Every now and then, I see an "issue ad" for an issue I've never heard of. Those "union boss card check" ads that turned up almost a year (it seems) before the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) became news are a prime example. But there are others.
Lately I've noticed a two-pronged assault against "government" limiting "education choices" — in which the actor-advocate pretends to be a lower-middle class person (and is well cast to look it) who is working in the health care field and wouldn't have had a chance in the world to earn a living, she says sincerely, without the education she received. From some unspecified somewhere.
For-profit colleges graduated an average of 22 percent of their students in 2008, according to a new report from Education Trust.So, low grad rates, high debt-to-student ratios, high debt-to-default ratios, andgovernment subsidies. Mission accomplished, as we business types like to say.
That average palls [sic] in comparison to bachelor's-seeking graduation rates at public and private non-profit colleges and universities for the same year, which averaged 55 percent and 65 percent, respectively.
The report, titled "Supbrime Opportunity" (PDF) [properly spelled, of course] also reveals that for-profit colleges increased their enrollment by 236 percent from 1998 to 2009.
The median debt of for-profit college graduates -- $31,190 -- far outpaces that of private non-profit college graduates, which stands at $17,040, and is more than triple the median debt for those from public colleges, which is $7,960.
Late last month, an organization called the Coalition for Educational Success (CES) announced its intention to formulate a new code of conduct to govern for-profit higher education institutions. CES said that, in conjunction with former Govs. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.) and Thomas Kean (R-N.J.), it plans to develop standards that “will improve and ensure transparency, disclosure, training, [and] provide strong new protections for students” attending “career colleges.”Note the multi-pronged attack — Dem. Rendell and Repub. Kean lending their sellable names to an industry "self-regulation" maneuver (you can see those ads too, from time to time). Plus a strong push-back against the Dept. of Education. Plus attack ads criticizing government intrusion into education "choice."
Sounds great. But what is CES and why is it proposing a higher education code of conduct right now? To understand that, one has to dive into a hotly-contested federal policy battle: the attempt by the U.S. Department of Education to implement new rules governing the for-profit college industry, which the coalition represents.
Since late last year, for-profit colleges—schools like the University of Phoenix and Devry University—have been ferociously lobbying against a new Education Department regulation (known as “gainful employment”) that would cut higher education programs off from federal dollars if too many of their students can’t find good jobs and default on their students loans. ... “While a majority of career colleges play a vital role in training our workforce to be globally competitive, some bad actors are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last September.
Many for-profit colleges make up to 90 percent of their revenuefrom the government through various avenues of aid used by their students, including federal student loans, as I reported earlier this year. They have profit margins as high as 30 percent and their CEOs make millions annually—almost all of which comes courtesy of American taxpayers.All you need to know? They're thieves.
1890′s America: A Peek at the Past You’re Repeating
Posted: 14 May 2011 11:33 AM PDT
It has been said that a definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and expect a different result. While in one sense this may be considered persistence – to try, and try again – to do so against all evidence to the contrary must certainly be considered some sort of madness. Yet, despite the egregious crimes committed against the American people by Big Banks, Big Finance, Big Oil, Big Pharma and the corporate and financial elite as a whole, the American people seem determined to place even more trust in them by allowing the dissolution of organized labor out of a misplaced faith that their best interests will be taken care of by those who have just finished raping their economy.
While deregulation, corporate welfare, and an abundance of corporate and financial friendly policies have allowed a drastic disparity in wealth over the past thirty years, the onslaught against the American working class has been going on for much, much longer.
The advancements and protections that were championed on behalf of the workers of America over the past century were necessary, life saving measures. Back when people still understood that the purpose of the economy was to serve society, and not the other way around, as it is today, and before they had been completely deceived into fighting on behalf of the corporations that would enslave them and turn them into expendable commodities, a real movement had developed across America.
That movement succeeded through sacrifice of life and limb, and despite government repression and the use of the military against them. They endured incarceration and the destruction of their homes. Yet, decade by decade, their sacrifice won the eight hour day, minimum wage, sick days, the end of child labor, the right to organize, and every other labor law and standard that is now being taken for granted.
Current proposals to end the minimum wage, kill organized labor, and institute ‘right to work’ legislation will effectively abolish all of those gains that the generations that preceded us worked so hard to achieve. Once again, corporations will be in the position to treat the entire country as a ‘company town’, a plantation, where the workforce is completely disenfranchised and the corporations and financial institutions own the workers, lock, stock, and barrel.
Corporation must increase profits. This is their responsibility. They have no other purpose. The well-being and prosperity of the workers is counter to their purpose. They need to drive the cost of production, and therefore wages, employee health care, sick leave, over-time pay, safety precautions, and on and on, down. As little resources as possible will be spent on workers who will be demanded to produce as much as possible. You, and your labor, must be devalued as much as possible in order for them to achieve their goal of increased profit.
To expect that giving tax breaks to corporations will result in an increase in gainful employment is either naive of purposefully disingenuous. To expect that the removal of workers protections will be replaced by the benevolent, responsible management that provides opportunity for worker prosperity, is not only delusional, or a misguided faith in the unknown, it is directly contradictory to the proof available over the past one hundred plus years as well as what the corporations and financial institutions are saying right to your face.
Before you say ‘uncle’, and before you switch sides to become a corporate toady, read the words of those that started the fight that won the protections about to be lost.
Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street… Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags…
There are thirty men [a few hundred now] in the United States whose aggregate wealth is one and one-half billion dollars [the top 1% now hoard more wealth than the bottom 95% combined]. There are a half million looking for work [many more now] … We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks…. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out… We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the Government pays its debts to us.
The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.
We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislature, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized… The newspapers [media] are subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrate, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists.
The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor [now outsourcing] beats down their wages; a hireling army standing army… established to shoot them down… The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes…. From the same prolific womb of government injustice we breed two classes — paupers and millionaires [billionaires]…
Pick up an history book or two about the labor movement in America. Reacquaint yourself with the battle that was waged on your behalf. Before you capitulate, and willingly give up all for which they sacrificed, remember who the economy is supposed to serve. It’s not Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Koch Industries, or Exxon Mobil, et al. They are using your national resources, both natural and human, in order to produce the profits they hoard. You should have more to show for it than a life spent laboring for an ever-increasing debt to them.
Excerpts from ‘A People’s History of the United States’ – by Howard Zinn
"The Nazis killed tens of MILLIONS. They got a trial. Why? Because we're not like them. We're Americans. We roll different." – Michael Moore in an interview last week
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Friends,
Last week, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and killed Osama bin Laden. Well hedidn't actually do the killing himself. It was carried out by a very brave and excellent team of Navy SEALs. Not only does Mr. Obama have the overwhelming support of the country, I think there are millions who gladly wish it could have been their finger on the gun that took out bin Laden.
When I heard the news a week ago Sunday, I immediately felt great. I felt relief. I thought of those who lost a loved one on 9/11. And I was glad we finally had a President who got something done. This is what I had to say on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet in that first hour or two:
I want to point out that Barack Obama took two years to do what Bush couldn't do in overseven. That's the difference between STUPID in charge and SMART in charge. STUPID pursues two reckless wars, lets OBL escape from Tora Bora, keeps looking for him in caves and invades the wrong country. He bankrupts us to the tune of $1.2 trillion for the Iraq War (it will eventually actually be over $3 trillion), and worse, he cost us the lives of almost 5,000 of our troops, not to mention hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan – and, after all that, he STILL couldn't bring the perp to justice. In fact, in 2005, Bush closed down the CIA station that was devoted to looking for bin Laden! What does SMART do? He sends in a small elite strike force, no troops are killed, and the perpetrator is stopped for good.
I was thrilled that the Osama bin Laden era was over. There was now an end to the madness.
Being near Ground Zero that night, I decided to head over there and join with others who saw this event as a chance to have some closure. On 9/11, Bill Weems, a good and decent man I knew and worked with (we had just recently completed a shoot together in Boston), was on the plane that was flown into the Twin Towers. I dedicated 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' in part, to him.
But before leaving to go to the former World Trade Center site, I turned on the TV, and what I saw down at Ground Zero was not quiet relief and gratification that the culprit had been caught. Rather, I witnessed a frat boy-style party going on, complete with the shaking and spraying of champagne bottles over the crowd. I can completely understand people wanting to celebrate – like I said, I, too, was happy – but something didn't feel right. It's one thing to be happy that a criminal has been captured and dealt with. It's another thing to throw a kegger celebrating his death at the site where the remains of his victims are still occasionally found. Is that who we are? Is that what Jesus would do? Is that what Jefferson would do? I was reminded of the tale told to me as a kid, of God's angels singing with glee as the Red Sea came crashing back down on the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, drowning all of them. God rebuked them, saying, "The work of My hands is drowning in that sea – and you want to friggin' sing?" (or something like that).
I remember my parents telling me how, on the day it was announced that Hitler was dead, there was no rejoicing in the streets, just private relief and satisfaction. The real celebration came six days later at the announcement that the war in Europe was over. THAT'S what the people wanted to hear – not just the demise of one evil madman, but the end to all the killing.
When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, people didn't pour into the streets to whoop it up. Yes, people were happy that it might help end the war, but there was not a public display of "Yippee! A hundred thousand Japs have been fried!" If they had done that, well, who could have blamed them after so many tens of thousands of their sons and fathers had been lost in the war (including my uncle, a paratrooper, killed by a sniper near Manila). But the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square was on August 14th, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered and the war was officially over. That's when America went crazy with joy – not over a killing, but over an announcement of peace.
We are a different people now, aren't we? Well, sorta. There was no bloodlust euphoria on the day Timothy McVeigh was executed. We were silent. The families of the Oklahoma City dead were silent, relieved. What is the difference between McVeigh and bin Laden, other than the number they slaughtered? I wonder. I think we know the answer.
Though bin Laden is dead, we are told that Orwell's Permanent War – the "War on Terror" – must continue! Not allowed to have our V-J day and run into Times Square with exhilaration! No, there could be terrorists there. So all we're left with is to cheer the death of one evil man, and that is supposed to make us feel powerful and good. There can be no celebration for the end of the Afghanistan War because the war isn't ending. The war must continue! Even though our own CIA tells us there are no more than a few dozen al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. We still have 100,000 troops there fighting a few dozen crazies? We say we're fighting the Taliban, too, but the Taliban are Afghan citizens, not an invading force, and, for better or worse, they seem to enjoy the support of many of the common people throughout Afghanistan. (If you don't believe that, ask any soldier who has served there and seen it. Every day is like 'Apocalypse Now.' Poppies, anyone?)
Meanwhile, we – me, included – get lost in the weeds of how this one madman was killed. The official story from the Pentagon changed four times in the first four days! It went from OBL firing on the troops with one hand and using his wife as a human shield with the other, to, by the fourth day, not single person in the main house, including bin Laden, being armed when killed. Instantly, this created a lot of suspicion about what really happened, which itself was a distraction.
Here's my take: I know a number of Navy SEALs. In fact (and this is something I don't like to talk about publicly, for all the obvious reasons), I hire only ex-SEALs and ex-Special Forces guys to handle my own security (I'll let you pause a moment to appreciate that irony). These SEALs are trained to follow orders. I don't know what their orders were that night in Abbottabad, but it certainly looks like a job (and this is backed up in a piece in the Atlantic) where they were told to not bring bin Laden back alive. The SEALs are pros at what they do and they instantly took out every adult male (every potential threat) within a few minutes – but they also took care to not harm a single one of the nine children who were present. Pretty amazing. This wasn't some Rambo-style operation where they just went in guns blazing, spraying bullets. They acted swiftly and with expert precision. I'm telling you, these guys are so smart and so lethal, they could take you out with a piece of dental floss. (And in fact, one of my ex-SEAL guys showed me how to do that one night. Whoa.)
In a perfect world (yes, I would like to reside there someday, or at least next door to it, in Slightly Imperfect World), I would like the evildoers to be forced to stand trial in front of that world. I know a lot of people see no need for a trial for these bad guys (just hang 'em from the nearest tree!), and think trials are for sissies. "They're guilty, off with their heads!" Well, you see, that is the exact description of the Taliban/al Qaeda/Nazi justice system. I don't like their system. I like ours. And I don't want to be like them. In fact, the reason I like a good trial is that I like to show these bastards this is how it's done in a free country that believes in civilized justice. It's good for the rest of the world to see that, too. Sets a good example.
The other thing a trial does is, it establishes a very public and permanent historic record of the crimes against humanity. This is why we put the Nazis on trial in Nuremberg. We didn't do it for them. We did it for ourselves and for our grandchildren so that they would never forget these horrors and how they were committed. And we did it for the German people so they could see the evidence of what their elected leaders had done. Very helpful. Very necessary. Very powerful.
And for those who wanted blood back then – well, the majority of the Nazis all hanged in the end. So, it doesn't mean the bad guys get away – they still swing from the highest tree.
My own spiritual beliefs do not allow for capital punishment, and I was raised in the state (Michigan) that in the 1840s was the first government in the English-speaking world to outlaw it. So, I'm just not inclined that way. I don't believe in "an eye for an eye." I know the old book said that, but I like its sequel better (a rare case in which the sequel – like Godfather II, Star Trek II, Terminator II – is better than the original). If you don't believe the way I believe (it's also the official position of the Catholic Church, for whatever that's worth these days), then that's your right, and I understand.
Perhaps there was no way to bring him back alive – I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that dark house trying to make that snap decision. But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.
For nine years I wrote and I said that Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave. I'm not a cave expert, I was just using my common sense. He was a multimillionaire crime boss (using religion as his cover), and those guys just don't live in caves. He had people killed under the guise of religion, and not many in the media bothered to explain that every time Osama referenced Islam, he wasn't really quoting Islam. Just because Osama said he was a "Muslim" didn't make it so. Yet he was called a Muslim by everyone. If a crazy person started running around mass-killing people, and he did so while wearing a Wal-Mart blazer and praising Wal-Mart, we wouldn't automatically call him a Wal-Mart leader or say that Wal-Mart was the philosophy behind his killings, would we?
Yet, we began to fear Muslims and round them up. We profiled people from Muslim nations at airports. We didn't profile multi-millionaires (in fact, they now have their own fast-track line to easily get through security, an oddity considering every murderer on 9/11 flew in first class). We didn't run headlines that said "Multi-Millionaire Behind the Mass Murder of 3,000" (although every word in that headline is true). You can say his wealth had nothing to do with 9/11, but the truth is, there is no way he could have kept Al Qaeda in business without having the millions he had.
Some believe that this was a "war" we were in with al Qaeda – and you don't do trials during war. It's thinking like this that makes me fear that, while bin Laden may be dead, he may have "won" the bigger battle. Let's be clear: There is no "war with al Qaeda." Wars are between nations. Al Qaeda was an organization of fanatics who committed crimes. That we elevated them to nation status – they loved it! It was great for their recruiting drive.
We did exactly what bin Laden said he wanted us to do: Give up our freedoms (like the freedom to be assumed innocent until proven guilty), engage our military in Muslim countries so that we will be hated by Muslims, and wipe ourselves out financially in doing so. Done, done and done, Osama. You had our number. You somehow knew we would eagerly give up our constitutional rights and become more like the authoritarian state you dreamed of. You knew we would exhaust our military and willingly go into more debt in eight years than we had accumulated in the previous 200 years combined.
Maybe you knew us so well because you were once one of our mercenaries, funded and armed by us via our friends in Pakistan to fight the other Evil Empire in the last battle of the Cold War. Only, when the killing stopped, the trained killer, our "Frankenstein," couldn't. The monster, you, would soon turn on us.
If we really want to send bin Laden not just to his death, but also to his defeat, may I suggest that we reverse all of that right now. End the wars, bring the troops home, make the rich pay for this mess, and restore our privacy and due process rights that used to distinguish us from any other country. Right now, our democracy looks like Singapore and our economy has gone desperately Greek.
I know it will be hard to turn the clock back to before 9/11 when all we had to worry about were candidates stealing elections. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown up around "homeland security" and the terror wars. These war profiteers will not want to give up their booty so easily. They will want to keep us in fear so they can keep raking it in. We will have to stop them. But first we must stop believing them.
Hideki Tojo killed my uncle and millions of Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and a hundred thousand other Americans. He was the head of Japan, the Emperor's henchman, the man who was the architect of Pearl Harbor. When the American soldiers went to arrest him, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. The soldiers immediately worked on stopping his bleeding and rushed him to an army hospital where he was saved by our army doctors. He then had his day in court. It was a powerful exercise for the world to see. And on December 23, 1948, after he was found guilty, we hanged him. A killer of millions was forced to stand trial. A killer of 4,000 (counting the African embassies and USS Cole bombings) got double-tapped in his pajamas. Assuming it was possible to take him alive, I think his victims, the future, and the restoration of the American Way deserved better. That's all I'm saying.
Good riddance Osama.
Come back to your ways, my good ol' USA.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Posted: 08 May 2011 05:50 AM PDT
To celebrate Mothers Day, the Sunday shows have brought you the Mushroom Cloud Brigade–Condi Rice, Rummy, and Dick Cheney–the three people who, on September 8, 2002 used the Sunday shows to trumpet the intelligence they had laundered through Judy Miller to lie us into war against Iraq.
RICE: You will get different estimates about precisely how close he is. We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance — into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to — high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.
We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought, maybe six months from a crude nuclear device.
The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
Of course, the Mushroom Cloud Brigade won’t be lying about Iraq today. They’ll be lying about torture. And they’ll be helped by a slew of other torture apologists: Michael Hayden, Michael Chertoff, Rudy “9/11″ Giuliani, and Liz “BabyDick” Cheney. Update: My apologies for forgetting Univision, which also hosted a torture apologist (Alberto Gonzales), today.
As they spew their torture apology, remember this. The guy who ran their torture program, Jose Rodriguez, has said the best piece of intelligence we got from torture with respect to Osama bin Laden led him to conclude that OBL was no longer the tactical leader of al Qaeda.
Al-Libbi told interrogators that the courier would carry messages from bin Laden to the outside world only every two months or so. “I realized that bin Laden was not really running his organization. You can’t run an organization and have a courier who makes the rounds every two months,” Rodriguez says. “So I became convinced then that this was a person who was just a figurehead and was not calling the shots, the tactical shots, of the organization. So that was significant.”
That led the CIA to shut downits search for OBL precisely because they believed OBL no longer headed a hierarchical organization.
Only, at least according to abackground briefing at the Pentagon yesterday (which could itself be more propaganda), that conclusion was wrong. The biggest lesson our intelligence agencies have gotten from analyzing the stash of materials at OBL’s compound is that OBL was not a figurehead, he remained not just the strategic, but also the tactical head of al Qaeda.
The following is a key point: the materials reviewed over the past several days clearly show that bin Laden remained an active leader in al Qaeda, providing strategic, operational and tactical instructions to the group. Though separated from many al Qaeda members who are located in more remote areas of the region, he was far from a figurehead. He was an active player making the recent operation even more essential for our nation’s security.
According to torture apologist Jose Rodriguez, the most important information we got on OBL using torture was that he was a figurehead. According to those analyzing the materials from OBL’s compound, OBL “was far from a figurehead.”
Rodriguez’ torture-induced conclusion was completely wrong.
That’s what the torture apologists have to show for themselves: they gave up the hunt for OBL because they got bad information from torture.
So whereas on September 8, 2002, the Mushroom Cloud Brigade used the Sunday shows to sell a war that would distract us from fighting al Qaeda and getting OBL, today they’ll use the Sunday shows to claim torture helped find OBL. Yet another lie from the Mushroom Cloud Brigade on the Sunday shows.
Happy Mothers Day, moms! May the breakfast in bed your kids made for you help you avoid seeing the Mushroom Cloud Brigade and torture apologists on TV.
Related posts:
Forward This Graph to Anyone You Know Blaming Obama for High Gas Prices
Posted: 08 May 2011 11:50 AM PDT
Republicans must think Americans are really stupid.
Sarah Palin blasted President Obama on Tuesday for what she called his “anti-drilling mentality” andsaid the president was waging a “war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production” that was resulting in high gas prices for Americans.
And:
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney pumped his own tank of gas on Friday and blamed President Barack Obama for a surge in prices that are straining American pocketbooks.
And:
Rep. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma who delivered the GOP’s weekly radio address, said “gasoline is at the top of the list” of concerns from people in his district. He said “prices at the pump have nearly doubled since President Obama took office, making everyday life like driving to work, buying groceries, picking up kids at school and visiting family more expensive.”
And as you can see, by “more expensive” Lankford means “still cheaper than it was under Bush/Cheney.”
Gas prices rose dramatically while George W. Bush was in the White House and the GOP controlled all three branches of government (after they complained that gas prices were too high under Clinton/Gore and promised to lower them), dropped significantly during the Bush/Cheney recession, and are now, because of the recovery, returning to the previous trend.
It would be helpful if some reporter would ask these Republicans spouting this nonsense what they were saying while gas prices went through the roof under President Arbusto and Vice President Halliburton. But there’s also something absurd about Republicans demanding that the government do something about gas prices.
Wouldn’t that be interfering with the free market?
(Graph courtesy of zfacts.com.)
Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:
| Find True Centrism in the People's Budget | |
| KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL | The Congressional Progressive Caucus has provided a viable, courageous alternative to the Ryan Budget, and it needs your support. |
| GOP on the Brink of Weakening Flight Safety Rules | |
| GEORGE ZORNICK | Backed by aviation industry money, the GOP is trying to weaken common-sense flight safety rules. The final showdown on their callous push to protect industry profits is coming soon. |
The GOP's Stealth Plan to Redefine Rape
They're doing it again: After jettisoning controversial legislative language narrowing the definition of rape for the purposes of abortion law, House Republicans are attempting a backdoor maneuver to ensure that solely victims of "forcible rape" are eligible for federal funding if they seek abortions: [READ MORE]
 |
Kasie Hunt has published a new story:
The next front: Claiming credit
Supporters of George W. Bush are irked that the White House isn’t doing more to share the glory.
Cliff Schecter |
With Osama Now Gone, Spend on Building Roads in America Instead of Afghanistan Posted: 02 May 2011 11:33 AM PDT Now that Osama bin Laden is dead and we find out that he has been living comfortably in Pakistan for a very long time, I really wish this tax payer money we are wasting building almost useless highways in Afghanistan would instead get spent building things in America, ans so create American jobs. From the New York Times:
The fact that bin Laden found safe haven for years in a nice compound in a major city in Pakistan has proven how stupid the “we must prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven” argument is for continuing the war. Along with bin Laden, one of the last pathetic excuses for why we are continuing to spend billions fighting to prop up the extremely corrupt Hamid Karzi administration, died with him. Ideally, now will be the time Americans start honestly asking if they want billions of their tax dollars spent creating jobs in Afghanistan or creating Americas jobs and infrastructure. Related posts: |
The Progressive Electorate - Front Page |
Joe Scarborough Makes Shit Up About Obama and the Democratic Base Posted: 02 May 2011 09:49 AM PDT I can't tell if this is malicious or just pure ignorance. Morning Joe Scarborough tries to claim that President Obama went against his base and did something he never thought he'd have to as... |
Posted: 01 May 2011 07:43 PM PDT
By Wayne Bomgaars
The Republican Party has been working overtime since their midterm electoral takeover of the US House and many state legislatures, and governorships. What they’ve been fighting for however is pretty shocking to most Americans, resulting in recall elections in key districts around the country. Below is a mega list of what the GOP has been up to along with multiple citations.
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Editor’s note – this is the second contribution to News Junkie Post by Wayne Bomgaars. The first was a collaborative projectwith others documenting the thousands of accomplishments of President Barack Obama and the Democrats from January 2009-November 2010. Wayne is a power house on Reddit under the code name backpackwayne, where he originally compiled this compendium.
