Campus Protests Should Remind Us All of College's Value
The cost of college should never discourage anyone from going after a valuable degree. And helping America's students pursue their education should always trump bankers in pursuit of profits.
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Like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th, the public option rose from the grave this week (instead of slashing teenage victims, it would slash health care costs). With zero input from the White House, 41 Senators have agreed to support a public option via reconciliation. Ryan Grim lays out how that can easily become 50 -- and Dick Durbin has promised to "aggressively whip" a health care bill that includes a public option. But Nancy Pelosi won't include it in the reconciliation package. Why? She claims it's because the Senate doesn't "have the votes" -- which could also be said about the House passing the Senate bill (Stupak, anyone?). So the Senate blames the House, the House blames the Senate, the White House acts as if it doesn't have a say in the matter, and the insurance companies -- lacking real competition -- keep laughing all the way to the bank.
The cost of college should never discourage anyone from going after a valuable degree. And helping America's students pursue their education should always trump bankers in pursuit of profits.
On the Chris Matthews Show, while talking about Obama and health care, I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Texas. I'm sorry people took offense.
Just how many remarkably talented people work in the movie business was never more vivid to me than last night while hosting the show. Here are some of the things I will remember about last night's Oscars.
Undercover Boss is the kind of popular entertainment that can start out as one thing but morph into something that turns a spotlight on just how out of touch America's corporate chiefs are.
Last week, President Obama defended the firing of every single teacher in a struggling high school in Rhode Island. Yes, America has found a new boogeyman to blame for our crumbling educational system.
Why would Senator Shelby oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and fight against the interests of the people of Alabama? Simple. Cause the banks and credit card companies give him a ton of cash.
Sharing stories of women's achievements today is an amazing way to honor and pay tribute to the incredible women who have inspired us to be the people we are.
I've introduced H.R. 4789, the Public Option Act. This simple four-page bill lets any American buy into Medicare at cost. You want it, you pay for it, you're in. It adds nothing to the deficit; you pay what it costs.
Wasting his opportunity to tell the truth, Karl Rove offers absolutely nothing new in his book, and his selective use of facts and quotes is a transparent effort to continue his long campaign to confuse people.
It's resoundingly clear in that a plant-based diet is both preventative and healing, whereas a diet high in animal protein is destructive to our health. High protein diets not only makes us sick, but also fat.
Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question: how much excess profit does corporate America really need?
We need a simple speech and a direct speech -- most of all a political speech -- about what exactly happened to our financial system. Thursday, hopefully, we should finally get the speech.
My car and I have such little chemistry that I don't recognize it in a parking lot, or when it's presented to me by a valet. "Madame, your car," they call out, and I look around to see the nerd they must be talking to.
The Obama administration and the Democrats crossed a line and touched a nerve in America's body politic. We sense our fundamental freedom endangered.
Obama called for innovation and that's what it will take to fix this broken system, so where are the big new ideas about building a financial sector that can support real job and wealth creation rather than the phantom growth?
Lehman was so rotten at the top, so corrupt, so unwilling to tolerate dissension, and Dick Fuld and Joe Gregory so obsessed with clinging to their seats, that eventually, housing bubble or not, it would have failed.
Dr. Poul Thorsen, a key figure behind claims disputing the link between vaccines and autism, has disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of millions in taxpayer dollars.
The fact that Wal-Mart is carrying this movie is proof that Corporate America is so secure in its position as the ruler of our country that they can sell a movie that attacks them because it poses absolutely no threat to them.
The Republicans' embrace of Massa is a prime example of Obama Derangement Syndrome, which expresses itself in hating anything that the president likes, even if you once loved it, like a bipartisan commission on the deficit.
Having inflicted enormous damage on tens of millions of families who have lost their jobs, their homes and/or their life's savings, it would be nice if Rubin could have the decency to fade from the public scene.
The team of Martin and Baldwin (or Baldwin and Martin) ran the show with real authority, while brilliantly playing morons in authority, giving a demonstration in the lost art of emceeing.
Volcker is no radical. He is the former Fed chairman. He has a tightwad's view of monetary policy, even in a severe recession. But he has been around long enough to know that Wall Street speculators are capable of terrible mischief when regulations are dismantled. If Obama is serious about financial reform, he needs to fight for it -- against corporate Democrats as well as Republicans, and against his chums on Wall Street. Paul Volcker deserves better than intermittent gestures. So do the American people.
