Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I can't believe it got better! | The Daily Show

The Daily Show | 28 Feb 2012
America's economic recovery is good news, unless you work for a media organization whose job it is to make sure Barack Obama doesn't get re-elected.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

How do conservatives and liberals see the world?

BillMoyers.com | 3 Feb 2012

Bill and moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt talk about the psychological underpinnings of our contentious culture, why we can’t trust our own opinions, and the demonizing of our adversaries. Also, a Bill Moyers essay on why Newt Gingrich might be afraid of Saul Alinsky.

How do Conservatives and Liberals See the World? from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Lawrence O'Donnell: Franklin Graham's true agenda

Surprise! Rev. Franklin Graham's true agenda is to elect Republicans. It's not about serving with humility as a Christian. It's not about giving up everything to follow Jesus Christ. It's about getting on TV to promote his politics for the people who pay his salary: Republicans.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Republicans undiscover fire

"The economy didn't just crash under a Republican president, it crashed under Republican policies. It crashed with low taxes. It crashed with deregulated markets. It crashed with huge restrictions on union activity. It crashed with massive cuts in environmental regulations. It crashed with lowered trade barriers. It crashed with big fat Pentagon spending."

Mark Sumner | Daily Kos
12 Feb 2012

"The truth is that the Republicans have nothing to offer. Not even anything that looks like a governing philosophy. Conservatism has moved out of the ranks of political theories and simply become a cult; one that requires that certain phrases be mouthed, that certain hatreds be nourished, and that purity be maintained regardless of cost. That schism with reality is increasingly large and increasingly obvious. They try to paper over that gap by dismissing little things like science, reason, history. Real science fails to support their contentions, so they have to write it off.

"Reason doesn't work for them, so any question must be met with red-faced indignity — every question a gotcha question. Real history is full of warts, quirks, and unfortunate truths that don't fit their ritualized beliefs. So they have to try to rewrite history, giving us rewrite Reagan who never raised a tax or increased a debt, rewrite FDR who created the issues he actually solved, rewrite Lincoln who championed the Confederate cause, rewrite founding fathers who never owned slaves, never supported government regulation of the economy, never wavered in their ardent love for a form of religiosity that didn't yet exist. Tricorner hats are the new tinfoil."

The whole story:

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Texas' starving school districts lawyer up for (another) epic battle for survival

We're Not Gonna Take It
Patrick Michels |1 Feb 2012
www.texasobserver.org


Last spring, parents and neighbors from school districts statewide converged on the Capitol in matching T-shirts to plead with the Legislature to fix the system once and for all.

The Legislature not only didn’t fix the system, it made it worse. Lawmakers trimmed $5.3 billion from public education—a record cut.

For the first time in 60 years, the state isn’t budgeting for growing enrollment. This year 80,000 new students have entered the system, but there’s no new money to pay for their schooling. The Legislature also eliminated funding for full-day pre-kindergarten and saddled districts with expensive new testing requirements. As the state’s public education budget winnows away, disparities between rich and poor districts grow deeper.

Beaten and cash-starved, schools have turned now to their last, best hope: the courts.

The whole story: