Progressive Media Advocates
John MacMurray is the Democratic candidate for California's 72nd State Assembly District, which covers northern Orange County. He teaches 7th grad language arts and social studies at Ladera Vista Junior High in Fullerton.
John MacMurray: And while very few communities will openly admit their disdain for these people who have no permanent place to live, many cities have no problem creatively enforcing ordinances that make being homeless far more difficult than it already is.
John MacMurray: The Roman Catholic Church has changed greatly over its long life, and one of the points that has changed is the issue of celibacy for the Clergy. Until about the 13th century, celibacy was seen as optional.
John MacMurray: Try this for a scenario: when Cardinal Roger Mahony leaves for Rome to elect the new Pope, he may not be coming back.
John MacMurray: Tthe Tea Party folks don’t seem to understand that their President Obama, the one they hate for reasons that aren’t reasons, is only their “pretend” President Obama.
John MacMurrary: Tens of thousands of American families are forced into bankruptcy each year by medical bills, only to find that the Bush Administration has made it more difficult to file for bankruptcy.
John MacMurray: Like their Iron Age counterparts, who tore up every vestige of Roman civilization they could find, seemingly just for the pleasure of doing it, their Tea Party descendants seem to take a perverse delight in obliterating all traces of the Middle Class America so carefully and painfully built since the New Deal.
John MacMurray: But whatever the NRA wishes to be; however it regards itself and its place in the cosmos; some changes will have to be made in the way it does business.
John MacMurray: IThe picture so far shows Grover Norquist to be not much more than a well-dressed street thug. One of those people Garrison Keillor describes as “brownshirts in pin stripes.”
John MacMurray: One lesson this past election taught us was that there are a lot of men in this country who seem to think that women, collectively and individually, are not very smart.
John MacMurray: A lot of the secession folks give the impression that they haven’t thought the idea through too far. Money, for instance. Like with any new enterprise, there will be some startup costs involved, and some cash flow issues.
John MacMurrary: We still have gangsters like Sheldon Adelson, Bob Perry, and the Koch brothers working to steal our country. What we need is another Smedley Butler to stop them.
John MacMurray: With the help of the California Apprenticeship Council, there is no reason to bring these workers in from other states; we’ll grow our own.
John MacMurrary: It would probably send their pacemakers into full afterburner if local Islamophobes lCongressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller found out that Muslims were in America before the British; as explorers, slaves, and business owners.
John MacMurray: The most recent Orange County GOP office seeker to get caught red handed being underhanded was, of course, Tan Nguyen.
John Macmurrary: With the increasing and increasingly shrill volume of rhetoric about war with Iran, it might be a good time to let the White House and our elected representatives know how we feel about that.
John Macmurray: The Lincoln Club, by opening up campaign contributions to individuals and groups who can give unlimited amounts of anonymous dollars, gets the undying gratitude of billionaires and large corporations.
John MacMurray: Having a regularly-scheduled high speed train service will put California’s transportation system on a par with countries like Argentina, Belgium, China, France, Morocco, South Korea, and Taiwan; all of which use a high-speed electric rail system to move their citizens and visitors around.
John MacMurrary: Exactly how much the Kochs have spent to make America over into their image of a Libertarian paradise may never be known outside the company and the foundations the family controls. Current Federal tax law permits anonymous personal donations to politically active nonprofit groups. But what can be gleaned shows spending somewhat north of $200 million since the late 90s alone.
John MacMurray: The brilliantly simple/simply brilliant solution: re-designate our Cal State and University of California campuses as prisons. Since a goodly number of the current student population regards them as such anyway, it should not be too big a stretch.
John MacMurray: If the goal is to improve our public education system–and there is no organization or institution that cannot be improved in some way–then the most straightforward way to accomplish this is to give the highly-trained, highly-motivated professionals in the classrooms the resources they need, and let them do the job they were hired for.
by John MacMurray – For most Progressives, the idea that the Republican Party got out in front of us on a major social issue is both galling, and difficult to believe.
by John MacMurray — Before we begin, please keep the following numbers in mind: $7.00 and $10.00. Then hold onto 92 and 164. They all relate to public education, and we’ll explain them in a minute. By making public education the focal point of California’s ongoing budget mess, Republican legislators in California and other states [...]
Randy Shaw: Obama could regain young people’s support by lowering student loan rates, enacting immigration reform and rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, but time—and his political capital—is running out.
Steve Hochstadt: The women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s finally made an issue of fathering. If women were going to get out of the house and into the workplace, men had to change their roles, too.
The Frying Pan: A successful mayor and council cannot be satisfied with merely coping as issues arise, but must be able to anticipate and define the city´s needs for the next four years. As our newly elected leaders prepare for their roles, we´ve asked writers to share their thoughts about what lies ahead for Los Angeles.
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