education

Marjorie Taylor Greene Promotes FDR, LBJ, Biden, Totally Unaware Of What She Is Doing!

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Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene went on a rant at a right wing conference, making a total fool of herself, which she does on a regular basis!

She spoke about the “horrendous” actions of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society, and Joe Biden and “Build Back Better”, all three Democratic Presidents!

She compared Biden to FDR and LBJ, which is an endorsement of three Presidents who have done so much positive in domestic affairs, but she made it clear how terrrible it was that the nation has Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, labor unions, environmental laws, education, urban and rural poverty, infrastructure investments, and other so called “socialist” programs that make life better for Americans!

Biden and the Democrats are using what Greene said to tout their own accomplishments, and are proud to be connected to LBJ and FDR, as any sane person would be!

Celebration Of Journalism At White House Correspondents’ Dinner!

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Last night, for the first time since 2016, the profession of journalism was celebrated at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington DC.

The years in between had included Donald Trump boycotting the event, and then the COVID 19 Pandemic made such events not possible for a few years.

President Joe Biden saluted the importance of the profession of journalism, which has been under vicious attacks by the extremist right wing Republican party elements, led by Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and a multitude of other authoritarian leaders, with only a small percentage resisting such condemnation of the truth of events.

Journalism is what keeps a nation free and informed, and it is the job of journalism to expose facts, truth, reality, no matter what or who it exposes to the light of day!

Journalism and journalists are under constant attack, and in many nations, including the Russian Federation, Iran, mainland China, North Korea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and a multitude of other nations that attack democracy, journalists are arrested, tortured, and murdered.

These journalists are true heroes, and America must not allow the forces of evil in this nation to destroy the First Amendment, and suppress the reality of the attack on women’s rights, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, gun regulations, voting rights, education, environmental advancement, and so much more!

Nine Months Of President Joe Biden: Realism Sets In With Major Challenges Domestic And Foreign

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Today marks nine months of the Joe Biden Presidency.

This is a crucial time for Biden and the nation, as his public opinion ratings have declined, due to the constant controversy over the COVID 19 Pandemic mandates on masks and vaccinations, bitterly opposed by the right wing channels, including Fox News Channel, One America News Network (OANN), and Newsmax TV, as well as the vast number of Republican governors and members of Congress.

But also, the economic outlook is uncertain, as inflation rages, and many people are staying out of the work force, as we are seeing a massive change in the outlook of Americans toward the kind of work they have done, and wish to do in the future.

The constant debate over the social infrastructure bill is also a burden for Biden, as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and a few House Democrats are forcing a major cut in the proposed spending from $3.5 trillion to about half that amount, causing a scale back in the proposed legislation on education, health care, and most particularly on climate change actions.

Foreign policy also presents major challenges in many areas, and is always unpredictable, but the growing threat of China, international terrorism and natural disasters omnipresent, Russia, North Korea, and many other issues are always on the front burner in the White House!

At this point, an objective observer would likely give Biden a B Minus, but with hope that it may rise to B Plus or A Minus grade by the end of the year, but sadly, if the major goals are not accomplished, and if voting rights legislation and criminal justice reform are not attainable, it could go down to the C range in judgment by experts and general public opinion!

Joe Biden Explains The Absolute Truth About The Now Ended Afghanistan War!

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President Joe Biden, a very decent, humane, empathetic, compassionate man, told us yesterday in his speech to the nation the absolute truth about the end of the Afghanistan War, our longest war at 20 years.

Biden made clear we had lost 2,461 men and women, including 13 last Thursday; 20,561 wounded with many still disabled by physical injuries, and untold others by emotional and mental injuries; and had spent $2.3 trillion over 20 years, about $300 million for every day of the past 7,300 days since the war began. Also, 18 veterans a day on the average commit suicide, many of them due to their involvement in Afghanistan, or the even more heinous Iraq War!

We had two generations killed and wounded, and the money spent on the war could have been utilized to deal with poverty, discrimination, health care, education, infrastructure, the environment, and so much else.

So we need to spend $700 billion a year on defense spending?

Do we need to spend on all kinds of weapons that enrich politicians through bribes paid to promote production of them as part of the defense budget annually?

Do we need to have more than 800 military and naval bases in dozens of nations around the world, and lots of corruption going on in the process?

And of course, many wealthy industrialists and others became super wealthy and benefited financially from the war, most noticeably former Vice President Dick Cheney, who had connections with the corrupt organization, Halliburton, so no wonder that his daughter, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, would be super critical of the war that benefits her and her family members. And these are people who resist the thought of any payment of taxes personally or through their corporations, despite the massive tax cuts under George W. Bush and Donald Trump!

Joe Biden And Infrastructure: Showing Proof Of Bipartisanship, But Also “Reconciliation” Tactic Being Used

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This is a defining moment on the issue of infrastructure, as it appears that enough Republican Senators have agreed to back a $1 trillion plan on roads, bridges, railways, and broadband.

Clearly, the disaster in Surfside, Florida, where a condominium building collapsed, causing a major loss of life, and demonstrating the danger of global warming on buildings near waterways and coast lines, makes infrastructure projects, long needed, an urgent matter.

But additionally, there is a need for spending on “human infrastructure”, including child care, education, and health care, part of Joe Biden’s American Families Plan, which few if any Republicans will support.

So clearly Budget “Reconciliation”, where the 50 Democratic Senators plus Vice President Kamala Harris together will be enough to pass such larger spending priorities.

Certainly, the bipartisan deal is essential, but the Human “Infrastructure” in some form of legislation, is essential.

Political maneuvering and some compromises will be unavoidable to keep all Democrats in support of the broader legislation in some form.

Joe Biden Becomes Third President (After Ulysses S. Grant And Lyndon B. Johnson) To Emphasize Racial Equity In First Months Of His Presidency

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President Joe Biden has made racial equity a landmark moment of his Presidency from the beginning, and already is perceived as being the third President to make civil rights a major goal immediately upon taking the oath.

The first President to do this was Ulysses S. Grant in 1869, promoting the concept of the 15th Amendment, granting the right to vote to African American men, and being added to the Constitution in 1870.

Also, Grant promoted better treatment of Native Americans in his Inaugural week, and is seen as the most tolerant and open minded on that issue of any President in the post Civil War years.

The second President to make civil rights a key issue immediately was Lyndon B. Johnson upon becoming President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Johnson made the push for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which had been floundering in Congress after it was introduced by Kennedy in the summer of 1963. And Johnson went on to promote also the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as the 15th Amendment had been denied for many decades in the Southern states, as Jim Crow segregation reigned.

And now, Joe Biden is pushing and promoting action, as a result of the well known discrimination in criminal justice; and in dealing with the endemic poverty in minority communities; the lack of adequate health care including in the COVID 19 Pandemic; problems of education and work opportunities and housing that persist; the need to clean the environment where often there is massive pollution in areas ignored before now; and also the difficulties faced by women, transgender citizens, the gay community, and the disabled. The purpose is to get rid of systemic discrimination against all the above groups.

One can hope that major progress on these areas of policy can be accomplished!

Demographic Changes Dooming The Republican Party Future

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The Republican Party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight Presidential elections, ever since 1992, except for 2004.

The suburbs, and particularly suburban women, are leaving the Republican Party in droves, and racial minorities are increasing rapidly as part of the voting population, despite attempts to suppress it.

At the rate the situation is changing, once Texas goes to the Democrats in the race for the White House, likely in 2024, but certainly in 2028, the Republican Party will never be able to win the Presidency again without changing their views.

The Republican Party must stop its anti immigrant and racist and misogynist policies, as white male America, much of it rural in nature and non college educated, is not the future of the nation.

So demography, along with education affecting the future, rapidly changing before our eyes, America will never be what it was a half century or more ago!

Anti Intellectualism Run Rampant: The War On Knowledge, Education, Facts, Science, History

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America is in a crisis of anti intellectualism run rampant, and it is undermining the nation in the present and the future!

There is a war on knowledge, education, facts, science and history.

Ignorant people, led by the President of the United States, are telling us we do not need any of these basic parts of a decent society.

This, if not overcome, will lead to the deterioration and decline of the country, to the detriment of all of us.

Just because many Americans do not move on in education beyond high school does not mean it is a virtue.

The saying “Ignorance is bliss” is NOT true!

Trump Declares War On Federal Government, Wishes To Return to Pre Pendleton Act Spoils System

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Donald Trump has set out to declare war on the federal government bureaucracy, wishing to return to the pre Pendleton Act Spoils System, that reigned from the time of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s to the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 under President Chester Alan Arthur.

Arthur, a Republican who succeeded the assassinated James A. Garfield, who had been murdered by a crazed office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau in 1881, made civil service reform his major accomplishment in his three and a half years in the Presidency.

The federal bureaucracy is certainly not perfect by any means, but at least it requires qualifications and the passage of examinations, rather than just political connections, to gain a federal government position.

Most federal bureaucrats are highly qualified and dedicated, but Donald Trump wants political hacks to operate federal government agencies, and to ruin union and labor rights of federal government workers, thereby returning America to the Gilded Age mentality that reigned 135 years ago.

Donald Trump will eventually leave office by hook or by crook, but the damage he is doing is detrimental to the long term stability and health of all federal government agencies, and will make many young people unwilling to consider federal government careers.

Every government agency from the State Department and diplomatic corps, through those agencies that deal with human needs, such as education, healthcare, housing, and also those which deal with the environment, the economy, defense and so many other crucial areas of government, will now become sewers run by incompetent, corrupt, and uncaring political crooks.

The state governments are already becoming worse operated than ever, and now the Republican Party is, in league with Donald Trump, conspiring against the American future in the name of the selfish interests of the wealthy and privileged.

The needs of the vast percentage of Americans who are not wealthy and privileged will be made much more difficult, and with the growing percentage of Americans who are not white, being governed by a white supremacy mentality of the federal government and the Republican Party, the seeds for future civil war and violence is growing. This endangers the civil order and undermines the great progress made over the past century plus by Presidents and Congresses of both political parties.

So the deleterious effects of Donald Trump are multiplying like cancer, and there is no sign of being able to stop this growing damage to the American Republic.

Trump Proposal To Eliminate Corporation For Public Broadcasting (PBS And NPR) Must Be Prevented, Best Bargain In Government

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The total federal government cost for PBS and NPR (Corporation For Public Broadcasting) in the present budget is $495 million, a half billion dollars to promote education, knowledge, public affairs, history, science, culture on television and radio.

Formed in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, PBS and NPR have done great work and deeds for more than a half century.

How much tens of millions of Americans have gained from both PBS and NPR is incalculable.

It only costs $1.65 per person in the federal budget, with both PBS and NPR also asking for and gaining private contributions from millions of Americans, who appreciate the good work it does.

Considering so much wasted money that is spent by the federal government, this half billion dollars is a pittance, well spent and worth sustaining.

It is all part of a plan of conservatives, Republicans, and Donald Trump to promote ignorance, and discourage education, as ignorant people can more easily be controlled.

This is a battle worth fighting, and hopefully, both these valuable contributions to public discourse will be protected, along with the National Endowment For The Arts and the National Endowment For The Humanities, which promotes the arts and humanities in higher education.