September 2012
13 posts
WatchJill Lepore on George and Mitt Romney: http://nyr.kr/OQQywo
I’ve discussed the growing extremism in the Republican Party before, and how much it has changed. The party of Lincoln is now the party of Limbaugh. However, it is still shocking to actually see the change. This clip of George Romney fully illuminates the decline of the party into madness. His claims about improving programs for...
“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it,...”
– Winston Churchill (via politicalprof)
Anonymous asked: what do you think of Facebook?
5 tags
The single mother myth →
“Women’s inequality is a persistent feature of U.S. society—but contrary to the New York Times, the answer doesn’t lie in turning back the clock, writes Jen Roesch”
War Drums Beat Ever More Loudly Over Iran by Noam... →
when-will-you-fight-back:
It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples.
The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed.
Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power...
1 tag
“The Katrina experience pointed to a larger conclusion about United States policy...”
– Howard Zinn, The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency
Stanford Scientists Shockingly Reckless on Health... →
when-will-you-fight-back:
I first heard about a new Stanford “study” downplaying the value of organics when this blogheadline cried out from my inbox: “Expensive organic food isn’t healthier and no safer than produce grown with pesticides, finds biggest study of its kind.”
What?
Does the actual study say this?
No, but authors of the study — “Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than...
7 tags
"America is the only country in the world"
All of the Republican party’s talking points against Obama are related to his domestic agenda and accomplishments. These critiques are misrepresentations of facts and reality, and are therefore easy to dismiss. However, they still offer a potent narrative. Republicans have gained traction by creating a fictional Obama. They haven’t posed a viable alternative to his policies (think Bill...
“Other events featured on the front pages might also benefit from a different...”
– Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)
…..or Chinese documents that Beijing wanted hidden from the public.
August 2012
27 posts
On the late Howard Zinn’s 90th Birthday: A new... →
The book is more about Zinn’s activism, organizing, and protest than his writing, however. Ardently averse to the stodgy academic, Zinn was arrested multiple times during direct actions in desegregation and civil rights organizing in the south. His regular arrests and organizing, as well as his subversive teaching style, caused constant clash with both his major tenures, Spelman (a black women’s...
Liberals Need to Start Holding Obama Responsible... →
“If liberals like Auster think that President Obama is preferable to Mitt Romney, even given all his flaws, they’ve got a plausible argument. But when liberals who describe the right’s transgressions against civil liberties during the Bush era as horrific — a label that is absolutely justified — and nevertheless describe Obama as man with “knighted”...
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A brief note on the Republican convention....
So, the tagline for the convention, “we built it”, is actually based around an Obama quote taken out of context. A quote that by the way, reiterates the basic foundation of Adam Smith’s theory of capitalism.
So not only is the slogan based upon a lie, it also foolishly goes against the economic theory that Republicans have traditionally espoused.
It almost sounds like a comedy,...
“I don’t like this expression ‘First World problems.’ It is false and it is...”
– Teju Cole (via semperes)
Politicalprof: The "This Time Is Different"... →
politicalprof:
So in response to a snarky post I made on Sunday, asking whether tea party loving, federal government hating Florida Governor Rick Scott would violate his ideology and ask for federal disaster aid after Hurricane Isaac comes to shore in the next few days, one of my respondents insisted that…
Excellent piece, the pervasive rhetoric of states’ rights leads some to the...
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“Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy...”
– Bertrand Russell, What I Believe
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So…about the weather
Everyone has heard about it all summer. Drought, record heat, extreme weather. It’s good television, people like crazy weather. But that’s just it, to people its entertainment, nothing but a good show.
But this is not “just” the weather. It isn’t completely independent of human actions. The news media has had a good time entertaining with its weather updates this summer, but it has...
“Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ban on the death penalty, Texas...”
– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
4 tags
"When This Oil Spills, It's 'A Whole New Monster'" →
“Sometime in the next few months, David Daniel probably will have to stand by and watch as bulldozers knock down his thick forest and dig up the streams he loves.
His East Texas property is one of more than 1,000 in the path of a new pipeline, the southern stretch of what is known as the Keystone XL system…”
This piece should convince any rational thinker that more drilling is...
“War is terrorism … Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people...”
– Howard Zinn (via azspot)
"Report: Secret NYPD Muslim Spy Unit Failed to... →
What a surprise. The surveillance state is a product of fear, fear is never the answer.
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“Today we’ve received from the United Kingdom a clear and written threat that...”
– - Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño
This is what moral courage looks like.
Full Transcript of Julian Assange's speech outside... →
Anonymous asked: do you have a Facebook?
1 tag
“The people don’t like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free...”
– John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down
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"Fuels on the Hill" by Paul Krugman →
Paul Krugman points out that speculation is just an easy excuse for what is ultimately the depletion of the world’s resources.
“Why should we accept that the “talent” of someone who writes jingles for an...”
– Howard Zinn
Simple
(via anarchist-anatta)
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"Tough on Crime" →
“The Justice Department has announced it will not bring criminal charges against the financial giant Goldman Sachs or any of its employees for improper trading of subprime mortgages during the financial crisis…”
Because prosecuting the poor is “tough on crime”, and prosecuting the wealthy is “class warfare”.
"Canada Refuses to Allow Fox “news” A License –... →
“Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for...”
– That’s Nate Silver, writing at his NYT 538 blog.
There are fancy charts (complete with DW-Nominate scores) at the link, sure to please your inner political scientist.
(via kohenari)
“In any case, it’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by...”
– How the World Works - Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)
1 tag
“The worst monsters - Hitler, Stalin, Japanese fascists, Suharto, Saddam Hussein,...”
– Noam Chomsky, Failed States
July 2012
26 posts
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A look at today's headlines....
via Democracy Now!
1.) U.N. Arms Treaty Talks Fail Before Deadline
2.) U.S. Foreign Weapons Sales at Record in 2012
1.) U.S. Drone Attack Kills 7 in Pakistan
2.) 240,000 Pakistani Children at Risk After Taliban Bans Vaccinations in Protest of U.S.
1.) Romney Falls Short of Backing Pre-Emptive Israeli Strike
2.) Obama Unveils New Military Aid to Israel
Can you draw the connections?
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"Memo to Mitt: The Palestinians’ Problems Aren’t... →
Good narrative Mitt, Palestinians just haven’t advanced enough culturally.
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“I’m not going to censor myself to protect your ignorance.”
– Jon Stewart
8 tags
“Freedom”
Rick Perry is the latest in a string of governors to reject the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act. The reasons range from such falsehoods as, “Medicaid is a broken system” to “we can’t afford it”. The former is a vapid Republican cliché with no basis in fact and the latter is an even more acute lie. The Affordable Care Act states that the federal government will provide for, “the...
4 tags
"Barack, Mitt, and Adam Smith" →
“Everything we mean by a free market depends on a functioning, sympathetic state—a state rooted not in selfish individualism but in a social sympathy so broadly articulated and institutionalized that every man is confident that he can make an honest deal with his fellow man.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/07/barack-mitt-and-adam-smith.html#ixzz21JcecmdG
“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord...”
– “The Value of Nothing” by Raj Pate
(via politicalprof)
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Texas Conducts 1st Single-Drug Execution →
Why is it that those who oppose the power of the state to provide health care, clean air, and unemployment benefits support the state’s right to murder its own citizens?
Among Western democracies, the U.S. stands alone on the death penalty. After the departure of Nazism and fascism, post-war Europe decided that it maybe wasn’t the best decision to give the state the right to kill its...
