Two books have been recently published which attempt to present an alternative perspective on the Reagan presidency. One, William Kleinecht's The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, is revisionist polemic and does more to enrage than enlighten. Will Bunch's Tear Down this Myth, however, is a fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase popular with right-wingers) look at the Reagan presidency. Far from polemic, and often complimentary to President Reagan, Bunch attempts to reveal the presidency of Ronald Reagan as it was experienced by those during the era. Many of the negative reviews appearing on Amazon are obviously written by those who didn't read the book. As I've said before, Amazon needs to look more carefully at reviews before publishing them. This is not a chat board.
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The "mosque" debate is not a "distraction" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views
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The toxic sentiments fueling Park51 opponents only grow, making the issue far from a "distraction"
The Moment When the Police Lost the Occupy Portland Narrative | Blogtown, PDX - 0 views
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Well, it turned. The police bureau is starting to crack after six weeks of Occupy Portland. And one picture, right here, crystallizes the precise moment when it happened. During a choreographed effort to pull a few dozen protesters out of the Chase bank branch outside Pioneer Square, part of today's hundreds-strong N17 day of action, Portland police officers resorted to a decidedly more muscular show of force in a clash watched by TV cameras and rush-hour commuters earlier this evening. Suddenly all the fun-the dance parties, the union songs, the peaceful arrests earlier on the Steel Bridge and at Wells Fargo-was for naught. Tromping in with mounted officers, they pushed marchers who had gathered on the sidewalks along SW Yamhill into the street-forcing them to block MAX trains, something no one was doing until the heavily armored riot squad showed up-and then poked and, for the first time, pepper-sprayed the marchers. Significantly, some of the spraying came after protesters had clearly retreated to the opposite sidewalk. (In another odd shift, there also was no federal-court-required verbal PA warning that chemical munitions would be deployed-a hallmark of every other mass police action to date.) Meanwhile, at almost the very same moment, Police Chief Mike Reese was on TV blaming Occupy Portland for his officers' inability to respond to a rape victim for three hours today. Consider that tantamount to a declaration of war. Reese's point? Officers are tired and have been too distracted to do their main jobs: responding to actual crimes. It was an attempt to spin sentiment against the movement, which seems to be attracting adherents. Even the O today said the movement is "building momentum" and said the average age of some 34 arrestees earlier today was 50-not a bunch of young, anarchists/punks/hoodlums/hippies/road warriors etc. But that might come back to haunt him, judging by a wave of outrage on Twitter and elsewhere among those who noted that it
Deficit Scare Talk Is a Big Scam by Corporations and Right-Wingers; The Problem Is Not ... - 0 views
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We have to drive the debate about our economic priorities and not get distracted by the opposition.
The misery of the protracted presidential campaign season - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views
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Nothing distracts the citizenry and distorts political reality like the spectacle of the race for the presidency
Amazon.com: Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and H... - 0 views
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But Reagan made mistakes which have been glossed over: including the stationing of Marines in Lebanon and providing aid to Saddam Hussein. The Iran-Contra scandal, which nearly sank his presidency, has been almost forgotten. And the spiraling deficits of the 1980s (repeated 20 years later) proved that the Laffer Curve, which was the cornerstone of Reaganomics, had no basis in actual fact.
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Bunch reminds us that Reagan was not particularly popular during most of his presidency, and that many Americans had good reason to wonder whether the country was in competent hands. Bunch runs over the Iran-Contra scandal, which came close to ending up in Reagan's impeachment. Far from being a thrifty government downsizer, he added $2 trillion to the national debt and grew the government. Bunch also reminds us that Reagan was the original "cut and run" artist, pulling US troops out of a failed mission in Lebanon within weeks after 241 Marines were killed there in a terrorist attack. We are reminded that Reagan's overtures to Iran to free hostages only resulted in more Americans being taken, and that his economic plans sowed the seeds of deregulation and greed that we are still reaping.
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McCain Bill Making Medicare Untouchable Via Reconciliation Contradicts His Record - Yah... - 0 views
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In a direct challenge to Democratic leadership, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced an amendment on Thursday night that would prohibit Congress from using reconciliation to make changes to Medicare. Framed as an effort to protect the sanctity of entitlement programs, McCain's measure would deprive Democrats of a stream of revenue for their health care bill. The party has targeted hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts and savings to the Medicare program that it would turn around and use to pay for other reforms. But for McCain to be the Republican face behind this effort is to distract, a bit, from its seriousness. The Senator has a fairly lengthy history of voting for reconciliation bills that do exactly what his current amendment prohibits: change Medicare. As pointed out by a Democratic source on the Hill, the Arizona Republican has voted for nine out of 13 reconciliation bills that have been offered during his time in the Senate. Of those nine, four included cuts to Medicare.
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Republican politicians in general, John McCain in particular - hypocrites of the highest degree. Yes, most politicians sooner or later, one time or another display hypocritical tendencies. However, Republicans and John have taken it to new heights.
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