If, as anticipated, the Republican Party wins control of the United States House of Representatives, federal higher education policy will be radically transformed.
An article in today's Inside Higher Education suggests at least four significant changes:
1) Given the Republican pledge to cut non-defense discretionary spending, research and education funding will be cut;
2) Representative John Boehner, who is expected to emerge as the next Speaker of the House, has close ties to private student lenders. As a result, the costly Federal Family Education Loan Program, which guaranteed private lenders high rates of return on risk free student loans, may be revived. The middle man role of private lenders had been eliminated by the 110 Congress;
3) The Pell Grant program, which provides low-income students federal grants to pay for higher education will almost certainly experience either direct cuts or be reduced through restricting student eligibility.
4) The effort to regulate for-profit diploma mills will almost certainly be limited to requiring them to disclose costs and graduation and repayment rates. The "gainful employment initiative," a quality control measure designed to tie federal funding to performance, will die.
The Inside Higher Education article is linked here.
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Republicans want tax cuts for the rich, but nothing for the unemployed
Yesterday, the United States Senate finally mustered the 60 votes required to extend unemployment (UC) benefits to the 2.1 million Americans who had run out them.
This vote tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the Republicans who almost unanimously opposed providing the extension.
Fifteen million Americans are officially unemployed. If you include those who have dropped out of the labor market and involuntary part-time workers, the number soars to 23 million. Almost half, a record number, are considered long-term unemployed, having been out of work for six months or more. There are currently more than five people looking for work for every job opening.
But the Republican Senate leadership and all but two Republican Senators voted against extending unemployment benefits to the nation’s 2.1 million unemployed workers who had exhausted their benefits. Many, like Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, outrageously claim that providing the unemployed with benefits they have paid for and earned while working encourages them to remain unemployed.
The Republican hypocrisy is breathtaking.
While opposing the unemployment benefits extension as too expensive, they continue to push for legislation that would make the Bush era tax cuts, 50% of which went to the richest 1% of taxpayers, permanent.
The cost of extending unemployment benefits is $34 billion dollars. The cost of extending the tax cuts, $3 trillion over the next ten years!
The Bush tax cuts were originally sold as affordable because of a projected $5.4 trillion surplus. By the time they were passed in the spring of 2001, the rational had change. The $1.3 trillion tax cut was justified as the way to jump-start the economy that had plunged into recession in March 2001.
The tax cuts proved a very ineffective form of stimulus since the main beneficiaries of the cuts, those averaging $900,000 a year, were reluctant to spend their windfall. Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are one of the most effective forms of stimulus because the unemployed immediately spend the money they receive. That’s why unemployment benefits are called an automatic stabilizer.
So the proposal to extend UC benefits is a twofer. It will help more than two million folks who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and it will stimulate the struggling economy.
But that’s not good enough for the Republicans. Claiming to be concerned about the deficit, they say we need to curtail spending that assists working and middle class Americans. Extending unemployment benefits, funding mine, food, toy inspections and Social Security are too just expensive they claim.
In their world the nation simply cannot afford to regulate oil companies like BP, mining companies like Massey Energy and private banks like Goldman Sachs. But it is not to expensive to bail out banks, make upper income tax cuts permanent or maintain tax loopholes that allow hedge fund and private equity operators to pay tax rates at less than half the rate that working Americans pay and cost the nation $20 billion annually.
Let’s be honest. The Republicans aren’t concerned about you, your job or your paycheck. Nor are they concerned about the deficit. Their real interest is ensuring that unemployment remains high, depressing wages and enriching their cronies. That explains why they oppose extending unemployment benefits, proposals to prevent the layoffs of police, firemen and teachers and efforts to create public sector jobs. \
All of us should remember this come November.
This vote tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the Republicans who almost unanimously opposed providing the extension.
Fifteen million Americans are officially unemployed. If you include those who have dropped out of the labor market and involuntary part-time workers, the number soars to 23 million. Almost half, a record number, are considered long-term unemployed, having been out of work for six months or more. There are currently more than five people looking for work for every job opening.
But the Republican Senate leadership and all but two Republican Senators voted against extending unemployment benefits to the nation’s 2.1 million unemployed workers who had exhausted their benefits. Many, like Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, outrageously claim that providing the unemployed with benefits they have paid for and earned while working encourages them to remain unemployed.
The Republican hypocrisy is breathtaking.
While opposing the unemployment benefits extension as too expensive, they continue to push for legislation that would make the Bush era tax cuts, 50% of which went to the richest 1% of taxpayers, permanent.
The cost of extending unemployment benefits is $34 billion dollars. The cost of extending the tax cuts, $3 trillion over the next ten years!
The Bush tax cuts were originally sold as affordable because of a projected $5.4 trillion surplus. By the time they were passed in the spring of 2001, the rational had change. The $1.3 trillion tax cut was justified as the way to jump-start the economy that had plunged into recession in March 2001.
The tax cuts proved a very ineffective form of stimulus since the main beneficiaries of the cuts, those averaging $900,000 a year, were reluctant to spend their windfall. Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are one of the most effective forms of stimulus because the unemployed immediately spend the money they receive. That’s why unemployment benefits are called an automatic stabilizer.
So the proposal to extend UC benefits is a twofer. It will help more than two million folks who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and it will stimulate the struggling economy.
But that’s not good enough for the Republicans. Claiming to be concerned about the deficit, they say we need to curtail spending that assists working and middle class Americans. Extending unemployment benefits, funding mine, food, toy inspections and Social Security are too just expensive they claim.
In their world the nation simply cannot afford to regulate oil companies like BP, mining companies like Massey Energy and private banks like Goldman Sachs. But it is not to expensive to bail out banks, make upper income tax cuts permanent or maintain tax loopholes that allow hedge fund and private equity operators to pay tax rates at less than half the rate that working Americans pay and cost the nation $20 billion annually.
Let’s be honest. The Republicans aren’t concerned about you, your job or your paycheck. Nor are they concerned about the deficit. Their real interest is ensuring that unemployment remains high, depressing wages and enriching their cronies. That explains why they oppose extending unemployment benefits, proposals to prevent the layoffs of police, firemen and teachers and efforts to create public sector jobs. \
All of us should remember this come November.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Republican unite against the unemployed!
Before recessing for the July 4th weekend, the United States Senate failed to extend unemployment benefits for the nation's long term unemployed. As a result, 1.4 million unemployed workers have lost their only source of income.
Every single Republican Senator and a handful of Democrats voted against the extension!
This is the worse recession since the Great Depression. 15 million people are out of work. Almost half of the unemployed have been jobless for six months or more, the standard measure for long-term unemployment. Millions more are not even counted, having dropped out of the labor market entirely, 650,000 last month alone. Yet the Republican Party is united in opposing an extension of unemployment benefits because they fear that it will increase the deficit or even more insanely they believe that unemployment benefits undermine the unemployeds' incentive to work.
This position is cruel particularly in light of the Republicans united opposition to legislation requiring billionaire hedge fund and private equity firm operators to pay federal income taxes at the same rates as other Americans.
It is also bad economics since unemployment benefits are among the most effective forms of economic stimulus, something the slumping economy sorely needs.
Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, refutes the Republicans harmful and uninformed position writing:
When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would have been otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn’t booming — again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can’t take jobs that aren’t there.
Wait: there’s more. One main reason there aren’t enough jobs right now is weak consumer demand. Helping the unemployed, by putting money in the pockets of people who badly need it, helps support consumer spending. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus. And unlike, say, large infrastructure projects, aid to the unemployed creates jobs quickly — while allowing that aid to lapse, which is what is happening right now, is a recipe for even weaker job growth, not in the distant future but over the next few months.
But won’t extending unemployment benefits worsen the budget deficit? Yes, slightly — but as I and others have been arguing at length, penny-pinching in the midst of a severely depressed economy is no way to deal with our long-run budget problems. And penny-pinching at the expense of the unemployed is cruel as well as misguided.
So, is there any chance that these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.” But there are also centrist Democrats who have bought into the arguments against helping the unemployed. It’s up to them to step back, realize that they have been misled — and do the right thing by passing extended benefits.
The entire column is linked.
Every single Republican Senator and a handful of Democrats voted against the extension!
This is the worse recession since the Great Depression. 15 million people are out of work. Almost half of the unemployed have been jobless for six months or more, the standard measure for long-term unemployment. Millions more are not even counted, having dropped out of the labor market entirely, 650,000 last month alone. Yet the Republican Party is united in opposing an extension of unemployment benefits because they fear that it will increase the deficit or even more insanely they believe that unemployment benefits undermine the unemployeds' incentive to work.
This position is cruel particularly in light of the Republicans united opposition to legislation requiring billionaire hedge fund and private equity firm operators to pay federal income taxes at the same rates as other Americans.
It is also bad economics since unemployment benefits are among the most effective forms of economic stimulus, something the slumping economy sorely needs.
Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, refutes the Republicans harmful and uninformed position writing:
When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would have been otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn’t booming — again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can’t take jobs that aren’t there.
Wait: there’s more. One main reason there aren’t enough jobs right now is weak consumer demand. Helping the unemployed, by putting money in the pockets of people who badly need it, helps support consumer spending. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus. And unlike, say, large infrastructure projects, aid to the unemployed creates jobs quickly — while allowing that aid to lapse, which is what is happening right now, is a recipe for even weaker job growth, not in the distant future but over the next few months.
But won’t extending unemployment benefits worsen the budget deficit? Yes, slightly — but as I and others have been arguing at length, penny-pinching in the midst of a severely depressed economy is no way to deal with our long-run budget problems. And penny-pinching at the expense of the unemployed is cruel as well as misguided.
So, is there any chance that these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.” But there are also centrist Democrats who have bought into the arguments against helping the unemployed. It’s up to them to step back, realize that they have been misled — and do the right thing by passing extended benefits.
The entire column is linked.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Mark Beiling: standing up for corporate malfeasance and greed
The first (and probably the biggest) jaw-dropping moment of the congressional hearing with British Petroleum (BP) CEO Tony Hayward occurred when GOP Rep. Joe Barton, the top Republican on the House Energy Committee’s subcommittee for investigations, opened the hearing by apologizing to BP CEO Tony Hayward, saying he’s "ashamed" of the American response to BP’s oil spill.
Not to be outdone, WISN's Mark Beiling spent Thursday afternoon ranting about the MMSD in a transparent attempt to divert attention from BP's deadly negligence.
According to Barton, asking BP to set up an escrow account to compensate victims of BP's disaster, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, was a criminal action -- a "shakedown" as he put it. Barton's not alone: his comments echo those made by other Republicans in recent days, including Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour, and Tom Price and were taken directly from a Republican Study Committee statement that characterized the $20 billion dollar escrow account negotiated by BP and the Obama administration for victims of the oil catastrophe in the gulf is a "Chicago-Style Political Shakedown."
Beiling joined the chorus reading from the Republican Party's talking points. He minimized the serious of BP's oil spill and the resultant contamination of the Gulf of Mexico by comparing it to the MMSD's release of 23.6 million gallons of a sewage and storm water mix into local lakes and Lake Michigan.
His obvious intent was to divert public attention from BP to Beiling's favorite bogey man, the public sector.
The BP oil spill, the result of BP's cutting corners to minimize costs and maximize profits and weakened federal regulation, is dumping between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day into the Guld of Mexico. That conservative estimate (it may be much higher) is equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster every 8 to 10 days.
A barrel is 42 gallons. So 30,000 barrels equates to nearly 1.3 million gallons a day.
Since the oil rig exploded on April 10th, more than 80 million gallons of oil, almost three times the quantity of sewage Beiling is bemoaning, have been released. And that number is growing daily.
The BP oil spill is a human, economic and environmental disaster.
Eleven oil rig workers were killed. None were killed by the MMSD.
The economic devastation to Louisiana was immediate. The spill has contaminated 100 miles of coastline, polluted coastal wetlands, and threatens national wildlife refuges, the home for many endangered species. The state of Louisiana was also forced to shut down fishing in the area. Commercial fisherman that harvest nearly one billion pounds of fish and 3.2 million recreational fishermen were shut down in the process.
The economic carnage does not stop there. The Gulf States, from Mississippi through Florida, have suffered from both curtailed fishing operations to severely reduced tourism. Occupancy rates are down 90% in some regions along the Florida panhandle. The Gulf's beaches are empty. Oil spills tend to do that to tourism.
No Lake Michigan businesses were forced to close because of the MMSD's action, no species were endangered and no one lost their jobs. Over the weekend, Bradford Beach was packed with sun-loving Milwaukeans, despite Beiling's blustering.
Beiling's tagline should be changed from "Standing up for Milwaukee" to "Standing up for British Petroleum and corporate malfeasance!"
Not to be outdone, WISN's Mark Beiling spent Thursday afternoon ranting about the MMSD in a transparent attempt to divert attention from BP's deadly negligence.
According to Barton, asking BP to set up an escrow account to compensate victims of BP's disaster, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, was a criminal action -- a "shakedown" as he put it. Barton's not alone: his comments echo those made by other Republicans in recent days, including Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour, and Tom Price and were taken directly from a Republican Study Committee statement that characterized the $20 billion dollar escrow account negotiated by BP and the Obama administration for victims of the oil catastrophe in the gulf is a "Chicago-Style Political Shakedown."
Beiling joined the chorus reading from the Republican Party's talking points. He minimized the serious of BP's oil spill and the resultant contamination of the Gulf of Mexico by comparing it to the MMSD's release of 23.6 million gallons of a sewage and storm water mix into local lakes and Lake Michigan.
His obvious intent was to divert public attention from BP to Beiling's favorite bogey man, the public sector.
The BP oil spill, the result of BP's cutting corners to minimize costs and maximize profits and weakened federal regulation, is dumping between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day into the Guld of Mexico. That conservative estimate (it may be much higher) is equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster every 8 to 10 days.
A barrel is 42 gallons. So 30,000 barrels equates to nearly 1.3 million gallons a day.
Since the oil rig exploded on April 10th, more than 80 million gallons of oil, almost three times the quantity of sewage Beiling is bemoaning, have been released. And that number is growing daily.
The BP oil spill is a human, economic and environmental disaster.
Eleven oil rig workers were killed. None were killed by the MMSD.
The economic devastation to Louisiana was immediate. The spill has contaminated 100 miles of coastline, polluted coastal wetlands, and threatens national wildlife refuges, the home for many endangered species. The state of Louisiana was also forced to shut down fishing in the area. Commercial fisherman that harvest nearly one billion pounds of fish and 3.2 million recreational fishermen were shut down in the process.
The economic carnage does not stop there. The Gulf States, from Mississippi through Florida, have suffered from both curtailed fishing operations to severely reduced tourism. Occupancy rates are down 90% in some regions along the Florida panhandle. The Gulf's beaches are empty. Oil spills tend to do that to tourism.
No Lake Michigan businesses were forced to close because of the MMSD's action, no species were endangered and no one lost their jobs. Over the weekend, Bradford Beach was packed with sun-loving Milwaukeans, despite Beiling's blustering.
Beiling's tagline should be changed from "Standing up for Milwaukee" to "Standing up for British Petroleum and corporate malfeasance!"
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
John Stewart on GOP bondage scandal
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| 2 Girls 1 GOP | ||||
| ||||
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Republicans resort to fear and violence in response to health care reform
The Republican Party and its Tea Party followers have responded to the new health care law with venomous attacks, including racist taunting of Congressmen and attacks on Congressmen's homes.
This is profoundly disturbing because their over-the-top rhetoric creates a climate where violent acts are justified, One of the bricks thrown through a Congressman's window read:"extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
In opposing legislation that provides health insurance to 31 million Americans, the Republican Party leadership is continuing its tradition of opposing any effort to create a more just and secure society for working men and women.
Not long ago it opposed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party, the Dixiecrats who have now joined their ranks and the violent fanatics they inspire are the descendants of right-wing night riders and the Klan vigilantes who not long ago firebombed homes and churches and lynched men and women who wanted the United States to live up to its promise that "all men are created equal...."
Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes these new attacks are nothing new:
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
His column is worth reading and is linked here.
Herbert's colleague at the Times, Timothy Eagan asks:
Do Republicans really want to campaign in favor of insurance companies’ right to drop people when they get sick? Do they really want to knock the 25-year-old graduate student, living on Top Ramen and hope, off his parents’ health care? Are they going to deny tax credits for small businesses?
It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light.
His column is also linked.
This is profoundly disturbing because their over-the-top rhetoric creates a climate where violent acts are justified, One of the bricks thrown through a Congressman's window read:"extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
In opposing legislation that provides health insurance to 31 million Americans, the Republican Party leadership is continuing its tradition of opposing any effort to create a more just and secure society for working men and women.
Not long ago it opposed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party, the Dixiecrats who have now joined their ranks and the violent fanatics they inspire are the descendants of right-wing night riders and the Klan vigilantes who not long ago firebombed homes and churches and lynched men and women who wanted the United States to live up to its promise that "all men are created equal...."
Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes these new attacks are nothing new:
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
His column is worth reading and is linked here.
Herbert's colleague at the Times, Timothy Eagan asks:
Do Republicans really want to campaign in favor of insurance companies’ right to drop people when they get sick? Do they really want to knock the 25-year-old graduate student, living on Top Ramen and hope, off his parents’ health care? Are they going to deny tax credits for small businesses?
It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light.
His column is also linked.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Republicans turn reality upside down
Republican Party national convention activists spent most of last week attacking a fictional enemy-the liberal federal government.
Mitt Romney even had the audacity to rail against "liberal Washington."
The Republican Party is either delusional or shockingly dishonest.
Republicans have controlled the Executive Branch for the last eight years and most of the last forty. U.S. economic policy has been dominated by a slavish devotion to the Republican holy trinity of free markets, privatization and deregulation.
Bob Herbert, The New York Time columnist, writes that: "If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.
From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.
His piece is linked here.
Mitt Romney even had the audacity to rail against "liberal Washington."
The Republican Party is either delusional or shockingly dishonest.
Republicans have controlled the Executive Branch for the last eight years and most of the last forty. U.S. economic policy has been dominated by a slavish devotion to the Republican holy trinity of free markets, privatization and deregulation.
Bob Herbert, The New York Time columnist, writes that: "If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.
From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.
His piece is linked here.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The All-White Elephant (AKA the Republican Party) in the Room
Frank Rich, the New York Times columnist, writes about the nation's double standard that judges black candidates on their most controversial associates, but not white candidates.
In his Sunday column he writes.:
... it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.
When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?
There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.
A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”
An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era."
Read the entire column.
In his Sunday column he writes.:
... it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.
When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?
There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.
A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”
An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era."
Read the entire column.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Iowa voters rebuke President Bush and apologist McIlheran
On New Years Eve, just days before the Iowa primary, Milwaukee Journal columnist, Patrick McIlheran , ridiculed the New York Times editorial board while alleging that Bush administration critics were utterly alienated from the country.
The record number of Democrats who turned out to caucus in Iowa— more than 239,000, compared with fewer than 125,000 in 2004 — and the surprising easy victory of Barack Obama was a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration and Mr. McIlheran's slander of the administration's critics.
The huge Democratic turn-out — by contrast, 108,000 Republicans caucused on Thursday — demonstrated the extent to which opposition to President Bush has energized the American people.
More than half of those who attended the Democratic caucuses (57%) were new participants.
Obama's victory over Hilliary Clinton, who entered Iowa as the Democratic front runner, also illustrates that voters are far more interested in a candidate promising change — as Mr. Obama was — than one citing experience, the heart of Mrs. Clinton’s appeal. Half of the record number of Democrats said their top factor in choosing a candidate was someone who could bring about change. Just 20 percent said the right experience, Mrs. Clinton’s key argument, was the main factor.
These results reflect the reality, despite Mr. McIlheran's silly protestations, that the Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years.
Currently, Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation.
Even an ideologue like Mr. McIlheran should know that the public prefers "alienated" Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins.
Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters who made up 20% of Iowa's Democratic caucus participants..
The turn-out in Iowa and surveys from the Pew Research Center, The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.
Even before Iowa, Mr. McIlheran's "utterly alienated" critics had won control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives in 2006 elections by criticising the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies?
Critics of the Bush administration are not alienated from their fellow citizens or their country.
Rather they are increasingly dissatisfied, as the New York Times editorial so eloquently put it, with what a reckless, handful of extreme neoconservative ideologues have done to our country and its principles. It is "..impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men (President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their neocon crowd) ... showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency...lawless behavior (by the United States government) has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001."
The record turn-out in Iowa and Mr Obama's victory are additional evidence that the American people are alienated from the Bush administration, its policies and apologists, like Mr. McIlheran, not their country.
The record number of Democrats who turned out to caucus in Iowa— more than 239,000, compared with fewer than 125,000 in 2004 — and the surprising easy victory of Barack Obama was a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration and Mr. McIlheran's slander of the administration's critics.
The huge Democratic turn-out — by contrast, 108,000 Republicans caucused on Thursday — demonstrated the extent to which opposition to President Bush has energized the American people.
More than half of those who attended the Democratic caucuses (57%) were new participants.
Obama's victory over Hilliary Clinton, who entered Iowa as the Democratic front runner, also illustrates that voters are far more interested in a candidate promising change — as Mr. Obama was — than one citing experience, the heart of Mrs. Clinton’s appeal. Half of the record number of Democrats said their top factor in choosing a candidate was someone who could bring about change. Just 20 percent said the right experience, Mrs. Clinton’s key argument, was the main factor.
These results reflect the reality, despite Mr. McIlheran's silly protestations, that the Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years.
Currently, Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation.
Even an ideologue like Mr. McIlheran should know that the public prefers "alienated" Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins.
Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters who made up 20% of Iowa's Democratic caucus participants..
The turn-out in Iowa and surveys from the Pew Research Center, The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.
Even before Iowa, Mr. McIlheran's "utterly alienated" critics had won control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives in 2006 elections by criticising the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies?
Critics of the Bush administration are not alienated from their fellow citizens or their country.
Rather they are increasingly dissatisfied, as the New York Times editorial so eloquently put it, with what a reckless, handful of extreme neoconservative ideologues have done to our country and its principles. It is "..impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men (President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their neocon crowd) ... showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency...lawless behavior (by the United States government) has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001."
The record turn-out in Iowa and Mr Obama's victory are additional evidence that the American people are alienated from the Bush administration, its policies and apologists, like Mr. McIlheran, not their country.
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