Political Accommodation — In today’s political climate, policy “accommodations” to opponents become a sign of blood in the water.
Demonizing Alternative Fuels
Tanya Acker: Renewable energy failures get a lot of attention and generate a lot of (usually spastic) activity. The successes, not so much.
LA’s Recent Election: When They Think Small, We Stay Home
Tanya Acker: Why did 84 percent of Angelenos who had the potential to change something decide, for one reason or another, that doing so wasn’t worth their time.
Move Over Real Housewives, It’s Time for Fun With Secret Donors
Tanya Acker: Featured in the cast might be a group of “liberty-loving” freedom fighters who think that spreading the risk of health care costs is communism.
A New Conversation about Public Spending Needed
Tanya Acker: People who can’t read, however, are very easy to divide and even easier to command. No demagoguery can save us from that.
The Best Reality Show EVER!
Tanya Acker: artisans of a certain Texas governor who yearns to be president think that there is “no significance” to the fact that said governor’s family leased a ranch named with a slur used to taunt African-Americans as they were hunted and lynched.
The Conrad Murray Trial: Medicine, Money and Patient Care
Tanya Acker: At the end of the day it will be for the jury — the one that sits in the actual courtroom — to decide whether Murray’s conduct was that of a solicitous personal physician or a fiscally driven reckless profiteer.
It Takes Strength to Compromise — and It Costs Less, Too
Tanya Acker: There is a lot of discussion these days about the detriments of compromise. When you compromise, for instance, certain people may claim you don’t stick to your guns and decide not to vote for you.
Shame on You, Harry Reid
Tanya Acker: When I heard about the “split” in the Democratic party between Harry Reid and President Obama regarding the building of the mosque near Ground Zero, and as I listened to Senator Reid voice his objections to the mosque, my first thought was that the Senator should know better.
Oh, Bill O’Reilly — It’s “Our” Country, Too
Tanya Acker: There are many among that celebrated group of “We the People” who are opposed to the Arizona law but who nonetheless remain deeply troubled by our broken immigration system. I am one of them and, frankly, I do not need to be lectured about the consequences of illegal immigration by Mr. O’Reilly or anyone else.
Hypocritical Outrage: Why the Process of Engineering This Health Reform Bill Is No Uglier Than the Rest of Congress’ Handiwork
Tanya Acker: Twice last week I was on panels with Republicans who expressed surprise about the “unseemly” tactics employed by Democrats in passing health care reform. The horsetrading was so “venal!” The process so “hyperpartisan!” Noble Americans, we should all be so very shocked! Well, not really.
On Town Halls and Health Care Reform: Wasn’t Hitler the One With the Gun?
As the GOP and their allies have concluded that all is fair in their attempts to either destroy health care reform (of any kind) and/or gain political leverage against a popular President, I am feeling the need to don a bullet-proof vest.
Forget Paper vs. Plastic: For the American Right, Gay Marriage Is the New Green
Here is a well-kept secret. Notwithstanding its efforts to ignore, marginalize, or dismiss environmental science, the American right is creating an environmental movement of its own. This one, however, has very little to do with preserving the earth or its resources but instead is premised on some quite remarkable efforts to recycle various “outrages” around […]
