John Nichols at
The Nation writes
Bernie Sanders Has a Plan: Tax Wall Street and Make College Free:
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders keeps bending the rules of Senate service and presidential campaigning by offering up proposals that imagine America as the fair, functional, and prosperous country it could be. Instead of playing politics within the narrow lines prescribed by the partisans and pundits who police the political process in America, the recently announced contender for the Democratic presidential nomination is going big—this week with a plan to provide tuition-free higher education for students at four-year colleges and universities in the United States.
“We live in a highly competitive global economy and, if our economy is to be strong, we need the best-educated work force in the world,” says Sanders. “That will not happen if, every year, hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and if millions more leave school deeply in debt.” [...]
According to the Republicans who are running Congress—and running for president—there’s just no money for free higher education. Or for other useful initiatives. In an age of austerity, as defined by House Rules Committee chairman Paul Ryan and his minions, we are told that all Americans have to look forward to are more cuts, more privatization, wage stagnation, and staggering income inequality.
Ryan and his ideological amen corner moan that there’s just no money for programs that might educate and employ and care for Americans.
Of course, there is money: trillions of dollars that can be freed up, at the drop of a hat (or a stock market), to bail out banks and fund wars. But Republicans like Ryan and the contenders for his party’s 2016 presidential nomination claimthe country is damn-near broke—with just enough money left for one more tax cuts for one more billionaire campaign donor. And, too frequently, America’s “fair and balanced” media and compromised and compromising Democratic Partygo alongwith the fantasy.
What has distinguished Sanders’s Senate service and his presidential bid is a refusal to buy intothe lie of austerity.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Gallup: Moderates, liberals flee GOP:
Gallup is out with an interesting new survey showing where the Republican Party has lost the most ground over the past eight years, and conservatives aren't going to like what it reveals.
The narrative spun by the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and Dick Cheneys of the world is that the GOP's problem is that it hasn't been conservative enough, and that rather than moderate its policies, the GOP should focus its rebuilding efforts on the party's conservative base.
But the Gallup survey tells a completely different story. According to Gallup, only 1 percent of self-described conservatives have left the Republican Party over the past eight years. In fact, the only group more loyal to Republicans were those who attend church weekly. Meanwhile, even as Republicans held their conservative base together, 9% of moderates and 8% of liberals left the party.
What this means is that virtually all of the GOP's losses have come from liberals and moderates fleeing the party, leaving behind a party that is even more conservative than it was before.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, Bristol Palin calls off her wedding! Also, some other stuff happened. A 15-year-old Montana boy shot and killed by a friend. Ted Nugent figures he must be a punk, thug or street rat. Revisiting the story of Luis Lang, Obamacare protester who blames everyone else for everything. Staying in the Carolinas, a
Charlotte Observer editor's thoughts on why he's such a disgusting liberal poopy-head. In the wake of Jeb's Iraq flub, Krugman hits the highlights of the many problems with simply excusing the war as a "mistake," as well as the media's difficulty coping with policy dishonesty at any level. Especially when taken to the extreme, as with the torture question.
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