Paul Krugman with a summary of the controversy over the President's response to the Paul Ryan Republican budget plan. Of course the media attacked Obama for being non-partisan, but it was about time he pushed back against the dismantling of the middle class safety nets and more giveaways to the wealthy....
Well worth reading........
Last week, President Obama offered a spirited defense of his party’s values — in effect, of the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. Immediately thereafter, as always happens when Democrats take a stand, the civility police came out in force. The president, we were told, was being too partisan; he needs to treat his opponents with respect; he should have lunch with them, and work out a consensus.
That’s a bad idea. Equally important, it’s an undemocratic idea.
Let’s review the story so far.
Two weeks ago, House Republicans released their big budget proposal, selling it to credulous pundits as a statement of necessity, not ideology — a document telling America What Must Be Done.
But it was, in fact, a deeply partisan document, which you might have guessed from the opening sentence: “Where the president has failed, House Republicans will lead.” It hyped the danger of deficits, yet even on its own (not at all credible) accounting, spending cuts were used mainly to pay for tax cuts rather than deficit reduction. The transparent and obvious goal was to use deficit fears to impose a vision of small government and low taxes, especially on the wealthy.
So the House budget proposal revealed a yawning gap between the two parties’ priorities. And it revealed a deep difference in views about how the world works.
When the proposal was released, it was praised as a “wonk-approved” plan that had been run by the experts. But the “experts” in question, it turned out, were at the Heritage Foundation, and few people outside the hard right found their conclusions credible.
Fellow hackers....due to the pain and suffering of watching this professional golfer shoot a 16 on one hole you are strongly advised not to open this.....
Video starts after his tee shot into the woods.....
Interesting story of a guy who is tested and found to have cancer, and his reaction to some of the tests and questions some researchers asked him in the hospital about everyday chemicals he could have been in contact with......which leads into a scary discussion of all of the toxins we are exposed to in our everyday lives and how this may explain the rise in the number of cancers....
Makes you think.....
Eleven charts that illustrate how unequal our plutocracy really is.....some of the charts are from 2007, and it has got worse since then......
I'm going to change my terminologies folks - here's why.....
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχί
Plutocracy is a reference to a disproportionate influence the wealthy have on political process in contemporary society: for example, according to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to U.S. President Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."[1]
Although the US government has some of the features of an oligarchy, a more accurate description of what was once our democracy is actually a plutocracy. There are individual oligarchs like the Koch brothers who have made it a plutocracy.....
"The Power of Words"......a one minute video that will move you.....wonderful.....
Just never ends, does it.......Republicans want to make it more difficult to vote.....
TALLAHASSEE — With Florida a crucial state in the 2012 presidential election, the state Legislature wants to overhaul election laws in ways critics say would help the Republican Party maintain its dominance.
The Senate is pushing a bill to cut early voting time by half, make it harder for grass roots groups to register voters and require people to vote provisionally if they moved since the last time they voted — a change elections supervisors say would affect college students the most. The bill, SB 2086, passed the Republican-controlled Rules Committee on Friday on a 10-2 vote.
Legislators say their goal is more convenient and less expensive voting machinery. But with President Barack Obama needing Florida's 29 electoral votes to win a second term, skeptics say the GOP-dominated Legislature is showing it has more than a passing interest in how the next election is run. All 160 legislative seats also will be up for grabs in 2012 because of reapportionment.
FCAT - the test that has ruined Florida's school system.....brought in by Jeb Bush 10 years ago. No other state uses FCAT to the extent Florida does....
By the way do you know Neil Bush, Jeb and W's brother, worked for the company that owns FCAT? Hmmm....could there be corruption involved?
Anyway here are "the boys" defending the test after a Palm Beach Post editorial.....
In a letter to the editor last Sunday, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Palm City, said The Post Editorial Board "unfairly criticized Jeb Bush and his education policy adviser Patricia Levesque." Gov. Bush's reforms, he said, "are working, and a decade of data proves it." Sen. Negron highlights, as do other advocates of FCAT-based school grades and expanded vouchers, vastly improved fourth-grade scores, improved minority scores and higher graduation rates.
The obvious first question for unabashed admirers of Gov. Bush and Ms. Levesque is: If Florida has progressed so much, why has the Legislature decided that education in Florida is so bad that teachers must be punished? The Legislature this year took away teachers' job security, tied salary and retention decisions to FCAT scores and likely will make them pay a percentage of their salary into the pension system - in effect, a pay cut. This is their reward for all that progress?
In any case, the record depicted by the very standardized tests the FCAT cult worships is not nearly as glowing.
Todays joke about choices
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