Michele Waslin: ICE expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, which is nearly 10 percent more than the Bush administration’s 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007.
Pointing Our Oily Finger
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Dick Price: The reason we’ve got oil rigs drilling a mile deep into the ocean and fouling Alaska’s wilderness is because you and I insist on filling up our car’s gas tank anytime we want, right to the top, at a fraction of the cost others around the world pay, almost as an inalienable right. It’s why we’ve got soldiers dying in Afghanistan and Iraq these many years down the road, too, you know.
Bush Recession Comes Home to Roost
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Adam Eran: Tax cuts caused the current budget deficit, not crazy spending. Local government revenues fell 57% after Proposition 13. Even more egregious, the consume-atives™ (they do not conserve), now complain that State funding for local governments to fill that revenue hole meddles too much in local affairs.
Obama Suggests Lincoln-Like Humility
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Walter Moss: One of the great ego traps for any president is being surrounded by “yes men and women” who tell him (and maybe someday her) that he is always right. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote of an occasion when President Bush’s “eyes became fixed, his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption. His easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the founders’ wisdom in designing a system to keep power in check.”
Oil Spills and B Movies
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Tom Degan: As the decade of the teens unfolds, the price we will be forced to pay as a result of decades of neglect of America’s infrastructure will be astronomical. This disaster could have been avoided by means of a simple ounce of prevention.
At Long Last, Obama’s Going Bush
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Robert Illes: The tea baggers had finally encroached on, and engulfed, the mainstream of the Grand Old Party. As John McCain cringed the other day in Arizona, the running mate he made famous, Sarah Palin was re-filling her 15 minutes of fame card. (McCain cannot stop making the same deal with the devil he made that put her on the ticket in the first place) She gave her “ich bin ein Tea Partyer” spiel… dragging the desperate old maverick along with her. He made no mention of his promise of no cooperation with the Democrats for the rest of the year – perhaps because he had already fulfilled that promise in the first part of the year.
Let’s Get Our Own Foreign Policy House in Order Before Criticizing Others
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Ivan Eland: On March 31, 2010, the New York Times wrote an editorial that briefly expressed horror in response to the Moscow subway terror bombings, then warned that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might yet again use terrorist attacks to further consolidate his power, and finally lectured Russia that the only way to defeat such extremism was to deal with the underlying causes. Such a sermonizing editorial by any Russian publication after the 9/11 attacks would have engendered outrage in America
Alan Greenspan: As Unrepentant as Ever
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Joseph Palermo: He still wants to blame a “few bad apples,” instead of looking at his own role fanning the flames and pouring gasoline on the fire while the $8 trillion housing bubble was being pumped up. Greenspan said AIG’s problems were with insurance, but Born countered that if CDSs had been insurance they would have been regulated. Greenspan is bullshitting us again.
Liberals Lose to Fox Party, Corporate Party
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Jim Fuller: Conservatives and the nice, polite folks I think of as carriage liberals have no choice but to step out into the cold with the outspoken progressives or go on doing what they’ve been doing for years now – giving their money and their votes to people who despise them and routinely screw them over.
A Little Perspective, Yes?
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Dick Price: To get elected, we understood that Obama had to take a pragmatic approach. But underneath the pragmatism, we were attracted to the compassionate world view, the deep ability to grasp complex issues, and the eloquence to voice our best hopes and dreams for the future that we saw, and see, in the man—traits that had been so woefully absent in George W. Bush fear-mongering, hate-mongering, war-mongering reign.
Democrats Never Had Sixty Votes; Sixty Votes Never Mattered
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Paul Hogarth: With Scott Brown now pledging to be the 41st vote to kill health care reform, Democrats cannot react by ramming through a bill before the Senate seats him. Republicans are not interested in governing; it’s time to pass a real bill through reconciliation.
Eulogy for the Left
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Timothy V. Gatto: The old maxim that hindsight is 20/20 while foresight is practically blind fits well in this example. Let me illustrate how I believe Obama has manipulated the system to the point where the political Left is for all intents and purposes, a dead political entity. The only thing left at this point is to hold the funeral and send flowers.
What Scott Brown’s Victory Really Means
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Robert Reich: Here’s what’s really going on. In Massachusetts, in New Jersey, all over the nation, voters are petrified of losing their jobs, their homes, and what’s left of their savings. Nothing counts more than the economy. Rightly or wrongly, presidents and the party in power are blamed when the economy is lousy.
Survey Results: Go Left, Young Man!
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Dick Price & Sharon Kyle: After riding a euphoric crest of progressive support into the White House last year, President Barack Obama faces a very different challenge going into 2010: Regaining the trust and support of his own political base.
End of the Era of the Dicks
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Steve Ybarra: This year at age 62, a newborn child entered my life. Now, I may not be around for the blue moon next decade or to watch him get married, have children, graduate from law school, medical school or to become an auto mechanic, but I will resolve this – he will grow up in an America that will not be a country run by Dicks – if I have anything to say about it.
African-American Presidents Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
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Jonathan David Farley: White American liberals foolishly chose not to wait to see if Obama was the kind of man who would stick to his guns when the bandits rode into town. He wasn’t. African-Americans run away from noble fights.
Obama’s Afghan Box Canyon
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Although Obama may enjoy a brief up-tick in poll numbers after his talk, as soon as larger numbers of American bodies come home in flag-draped coffins, and Walter Reed fills up again with the damaged bodies and minds of soldiers whose lives have been ruined, the country will turn against what it thought, in November, 2009, was a good idea.
RedState.com’s Erick Erickson’s Head Officially Explodes
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Uhm, I remember seeing video of Osama bin Laden and several al-Qaeda spokesmen publicly stating after September 11 that the group wants to destroy everything America stands for. Well, it seems Erickson is all in favour of letting the terrorists have their way, going so far as to demand Washington finish the job those four groups of highjackers started by destroying the rule of law.
Media Mud Pies: CNN’s Embarrassing Response To FOX
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As a result of this abrogation of journalism, Americans have a depleted treasury, a rotting infrastructure, criminal healthcare, fiscal sociopathy, substandard education, a dumbed-down public, an ever-widening socio-political chasm, and idiots elected to and remaining in office for lack of effective vetting and investigation by a legitimate Fourth Estate.
What A Surprise! “Values Voters” Pick Racist Huckabee
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Huckabee, the silver-tongued, jovial Baptist preacher now best known for losing weight, charmed the crowd gathered in Washington over Rosh Hashanah weekend – Shanatova, en shallah to all – by dog whistling coded racist messages that wowed folks in the ballroom.
Right-Wing Smears Wellstone for Ted Kennedy’s Death
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Conservatives are entitled to their political heroes, and if they have core principles should celebrate their leaders’ deaths the way he or she would have wanted them to do. Just don’t attack us for remembering our heroes – depriving us of our chance to grieve.
Don Lemon & CNN, No to “Real Americans” – Yes to Real Journalism!
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While I applaud Mr. Lemon for confronting Hardage, I wonder where his and corporate media’s outrage has been for the last eight years while the patriotism of those who opposed George Bush was constantly assailed. Instead of challenging accusations against Bush dissenters, corporate media embraced them. In fact they indulged them.
Can You Imagine?
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Can you imagine the pickle we’d be in if George Bush still occupied the White House? Or if we had a McCain-Palin administration making the problems facing America today that much worse? That thought kept crossing my mind as I listened to Barack Obama’s press conference on my drive home from work this evening. America’s [...]
Canada To Bush: Y’all Don’t Come Back Soon!
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A few weeks ago, George W. Bush slunk into Calgary, Alberta where he was paid a reported $50,000 to address a gathering of oil men; in Alberta, there’s no such thing as oil women because, even in the 21st century, the province still revels in its rough-n’-ready, real cowboys are men, way of thinking. It [...]
From Oxy to Encino: Making Friends and Creating Waves
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If you’ve glanced at the LA Progressive recently, you know that our weekend last week was consumed with the media workshop at Occidental College, which this magazine sponsored and which Sharon and I helped organize. We learned a bit, met some interesting folks, and had a blast. Called “Local Media for Social Change,” the day-long [...]
This Week in The LA Progressive: March 22 to March 28
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Avoiding the Greater Depression New York, City of the Poor. This city that never sleeps, and others, will experience economic and social death without a vibrant middle class and viable opportunities to earn a living. –David A. Love The Magical Mystery Majority Budget. The bills passed, the Republicans threatened to sue, the Governor announced he [...]
A 9/11 Reformer’s Final Plea for Justice in Washington
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Beverly Eckert rose very early on February 6 to catch the 8 a.m. Acela train out of Stamford, CT, but she was eager to make the trip to Washington, DC, this time around. On past journeys, the doors of official Washington would too often slam in her face. But now, she and other 9/11 family [...]
Why We Need a “Truth Commission” to Investigate Torture
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The American people’s faith in their government—even with the election of Barack Obama—remains compromised. One reason is obvious. Americans see low-level military operatives being imprisoned for mistreatment, even murder, of prisoners. At the same time, high-level officials go uninvestigated and unpunished. In their case, we’re told to look forward rather than backward, an empty phrase [...]
Obama Reaches the Bleechers. Jindal? Off the Fists
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Feels like it’s still the best of times and the worst of times. If the night of President Obama’s first major speech to a joint session of Congress proved anything, it confirmed that America chose the better of two directions last November. Nothing could underscore that more glaringly than the comparison of Obama’s remarks to [...]
Housing Pushing Up Numbers of U.S. Homeless
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Every Christmas season a large electric star visible for miles is illuminated on a mountainside overlooking Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the time the holy family of Christianity took refuge in a manger on the night of Christ’s birth. This past Christmas, this city of 71,000 — whose principal landmark is the rusting remains of the [...]
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