Common Sense - LA Progressive

Assessing Charter Schools: Follow the Money

Mark Naison: Here are common sense criteria to judge charter schools intent to educate or to undermine public schools

Job Creator Mythology

Charles Hayes: Employers are more like crop harvesters than job creators. Harvesters don’t work unless something needs reaping, likewise most companies don’t hire unless there is money to be made

Why One God Is Better Than Ten

By Robert W. Fuller

Robert Fuller: An omniscient, unique god, worthy of the name, would insist that the truth is singular, and that it’s His truth. In consequence, there cannot be two distinct, true, but contradictory bodies of knowledge.

I Will Stand with Occupy Wall Street

By Brent Budowsky

Brent Budowsky: With Bank of America the latest bank to grind its heels on the necks of patriots who paid for its bailout, something powerful and profound is happening in America.

Fed Policy Needs a U-Turn

By Brent Budowsky

Brent Budowsky: America needs new thinking for monetary and fiscal policy. Fed policy has failed. Government policy is inadequate. Ron Paul has advanced an important debate.

SB 490: Let the Voters Make an Informed Death Penalty Decision

By James Clark

James Clark: No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while.

Will Democrats Move Right?

By Shamus Cooke

Shamus Cooke: But in a close second place in this rightward scramble are the Democrats, who’ve spent decades racing into the arms of the corporations that dominate both political parties unchallenged.

Only in America

By Berry Craig

Berry Craig: Like Reagan, Tea Party candidates are delivering what Tea Partiers want: simple answers to complex issues. Never mind that there never have been simple answers to complex issues.

Still the Age of Reagan: Long Waves in American Politics

By John Peeler

John Peeler: I suggest that as bad as things are, economically, politically, socially, they are not bad enough to permanently shift the way we think, to force changes in what we consider to be common sense. Such a fundamental reshaping of the political landscape has occurred only a few times in our history.

Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries, Part 3

By Sharon Kyle

In his final of a three part series of videos, Gabriel Buelna of the Nonprofit Network Blog asks Father Greg Boyle pointed questions about Same Sex Marriage Church Doctrine v. Common Sense Immigration Reform and the Arizona Law Father Boyle offers some surprising answers and gives viewers insight into why this leader is so compelling [...]

Checks and Balances

By Ron Wolff

Ron Wolff: Government is simply the institutionalization over time of the collective will of the people at any given moment, established with at least one essential objective in mind: the prevention of the inevitable chaos that would result in its absence.

George Lakoff’s Majority Vote Budget Initiative

By admin

Midnight came and went and for the 23rd time in the past 24 years, California State Legislature once again missed another budget deadline, underscoring the need for voters to say “Yes” to the Majority Vote Budget Initiative, which would lead to California’s budget being approved by a majority vote.

Arizona Anti-Immigrationn Senator Going After ‘Anchor Babies’ Next

By Andrea Christina Nill

Andrea Nill: Pierce isn’t the first lawmaker to go after the children of immigrants. Since taking office, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) has tried and failed to pass seven pieces of legislation that would either repeal or reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s definition of citizenship. Most recently, Bilbray took his anti-14th Amendment crusade to the state-level, backing the Taxpayer Revolution’s “Anchor Baby” reform initiative which sought to limit the rights and benefits of the U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants by redefining the 14th Amendment’s jurisdiction.

Lincoln to the Rescue

By Robert Reich

Robert Reich: Blanche Lincoln wants to force the banks to put their derivatives into separate entities that aren’t subsidized by you and me. This is just common sense. Her move would also end the big banks’ monopoly over derivatives, thereby reducing their risk to the financial system. It would also cut dramatically into the big banks’ profits.

Including Immigrants in Health Care Reform Makes Economic Sense

By Michele Waslin

While most in Washington have completely written off the possibility of including undocumented immigrants in any kind of coverage plan, Congress continues to be perplexed over legal permanent residents—our citizens-in-waiting.

Common Sense vs. Intelligence

By H. Lewis Smith

by H. Lewis Smith – In a three-way conversation between Tavis Smiley, Dr. Michael Dyson, and Dr. Cornel West on the justification of blacks using the n-word, the following ideas were exchanged during the discourse: