PIC: two friends in Austin, Texas on Israel

Privatizing Public K-12 steals from the poor and gives to the rich (Part 147)

I know some Democratic Party operatives scan this site.

Corporate backed education reform is a cruel scam that is sucking desperately needed tax dollars from our schools and giving them to Wall Street sociopaths.

Party activists know it, and parents of kids in public schools are increasingly realizing that someone is calling the shots who doesn't give a rat's ass about their kids and will eventually connect the dots back from repetitive standardized testing, school closing, and charter schools that promise a lot and deliver little to the politicians who took a pile of money from hedge fund managers and right wing foundations in exchange for screwing our kids.

If elected Democrats care at all about staying in office instead of moving prematurely to K Street, they should change course on this RIGHT NOW.

Kennedy admitted he made a mistake by believing the the CIA about the Bay of Pigs and his popularity went up. Obama and Democrats in Congress could confess that they made a mistake by listening to the rich when they said they could educate our kids better (if we just give them a little skim from the money we budget for education).

If the DLC/New Democrat/Sensible Centrists don't drop this they will find themselves without a base to deceive and abuse in pretty short order.

"The hidden hand of the free market never picks up the check"

I just heard that on the radio as I was driving to work.

I'll find the source as soon as I can.

That's bumper sticker that might even make some righties say amen.

What will it take to break DLC/New Dem/"Centrist" "lesser of two evils" trick on voters?

Ted Rall's recent piece on Progressives' need to break up with the Democratic Party put what is likely to happen with another president from the corporate wing of the party, which will essentially be a rerun of Bill Clinton and Obama betrayals: some progressive policies and incremental changes around the edges, but the big policies like trade, war, foreign policy in general, taxes, and even social spending will be dictated by banks, Wall Street, and the largest corporations.

The same could be said of centrist Dems in Congress, and even many seeming progressives become less so when the party is in a position to get anything done.

At a minimum, Democrats rarely go to the mat to advance progressive policies and at best defend existing programs like Social Security and Medicare when there's such overwhelming public support for them that they can't afford to act like doormats and still be taken seriously as an opposition party.

What will it take to break this death grip of two parties, one corporate and another corporater?

A mass exodus of voters to a new third party?

The death or at least shriveling of the GOP to a no longer credible obstacle to progressive policies?

Will campaign finance reform or even a constitutional amendment to turn back Citizens United really be enough?

Will it take a massive, massive display of screwing average Americans like another Wall Street bailout while the rest of us get austerity or starting an unnecessary world war?

What will break this false choice we have now of essentially gay-bashing versus gay-hugging corporatists?

Why haven't any "open carry" activists been shot by cops like blacks waving wallets?

or a Latino kid walking around with a bb gun that looks like an assault rifle?

Blacks and Latinos WITHOUT real weapons are shot and killed on the suspicion that they MIGHT have them.

If I was a cop and I saw a bunch of guys walking into a business with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, I might reasonable assume they were going to rob it or go postal since you don't need an AR-15 to pick up items at Target or shovel food into your mouth at a restaurant.

I do not wish those idiots any harm. But if the cops take down one or several of them even once, they hardly have room to complain since it is a regular occurrence for non-whites SUSPECTED of having a gun.

Is Hillary the rodeo clown of the Democratic Party?

With some of her gaffes like "dead broke," and the fact that conservatives will expend all their energy attacking her if there's even a one percent chance she will run for president, it's starting to look like Hillary is less a serious candidate and more the Democratic Party's rodeo clown.

That's the clown who goes out and the distracts the bull at the rodeo when the real cowboys are in danger.

The rodeo clown can't necessarily rope or ride the bull, but he's an expert at pissing him off then jumping in a barrel or dodging the bull so he doesn't get hurt himself.

By accident or design, Hillary seems to be doing this for the last couple of presidential elections.

In 2008, the right spent the whole primaries firing their big guns at Hillary, leaving Obama relatively unscathed with low-information votes until the general election.

It could also be that all the conservative noise about Hillary actually tipped a few voters toward Obama in the primaries, a candidate remarkably similar to Hillary in many policies. Some might not have have had the stomach for another decade of Republicans trying to pants Bill and project all their own faults onto Hillary.

Hillary's candidacy makes others look more competent, virtuous, and populist by comparison. How easy is it to find fault in Elizabeth Warren when you've got Hillary as the Goofus to her Gallant after all?

I do not agree with Hillary on many things, but I salute her for performing this valuable service to her party and her country.

I hope that she continues to consider running for many elections to come.

Supreme Court decision on birth control shows why health insurance should be divorced from job

I'm not happy with private, for-profit insurance companies still being in the loop, but some aspects of Obamacare look like they ARE an improvement.

This is not one of those areas.

Do you really want your employer mucking around in what kind of contraceptive you use?

If you have to pay the vig to the insurance companies, there ought to be a way to keep employees from from getting jerked around by their employers.

Pando Abruptly Fired Two High-Profile Lefty Writers Without Notice or Cause

Like the buying and selling of venerable newspapers like so many baseball cards by the investor class, usually followed by changes based on the new owner's whims, this firing of David Sirota, a major lefty investigative reporter and Ted Rall, a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist, makes me wonder if the for-profit sector can be trusted as the home of real journalists.

A lot of these arbitrary actions could be avoided if journalists worked at non-profits or cooperatives, instead of relying on the favor of corporations and spoiled trust fund babies.

PIC: true transparency on capitol hill

I found this on Reddit. I wish I made it.

Iraq Demands United States form a more inclusive government

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki spoke for his parliament and cabinet today when he urged the United States to form a more inclusive government that was responsive to more than just the minority of extremely wealthy individuals.

"Polls show less than half of Americans approve of President Obama's performance, record public distrust of the US Congress, and little change economic, trade, budget, tax, and foreign policy regardless of which of the two major parties is in control of the White House or Congress," said Maliki.

"Further, recent studies have shown that American politicians are far more responsive to wealthy donors and past and future employers or business cronies than they are to their constituents even when what the wealthy want conflicts with the wishes of their constituents or actually harms them," he added.

"Therefore, for the stability of the United States and because of the effect their large economy and military presence has on the rest of the world, we ask that they dissolve their government and reconstitute a "salvation government" that is more inclusive of the vast majority and their economic interests and diminishes the influence of money in policy-making, whether through the inclusion of smaller parties or establishing means of direct democracy at the national level or whatever it takes," he concluded....

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