Illegal immigration is a problem for this country.There, I’ve said it. But it’s not quite the problem some make it out to be: According to a New York Times article on April 5, 2005, “…the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year….Moreover, the money paid by illegal immigrants and their employers is factored into all the Social Security...
I’m at this event with RJ Eskow, DDay and Dante from Calitics, and several real MSM press folks: Los Angeles, CA – For the first time in history, presidential candidates will take part in a forum focused on the issues of global warming and America’s energy future this Saturday, November 17th at the Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles. The forum will be webcast live beginning at approximately 2:00pm PST, 5:00pm EST at: http://www.grist.org/webcast Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards...
I don’t know who wrote Krauthammer’s column today, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him. Why else would the column truthfully discuss the vile dictators the Right-wing administrations in the US have chosen to support: Pakistan is not the first time we’ve faced hard choices about democratization. At the height of the Cold War, particularly in the immediate post-Vietnam era of American weakness, we supported dictators Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. The logic was...
This film is based on the remarkable book by Khaled Hosseini, which chronicles the rapid and heartbreaking changes in Afghanistan in the last 20 years, starting with the fall of the Afghan monarchy, continuing with the Russian invasion, and ending with the rule of the Taliban. All this is told through the story of a young boy, who escapes with his father to Pakistan and then America, but who has to return to Kabul as an adult to...
(picture from worldwide anti-war protests, Feb. 15, 2003) My friend Kevin Drum takes on the war skeptics, who, as he says: This meant that war skeptics had to go way out on a limb: if they opposed the war, and it subsequently turned out that Saddam had an advanced WMD program, their credibility would have been completely shot. Their only recourse would have been to argue that Saddam never would have used his WMD, an argument that, given Saddam’s...
Imagine a submarine rising to the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. It starts to shell Galveston, and fire missiles toward Houston. Imagine a freighter anchored near San Diego, which suddenly starts lobbing missiles toward Sea World. Imagine a Lear Jet cruising the Great Lakes firing wing-mounted rockets into Niagara Falls. What would be the chances that Mexico, or Canada, would come to the aid of the US in such a circumstance? If the obvious assumption were true, that...
Howie Klein of Blue America sent me this book: So Angie’s back on the Blue America list and I hope you’ll join me in donating some money to her campaign. We’re not going to find a better candidate, not anywhere, to help us reclaim our country. Avalon Books sent us a box of the just-released YOUNG J. EDGAR: HOOVER, THE RED SCARE, AND THE ASSAULT ON CIVIL LIBERTIES. Each book has been autographed by author Ken Ackerman and it...
I grew up in a house with guns. My Grandfather (I called him Papa) had a rifle in the closet, and I used t open the closet door, stare at it, and even once or twice reached out and touched it. I never played with it. Why? Because, quietly rebellious punk that I thought was, I knew my ass would be spanked, hard, if I was caught with it.
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