The key principles of the Big Lie are old and well know:
The Big Lie ...never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.[5]
And yes, the Big Lie is never totally absent from our public discourse, but its wholesale use - shamelessly, without apology, with a sort of cynical glee - that I think is new.
Where to start?
How about with the Romney stump speech. Let Paul Krugman tell it:
Untruths, Wholly Untrue, And Nothing But Untruths Now, however, Mitt Romney seems determined to rehabilitate Bush's reputation, by running a campaign so dishonest that it makes Bush look like a model of truth-telling.
I mean, is there anything at all in Romney's stump speech that's true? It's all based on attacking Obama for apologizing for America, which he didn't, on making deep cuts in defense, which he also didn't, and on being a radical redistributionist who wants equality of outcomes, which he isn't. When the issue turns to jobs, Romney makes false assertions both about Obama's record and about his own. I can't find a single true assertion anywhere.
And he keeps finding new frontiers of falsehood. The good people at CBPP find him asserting, with regard to programs aiding low-income Americans, that
What unfortunately happens is with all the multiplicity of federal programs, you have massive overhead, with government bureaucrats in Washington administering all these programs, very little of the money that's actually needed by those that really need help, those that can't care for themselves, actually reaches them.
which is utterly, totally untrue. Administrative costs are actually quite small, and between 91 and 99 percent of spending, depending on the program, does in fact go to beneficiaries.
Romney camp was caught misquoting Obama in an ad. Their reponse speaks volumes:
"They were using McCain's words to make fun of McCain. And we're using the exact same technique," he said.
Pressed on whether it was unfair to lop off the top of Mr. Obama's comments -- which would show the president was quoting the McCain camp -- Rath said, "He did say the words. That's his voice."
He then suggested that the more people discuss the ad, the better it is for the Romney campaign.
Romney's tatics are accepted and effective because they build on a long,long preparation for this cynical tactic. The Republicans have Think Tanks devoted to nothing but the creation of Big Lies all dressed up in the best and most effective framing words (thanks Frank Lutz). For example, the AEI and their packaging of the "Freddie and Fannie caused the Great Recession lie, now on every Republican's lips. I heard it in a hamburger joint recently and had a hard time not throwing my supper.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) repeated, for the umpteenth time among Republicans and conservatives, a pernicious misconception that places most, if not all, of the blame for the financial crisis on the government-sponsored housing corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
"[The financial reform bill] does nothing-nothing-as I indicated, to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the main protagonists in the financial meltdown. This is absolutely worse than irresponsible; it's the legislative equivalent of wrongful conviction."
[snip]
[The truth]
A report (pdf) by the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan investigatory arm of Congress, supports all these arguments. According to the GAO report, Fannie and Freddie didn't go wild in the mid-2000s buying up mortgages in the secondary market because of some government mandate, like the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, to increase homeownership among low-income Americans. On the contrary, "Former [Federal Housing Finance Agency] Director [James] Lockhart stated that the enterprises' primary motivation in purchasing [Alt-A and subprime mortgage backed] assets was to restore their share of the mortgage market, which declined substantially from 2004 through 2007 as the 'nontraditional' (for example, subprime) mortgage market rapidly increased in size. FHFA further stated that the enterprises viewed such mortgage assets as offering attractive risk-adjusted returns." In other words, they wanted to be bigger players in the mortgage business again, to make money where they thought they could-not because Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) or some other politician told them what to do
Notice something, just as the Big Lie theory says, the charge in all such cases is simplicity itself, the explanation requires some thought and mental work to understand. The Big Liars who tell the Big Lie know that the average partisan Republican as well as the 1/3 of the voting population we call "low information" voters will rarely do this kind of heavy mental lifting. In fact , the emotional gut level response triggered by the clear, ringing, simplistic accusations are hard to shake, especially if the other side (OUR side) is not good at this kind of propaganda warfare. Case in point on this: the rise of the "illegal immigrant" framing and meme:
The Republican attacks on capitalism whether called predatory, looting, vulture, cannibal, or crony are disingenuous. All of the Presidential candidates have served as cheerleaders for and willing participants in vulture capitalism for decades. All have taken money from private equity firms. If elected none of them would initiate any changes to the existing system. Instead they would pander to the vulture CEOs for campaign contributions.
Perry's and Gingrich's attacks on Romney have been so intense that GOP head spin doctor Frank Luntz is nervous about the Republican candidates' frequent use of the word capitalism. A dirty word, Luntz prefers the words economic freedom to capitalism.
So Bain Capital should be referred to as Bain Economic Freedom? Tell that to folks who lost their jobs and/or homes thanks to Bain economic freedom.
Here we have another Republican case of the pot calling the kettle black. Rick Perry while Governor has racked up a $27 billion budget shortfall thanks to his Party's Enronesque smoke and mirrors accounting practices. As a result and because of the Governor's pathological aversion to increasing revenues, Rick Perry has fired thousands of teachers, fire fighters, police and other state workers. One of his Republican colleagues, Michele Bachmann, a former Presidential opponent, has criticized Rick Perry for engaging in crony capitalism as the Governor of Texas. This means Perry's big donors get rewarded with plum political appointments, state contracts, tax breaks or grants.
Greedy Capitalists.
The pink slip Governor, in attempt to pile on and beat up his rival on the Presidential campaign trail accused Mitt Romney of predatory capitalism.
"I had to shake my head yesterday when one of the wealthiest men I suppose has ever run for the presidency of the United States, the son of a multimillionaire, Mitt Romney, he said 'I know what it's like to worry about whether you're going to get fired. There were a couple times when I worried about whether I was going to get a pink slip.' He actually said this," the Texas governor said at a campaign stop in Anderson.
"I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I'm sure he was worried that he'd run out of pink slips," he continued.
Whether one is a crony capitalist or a looting capitalist the outcome for ordinary middle and working class Americans is the same. They lose their jobs and/or benefits while 1% of fat cats like Rick Perry and Mitt Romney line their own pockets. Mr. Perry rewards himself and his crony donors while Lord Romney, formerly of Bain Manor, rewards himself and his shareholders. Everyone else gets thrown under the bus.
A super PAC for Newt Gingrich has also branded Mitt Romney as a predatory capitalist.
Who would want any greedy, self-serving capitalist as President of the United States?
Loren Steffy has an interesting column in today's Chronicle (print only as of now) Maybe the Republicans will give him a call when they try to claim there is no money to extend the payroll tax breaks. As he explains:
[Hoston Chronicle , Sunday, January 8, 2012, Section D p1]
Each year , billions in payroll and income taxes go uncollected because employers classify workers as independent contractors, freeing tghem from responsibility for payroll taxes, even though the workers are still, essentially, full-time employees. They are contractors in name only.
As he reports, for every $1,000 employers pay in wages, they are supposed to collect from employees: $14.04 for Medicare, $42.00 for Social Security, $14.50 for Medicare, and $25.00 for unemployment insurance. The estimated losses from the sham classification racquet are in the range of $12 Billion dollars.
If undocumented immigrants pay Medicare and Social Security monies they will never collect and thus offering a nice subsidy to these programs. On the other hand, the mislabeled workers are removed from the mainstream economy, no overtime for them, no taxes for help pay the country's bills.
Here's the big idea: Crackdown on the misclassifications and get real about undocumented workers! As Steffy puts it:
[Hoston Chronicle , Sunday, January 8, 2012, Section D p5]
...the Greater Houston Partnership found that one in ten workers in the area was an [undocumented] immigrant, and most worked in construction, manufacturing or various services industrties. In all they contributed more than $27 billion to the local economy, or almost 8.2% of annual gross regional product.
Rather than debate how long to extend a token tax cut in an election year, Congress could create a greater stimulus by enacting reasonable reforms that would allow [the undocumented] to get driver's licenses or othe identification that would get them on the tax rolls while creating a path to citizenship.
That would increase tax revenue, boost wages by forcing more employers to classify workers properly, and ultimately bring more of the shadow economy into the daylight.
But of course, this is all too rational. The haters, the underinformed, need someone to blame , someone to vent on for their lack of jobs and every other thing wrong with thier lives, immigrants are the perfect scape goats. Ask the Republican presidental candidates. Ask Rick Perry who, in a moment of sanity, actually supported a policy to tap into the power of the educated undocmented here in Texas, who happens to anyone proposing anything less than sending all 10-20 millions undocumenteds home.
I know people like this and they make me both sad and angry. It is truly a case of cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Rationality has nothing to do with thier policy choices, it is all pure venom and self-righteousness.
Any wonder why the Tea Party , the Republican primary voters and other fading brands are so fevered over this issue, if only then can send all the undocumented back, the budget will be balanced, the right people will be running government, unemployment will disappear and they will have "their America" back....
Mitt Romney said he knows how to create jobs but when he ran Bain Capital, he created a lot of money for himself while he threw companies' employees out of work.
When Bain took over a company it would lay off workers, cut salaries and pension funds and it paid itself a huge management fee.
This worker also knows how good Mitt Romney is at creating jobs.
"I'm going to be talking to as many people as I can as much as I can using any platform," said Johnson, now 57 and living outside Pittsburgh. "His campaign bus says 'businessman' on the side. He's never worked in a plant, he's never managed in a plant, he's never been a supervisor in general management ... he's only been the CEO of making money. That's a big, fundamental difference with creating jobs."
There was no language in the Marion, Indiana plant's labor contract that continued it after a sale, and Johnson recalled shock in July 1994 when workers learned they had to reapply for jobs, without regard to senior and often with lower wages. They attempted to bargain a new contract, eventually striking the plant that fall.
Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican POTUS candidate, an oily and serial flip flopper and ultimate tool for the 1% and corporate America will say and do anything to buy votes. He has changed positions so many times that Mr. Romney has held arguments with himself. He was pro-choice but now he is pro-life. He was for cap and trade until he was against it. Romney says he wants to repeal Obamacare when he implemented his own Romneycare while Governor of Mass. In true Rovian fashion, Mitt tries to project his own character flaws onto his opponents. The man is so slippery that he almost makes Rick Perry look sincere and honest. It is hard to imagine our Governor as either but when compared to Mr. Romney, well, one can stretch one's imagination a little.
Another Republican Hypocrite.
Once a progressive moderate independent, Mr. Romney says he is more conservative today. Meanwhile Mr. Nice Guy sings America the Beautiful along with his lovely wife while his cloak and dagger henchmen launch smear attacks on his opponents. Mr. Romney does not have to take responsibility for the character assassinations that his former aides and buddies are running on his behalf. Ironically the victim of Romney's political hit job in Iowa, Newt Gingrich helped create the super PACS that took him down. Now Newt is howling about a monster he his Republican colleagues created. Honestly, the more I listen to Republican politicians the more I think of selfish spoiled children.
Live by the super Pac, die by the super Pac.
As Chris Matthews of MSNBC has said, it's like when the head Mafia character in the 1960 TV series The Untouchables went to the opera his goons gunned down police officers. Mr. Mafia's hands were clean. Or how about the movie the Godfather in which Michael Corleone attends the baptism of his newborn child while his goons murder his rivals in the underworld?
"What he's not used to is under this new court ruling, Citizens United, your opponent can run a terrible campaign and relentlessly destroy your reputation without putting your fingerprints on the ad. You don't have to say I'm Mitt Romney and I paid for this ad. So now in Iowa, where the people don't like negative campaigning, you can run the bombing campaign or destroy your opponent without having your face or voice associated with it. That's what Newt wasn't aware of. it's his fault that conservatives like them have gone along with these court decisions, that have allowed big contributors, wealthy people to put unlimited amounts of money into negative campaigns without putting the name of their favorite candidate in the ad. it destroyed gingrich. it's an amazing thing to watch out here. The destruction of a front-runner by someone in second place and now doesn't have an opponent because his wealthy friends destroyed that person you are looking at right now."
"My love is for democracy, Matthews continued. My sympathy is not for Newt. It's for democracy. Newt was wronged. That's hard for me to say this, but he was wronged by the system. I'm trying to be fair even to people I don't normally agree with."
Thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States and its reprehensible (5-4) ruling on Citizen's United, this is what politics has come to in the U.S. Fat cats and corporate powerhouses can give undisclosed and unlimited amounts of money to super PACS in order to buy their politician of choice. The voices of we the wee ones just became a lot more wee.
Not only does Mitt Romney fully support Citizen's United he also embraces and has profited from the unlimited money that corporations can give to politicians. Check out his insulting response to folks who challenged him about corporations.
The fat cats like the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove want Mitt Romney in the White House. And they will stop at nothing to make it happen.
Has anyone noticed that neither Texas Presidential candidate, Rick Perry nor Ron Paul has offered any plan whatsoever for job creation initiatives for the American people? Nor has neither man put forth viable options for jump starting an ailing U.S. economy.
Let's just say that it is good news when the good people of Texas learn a lot about the politicians who take an oath to serve them. This apparently happens when Texas Republicans run for national offices. Why is it that this is the only time in which the good people of Texas realize that their elected representatives have no use for them?
Go figure.
It seems that both Texas candidates Perry and Paul are far more obsessed about social "issues", also known as thinly veiled bigotry that include homophobia, misogyny and racism.
Jobs? Rick Perry and Ron Paul will say there are plenty of jobs in Texas.
But Texas is only a tiny part of the good ol' U.S. of A.
I guess when a Party is completely choked, beholden and stuffed into the pockets of the 1% it has little if anything to offer the other 99%.
Worse, a morally bankrupted and ethically challenged GOP seems compelled to auto default to Karl Rovian campaigns of fear, smear and hate.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's fairly recent ruling on Citizen's United, corporate power houses and so-called super pacs such as "Restore our Future" (which really means Steal our Future) can now give unlimited and undisclosed amounts of money to political candidates.
Maybe we should all pause for a second and thank our anti-democratic, anti-American right wing extremist Supreme Court justices for silencing the voices of we the people. We the 99%.
"The difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind," Justice Stevens wrote. "And selling access is not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf."
We have already seen how Washington D.C. and the U.S. Congress has been afflicted with an infestation called lobbyists that represent the agendas of Wall St., big oil, pharma, insurance, etc.
We the wee ones who are the 99% will no longer have a voice in our government if we do not strenuously object to both the Citizen's United ruling and the self-serving smear artists that hide behind the sleazy and slimy curtains of the super pacs.
Turn on the bright lights that will reveal and scatter the self-serving cockroaches for the 1%.
Texas could face power shortages as soon as next year as aging plants are mothballed in response to new environmental standards, according to the state's grid operator and the organization that monitors the U.S. power grids for the federal government.
In separate reports released days apart, both organizations determined that Texas will soon have an inadequate supply of backup power during periods of peak demand. The shrinking power reserves increase the chances of rolling blackouts if a major power plant goes offline on a very hot or cold day, when power use is greatest.
The speaker of concern for us in this case is EPCOT , the state's grid operator, created as part of the magical "Deregulation" of 1999. You know the free market solution to lower prices and provide a more secure energy future for all Texans???
Enter TCEQ, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality:
>Pay More or Your Lights Go Out "the TCEQ is very concerned that the reliability of the Texas electrical power system will be severely compromised," Shaw told the subcommittee. "The TCEQ anticipates that the ultimate outcome of the proposed [rule] may be rolling blackouts and cost-prohibitive electricity. Without reliable and affordable electricity, sensitive populations may be at risk during severe winter weather or hot summer temperatures
The bottom line of these pronouncements is this storyline: The EPA is making us clean up the air, this is the cause of the "imminent" disaster coming our way , probably in Summer of 2012. This means we will have to pay more for our energy, but no one could have foreseen this when we dereguluated, it is the facult of the EPA and unforseen events, like the drought and the lack of new power plants coming online.
Let's anayzle these claims...
First, the EPA mandates have been on the books for decades , Texas has been given waivers (thanks , Mr.Bush etc.) forever. Now that it is time to put up or shutup, Texas officials (read Rick Perry and his Yes-men) shouldn't act like they just heard about these regulations. By the way, they are projected to both save lives and cut down on sickness in places like Harris County and elsewhere throughout the state and the nation...
Luminant Plays Politics with Employees' Jobs, Blames EPA for Consequences of Power Company's Decision to Fight Much Needed Clean Air Rules The Rule limits the amount of SO2 and nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution power plants in 27 states - including Texas - are allowed to emit. Collectively, Texas power plants are the nation's largest emitter of NOx and the second largest emitter of SO2. Nationally, this rule will save up to 34,000 lives, prevent 400,000 asthma attacks, and avoid 1.8 million lost work or sick days each year once in place. Texans will be among the biggest beneficiaries of this rule with up to 1,704 lives saved each year. Likewise, Texas will be among the biggest losers in terms of health if this rule is delayed.
At least in the area of Sex Ed, there are signs that sanity has the upper hand in Texas public schools.Renee Lee writes :
Abstinence-plus' emerging in more Texas schools A shift is occurring in Texas as more school districts move from abstinence-only programs to a comprehensive approach that teaches about condoms and other contraceptives, according to an advocacy group's study of state data.
In 2007, about 4 percent of the state's school districts used comprehensive programs, according to a study by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, a research group that supports the comprehensive approach known as abstinence-plus. A more recent analysis, based on data from a Texas Education Agency health education survey, found that nearly 25 percent of school districts had abstinence-plus programs in 2010
It will be hard for the blinkered ideologues who insist on abstinence-only to paint this as some secular-humanist-liberal conspiracy since it is being driven by decisions made by local school districts. With a 600% increase over the last 4 years, it looks like this trend has legs.
As a point of context, it is easy to see what has been driving this quiet change:
Abstinence-plus' emerging in more Texas schools In Harris County, 93 percent of parents support school-based sex education, and about 70 percent support abstinence-plus programs in middle school or earlier, according a study by the Prevention Research Center at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. National studies have shown similar results.
The state's teen birth rates are down over the last decade, but remain higher than the national rate.
Texas has the third highest rate - 63 per 1,000 births - for girls 15 to 19, and the second highest rate of multiple births for girls 15 to 19. Ten percent of sixth-graders have had sex, and by 12th grade 70 percent of teens have had sex, translating to more than 800,000 sexually experienced teens in Texas, the research center found.
Who knew that a program that combines high ideals ( be abstinent ! ) with practical advise and recognition of teenage hormones and pressures would outperform one based on pure sterile ideology?
The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone is enjoying their holiday as it brings you the last roundup of 2011.
Last week's House Republican cave-in on the payroll tax cut extension is intertwined with the Keystone XL pipeline: both have to be decided upon again in 60 days. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has some discussion about the implications.
Neil at Texas Liberal posted the Occupy Houston response to felony charges for some Occupy protestors who took part in civil disobedience at the Port of Houston. This is matter that should be of concern to all progressives, political advocacy groups, and civil libertarians.
Federal court judge Sam Sparks gave an early Christmas present to Texas microbreweries and their customers last week. Off the Kuff explains.
I want to start a new occasional series. I call it "Lying, Self-delusional or Clueless?" I will provide some analysis/statements made by some public shmuck and let you decide which category he or she belongs in. This is all based on a simple belief -Texans deserve better government that we are getting from Rick and his Republican buddies over these last 2 plus decades.
Today's contestant is Retiring Republican Rep. Warren Chisum. The state is being sued for its crappy funding of Texas public education and Chisum is
Funding lawsuit gathers steam ...the author of the legislation most school administrators see as the root of the problem, [and] he ... welcomes the litigation.
"It seems like we are sued every five years and maybe this time we'll get it right...
"No one saw the economic downturn coming," Chisum said. "And we couldn't increase taxes because the voters told us they were taxed enough already.
As for the first part, he got that dead right. Now to some clear minded observers this cycle of suits, which the state inevitably loses, would have been a clear signal to do something to really fix the problem, since everyone knows that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of crazy. Ah, but this clear minded observer is not a Texas state Republican Rep or governor, thus doing the same inadequate , corrupt thing over and over is not a bug or flaw in policy, it is your policy.
Let's look at the second claim that no one saw the economic downturn coming. A little background is in order. Chisum and his buds in the 2006
Funding lawsuit gathers steamspecial session, facing a Texas Supreme Court deadline to pass a school funding bill, the Legislature approved Chisum's bill which reduced local property taxes - the main source revenue for funding the schools - by a third.
So , it makes sense that the they could not have forseen that the business tax they thought would cover any short fall would not be sufficient. EXCEPT that they were told at the time that the business tax would NOT be sufficient...
TEXAS HOUSE BUDGET PRIMERTEXAS HOUSE BUDGET PRIMER The current $26.8 billion budget shortfall is partly the result of a built-in budget hole created in the 3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature, which has now created a structural shortfall in three successive legislative sessions. Unless the tax structure is changed, Texas lawmakers will begin every legislative session with the built-in budget shortfall...
The projected short fall without ANY economic downturn was projected as $14 billion over 5 years. It has in fact been $20 billion.
Season's Greetings from the Party of Ebenezer Scrooge and Marie Antoinette.
This is what happens when a Party cares only about the 1%. To hell with everyone else is its message.
Worse, John Boehner tried to hide his Party's cowardice and its vicious contempt for the American people by shutting off CSPAN.
"As you walk off the floor, Mr. Speaker, you're walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from taxpayers, the unemployed, and very frankly, as well, from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors, 48 million senior citizens," Hoyer can be heard saying.
"We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing the issue of critical importance to this country, and that is the continuation of the middle class tax cut, the continuation of unemployment benefits for those at risk of losing them, and a continuation of the access to doctors for all those 48 million seniors who rely on them daily for help."
John Boehner and his authoritarian GOP goons just handed us a gift called censorship.
I imagine Speaker Boehner is already on a golf course somewhere in Florida or southern California. Merry Christmas, Mr. Stalin II.
It's now officially OK to say what everybody who cares has known for years - NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IS A ABYSMAL FAILURE. In fact it was doomed form the start as an educational reform plan. But of course, that was the public face of the reform, the one to flim-flam the masses and the well- meaning but myopic members of the elite who really cared. It was a coalition of the cynical privatizeers, the ideologically blinkered, the well meaning Democratic compromisers and the corporate shrills who gave us this Frankenstein. It was the children of the middle , working and lower classes who paid the price.
To start with, this:
No Child Left Behind: Doomed to Fail? Now a former official in Bush's Education department is giving at least some support to that notion. Susan Neuman, a professor of education at the University Michigan who served as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education during George W. Bush's first term, was and still is a fervent believer in the goals of NCLB. And she says the President and then Secretary of Education Rod Paige were too. But there were others in the department, according to Neuman, who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda - a way to expose the failure of public education and "blow it up a bit," she says. "There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."
In the beginning the law had its supporters, but I never believed in it . It was the old corporate analogy applied to education , a pig with a new dress and lipstick.
Six Sigma is the appropriate tool where quality management is concerned. In an educational setting, teachers are the work force and parents are the customers.
The latter tend to pay the fees and expect their wards to get good and qualitative results. By improving teaching techniques, teachers expect a positive change in the performance of their students. This change is expected to last for a stipulated time for the acquired profit to remain constant.
There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush Administration's signature domestic achievement. For one thing, in the view of many educators, the law's 2014 goal - which calls for all public school students in grades 4 through 8 to be achieving on grade level in reading and math - is something no educational system anywhere on earth has ever accomplished. Even more unrealistic: every kid (except for 3% with serious handicaps or other issues) is supposed to be achieving on grade level every year, climbing in lockstep up an ever more challenging ladder. This flies in the face of all sorts of research showing that children start off in different places academically and grow at different rates.
Just this last week, there appeared this summation of how bad this scheme has failed:
The study, by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research group headed by a Democratic lawyer who endorses most of the administration's education policies, says that 48 percent of the nation's 100,000 public schools were labeled as failing under the law this year.
BlueBloggin - Special interests are really not very special when they represent mindless, dangerous attitudes of corporate extremists, who don't want to be accountable for their actions. Let Me Sell you A Lie - EPA Consequences of The REINS Act - H.R. 10 shows that corporations really do own America's lawmakers.
Death sentences and the use of the death penalty are hitting record lows. Mostly because of the corruption and injustice in our criminal justice system. It's led WCNews at Eye On Williamson to wonder, Is the death penalty dying?
Third-party presidential candidates may make some noise and perhaps even some news in 2012, writes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.
Neil at Texas Liberal wrote a post considering the life of the real St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a foe of the death penalty who was said to have brought back to life children who had been cut up and were going to be pickled.
Bill Hammond , president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, offers us the latest on the Texas shortage of primary care doctors.
Texas faces critical shortage of primary-care providers Texas needs thousands of primary-care providers over the coming years to ensure that its fast-growing, underserved population has access to basic health care and doesn't end up going someplace far more expensive for treatment, such as an emergency room.
It would have been nice if he had been honest enough to put the present mess in the context of what Rick and his corporate whores have done in this area over the last several years. As I wrote in June of this year:
Texas teaching hospitals are bracing for a big hit in the federal deficit-reduction plans under consideration, just a few weeks after the state Legislature slashed funding to the same doctor-training programs.
The cuts will exacerbate a crisis in which Texas, ranked 42nd in the number of physicians per population, loses potential doctors because the state doesn't have enough residency slots to train the medical students it pays to educate.
Who knew that this crisis would only get worse in light of Rick Perry's fairy tale budget numbers and his no tax policies, ever ,no use of the rainy day fund ever policies?
