Articles by Carl Bloice, Randy Shaw. Ivan Eland, Shamus Cooke, Carl Bloice, Ivan Eland, Rev. Irene Monroe, Robert Reich, Randy Shaw, Tracy Emblem, Michael Sigman:, Georgianne Nienaber, Tom Hayden, Sharon Kyle, Joseph Palermo, Berry Craig

Friday Feedback: People are understandably appalled when violent offenders get early release and go on to commit horrendous crimes, including the recent murder of Chelsea King for which a parolee has been arrested. What is less understood is that thousands of people — including juveniles as young as 13 — are being handed life sentences, including life without any possibility of parole.

Friday Feedback: Illegal immigration is the enemy of all workers, regardless of color. An open border and an endlessly enlarging pool of labor brings the value of all labor down. One of the many problems facing the state of California is the LOW WAGES enforced here by an open border. Supply and demand always works in the labor market. Increase the supply and the demand lowers.

The distortions about Planned Parenthood are meant to paint them as evil genocidal racists. Nothing could be further from the truth. The dedicated people at Planned Parenthood provide our schools with curriculum and materials to teach youth how to prevent pregnancy and disease transmission, they provide low cost and free women’s health exams including cancer screening, and they provide access to birth control and counseling.

The Tea Party people are already claiming credit for Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts a couple weeks ago. They are determined to steer the course of the GOP in November, come hell or high water. If they are allowed control of the party, their extremism will only turn off a huge segment of the voting population. If they are denied that opportunity, they will splinter off into third and even fourth party uprisings. Have you ever watched an elephant try to walk a tightrope? It’s more fun than a barrel of donkeys!

Friday Feedback: n Australia, after their first experience of US business-as-usual (a massacre in Tasmania in ‘96), the Prime Minister called for gun control and an appalled population turned in their guns.

Friday Feedback: Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream doesn’t just belong to any one particular group. It belongs to all of us. The civil rights struggle is a human rights struggle, and the LGBT community should be a part of it.

The bigger our population and the better educated, the worse the discrepancy between all of us who could help decide – and the few who are given (by election or appointment) all the power to decide. We have far less democracy now in any one of our states or large cities than did the American colonies which in 1776 revolved against taxation without representation.

I don’t care if you believe that whites are better than blacks, or if your religion teaches that the Bible says gays are immoral, you don’t have the right to oppress other citizens. You don’t have the right to deny the benefits of civil marriage to the children of gay citizens. Not in this country. That’s what makes Martin Luther King’s work so powerful – he stood up for what was ethically right, and his demands were in alignment with the Constitution of our great nation: Equal rights for all!

Friday Feedback: Two nights ago some right wing acquaintances accosted me at a meeting and were chortling because they were pulling for Smith and thought he would win. I fought back saying that we need national healthcare, (medicare for all), the EFCA, and other really progressive policies to be enacted and implemented and that the rich should be taxed to pay for the changes.

I will not name any bankers or politicians as my favorites in causing this credit crunch we are now having. I will say the politicians were the only people tasked with acting in our interest so as a group they are the most to blame. They developed and passed the laws that now haunt us and did not provide adequate over sight.

Fridays the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by Robert Illes responding to comments on his article, Obama, Never Mind FDR, How about JKP?, …

Any crumb that could have been thrown: Medicare buy-in for 55-64, state’s right to establish single payer or reimportation of prescription drugs was swept off the table. (Notice I intentionally left the weak feckless public option off that list).

At the present rate, historians will be speaking of the dozen years of the OBushma administrations. It’s getting very fast to look as if the only thing that MIGHT save the Obama presidency for a second term is the Gop death wish to nominate Ms Death Panel – i.e. Ms Death Palin – herself.

Fridays the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by Dr. Stephen R. Keister commenting on The Day the Democrats Died, by Paul Hogarth.
Here’s Dr. Keister’s …

I can’t say I was “disappointed” in the jobs summit, because I didn’t expect it to be more than window dressing, but every day I wake up with the hope that President Obama will read one of the articles by people like Paul Krugman or Bob Herbert in the NY Times and a light will finally click on in that sharp brain of his.

Alternatives are great and all, but they do not scale well, and cannot provide base load power. When you account for energy storage costs, capacity factor, lifespan, ect of wind and solar, they come out to be far more expensive for large scale power production than nuclear.

would say I’m sorry and give you my condolences, but that seems almost insulting considering the decision you’ve made.

Obama’s central concern is to be re-elected in 2012, and he appears convinced that to do so he must play ball with the forces for maintaining the status quo in domestic and foreign policies. Thus his key appointments are from the old guard of the Bush and Clinton administrations. He, he thinks, will carry out his “change we can believe in” during his second term.

To whatever extent we citizens abdicate our responsibility to learn and employ the tools of good self goveernment, others will usurp those powers and enslave us.

Talking openly about true intimacy, love, emotional needs and support, physical and sexual desire is a way for us to start to mitigate single-motherhood.

Single Payer is by far the best path, actually the only path. The pitch and claim for the Public Option is “Keeping the insurance companies honest.” Really? If I break the law I get prosecuted, fined, and jailed, that simple – do the crime – pay the time or the fine. That should keep them honest. Congress passes laws, and if they violate those or cheat they are out of the game.

Our present immigration policy is a disaster for all American workers. It is one that benefits Oligarchs in the United States, Mexico, China, primarily, and other places in the world like Ireland, to a lesser extent. In the specific case of Mexico, since that’s where most of the heat and so little light is being placed in this argument.

Not only do I expect Chief Justice Roberts to break his promise to the American people and legislate from the bench by overturning McCain-Feingold, but I expect him to work with the other conservatives on the court to overturn any laws that Congress passes in this area.

We HOPE Obama will promote world peace, yet the reality is he has yet to close Guantanamo, he has expanded executive privileges that allow for the torture and illegal detainment of political prisoners, and he’s expanding war in Afghanistan.

I constantly wanted to keep him with me to shield him from the craziness and brutality of a community that looks at gays like they have no right to live.

These signs are good for a laugh, but I agree with Sharon that there is also cause to be very frightened – especially since many of these folks are armed.

We the people, of all races and cultures must unite to fight the corporate take over of our country that has arisen since deregulation began and trickle down economics have proven disasterous. We cannot truly be a civilized nation until we act responsibly, morally, and truly assert that “all men are created equal”. Quality health care and education for all are civil rights the masses are being deprived of. Quality Education and Health Care for All, Not Warfare!

160 years and the chickens are coming home to roost, and instead of letting loud white supremacists shout down attempts at reasoning in the Obama era, it’s time to end the apartheid by having Congress invite the Mexican people to dissolve their ever-corrupt fatcat and cartel-controlled govt. and failed country and join the U.S. as 10+ new states sans racism.

I do find it amusing, however, that the right wing wants people to trust insurance companies over government. Insurance companies have been the most incredibly grotesque example of service and loophole digging I have ever witnessed. The idea that my life would be in the hands of a company that exists solely to make profit and who hires people whose compensation is based on finding ways to deny claims, would be incredibly horrifying.

Just as importantly I hope the right wingnuts come to understand America will be a better, stronger, more unified nation when it works for all it’s citizens – not just some of them.

nd at home, from the likes of Salazar and Vilsack, we get a nondescript ‘balanced’ approach to environmental stresses – kind of like my adolescent son’s diet – half health food, half junk food.

Senator Hancock said that “AS STRUCTURED California is ungovernable” and she voiced her strong support for a Constitutional Convention, as well as her total support of her friend Rick Jacobs – founder of the Courage Campaign.

Academicians who specialize in particular social issues (such as Prof. Gates and Black Studies) tend to see their particular cause as central in every facet of society. They all but fantasize about having some historic altercation that will visibly punctuate the relevance and urgency of their cause.

Most Fridays the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by David Landau, commenting on Robert Fuller’s “Rankism: The Elephant in Professor Gates’s House.”
Here’s …

Only a clause about interstate commerce provides the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) with any pretext of constitutionality. The effect of the CSA on interstate commerce is to fatten outlaws and endanger homeland security while the treasury bleeds.

Every Friday the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by Devin, commenting on David A. Love’s “The Revolution Will Be Twitterized.”
Here’s Devin’s comment:
You …

Every Friday the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by Wayne,  commenting on Carol V. Hamilton’s “Right Wing Sedition.”
Here’s Wayne’s comment:
The real sedition is …

Every Friday the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by James Dehnert commenting on William J. Astore’s “The United States of Euphemism.” Here’s James’s …

Every Friday the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by Craig commenting on Lorraine Payette’s The Poor You Shall Have with You Always.” …