Originally posted at YPP I haven’t had to write an essay examination question in about a year and a half. But I want to write one today. Nine percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country tonight. Who are they and why are they satisfied? Extra-credit: How will they affect the Presidential election? Continue reading
I hope everyone read the long article in the Times on Sunday about the history of the conflict leading up to the war in Georgia. It is worth understanding how this war began. But I especially hope strong partisans on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of that conflict read it. For I suspect that their initial reaction will be like mine: both sides are responsible for this mess and both ought to be acting a whole lot more sensibly. Its is hard not to sympathize with the Georgians with the Russian Bear next door, until you see what the Georgians have been doing to their minorities and how they are provoking the Russians. That’s more or less the way I look at the Israel-Paletinian conflict these days. I’m still a supporter of Israel’s right to exist. (And I wrote my first published article calling for a Palestinian state in… Continue reading
Published in the Morning Call, June 23, 2008 In 1965, Communist China was one of the poorest countries of the world. Chairman Mao Tse-Tung created a program—widely known as the Barefoot Doctors program—to provide health care for his impoverished people. The Barefoot Doctors, who had a minimal level of medical training, offered basic primary care to people for whom no other medical care was available. Continue reading
I’ve made it pretty clear I have no love for the Clintons. But she’s got to be / is going to be the Veep. 1. Barack needs to make sure that there is a gender gap that works in his favor. With Hillary’s help, he can do much better with white women which will give him enough of the white vote to win the election. 2. Hillary is the only Veep choice that brings him a candidate who can move the base and turn people out in droves to events and fundraisers. And Bill is pretty good at that as well. 3. Hillary clearly wants it, and actually does have something of a claim to it, given the race she has run. If she doesn’t get it, she could create problems. The disadvantage is figuring out what to do with Hillary and, even more with Bill, after January. Barack will… Continue reading
Originally bloggded at YPP under the name A Philly Progressive on May 21, 2008 I’ve not been fond of the Clintons for a long time. It goes back to a few days after the 1992 election when I heard Bill Clinton talking about his ambitious plans for health care and I turned to a friend and said, “I sure hope he knows now to count to sixty.” It took no special prescience to see the disaster of Clinton care coming. The program was formulated in secret with plenty of experts but few congressional allies. Those experts were more intent on creating a document to satisfy their fellow wonks than in developing a plan that might attract a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. No one was surprised that the Clintons lost both the Congress and the issue. Instead of using the failure of the Congress to address the major issue of… Continue reading
Evidently transparency only goes so far in the Nutter administration. It was widely reported that the budget plan adopted by Council retained the Cohen Wage Tax Rebate but delays implementation of the program for another year until 2014. Now it is itself is a bit of a farce to delay the beginning of the program until after the next election for Mayor or Council. Michael Nutter wouldn’t claim to be serving the interests of the business community by promising a big BPT cut in 2014 but doing nothing now. But now it seems that this farce is the least of our problems. Stan Shapiro recently sent an email that said It turns out that the Cohen rebate has actually been stunted, not just postponed. Under the law as it is now, the rate for low wage workers would go down to 1.5% no matter what, in yearly half percent increments… Continue reading
Some notes on the Presidential Race 1.Hillary is over and has been for at least a month. It is impossible for her to close the delegate gap. So, to win, super-delegates would have to decide to support her in one of two ways. They might, first, simply hand her the nomination against the will of the majority of the delegates. Or, second, they could change the rules in a way that gives Hillary the majority of regular delegates by, say, seating overwhelmingly pro-Clinton delegations from Michigan and Florida. The first path is manifestly undemocratic. The super-delegates might get away with this without too much complaint from the Obama supporters and the broader public if there were broad agreement that Obama is somehow too flawed to be President or far less likely to defeat McCain than Clinton. But, in the absence of an utterly unforeseeable event, that is just not going… Continue reading
When I worked for SEIU I was limited in what i could blog. So I wrote this under an assumed name for Young Philly Politics. Before citing it, please read the note at the end. You would think that, with the Nutter administration securing a substantial victory on tax policy, talk of the “job-killing business tax” would be on the decline. Continue reading
I think Larry Farnese’s victory is good for progressives. That’s true for three reasons. Continue reading
Yesterday, the State Department of General Services (DGS), which is building the Convention Center Expansion, ignored a ruling by the State Historical Commission, and started demolishing two historic buildings that stand in the path of the new building. This is doubly disappointing. It is important that we save these buildings. And the way in which the DGS, and our political leaders, are acting is truly despicable. Evidently it was too expensive to violate the trust of the people the way we usually do them in this state–which would have meant that the demolition would have started at 2 am. Instead, the state has acted at the next most nefarious time, when the holiday season is upon us and we were celebrating, among other things, a decision that we thought would protect these buildings. The whole story is below. Read it. And then email Governor Rendell and ask him to order… Continue reading