Education Matters — By Larry Lee — Debbie Deavours has spent 33 years in the Fayette County school system, the last eight as principal at Berry Elementary in the little town of Berry with its 1,250 people. Debbie has 300 students in pre-K-6. Some 65 percent of whom get free or reduced price lunches. And…
OPINION
Factoring in Bernie Sanders as a Democrat in the Presidential Race of 2016
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – What I hate about Americans is our notion of what is presidential. Tall, calm and graying at the temples. Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan etc., all very presidential. The cult of political celebrity. Whatever. Bernie Sanders is not presidential but I’d like to have a…
An Awesome Responsibility: Respect and Protect Shenandoah
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Virg. — It’s an incredible feeling sitting here at 3,500 feet above sea level on the hill looking out over the Big Meadows campground, watching a spring shower roll through the mountains. I can’t think of a spot east of the Mississippi where I…
Blinded by the Delight: Missing the Baltimore Grit and the Gulf Oil Escape
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Thoroughbreds charging around the final turn and down the homestretch. Blinders strapped on the sides of their faces to keep their attention on the finish line straight ahead. Preakness Stakes at Pimlico racetrack in Baltimore. Second leg of the Triple Crown later this week. Delegations of civic leaders…
Trans Pacific Trickle-Down Economics
By Robert Reich – Have we learned nothing from thirty years of failed trickle-down economics? By now we should know that when big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy get special goodies, the rest of us get shafted. The Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts of 1981, 2001, and 2003, respectively, were sold to…
The Alabama Legislature’s Strange Idea of a ‘Lean’ Budget
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – It was just a little snippet of news. Just a few hundred words. And while few Alabamians probably saw it, it should have made headlines on the front page of every state newspaper and been the lead story on every TV news cast. Because it was another glaring…
Alabama Legislators Want ‘Blood on the Floor’: Especially the Blood of Children and Grandparents
By Pippa Abston – Well. I heard from a very credible source yesterday that our state legislators are not playing chicken with the budget this time. You know, it seems like every year they expect us to display panic and beg them to fund essential programs — it is so predictable it is almost like…
The Trade Warp, Again?
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – International trade deals are always notorious in the rear view mirror of globalization. Bill Clinton’s legacy will forever be jaundiced by two things, a blow job and NAFTA. That blow job didn’t usher in the atrophy of the American middle class. So exactly why is this president deliberately…
How the New Flexible Economy is Making Workers’ Lives Hell
By Robert Reich – These days it’s not unusual for someone on the way to work to receive a text message from her employer saying she’s not needed right then. Although she’s already found someone to pick up her kid from school and arranged for childcare, the work is no longer available and she won’t…
For Friends of Bill: Baseless Racism Holds Republicans Back
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Over the last 25 years Republicans have gone from disingenuous jerks to complete assholes. From occasional forays into dirty politics and smear tactics to a no holds barred enterprise of fear, hate and racism. From a tacit deployment of bigotry, to a stentorian campaign of disenfranchising minorities and…
Don’t Eat the Corrupt Sausage Served Up by the Alabama Legislature
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – We have all been told that one should never watch either legislation or sausage being made. Having grown up long ago on a south Alabama farm, I took part in more than a few “hog killins” and know all about making sausage. I’ve also witnessed legislation being birthed…
The Defining Economic Moment and Hillary Clinton
By Robert Reich – It’s a paradox. Almost all the economic gains are still going to the top, leaving America’s vast middle class with stagnant wages and little or no job security. Two-thirds of Americans are working paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, big money is taking over our democracy. If there were ever a time for…
The Big Chill: How Big Money Is Buying Off Criticism of Big Money
By Robert Reich – Not long ago I was asked to speak to a religious congregation about widening inequality. Shortly before I began, the head of the congregation asked that I not advocate raising taxes on the wealthy. He said he didn’t want to antagonize certain wealthy congregants on whose generosity the congregation depended. I…
Charter School Bill Passes: Follow the Money
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – Even an amateur swami with a cloudy crystal ball could have told us how the recent vote to approve charter schools in Alabama would play out. In fact, he didn’t even have to look at his ball, they could have looked at 2014 campaign financial disclosures instead. There…
America the Boiling Frog
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I just ate macaroni and cheese out of a pull top can with a big ass spoon. Forty years ago Sarah Palin would never have been chosen as a presidential running mate. Not because she’s a woman but because she’s dumb as a goddamn stick. Forty years ago,…
The ‘iEverything’ Economy May Require the Redistributional Imperative
By Robert Reich – It’s now possible to sell a new product to hundreds of millions of people without needing many, if any, workers to produce or distribute it. At its prime in 1988, Kodak, the iconic American photography company, had 145,000 employees. In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. The same year Kodak went under,…
Ted Cruz for President?
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Rafael Edward Cruz is running for president. Boy howdy. By all accounts Ted Cruz is bright and formidable. He’s a powerful speaker. His academic accomplishments are impressive. His career trajectory just prior to politics is downright imposing. There’s a certain charisma in a Bob Dole meets Pee Wee…
Charter School Movement About Tax Breaks, Not Helping Kids
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – It is said that “confession is good for the soul.” With this being the case, the legislators who wrote the Alabama Accountability Act in 2013 are now sleeping better. When this bill was written the people of Alabama were told over and over that the purpose was to…
The Palestinian-Israeli Two-State Solution was Dead Anyway
By Nicholas Sheppard – Newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to walk back his declaration, made late in the contentious political campaign, that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch. His new assertion appeared to do nothing to assuage an irate Obama Administration, and his initial remarks, designed to encourage…
Earth Shaking News: Google Publishes Paper Considering Ranking Websites Based on Accuracy
You Are Now Looking at The Most Accurate News Website in the World – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Finally, some positive earth shaking news from Webland, and the implications are simply staggering. It means you are now looking at the most accurate news Website in the world, and Google is about…
