Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen: It is time for Congress to put the cop on this pharmaceutical beat before more Americans die from the profits-over-safety priorities of this rogue industry.
Robert Bork: A Pass on Watergate, Not ‘Original Intention’
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Stanley Kutler: Bork inevitably opposed judicial decisions favoring contemporary values and desires, readily attacking judges who found ample constitutional support for ruling on behalf of second-class citizens, whether they wanted to eat at any lunch counter or get an abortion.
What Speaker Boehner Should Have Told House Republicans about Compromise—A Year Ago
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Walter Moss: Rather than using his leadership position as House Speaker to help educate new House Republicans and others, including American voters, about the noble history of political compromise, he succumbed to ignorance, displaying a lack of leadership.
What Will the Democratic Left Do in 2012?
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Lawrence Wittner: Contrasting the administration’s all-out effort to save Wall Street with its indifference to Main Street, many progressives wonder if they have gained anything worthwhile with Obama’s election.
Brooklyn GOP Win Shows Voters Distrust President Who Cries Wolf
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Randy Shaw: With the President still ignoring cries from his base for confrontational and dramatic action, did anyone really expect those Brooklyn Democrats to be highly motivated to get to the polls?
Where’s Howard Dean?
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Randy Shaw: At a time when President Obama is openly ignoring this “Democratic wing” while currying favor with “independents,” Dean is publicly silent over the president’s rightward shift.
Forget Rick Perry – Mitt Romney Is Perfect for the GOP
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Tina Dupuy: For the last 30 years at least, the Republicans have been relentlessly, uniformly hawkish – but mostly with other peoples’ children. This disconnect was made evident in the ’08 election when soldiers donated money to candidate Barack Obama 6-1 over Senator John McCain.
Al Gore for President
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Brent Budowsky: Let me be the first to propose a national movement to draft Al Gore for president in 2016, carry the banner of the New Frontier heritage of the Democratic Party, and mobilize to elect true Democrats to the House and Senate in 2012.
Obama Is Not Bobby Kennedy
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Brent Budowsky: Ronald Reagan once asked whether voters were better off than they were four years ago. If President Obama believes what Secretary Geithner said Sunday he will be telling many voters in 2012 they will not be much better off four years from now. This is not acceptable.
Confessions of a Minion of the Military-Industrial Complex
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Jonathan David Farley: How I learned to stop worrying about where my academic research funding came from and love Raytheon
Thinking About Bobby
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Tom Degan: A second Kennedy administration (which would have ended on January 20, 1977) would definitely have prevented eight years of Nixon and Watergate and might very well have prevented the dawning of the insane right wing era that began exactly four years later with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan – and has continued for thirty years – an era which has ruined a country that used to be a nice place in which to live.
An Illiberal Education and Southern Politics
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Randal Jelks: Dinesh D’Souza, Nikki Haley, and Bobby Jindal have proven what the late comedian Richard Pryor once mocked with great aplomb in his 1975 comedy album, Is it Something I Said? He noted that the first thing that the Vietnamese boat people learned in an ESL class was how to say, “nigger…. so that they could become good citizens.”
Progressive Critics Help Obama and Democrats
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Randy Shaw: Holding self-identified “progressive” politicians like Barack Obama accountable for fulfilling campaign commitments actually improves the chances for progressive election victories, as it pressures Democrats to satisfy their base. And as the critical midterm elections approach, ensuring this grassroots base is motivated and mobilizable by holding Obama and Congressional Democrats accountable is even more imperative.
The Texas State Board of Education and History Standards: A Teacher’s Perspective
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Ron Briley: Unfortunately, this debate over standards often rages with little input from history teachers who are expected to implement mandated curriculum. This attitude derives from a fundamental lack of respect in our culture for teachers. Thus, it is assumed that dentists and real estate agents are better equipped to make curricular decisions than are history educators.
Boehner, Cantor, and Mitch!
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Berry Craig: I’m glad to see Obama starting to show some spunk. His recent performance at the televised Q&A with the House GOP brass was a great start. It got rave reviews at our central labor council. “He looked those Republicans right in the eye and kicked their butts,” said one delegate, a retired Machinist. “But he needs to do more than that.”
Democrats Return to Slumber after Massachusetts Wake Up Call
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Randy Shaw: Consider the Democrats top concerns. Health care? “We’ll get to it sometime.” Comprehensive immigration reform? “It’s still a priority.” EFCA? Off the political radar screen. Climate Change? “We don’t have the votes.” The Budget? Freeze all domestic spending but education and research but protect defense.
Why Would Union Members Vote Republican?
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Berry Craig: The union-haters must still be in hog heaven over an AFL-CIO-sponsored poll that showed most Massachusetts union households supported Republican Scott Brown over union-endorsed Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to succeed the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
Why Freeze Spending on Only Part of the Budget?
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Ivan Eland: President Obama’s rationale for not including these security expenditures in his discretionary spending freeze is that he is prosecuting two wars. Aside from the obvious solution of ending the two conflicts—which are part of the “war on terror” but have had the counterproductive effect of increasing retaliatory terrorism—and cutting back the defense budget, defense spending could be reduced even if the two war efforts are sustained.
Massachusetts Calling: Harnessing Independents’ Anger and Disillusionment to Form a Second (i.e. Non-Corporate) Party
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Gary Corseri: Can these radio jockeys really believe half of what they say? They serve the system that butters their croissants. They are the corporate media, they are the Republicratic party—two sides of the same coin—the tarnished coin, the cheapened, sinking coin of this realm.
We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us
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Berry Craig: I’m a union-card carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat. I support a public option. But you can bet your snow boots if I were a Bay State voter, I’d have trudged through a blizzard to cast my ballot for Martha Coakley, Brown’s Democratic opponent.
Massachusetts?!! Ask the Model Minority
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John Delloro: With a rise in right-wing populism, I am worried. Our history tells us that immigration will become the key hot button issue these next coming elections and, in the past, hate crimes against AAPIs and Latina/os have consistently risen with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, especially during low economic periods.
Massachusetts: Timidity of Hope Won’t Cut It
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Joseph Palermo: The Obama Administration cut far too many deals with the same corporate special interests that have dominated Washington since the Reagan years. Obama watered down his agenda. The Democratic base stayed home. The Republicans were energized beyond belief. And the Democratic candidate in a Democratic state lost the “Lion of the Senate’s” seat.
Massachusetts Debacle
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John Peeler: The defeat of Martha Coakley in the race to succeed Ted Kennedy certainly shows the folly of taking victory for granted and failing to mount a serious campaign. But it also puts on display the complete political incompetence of the Obama administration and the national leadership of the Democratic Party and the Congress.
Why Is Max Baucus Even a Democrat?
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus finally produced his own health care bill earlier this week – and it’s an absolute gift to the insurance industry.
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.
He Saw the Promised Land
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Rather than enshrine him in a giant marble bust to sit alongside Henry Clay’s, as some have suggested, this is their time to follow in the footsteps Everett Dirksen trod in 1964 and yield to an idea whose time has come, and to build a far greater monument to the legacy of their fallen friend. It’s what Ted would want.
To This Partisan Irish Catholic, More Change We Can Believe In
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Maybe I came to revere Ted Kennedy’s work all the more because unlike his brothers, he had time and many years to make a difference, large and small, and a terrific and powerful podium from which to do so. He never hesitated to use his stature or gifts for good, to help somebody.
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