Progressive Media Advocates
Brent Budowsky: Let’s challenge the speculative fever and vulture frenzy that threatens the Morning in America that is coming. The president should initiate a drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, if necessary twice, to burn the fear of God into the soul of speculators.
Tina Dupuy: Warning of a zombie nation feasting on the metaphorical brains of the U.S. is consistent with a party now completely untethered from basic American history, science or any other evidence-based practice: The GOP is now a party standing proudly on a pro-fiction platform.
Victoria Defrancesco Soto: Western states have their own personality. Arizona’s brand of cowboy politics is largely unbridled by partisan institutions and a republican form of government.
James Rhodes: The Bush administration lied us into a war with Iraq and now GOP hopefuls are leading us down that same path with Iran.
Alvaro Huerta: Making food stamps a campaign issue is a loser for Republicans. Too many Americans now recognize how vital the program is.
Steve Hochstadt: Hiding behind internet anonymity, Internet trolls try to use their anger to prevent the rest of us from discussing politics like friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens.
John R. Moffett: Our world-spanning military, paid for by American taxpayers, serves the interests of defense contractors and the government officials that funnel the money to them but it does not serve the American taxpayer.
David Love: Republicans are once again turning President Obama’s faith into a political issue. But will their strategy work? History and hypocrisy suggest that the political gamesmanship won’t succeed.
Joseph Palermo: At about $10 billion a month, and an increasing number of American casualties in an environment more volatile than ever, the American people need to take long, close look at whether staying in Afghanistan until December 2014 is worth it.
Nick Capo: Progressive reformers have led this country to a better state in previous decades, and they will do so again. But it has to start at the local level.
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto: Their rejection of Romney is so strong that Somos Republicans have instructed their membership to write in Ronald Reagan for President if Romney wins the GOP nomination.
Devin Griggs: The parties might be reversed and the cultural issues of the 1970s flipped, but American politics since the Nixon-McGovern race has remained fairly fixed and share all of the rhetoric and even less of the substance that once defined American politics.
Tom Hayden: Thousands of American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are the legacy of a continuing Christian crusade promoted by Franklin Graham, who now is claiming in television interviews that President Obama is a born Muslim and a questionable convert to Christianity.
Vijay Prashad: The “safety net” that Romney mentioned has been frayed beyond recognition since the 1980s. One of the most grotesque problems is hunger.
Joseph Palermo: The Republicans think they believe that with enough SuperPAC money and stoking up the base, along with relatively high unemployment and gas prices and millions of underwater mortgage holders, they can win a close election.
Randy Shaw: In accepting a Texas case of a white student challenging racial preferences, the United States Supreme Court is again set to reverse decades of court precedents and impose its own conservative agenda.
Robert Reich: Have you heard of William Dore, Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons, Peter Thiel, or Bruce Kovner? If not, let me introduce them to you. They’re running for the Republican nomination for president.
Robert Reich: Nothing drives voter sentiment like the price of gas – now averaging $3.56 a gallon, up 30 cents from the start of the year. It’s already hit $4 in some places. The last time gas topped $4 was 2008.
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto: Sandoval has a proven track record of garnering support outside of his party but not within the Latino community. Sandoval would otherwise be an ideal running mate.
Steve Hochstadt: Karl Rove and John Boehner agree on this: We hate Obama. Obama helped Detroit. A union is involved. The revival of American cars is a Democratic success story. So take your Detroit jobs and shove ‘em.
Jim Rhodes: Not since 9-11 has the United States witnessed such callous demigods hellbent on destroying individual liberty as currently being showcased in the Republican primaries.
Walter Moss: The main reason that Obama is not at “war” with the Catholic Church is that the U. S. bishops ARE NOT the Catholic Church in the United States.
Jim Rhodes: The mainstream press has been critical of Occupy’s “failure” to provide alternative solutions, but I assure you they are being developed in spite of the built in mechanisms that guarantee failure.
Berry Craig: I’m not against Romney just because he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Likewise, it makes no sense for any union member to vote for Santorum just because his grandfather was a coal miner.
Mary Dudziak: “Liberals” and “conservatives” are often talking past each other on questions of national security, and there is a need to reshift the conversation, and get beyond partisan and left/right divides.
Friday Feedback: This week, regular commentor Joe Weinstein addresses Brent Budowksy’s “Calling Wealthy Democrats.”
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto: The GOP, however, shouldn’t hold its breath. The idea that Latinos are social conservatives akin to white evangelicals is simply off-base.
Gareth Porter: Netanyahu, like every previous Israeli prime minister, understands that an Israeli strike against Iran depends not only on US tolerance, but direct involvement against Iran, at least after the initial attack.
Tom Hayden: The US military openly opposes the pace of the drawdown, which already is too slow for most Democrats and the peace movement, because the resulting panic in Kabul could cause an implosion if efforts at a diplomatic settlement bog down.
Randy Shaw: Now that cities offer walkable, bicycle-friendly, public transit-available neighborhoods with desirable restaurants and a high quality of life, the poor are being shunted to car-dependent suburban areas in economic decline.
Julie Driscoll: Call me crazy, but I believe firmly that the statutory laws are in place for a reason – to prevent the exploitation of young men and women who don’t have the ability to make informed decisions, who don’t have the ability to “consent.”
Lauren Steiner: Please help us spread the word across Los Angeles! Come with signs that say “Bruce Karsh, please don’t sell the LA Times to the Kochs” and “Bruce Karsh, our democracy is not for sale” We are gathering Thursday, May 23 for a rally and march.
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Top 10 Most Read Led by “Blaming Schools and Teachers”
Topping this week’s list is, once again, Mark Naison, the Fordham University professor and editor of With a Brooklyn Accent, who writes so passionately on issues of education and race..