Razing Arizona: How Local, State and Federal Authorities are “Rooting Out” Arizona’s Immigration Problems

April 20, 2010 By Michele Waslin

Michelle Waslin: However, the timing and tone-deafness of this action could not have been worse. ICE has a history of conducting raids just as state or local governments are contemplating critical immigration-related policies. At best, the action left the impression that ICE wants to influence those policy decisions; at worst ICE left the public with the impression that local law enforcement is the same thing as an ICE officer.

Why Are Corporate Groups Funding the Tea Party?

April 19, 2010 By Shamus Cooke

Shamus Cooke: Rank and file Tea Partiers are, politically speaking, lost at sea in the dead of night, looking for the light of common principles. On land, those manning right-wing lighthouses are broadcasting ideas loaded with hidden motives into this ocean of conservative public opinion. What the Tea Party will become is presently unknown; but those with an agenda will do their best to steer lost boats at sea in their direction, with potentially dangerous consequences.

Cal State Stanislaus: Let Sarah Palin Speak — Somewhere Else

April 19, 2010 By Joseph Palermo

Joseph Palermo: Thanks to the resourceful dumpster diving of two CSU, Stanislaus students, Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs, the public was finally able to get a glimpse behind the curtain of Sarah Palin Land. Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Jerry Brown has promised a thorough investigation. These two young people should be commended for their civic mindedness and citizenship.

Economy Recovery Depends Upon Your Vantage Point

April 19, 2010 By Carl Bloice

Carl Bloice: Like the knee bone and the thigh bone, the foreclosure crisis is closely related to the jobs crisis. Last week the Obama administration cautioned the public not to expect any dramatic improvement in the jobless rate, largely because thousands of formerly “discouraged” jobless workers sense the situation is improving and have started back looking for work. As a result, some economists have suggested, the jobless rate may well go beyond the 9.7 percent where it stands now.

Winograd-Harman Vote Count: “Clearly the Party Leadership Circled the Wagons”

April 19, 2010 By admin

Caitlin Frazier: To many attending the California Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles last weekend, the vote to approve or object to the endorsement of Rep. Jane Harman (CA/36), was too close to call – certainly not reflective of a frenzied convention tabulation Party Chair John Burton delivered with the qualifier, “No one was bribed.”

Bill Clinton: Disorientation And ‘People Looking For Anchors’ Explain Arizona’s New Immigration Laws

April 19, 2010 By Andrea Christina Nill

Andrea Christina Nill: Now, we have the highest percentage of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more than we’ve had in decades. This is disorientating and people are looking for anchors to make life simple and understandable and digestable again and sometimes with the idea that they need to go back to an idyllic time that never existed. That’s a big part of the explanation for this anti-immigration law that Arizona just passed or the idea that we out to bring back Confederate month in Virginia without saying anything about slavery.

LA Progressive: This Week’s Articles — April 11 to 17, 2010

April 18, 2010 By admin

Articles by Jim Fuller, Tom Hall, Ed Rampell, Mario Solis-Marich, Craig Williams, David Swanson, Andrea Christina Nill, Marcy Winograd, Berry Craig, Rev. Irene Monroe, Bob Barber, Tina Dupuy, Tracy Emblem, John Peeler, Paul Loeb, Robert Reich, Robert Reich, William J. Astore, Randy Shaw, Ivan Eland, Robert Letcher, Emily Spence, Robert Reich, Bob Letcher, Lydia Howell, Steven Conn

Republican Relativism as Radical Rhetoric

April 17, 2010 By Anthony Asadullah Samad

Anthony Asadullah Samad: It seems the Republicans need to pump themselves up every couple of months or so these days. It’s not so much that they are meeting that troubles me. It’s sorta like an AA meeting except here it’s where “ideologue-holics” come together and try to sober up on their 2008 Presidential defeat with new rhetoric that gets more and more extreme with each outing. This time, it was at the 2010 Southern Republican Convention in New Orleans that the more “radical” elements of the party come together to try to micromanage the Presidency and give a demented spin on the course of current affairs.

The First Disease Forecasting Center in the World… For Haiti

April 17, 2010 By Dr. Jim Wilson

Dr. Jim Wilson: Praecipio was able to rapidly conduct a “radar sweep” using the Internet and by monitoring Twitter feeds across six languages for the island of Hispaniola, which includes the countries of Haiti and Dominican Republic. We knew instantly from media, blogs, and SMS traffic what was being documented in terms of infectious disease. Consultation with peer-reviewed academic literature enabled us to construct a baseline for several diseases of concern and issue the first infectious disease forecast report in the world, for Haiti, on January 17, 2010.

From Drunken Party Girl to Climate Change Activist

April 17, 2010 By Paul Rogat Loeb

Paul Loeb: As Angie’s involvement deepened, she found more ways to act on her newfound convictions. She brought over 100 Virginia Tech students to Power Shift, a national student climate change conference held at the University of Maryland. Angie also helped plan the entertainment, and as she looked out from the stage at 6,000 students, “felt for the first time like we really have a movement.”

Getting a Liberal on the Supreme Court

April 17, 2010 By Tom Degan

Tom Deegan: Fasten your seat belts and brace yourselves for the latest poop storm that is about to fall on Washington DC, folks. With the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens imminent, President Barack Obama is about to get his second appointee to the United States Supreme Court in a less than a year. And like last year’s Sonia Sotomayor confirmation travesty, you can expect the Republicans (and even some Democrats) to have a positive hissy fit. These people have moved so far to the extreme right in recent years, the wishiest washiest moderate is going to be perceived as too much of a radical, left wing ideologue for these nincompoops.

Calling Out the Right Wing Lie Machine

April 16, 2010 By Tom Hall

Tom Hall: There has been a campaign to politicize loyalty. Those who hate government are loyal. Those who cling to old fashioned ideas that politics should be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” are disloyal. Those who question no-bid contracts for inadequate body armor, unsafe housing for our troops in war zones, or Bush’s $7++ billion gift to Wall Street bankers, are enemies of freedom.

Floor Fight! It’s On! Challenger Winograd Takes Harman to California Democratic Convention Floor

April 16, 2010 By Linda Milazzo

Linda Milazzo: In an impressive feat against blue-dog incumbent Congresswoman Jane Harman, primary challenger and progressive Democrat, Marcy Winograd, has secured more than the needed number of votes to pull Harman’s Democratic Party endorsement recommendation and open the contest to debate today, Sunday, the last day of the convention.

U.S. Gun Nuts Help Mexican Drug Gangs

April 16, 2010 By Jim Fuller

Jim Fuller: Obviously, the peddling of weapons to Mexican drug gangs is highly profitable. Remember, 40,000 recovered weapons in 2008 alone, and nobody knows how many still in the hands of gangsters, but certainly many times that 40,000 figure. And there are thousands of sales to drug peddlers every day along the border. Money, money, money. America’s gun makers are going to protect that highly profitable business every way they can, and that inevitably means stirring up the knuckle draggers who front for them in every battle in the stupidly mistaken belief that they are “protecting our Second Amendment rights.”

Theatre West: “Acting: The First Six Lessons” and “The Life and Times of A. Einstein”

April 16, 2010 By Ed Rampell

Ed Rampell: Unlike other thespians, such as Brando who frequently derided acting as an unworthy profession (well, if your father repeatedly put you down during your childhood as a big nothing, even if you later won two Oscars, millions and vast critical acclaim, you’d still hear your father’s voice in your addled head insulting you and belittling whatever you did), it was a joy to see the pleasure that Beau continues to take in his lifelong avocation, and the pleasure Emily also takes in this art and craft, as the latest member of this show biz dynasty. And their clear enchantment in being able to perform together in this family affair.