News for today's 2018

Why the world no longer wants to be like US

9:03 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="America's leading intellectual, Professor Noam Chomsky. (photo: unknown)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs10/011037-noam-chompsky-110613.jpg" title="America's leading intellectual, Professor Noam Chomsky. (photo: unknown)" width="400" /> America's leading intellectual, Professor Noam Chomsky. (photo: unknown)</div><div class="noslink"></div><div class="txtimg"><h1 class="txttitle"></h1><div class="txtauthor">By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet</div><div class="date">06 November 13</div><div class="date"><a href="http://www.readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org </a></div> <blockquote>Many countries in the world see the U.S. as the single greatest external threat to their societies.</blockquote> <img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-D.jpg" />uring the latest episode of the Washington farce that has astonished a bemused world, a Chinese commentator wrote that if the United States cannot be a responsible member of the world system, perhaps the world should become "de-Americanized" - and separate itself from the rogue state that is the reigning military power but is losing credibility in other domains. <div class="indent">The Washington debacle's immediate source was the sharp shift to the right among the political class. In the past, the U.S. has sometimes been described sardonically - but not inaccurately - as a one-party state: the business party, with two factions called Democrats and Republicans.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">That is no longer true. The U.S. is still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction: moderate Republicans, now called New Democrats (as the U.S. Congressional coalition styles itself).</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">There is still a Republican organization, but it long ago abandoned any pretense of being a normal parliamentary party. Conservative commentator Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute describes today's Republicans as "a radical insurgency - ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition": a serious danger to the society.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The party is in lock-step service to the very rich and the corporate sector. Since votes cannot be obtained on that platform, the party has been compelled to mobilize sectors of the society that are extremist by world standards. Crazy is the new norm among Tea Party members and a host of others beyond the mainstream.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The Republican establishment and its business sponsors had expected to use them as a battering ram in the neoliberal assault against the population - to privatize, to deregulate and to limit government, while retaining those parts that serve wealth and power, like the military.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The Republican establishment has had some success, but now finds that it can no longer control its base, much to its dismay. The impact on American society thus becomes even more severe. A case in point: the virulent reaction against the Affordable Care Act and the near-shutdown of the government.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The Chinese commentator's observation is not entirely novel. In 1999, political analyst Samuel P. Huntington warned that for much of the world, the U.S. is "becoming the rogue superpower," seen as "the single greatest external threat to their societies."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">A few months into the Bush term, Robert Jervis, president of the American Political Science Association, warned that "In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States." Both Huntington and Jervis warned that such a course is unwise. The consequences for the U.S. could be harmful.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the leading establishment journal, David Kaye reviews one aspect of Washington's departure from the world: rejection of multilateral treaties "as if it were sport."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">He explains that some treaties are rejected outright, as when the U.S. Senate "voted against the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012 and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1999."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Others are dismissed by inaction, including "such subjects as labor, economic and cultural rights, endangered species, pollution, armed conflict, peacekeeping, nuclear weapons, the law of the sea, and discrimination against women."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Rejection of international obligations "has grown so entrenched," Kaye writes, "that foreign governments no longer expect Washington's ratification or its full participation in the institutions treaties create. The world is moving on; laws get made elsewhere, with limited (if any) American involvement."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">While not new, the practice has indeed become more entrenched in recent years, along with quiet acceptance at home of the doctrine that the U.S. has every right to act as a rogue state.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">To take a typical example, a few weeks ago U.S. special operations forces snatched a suspect, Abu Anas al-Libi, from the streets of the Libyan capital Tripoli, bringing him to a naval vessel for interrogation without counsel or rights. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry informed the press that the actions are legal because they comply with American law, eliciting no particular comment.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Principles are valid only if they are universal. Reactions would be a bit different, needless to say, if Cuban special forces kidnapped the prominent terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in Miami, bringing him to Cuba for interrogation and trial in accordance with Cuban law.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Such actions are restricted to rogue states. More accurately, to the one rogue state that is powerful enough to act with impunity: in recent years, to carry out aggression at will, to terrorize large regions of the world with drone attacks, and much else.</div><div class="indent">And to defy the world in other ways, for example by persisting in its embargo against Cuba despite the long-term opposition of the entire world, apart from Israel, which voted with its protector when the United Nations again condemned the embargo (188-2) in October.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Whatever the world may think, U.S. actions are legitimate because we say so. The principle was enunciated by the eminent statesman Dean Acheson in 1962, when he instructed the American Society of International Law that no legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its "power, position, and prestige."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Cuba committed that crime when it beat back a U.S. invasion and then had the audacity to survive an assault designed to bring "the terrors of the earth" to Cuba, in the words of Kennedy adviser and historian Arthur Schlesinger.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">When the U.S. gained independence, it sought to join the international community of the day. That is why the Declaration of Independence opens by expressing concern for the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">A crucial element was evolution from a disorderly confederacy to a unified "treaty-worthy nation," in diplomatic historian Eliga H. Gould's phrase, that observed the conventions of the European order. By achieving this status, the new nation also gained the right to act as it wished internally.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">It could thus proceed to rid itself of the indigenous population and to expand slavery, an institution so "odious" that it could not be tolerated in England, as the distinguished jurist William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, ruled in 1772. Evolving English law was a factor impelling the slave-owning society to escape its reach.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Becoming a treaty-worthy nation thus conferred multiple advantages: foreign recognition, and the freedom to act at home without interference. Hegemonic power offers the opportunity to become a rogue state, freely defying international law and norms, while facing increased resistance abroad and contributing to its own decline through self-inflicted wounds.</div></div>

America's leading intellectual, Professor Noam Chomsky. (photo: unknown) By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet 06 November 13 readersupportednews.o...

There is nothing random about LAX shooting

12:41 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="Paul Ciancia (inset) is suspected of killing a TSA officer and wounding two other people at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday. (photo: NBC Los Angeles)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs10/011015-lax-shooter-110313.jpg" style="border: 0px none;" title="Paul Ciancia (inset) is suspected of killing a TSA officer and wounding two other people at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday. (photo: NBC Los Angeles)" width="400" /> Paul Ciancia (inset) is suspected of killing a TSA officer and wounding two other people at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday. (photo: NBC Los Angeles)</div> <div class="txtauthor"> </div><div class="txtauthor">By Charles Pierce, Esquire</div><div class="date">03 November 13</div><div class="date"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org</a> </div>  <img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-I.jpg" />t appears the TSA agent shot this morning four terminals over has died. That was the word carried by dozens of people who had decided to walk out of LAX in search of rental cars and whiskey, whose number I will be joining shortly. (One report has the shooter, in custody, as "a white man in a white shirt." Investigation is ongoing.)  Terminal 7 is gradually coming to life again; flights here will be delayed, but we are not a crime scene, so things likely will get back to normal by nightfall. There are bomb squads with dogs wandering about. The ticketing area is abuzz with low cellphone conversations reassuring loved ones that everything's okay, and that folks are likely going to be a little late going home. Every now and again, a person in a TSA uniform will wander by. They have the 1000-yard stare going. The shock waves are weaker, but you can still feel them moving through the place. A cop just ran by. Everybody turned and stared. <div class="indent">There already is some talk about this event being a "random" one. But it is not. These things are becoming as regular as rain, as predictable as the summer heat.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The only thing "random" about it is the shooter. He could be anyone, and that's the point. There are people who spend money making sure that he could be anyone, and there's nothing "random" about how they do that.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">There is nothing "random" about this country's ludicrous disinclination to regulate its firearms. There is nothing "random" about the millions of dollars that the NRA spends to convince people that they should have the right to carry their assault weapon anywhere they want to carry it, including into an airport terminal, if they so desire. There is nothing "random" about the politicians who truckle and bow to this lucrative monetization of bloody mayhem.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">These are all deliberate acts with predictable consequences. There is nothing "random" about how we have armed ourselves, and there is nothing "random" about the filigree of high-flown rhetoric with which we justify arming ourselves, and there is nothing "random" about how we learn nothing every time someone who could be anyone decides to exercise his Second Amendment rights by opening fire. There is nothing random about how we got where we are today, here in Terminal 7, where people have sought refuge from the bloodshed, four terminals over. There is nothing "random" at all.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">We have chosen insanity over reason. We have done it with our eyes open. It is time for me to walk out of the airport now.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">I am leaving behind a terrible event. But I am not leaving behind something accidental. I am leaving behind what America has determined must happen from time to time, if we are to be a free people. I am leaving behind what America has determined is part of the cost of being an American. I am leaving behind the blood that I am told I must accept as part of the price of being a member of a free society.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">I am leaving behind a place of death, and I am joining my fellow citizens, as we make an odd pilgrimage out of a place that is now another altar of the blood sacrifice that I am told we must make, regularly, in order to be truly free.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">I am a free citizen, I am told, of the Republic of Murder, my rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Moloch. I am leaving.</div>

HERITAGE NATIONAL NEWS PERSPECTIVE SIGN OF THE TIMES TRUTH WEIRD NEWS There is nothing random about LAX shooting

Paul Ciancia (inset) is suspected of killing a TSA officer and wounding two other people at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles Intern...

Tell AAMCO to stop backing Limbaugh

2:51 PM Tukiyooo 0

EDUCATION NATIONAL NEWS PERSPECTIVE TRUTH Tell AAMCO to stop backing Limbaugh

AAMCO is advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show. If you haven't already, please sign this. If you already have, please tweet, facebook...

Dear Republicans: Explain this, please

11:22 AM Tukiyooo 0

OK, my Republican friends, explain this one away if you can. In an article about House-Senate budget negotiations in today's (Oct. 31) Arizona Republic, Associated Press correspondent Andrew Taylor notes: "Democrats are eager to ease cuts to domestic programs like Head Start preschools, education grants to local schools, and infrastructure projects. "Republicans are especially worried about cuts to the Pentagon." Dear Republican friends: If you agree with the above, then you no longer need to ask me the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.  It's right there in black and white.   If you disagree, if this is not what you value, then what the hell are you doing voting Republican? Jim Keyworth Gazette Blog Editor To read the entire article, click on <a href="http://azcentral.com/">azcentral.com</a> To have the Republic delivered to your doorstep 7 days a week, call 1-800-332-6733.  Because the news doesn't just happen twice a week.

NATIONAL NEWS OPINION PERSPECTIVE Dear Republicans: Explain this, please

OK, my Republican friends, explain this one away if you can. In an article about House-Senate budget negotiations in today's (Oct. 31) A...

Tea Party has irreparably harmed our country

1:32 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Reuters)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs10/010864-bernie-sanders-101713.jpg" title="Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Reuters)" width="400" /> Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Reuters)</div> <div class="txtimg"> <div class="txtauthor"></div><div class="txtauthor">By Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator for Vermont</div> <div class="date">17 October 13</div><div class="date"><a href="http://www.readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org </a></div> <div class="editorcom"><img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/rsn_editorcomment_01.jpg" />Senator Sanders made these remarks prior to the deal that reopened the government. Since we may go down this same path in January, his words are anything but dated. SMG/RSN"</div> <img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-A.jpg" />s Vermont's senator, I intend to do everything I can to reopen the government as soon as possible and keep our country from defaulting, which could drive the global economy into economic turmoil,' Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Tuesday. 'My fear, however, is that no matter what happens in Congress in the next day or two, serious and long-lasting damage already has been done to our country by the right-wing extremists of the Tea Party.' <div class="indent">Sanders statement came as the government shutdown entered its third week on Tuesday and as a Thursday default deadline loomed unless Congress extends the Treasury Department's authority to pay bills.</div><div class="indent"> </div> <div class="indent">'What we have already witnessed is the hijacking of the democratic process by a few dozen extremists in the House who are actively trying to annul the results of the last election. This sets a terrible precedent for the legislative process and will likely be repeated year after year,' he said.</div><div class="indent"> </div> <div class="indent">'What we have already witnessed is the anxiety befalling over 1 million federal employees who are not receiving the paychecks they deserve. Having gone three years without a pay raise, they are now wondering how they will pay their mortgages, their student loans and take care of other basic needs. How many experienced and high-quality federal employees will we be losing as a result of this shutdown? What is the long-term damage to the functioning of the federal government?</div><div class="indent"> </div> <div class="indent">'What we have already witnessed is the fear of many of our most vulnerable citizens ' the elderly, the sick, veterans, the disabled, Head Start families ' that the payments and programs they depend upon may not be there when they need them. Their confidence in their own government to keep the promises and commitments made to them will be forever diminished.</div><div class="indent"> </div> <div class="indent">'What we have already witnessed is a blow to our position in the international community. In our foreign relations, we should not be surprised that the United States government is now the laughing stock of the world. Can we really be the 'strongest country on earth' when we shut down the government and do not pay our bills? The Chinese, our biggest creditor, are now openly talking about the need to 'de-Americanize' international affairs because of the constant brinksmanship by U.S. politicians over the possibility of a debt default.</div><div class="indent"> </div> <div class="indent">'The American people are better than this. They deserve a better government,' he said.</div></div>

NATIONAL NEWS OPINION PERSPECTIVE Tea Party has irreparably harmed our country

Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Reuters) By Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator for Vermont 17 October 13 readersupportednews.org Senator Sanders ma...

Boehner refuses to meet with AZ delegation

4:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<h2 class="entry-title"></h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cronkitenews.asu.edu/assets/images/13/10/22-boehner-pray-inside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="266" src="http://cronkitenews.asu.edu/assets/images/13/10/22-boehner-pray-inside.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>After being told they could not meet with House Speaker John Boehner, the group of 44 immigration reform advocates stood in line in the hallway outside his office and prayed – and vowed to continue doing so for a week or until they get a meeting. (Cronkite News Service photo by Pei Li) By PEI LICronkite News Service WASHINGTON – They rode for 43 hours in a bus from Phoenix, hoping to appeal to House Speaker John Boehner on immigration reform, but when they arrived at his office in Washington they were turned away. So the group of 44 Arizonans gathered in the hallway outside Boehner’s district office Tuesday, singing and praying and vowing to wait – for a week or for a meeting with the speaker, whichever comes first. “We are interested in any minute or moment of the day he has for us, even that’s five minutes, we would accept any time at all,” said Ian Danley, youth programs director of the Phoenix-based <a href="http://nmphx.com/">Neighborhood Ministries</a>. “We will wait until that happens,” said Danley, who led the group Tuesday. The group left Phoenix on Saturday and arrived in Washington on Monday, with “moms, dads, children, and a lot of people of faith, DREAMers and students,” said Reyna Montoya, one of the advocates. She said they came to ask Boehner “to give a vote on immigration reform.” The Senate in June passed a comprehensive <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113s744es/pdf/BILLS-113s744es.pdf">immigration reform bill</a> that includes new language on visas, tough new border security requirements as well as a potential pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in this country illegally. But that bill has stalled in the House, where Boehner has said he will not be rushed into considering the sweeping comprehensive Senate bill. Instead of putting the Senate bill on the floor, the House has instead considered a number of smaller measures, each of which includes part of the larger Senate package. House Democrats earlier this month tried to force the issue, introducing their own 1,100-page comprehensive immigration bill that mirrors the Senate measure – minus the tough border-security language. But that bill has yet to have a hearing, and a spokesman for Boehner said Tuesday that the speaker’s position has not changed. “The speaker remains committed to a step-by-step process to fix our broken immigration system,” said Michael Steel, the spokesman. The Arizona group had hoped to urge Boehner to allow a vote on any of the bills that included a pathway to citizenship. But they were greeted at his office Tuesday by an aide who offered to deliver their concerns, but who said the speaker’s schedule was full for the day and the office too small to accommodate the group. So the group prayed for about 20 minutes for Boehner to protect their families from deportation, before starting to sing and sway in the hallway. U.S. Capitol Police told them to keep it down and to stand along the side of the hallway, then watched as the group did just that. “We are coming with a lot of hope, with a lot of faith, we want him (Boehner) to know these families can’t wait any longer,” Montoya said. “We believe he as a man of God, as a Catholic, he can do the right thing for the nation.” Montoya called the trip a grass-roots effort, funded with $5 and $10 donations from friends and family and fueled with burritos made for the bus ride by their mothers. The group plans to sleep on the floor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church while in Washington. Among the advocates was Jesus Magana, an Air Force veteran who said the “same country that I served and risked my life for is the country that is tearing my family apart” – his sister is in the midst of deportation proceedings. “I really love the military, I love my country,” said Magana, who planned to serve “until they kick me out.” “But I found a bigger fight back home,” he said of his family’s situation. “There is a lot of people who would like to speak to Speaker Boehner, and tell their story,” Magana said Tuesday. “Even if it’s 30 seconds, we would take that.” But when Danley tried Boehner’s office door, he found it locked. “Nobody is letting us in,” he said. That did not deter members of the group like Montoya, who graduated last year from Arizona State University and said her father is now in deportation proceedings. “I am a woman of faith,” she said. “We will be here every day.” <div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;">  IMMIGRATION INUNDATION  </div> Advocates from Arizona said they don’t care which of the many immigration-reform bills currently before the House is voted on, as long as it includes a pathway to citizenship, like the Senate bill passed in June. The bills are:   Senate immigration bill: - S744: A comprehensive measure dealing with border security, worker visas, a pathway to citizenship and other measures. House immigration bills: - The Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement (SAFE) Act: Allows local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. - The Legal Workforce Act: Requires employers to use the E-verify system when hiring. - The Agricultural Guestworker Act: Establishes a temporary guestworker program for agriculture workers. - SKILLS Visa Act: Creates an immigration path for workers in science and engineering fields. - HR 15: Introduced this month by House Democrats, it mimics the Senate bill but strips out the tough border-security measures in that bill.

HERITAGE NATIONAL NEWS PERSPECTIVE STATE NEWS Boehner refuses to meet with AZ delegation

After being told they could not meet with House Speaker John Boehner, the group of 44 immigration reform advocates stood in line in the ha...

Racism, cruelty drive GOP health care agenda

11:15 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="Racism is fueling opposition to Obamacare. (photo: Jae C. Hong/AP)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs10/010798-racism-obamacare-100813.jpg" title="Racism is fueling opposition to Obamacare. (photo: Jae C. Hong/AP)" width="400" /> Racism is fueling opposition to Obamacare. (photo: Jae C. Hong/AP)</div><div class="noslink"></div><h1 class="txttitle"></h1><div class="txtauthor">By Robert Scheer, Truthdig</div><div class="date">08 October 13</div><div class="date"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org</a> </div> <div class="indent"><img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-B.jpg" />efore he was disgraced into resigning his presidency over the Watergate burglary scandal, Richard Nixon had successfully engineered an even more odious plot known as his Southern Strategy. The trick was devilishly simple: Appeal to the persistent racist inclination of Southern whites by abandoning the Republican Party's historic association with civil rights and demonizing the black victims of the South’s history of segregation.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">That same divisive strategy is at work in the Republican rejection of the Affordable Care Act. GOP governors are largely in control of the 26 states, including all but Arkansas in the South, that have refused to implement the act's provision for an expansion of Medicaid to cover the millions of American working poor who earn too much to qualify for the program now. A New York Times analysis of census data concludes that as a result of the Republican governors' resistance, "A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help. ..."</div><div class="indent"> </div>Why anyone who claims to be pro-life would want to deny health care to single mothers is an enduring mystery in the morally mischievous ethos of the Republican Party. But the exclusion of a working poor population that skews disproportionately black in the South is simply a continuation of the divide-and-conquer politics that have informed Republican strategy since Nixon. Before he was disgraced into resigning his presidency over the Watergate burglary scandal, Richard Nixon had successfully engineered an even more odious plot known as his Southern Strategy. The trick was devilishly simple: Appeal to the persistent racist inclination of Southern whites by abandoning the Republican Party’s historic association with civil rights and demonizing the black victims of the South’s history of segregation. That same divisive strategy is at work in the Republican rejection of the Affordable Care Act. GOP governors are largely in control of the 26 states, including all but Arkansas in the South, that have refused to implement the act’s provision for an expansion of Medicaid to cover the millions of American working poor who earn too much to qualify for the program now. A New York Times analysis of census data concludes that as a result of the Republican governors’ resistance, “A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help. ...” Why anyone who claims to be pro-life would want to deny health care to single mothers is an enduring mystery in the morally mischievous ethos of the Republican Party. But the exclusion of a working poor population that skews disproportionately black in the South is simply a continuation of the divide-and-conquer politics that have informed Republican strategy since Nixon. The game plan of gutting the Affordable Care Act despite its passage into law and before its positive outcomes are demonstrated can be traced to a “blueprint to defunding Obamacare” initialed by the GOP conservative leadership under the aegis of Heritage Action for America. Ironically that is the political front of the Heritage Foundation, the leading GOP think tank that is credited by some architects of Obamacare as the initial inspiration of their health care program. The difference is that whereas the Heritage Foundation was pushing a mild health care reform based on increased profit for private insurers, as in the plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts, the Republicans object to the provisions in this president’s program that broaden access for the needy. They were abetted in this decision by a Supreme Court ruling last year granting the states the option of not expanding Medicaid to cover the uninsured under the new act. As a consequence, 8 million of our fellow Americans with annual incomes of less than $19,530 for a family of three have been prevented from obtaining the health care coverage that we as a nation decided to grant them. It might seem odd for governors to reject a program to help those living in their state that is fully funded by the federal government for the first few years and then 90 percent covered by the feds thereafter. But turning down a federal program to aid your own state’s population makes perfect sense when connected with the racist appeal initiated by Nixon that has turned the once Democratic South into a rock solid Republican bastion. There are certainly many whites among the 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks and 253,000 nurses aides who the Times estimated will be denied needed health care in the states controlled by Republican governors who have decided to veto the most important provision of the Affordable Care Act.  In the end, this is a replay of the civil rights drama that gripped the nation more than half a century ago, but back then the Republican Party, following the enlightened leadership of Dwight Eisenhower, was on the humanitarian side of the equation. Now the elected leaders of a party that has been on the side of emancipation since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln acts to deny the basic human right to life-sustaining health care to the Southern progeny of slaves. As the Times study noted: “In all, 6 out of 10 blacks live in the states not expanding Medicaid. In Mississippi, 56 percent of all poor and uninsured adults are black, though they account for just 38 percent of the population.” But that also means that almost 44 percent of the poor and uninsured in Mississippi are white, and the gutting of this program that hurts them is evidence of the false consciousness that informs racist appeals. As the Times points out, someone, black or white, making $11,000 a year frying chicken in a convenience store falls into the gap of making too much to qualify for the state’s existing Medicaid program but not enough to be subsidized under the new health care plan as the state defines it. For those who lose out, there’s what the Republican die-hards call tough love. That’s not love. It’s hate.

HEALTH NATIONAL NEWS OPINION PERSPECTIVE Racism, cruelty drive GOP health care agenda

Racism is fueling opposition to Obamacare. (photo: Jae C. Hong/AP) By Robert Scheer, Truthdig 08 October 13 readersupportednews.org efore...

Why Ted Cruz is 'a laughingstock'

9:21 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="U.S. Sen. Harry Reid speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, 08/07/12. (photo: AP)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs7/7471-harry-reid-vegas-080712.jpg" style="border: 0px none;" title="U.S. Sen. Harry Reid speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, 08/07/12. (photo: AP)" width="400" /> U.S. Sen. Harry Reid speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, 08/07/12. (photo: AP)</div><div class="noslink"></div> <div class="txtauthor"> </div><div class="txtauthor">By Elias Isquith, Salon</div><div class="date">20 October 13</div><div class="date"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org</a> </div>  <blockquote>Senate majority leader goes off on Tea Party's favorite senator</blockquote> <img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-H.jpg" />arry Reid is certainly not the first politician to take a shot at Ted Cruz, but his attack might be the most personal. <div class="indent">"Ted Cruz, well, he proved he has a great fundraising operation," Reid dismissively told <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/harry-reid-vitter_n_4118512.html?utm_hp_ref=tw" target="_blank">the Huffington Post</a>. "But you don't have to have Harry Reid criticizing him. Republicans criticized him."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">"He is a laughingstock to everybody but him," Reid continued.</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">Reid was no less caustic when discussing Cruz's presidential ambitions, saying, "What has he accomplished other than raising some money for president? And if this man can get the nomination to be the Republican nominee for president, I pity the Republican Party."</div><div class="indent"> </div><div class="indent">The Senate majority leader then got even more personal in his attack, essentially accusing Cruz of overestimating his own intelligence:</div><blockquote>Ted Cruz is smart. He has always been able to talk down to people. He is now in the Senate. People are as smart as he is. He can't talk down to anyone anymore. But he has still not accepted that in his own head. He still thinks he's smarter than everybody else. He might be able to work a calculus problem better than I can. But he can't legislate better than I can.</blockquote>

NATIONAL NEWS OPINION PERSPECTIVE Why Ted Cruz is 'a laughingstock'

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, 08/07/12. (photo: AP) By Elias Isquith, Salon 20 October 13 ...