Healthcare, Prisons, Racism, Ageism, Politics, LGBTQ
Randy Shaw: As the nation asks hard questions about PG&E’s funding priorities in the wake of the San Bruno pipeline explosion, the controversial corporation has a new question to answer. Specifically, why did it spend the money to fly execs down for a golfing junket in San Luis Obispo when there was no shortage of Bay Area locations for off-site meetings?
Irene Monroe: With the momentum of Tea Party candidates, who are anti-Obama, anti-abortion, and anti-gay civil rights, unseating long-term Republican incumbents in this recent primary aggressively trying to retake Congress and with midterm elections now just weeks away the chances of repealing DADT is looking slimmer.
When my daughter told me she was planning the birth of my soon to arrive grandchild, I expected her to tell me that she was going to use a mid-wife but she told me no, she was going the conventional route. She planned to deliver in a hospital with a doctor, the way all of the women in my family have done for the past 100 years except that she was going to use — here’s the new term — a “doula”.
Ed Rampell:: The wait is over, and Theatre West’s revival of Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty is the most important play currently being presented in L.A., and possibly the best production of 2010.
Andrea Nill: It sounds like President Obama is likely on board with the strategy, telling La Opinion last week, “I just don’t want anybody to think that if we somehow just do the DREAM Act, that that solves the problem.”
Marian Wang: More than 60 percent of the nation’s gas pipelines are 40 years or older, AP reports. And age isn’t the only issue. Older pipelines are often configured in such a way that they’re unable to accommodate the latest pipeline safety technology.
Berry Craig: Tea Bagger candidates like O’Donnell and Rand Paul in my native Kentucky loathe unions and “big government” as much as the GOP gentry does. Mr. and Mrs. Gotrocks know they can count on Tea Bagger Republicans to keep-government off the backs of the wealthy folks.
Michele Waslin: Portraying immigration reform as a choice between employment-based and family-based immigration is, in fact, a false choice.
Brent Budowsky: Harry Reid led Senate Democrats to a large majority in historic elections, while Senate Republicans obstruct everything to negate those elections, which has never been done in the history of the republic. Voters who want more action to create more jobs should vote for more Harry Reids, and fewer Senate Republicans.
Robert Reich: I am continuously amazed at the GOP’s ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of potential victory. It is the gift that keeps giving.
Steve Hochstadt: Those who want government to go away, or at least get a lot smaller, seem to have two ideas about how to shrink government: Cut out the “waste” and let private companies take over many of its functions. Their assumption is that the private sector can do these jobs better and cheaper. Is that true?
Tina Dupuy: The fact is: Obama is a good president. He’s a centrist who is somewhere between what mouth-foamers on either extreme say about him. He does listen to all viewpoints, which makes people of some viewpoints – ironically – dislike him. He’s not the villain the insane Right says he is, nor is he the do-nothing turncoat the insane Left says he is.
Obama can narrow the enthusiasm gap by aggressively campaigning, but it will be up to labor and environmental groups to rouse their disaffected supporters to the polls.
Michael Sigman: Just last week, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer almost got away with conflating immigration and beheadings. When it became crystal clear she’d made it all up, she reached an Orwellian summit of non-apology-apology, acknowledging only that “If I said that, I misspoke.”
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Recent Comments