Trust Black Women: Remove the Billboards

January 21, 2011 By admin

Jan Robinson Flint: It is reprehensible that someone would use Black children as a tool to attack Black women for political purposes.

Devil vs Details

January 21, 2011 By Wendy Block

Wendy Block: Frank Luntz gets paid big bucks, by the right, to play these linguistic tricks on the rest of us; it’s our job to catch his sleight-of-hand and call him on it, and to encourage all the non-political junkies we know to recognize his misdirection for what it is.

Grace Before Meal: Bless Sargent Shriver and Lyndon Johnson

January 21, 2011 By H. Scott Prosterman

H. Scott Prosterman: While one political ideology in this country views healthcare, quality education and the right to eat well as the exclusive province of a certain income threshold, Sargent Shriver is perhaps the single American political figure who best represents the opposite.

Expanding Gun Rights

January 21, 2011 By Carl Matthes

Carl Matthes: One last thought, Rep. King, to be even more safe, why not amend your bill to say that a gun may not be carried within your congressional district when you’re there?

The Real Economic Lesson China Could Teach Us

January 21, 2011 By Robert Reich

Robert Reich: China is eating our lunch. Why? It has a national economic strategy designed to create more and better jobs. We have global corporations designed to make money for shareholders.

HSPD 12 Will Stand at JPL

January 20, 2011 By admin

On January 19, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it had decided in favor of the government in the matter of NASA, et al., v. Robert M. Nelson et al. In a unanimous decision, the court found that the questions the 28 JPL employees challenged were appropriate for the protection of JPL as a federal facility.

It’s Still the Same Old Story—from Guns to Nukes

January 20, 2011 By Lawrence S. Wittner

Lawrence Wittner: Are we safer with more firepower or less? Despite the propaganda of the gunslingers, the arms manufacturers, and the military enthusiasts, it does seem that the world would be a lot safer with fewer guns and fewer nuclear weapons.

How Redevelopment Agencies Subvert Democracy

January 20, 2011 By Randy Shaw

Randy Shaw: As mayors, developers and Agency staff try to fend off Governor Brown’s proposed transfer of redevelopment funds to local governments – earning far more media coverage than cuts to programs serving more vulnerable Californians – little has been said about the fundamentally undemocratic nature of redevelopment agencies.

Is No New Taxes What Voters Really Want?

January 20, 2011 By Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt: The voters spoke in November: They picked Quinn and a tax increase over Brady and no new taxes. One reason is that Brady could not identify for voters where he would cut much spending. The opponents of taxes did not propose any reasonable alternative to raising taxes to solve Illinois’ debt crisis.

The Return of “Baby Doc” Duvalier: Haiti’s Denouement

January 20, 2011 By Georgianne Nienaber

Georgianne Nienaber: Baby Doc’s return — no one can craft the ending of this drama except for the collective will of the Haitian people—if they are given the opportunity to do so.

Author Spotlight: Diane Lefer

January 20, 2011 By Dick Price

Dick Price: Aside from writing nine published books, Diane Lefer has picked potatoes, typed autopsy reports, surveyed parolees and drug addicts about their sex lives, and taught creative writing to gang-bangers.

Sticks and Stones

January 20, 2011 By Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson

Rev. Jim Nelson: It is about power, power over. All slurs are meant to demean and to wound, to rob a person or a people of their humanity. Whether it is calling those on the left socialists or those on the right fascists, name-calling divides and wounds; it provokes rather than promotes.

Pander-monium Breaks Out Among 2012 GOP Hopefuls

January 19, 2011 By Michael Sigman

Michael Sigman: Early frontrunner Mitt Romney has spent the last four years approaching the Platonic ideal of the shameless panderer who, when expedient, adopts positions that are diametrically opposed to one another.

Has The American Dream Drifted North?

January 19, 2011 By Tina Dupuy

Tina Dupuy: When did Canadians out Norman Rockwell us? From the perspective of my couch they seem to be living very well with the evils of socialism. Canada consistently outranks us in quality of care and that impacts our quality of life. They have lots of guns and low gun violence. Their banks didn’t cause a housing bust so their economy is comparatively doing fine.

Beware the Military-Industrial Complex

January 19, 2011 By David Greenberg

David Greenberg: Eisenhower’s speech itself has come to be romanticized all out of proportion to its merit, and the reasonableness of straightforward critiques of Pentagon spending cannot account for the mad embrace of Eisenhower in recent decades by anti-war leftists and so-called realists.