrea Christina Nill: Perhaps for the sake of sense of consistency, Beck has essentially drawn a line in the sand between immigrants who emigrate to the U.S. legally, and those who do not. Yet, what Beck either ignores or doesn’t realize is that the “front door” is slammed in the face of most people who would like to live and work in the U.S.
Sikivu Hutchinson: Reveling in nightly PR infusions from the corporate lapdogs of American journalism, the freshly evangelized macho racist right has ensured that its charge of a socialist government expansion is now viewed as a “reasonable” critique of an overhaul that effectively concedes universal coverage to the insurance industry.
Walter Moss: [Obama] stated that no one party had a monopoly on good ideas. While remaining pragmatic and anything but a doctrinaire ideologue, he also displayed the liberal Democratic values of compassion, tolerance, and rationality. Little wonder that he believes that Democrats should welcome a values debate with Republicans.
Robert Reich: Including all those who have entered the job market since the bottom fell out, the nation is about 11 million jobs short. The President ought to use his second honeymoon to get a jobs bill that will make a difference.
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Poizner Smears Whitman for Sharing Obama’s Immigration Position in California Governor’s Race
Andrea Christina Nill: A businessman like Poizner should also be sensitive to the fact that California could risk losing $164.2 billion in expenditures, $72.9 billion in economic output, and approximately 717,000 jobs if it removed all of its undocumented immigrants.