The Real News: Paul Jay: 'Barack Obama's Education Policy'

Source:The Real News- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) apparently visiting a public school.

"First in a three part series about education policy in the US Presidential elections" 

From The Real News

Very early on back in 2009 in the Obama Administration, President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan concluded that the 2001-02 bipartisan education reform bill that President Bush pushed through Congress called No Child Left Behind, wasn't working and was in much need of reform or even be scrapped.

Part of the 2009 American Recovery Act, the President put in a provision called Race To The Top, which is the Obama Administration's version of No Child Left Behind. Which rewards certain school districts and states for meeting certain educational standards with new funding and deny them funds when they don't. In other words: awarding good schools and punishing low-performing schools.  

It's understandable why teacher unions and the left-wing in America would not like this, because it would cost them jobs and that means money. Because low-performing teachers and schools would essentially be fired for not doing their jobs, which is to educate our students. But if you want a free society, which I believe most Americans still do want, you need an educated society. That means having as many people as possible in America to be able to read, write, do math, etc, at grade level or better.

Russia Today: Abby Martin- Adrienne Pine: 'DEA Agents Out of Control in Honduras'

Source:Russia Today- Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin's Russia Today, talking about U.S. DEA agents in Honduras.

"RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled[1] international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government.[15][16] It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an "autonomous non-profit organization" founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[10][17] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[18][19][20] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[21] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5][6][7] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[8][9]

RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[42] and conspiracy theories.[48] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[55] RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Ministry of Defence and stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[16][56] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a "foreign agent" with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[57] RT has been banned in Ukraine since 2014,[58] and in Latvia[59] and Lithuania[60] since 2020." 

From Wikipedia 

"The war on terror isn't the only battle claiming innocent lives: the war on drugs in Latin America continues to rage on. In the past month, officers with the US Drug Enforcement Agency have shot and killed several innocent people in Honduras. To talk more about this, Adrienne Pine, professor at American University, joins us to discuss." 

From Russia Today

It's not just America and Mexico where the War on Drugs is now being fought but its also a regional war in Americas as well. Central America and in South America, as well as parts of the Caribbean as well that the United States is involved, as well as helping to fund governments who don't have a great record as far as spending other people's money like in Mexico and in Columbia that have a history of corruption, at American taxpayers expense, as well at the taxpayers expense of the people in these countries. 

What the United States has been doing is giving these countries money to fight our War on Drugs in their countries, as well as sending our drug warriors into their countries to fight this war there. And for what use of narcotics are up in America as well as in these other countries, we are still fighting the War on Drugs not only in America but in these other countries as well. 

Forty one years later, at a cost of over 1T$ and we are eliminating a possible economic boost for a lot of these third and even fourth world countries like Afghanistan. Money they would be able to generate on their own and need less foreign aid from us and other developed nations in the future.

What the United States and Latin America should be doing instead right now and in the future is stop fighting this war, admit that its failed and cut our losses and develop a new policy in how we deal with narcotics in America and in Latin America as well, thats based on realty that we still have millions of people who want narcotics and instead of arresting people for being addicted to something they want. 

What we should be doing instead is try to convince narcotics addicts that they should no longer want they are addicted to, get them in drug rehab at their expense, instead of jail or prison. Stop fighting marijuana and legalize it and treat it like alcohol instead and decriminalize possession or use of cocaine and heroin. As long as people aren't hurting other with their use or possession of these narcotics. Have them pay a fine for the amount they have, instead of putting them in jail for it.

We have forty one years of evidence that the War on Drugs has not only failed in America but in Mexico and Latin America as well. And in these tough economic and budget times with high debt and deficits, you would think we would find much better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. That would give us a much better bang for our bucks and invest the dollars that we should be spending in things that payoff and make sense instead.

David Pakman: 'The Good & The Bad About Obamacare Ruling'

Source:David Pakman- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) 44th President of the United States.

"--What's good and bad for the future of American healthcare as a result of the Supreme Court decision.

--On the Bonus Show: Woman superglued to Walmart toilet, Texas GOP calls for end to critical thinking, Chinese dog meat market, more... 

From David Pakman

Not to sound insulting, (intentionally, anyway) but the bald guy in this video nailed it, when he said that this ruling is good in the sense that Switzerland has figured out how to get to universal health insurance, with a private health insurance system. 

What so-called Progressives (Democratic Socialists, in actuality) need to get use to and figure out, the rest of the industrialized world does not have a socialized health insurance system. There are actually probably more countries that have private health insurance, then don't. And every time I hear someone say that America should have socialize health insurance, because the rest of the industrialized world has it, I'm going to correct them and I'll probably do it on my blog. 

We can have our own opinions, but we have to share the same facts, thats how the World works. Germany like Switzerland, another country with a significant German population, to say the least, (a little shout out for my people) has a completely private health insurance system, 

Germany a country that Socialists love and point too, has a completely private health insurance system, a country of over 80M people, with the fourth largest economy in the world, largest economy in Europe, the 2nd largest economy in the Western Hemisphere, private Health Insurance System. Not even America has that, we have a mixture of both. 

So just to be real here, (not that I'm not always real) for Socialists to ever get what they want in American health care, they need to convince perhaps 180 million Americans, that they know best what kind of health care and health insurance that everyone should have and that Americans simply aren't up to making these decisions for themselves. Otherwise we're always going to have a public/private health insurance and health care system in this country.

The Real News: Paul Jay Interviewing Margaret Flowers: 'Supreme Court Sides With Corporatization of Medicine'

Source:The Real News- with a look at SCOTUS & the ACA.

"Dr. Flowers: Decision strengthens the role of private insurance companies and makes the fight for Medicare for All more difficult" 

From The Real News

As I said yesterday on FreeState MD, what Dr. Margaret Flowers doesn't seem to have a problem  with, if the Affordable Care Act was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court today, 20 million Americans would ,lose the health insurance that they have today and we would go back to pre-2010, that left out 45-50 million Americans without health insurance. With no replacement available or able to pass the Congress (House & Senate) signed by President of the United States, whether that's President Barack Obama today, or perhaps a President Mitt Romney next year. 

I can understand someone being against a law or policy, but to throw out a current law simply you don't like it, that currently benefits 300 plus million Americans, with no ability to pass a new law simply because you don't have the political support and votes for it, you are hurting people (even unintentionally) to try to save them in the future. 

Dr, Flowers and her supporters are essentially telling a country of 300 hundred plus Americans that even though you like what you currently have, since we think it's not good for you, we're going to take it away from you now and perhaps give you something better and different down the line. Even though in the meantime they have to go back to a system where they couldn't afford health care that they need now. 

The Nation: Laura Flanders & Margaret Flowers: 'Obamacare Doesn't Go Far Enough'

Source:The Nation- Laura Flanders talking to Dr. Margaret Flowers.

"Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program sees one major flaw in President Obama's Affordable Care Act: It did not go far enough. The only solution, Flowers argues in this conversation with Laura Flanders, is to push for universal healthcare by expanding medicare so that it covers all Americans." 

From The Nation

The consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court throwing out most, if not all of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, (which Dr. Margaret Flowers doesn't seem to have problem with) is that 20 million Americans, most of those Americans who are very hard-working and limited in income, would automatically lose their current health insurance. 

If SCOTUS throws out the ACA, we would immediately go back to a system that left out 45-50 million Americans who get up and work very hard for a living and don't make a lot of money, who can't afford health insurance, even if their employers currently offer health insurance, because they can't even afford their employer's plan. 

Dr. Flowers seems to be suggesting that we can just throw out the ACA (also known as ObamaCare) and replace it with a government only and government-run plan, where every single American would be under the same government-run, health insurance plan, which has never been popular in this country, or it would've. been passed into law by now, as if it's that easy. 

What Dr. Flowers seems to be suggesting, is that replacing ObamaCare would be really easy. You spill a glass of milk, no problem. Just clean up your little mess and pour yourself another glass of milk. As if there's not a Republican House of Representatives right now, or they would just suddenly see the light and say something like: "You know what, I've been wrong all along. What we really need is a government takeover of our health care system in America. Let's pass that today and send it to the Senate."  

What we need to do instead, is for SCOTUS to uphold the current Affordable Care Act and then let the election decide what kind of health care system that we should have in the future and have a little faith in American democracy and Americans to make their own most personal of decisions, like their own health care. Instead of big government treating them like idiots and telling them that they know what's best for them.  

You can also see my follow up post about Dr. Margaret Flowers and the SCOTUS ruling on the Affordable Care Act, at FreeState MD.

Thom Hartmann: 'Higher Income = Job Growth'

Source:Thom Hartmann- on taxes in America.

"Thom Hartmann responds to a caller's question about Supply Side Economics

If you liked this clip of The Thom Hartmann Program, please do us a big favor and share it with your friends... and hit that "like" button!" 

From Thom Hartmann

What left-wing talk radio host Thom Hartmann doesn't mention in this video, is before Ronald Reagan was President, the economy was horrible and it was still horrible during the first two years of his Presidency. The 1970s was one of the worst decades we had economically with those high tax rates, that Thom Hartmann and other leftists speak so highly of. 

President Reagan cuts taxes across the board in 1981, gets them passed in a divided Congress (Democratic House and a Republican Senate) that alone with President Reagan didn't pay for those tax cuts or his boom in the defense budget. But as he admitted later on, if it is a choice between ending the Cold War and a balanced budget, he takes ending the Cold War and living with a large debt and deficit, that he left for President Bush in 1989. 

Starting in 1983, the American economy boomed: 10% unemployment goes down to 5%. President Reagan's economic policy is called Supply Side Economics. He didn't invent it, people like Art Laffer developed it in the late 1970s. You cut taxes across the board and you don't pay for them with budget cuts, because the theory is that the economic growth stimulated by the tax cuts, would make up for any lost revenue from the tax cuts.

President Reagan and Congressional Republicans were half right, that the tax cuts did generate economic growth, because everyone including the middle class had additional money to spend and the middle class spent that money, but not enough to make for the 1T$ or so (in today's money) that taxes were cut by. And even Mr. Hartmann isn't aware of that or won't acknowledge it, 

Tax cuts to stimulate economic Growth is not new. President Kennedy and President Johnson did this in the 1960s and we saw and economic boom by the mid 1960s. Both these guys are Democrats by the way and both Progressive Democrats, but they also had balanced budgets back then, President Johnson is still the last President before President Clinton to have a balanced budget. Thom Hartmann speaks about the advantages of these high tax rates, pre-President Kennedy ranging from 25-90% and doesn't mention how bad the economy was in the 1970s.

With those big tax rates again from 25-90% pre President Kennedy, recession in the late 1950s, two recessions in the 1970s, with weak economic and job growth, mixed in, taxes were cut in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s, under two Democratic President's and one Republican President and we had economic booms in those three decades. High taxes don't work especially if you are in the middle class, when you are struggling just to pay the current bills. 

Supply Side Economics mixed in with borrow and spending, which is what we got from Ron Reagan and George W. Bush doesn't work either. Taxes should be designed based on people's ability to pay and that encourage productivity and economic growth.

David Pakman: Democratic Representative Al Green Calls For Radicalized Christian Hearings

Source:David Pakman- U.S. Representative Al Green (Democrat, Texas)

"--During anti-Muslim Congressional hearings, Texas Congressman Al Green, a Democrat, calls for hearings on the "radicalization of Christians."

Source:David Pakman

To answer David Pakman's question: because the militant wing of the Christian-Right base in America, votes overwhelmingly Republican. And even the non-militant base of the Christian-Right in America, wouldn't approve of a Congressional committee (House or Senate) investigating members of their own movement, even if they are terrorists. 

But the fact is the overwhelmingly terrorists attacks in America that are based on religion, comes from so-called fundamentalist, Protestant Christians, not Islamists. For the simple reason that Muslims and Middle Easterners, are still such a small minority in America. Especially compared with Anglo-Saxon-Protestants. whether they're Southern or Northern in America.