Progressive Media Advocates
Ira Chernus: No matter who the Republicans nominate to run against Barack Obama, it seems clear that we’ll have a kind of presidential contest we haven’t seen in more than seventy-five years: a referendum on the government’s proper role in economic life.
Georgianne Nienaber: Rural and native communities do not have reliable access to the Internet or transportation, and grocery stores, kiosks and ATMs are in short supply or non-existent. Less than 10 percent of White Earth residents have access to the Internet.
Paul Hogarth: While it would have been great to have the Court rule sexual orientation a “suspect class” and put Prop 8 under a strict scrutiny test, that would have made the decision far more likely to be reversed.
Andy Love: Bill Clinton once said that “Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line,” but the distaste among the Republican rank-and-file for Romney has got to be deeply worrying to the Grand Old Party.
Robert Reich: The sad truth is Obama has never really occupied the high ground on campaign finance. He refused public financing in 2008. Once president, he didn’t go to bat for a system of public financing.
ulie Driscoll’s look at the long-term effects of the Komen Foundation’s ill-advised decision to strip its funding for Planned Parenthood for what were rather obviously political reasons, led this week’s LA Progressive 10 Most Read articles list.
Brent Budowsky: The Hope America Fails Republicans cannot handle the truth that the auto policy worked wonders. The Republicans can’t handle the truth, because they are so negative that what is good for America is bad for Republicans!
John T. Cumbler: Indiana ’s proposed “Right to Work” Act is not just anti-union, it is anti-democratic. Under the law if a majority of workers in a plant vote for a union, those who opposed the union would not have to contribute dues to the union.
Derrick N. Ashong: the GOP field has managed to maintain a unified position in one key issue: Big Government. It’s big, it’s bad and it’s coming to get you.
Anthony Samad: By intellectualizing racism, Gingrich is leaving his signature card with Americans that still have a race problem with Obama. We can’t let it work.
David Love: Now, when the GOP is tea party-owned and steeped in 100% pure corporatism, greed, intolerance and white supremacy, black conservatives are simply useful idiots.
Friday Feedback: This week, an article by Steve Hochstadt, Do Republican Candidates Like Most Americans?, drew a series of comments, supportive and not. We’ll lead with Steve’s aggregate response, then include the observations by others he comments on.
Brent Budowsky: Obama 2.0 is singing on key to the real America, talking about matters they care about, battling for policies that will better their lives, championing the American notion of fair play and taking to voters a narrative that is clear, consistent and compelling.
Robert Reich: Never before in the history of American politics has a single couple given more money to a single candidate and had a bigger impact than Sheldon Adelson and his wife – all courtesy of the Supreme Court and its grotesque decisions that speech is money.
Scott Prosterman: Republicans are in a snit because their selection process is so Darwinian. Whatever rises to the top of that vat surely won’t be cream.
Ted Vaill: Republican operatives will work hard to undercut Mitt in the weeks and months ahead, so that Romney will be their nominee, in spite of his Bain baggage.
As we gear up for the long march to November’s election, many of us are struggling with this choice about the Obama campaign, prompting us to launch our LA Progressive survey last Saturday.
Tom Degan: The Republican party has sunk so deep into the ideological cesspool since January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan is starting to look like Theodore Roosevelt!
Tanya Somanader: Hoping to refocus priorities in 2012, Michigan’s Senate Democrats have released a new plan that puts Michigan students ahead of wealthy corporations.
Randy Shaw: The federal government’s slashing of funding for urban America has made all cities more dependent on corporate investment than at any time since the 1930’s, raising new challenges for urban progressives.
Vijay Prashad: The United States will exit Afghanistan in the next few years. None of its promises of health and well-being, democracy and women’s rights will be realized.
As he often does, Robert Reich topped our weekly chart during this vacation week with his article discussing the advantages of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton for November’s election, with Joe Biden moving to State.
Joseph Palermo: These powerful right-wing political obstacles that must be sidelined if progressive change can have any chance of success, whether Obama is at the helm or any number of the string of future presidents he now tells us we’ll probably need.
Robert Reich: Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.
Dick Price: Reverend Jesse Jackson urged the black community to get involved with the Occupy Movement, saying, “Whenever the Freedom Train comes to town, get onboard.”
Paul Loeb: If we want President Obama to make the right decision on the Keystone Pipeline and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.
Brent Budowsky: There are smiles today throughout the Democratic base because the fighting spirit is back for the Dems.
Coleen Rowley: Obama’s expected signature will not only de-link the “war on terror” from its original justification, the 9-11 attacks of more than a decade ago, to ensure the “long war” does not end.
Sikivu Hutchinson: Black Skeptics Los Angeles spearheaded its First in the Family Humanist Scholarship initiative, which focuses on providing resources to undocumented, foster care, homeless and LGBTQ youth who will be the first in their families to go to college.
Carl Matthes: Despite the much-heralded 2008 success of Prop 8 in California to stop same-sex marriage, that vote, and it’s subsequent ramifications, provided not only 18,000 lesbian and gay couples with legal marriages, but the accelerant for the Prop 8 case currently being decided by SCOTUS.
Randy Shaw: Obama could regain young people’s support by lowering student loan rates, enacting immigration reform and rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, but time—and his political capital—is running out.
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Cenk Uygur: Can Progressives Reclaim the Democratic Party?
Sharon Kyle: Cenk is viewed as a kindred spirit by many in the Caucus, partly because of his unyielding progressive stance but also because Uygur is no stranger to challenging the status quo.