…for ripping off the USDA via abusing its public-subsidy program on his own farm.

He was ripping off the USDA, so Bush gave him a leadership position at the USDA? AND HE GOT CONFIRMED.

If there’s any demographic fact of the matter involved, it’s simply that the community, as a whole, has gotten older and less informed and the racist results of that reality blows any other demographic shift out of proportion. That poor community was easy fodder for assholes Dorr and his ilk, but ignorance is no excuse. There wasn’t anything for it, though. We had no roots to the community and simply left our starter house for a school district where all the woman are handsome, the kids are above average, buses run on time and the referendums always pass!

But, for people who do have roots in that community — and it was a fine community at one time — it is a sad, sad story and a sign of the times. Those days are gone like the lilacs on Hwy 100.

it’d be a little late…

Suzanne @ 126

I understand that, but it doesn’t change the fact that this strike has an imbalanced effect on the media. I’m just wondering whether it has anything to do with the studios’ intransigence.

sorry.. still hung up on the terminology in the post.. I guess it’s a Cali thing. Is a “levy” a bond issue? A property tax increase? A sales tax increase? A special assessment district? Are “anti-levy” people against the tax or against funding schools?

Yes, it’s an increase in the property tax, at least here. We’ve had a school levy on almost every ballot and they have almost always gotten voted down. You hear people muttering, “They’ll just waste the money. In my day all we needed was chalk, pen and paper. Pfft.”
This is Ohio. Fundamentalism plus job losses equals really bad times for schools.
This last time, a whole lot of my teen son’s teachers were RIF-ed. It was really bad.

I am a teacher in a public school. You may assume I support public education.

Didn’t Ron Paul attend public schools. Or am I wrong on this?

Certainly public High School. But he attended an Evangelical Episcopalian College, initially on his own dime (he delivered mail in the Public Mail Service)…though he was later offered a track scholarship. He went to Medical School at Duke University. I believe Duke receives a substantial amount of Federal money for its programs. Paul seems not to relate that the education he received is largely the result of public moneys generating vastly greater access to education for individuals in the US. Where education is entirely privatized education is available mainly for the rich, or those willing to undertake some specialized work (either as a religious acolyte, or in a vocational field). Paul’s own IMMIGRANT father only received an eighth-grade education.

Interesting side note…one of Paul’s sons is named RAND…after the author Ayn Rand.

Ummm … hold up a sec, y’all.

Isn’t this political speech?

And isn’t political speech the absolute core of what the First Amendment is supposed to protect?

And don’t progressives care about the First Amendment?

You can’t be for the First Amendment only when it protects the speech of people you agree with.

If you’re really for the First Amendment, you are for it when it protects the speech of despicable know-nothing assholes who lie out of both sides of their mouths 24/7.

The cure for bad speech is good speech.

This isn’t “bad speech”, it’s defamation, and defamation isn’t protected (that’s why we have libel law).

Orleans Parish really does not have a public school system since Katrina. It is all charter schools now, or private catholic or non-affilated schools.

Yup, and as Naomi Klein points out in The Shock Doctrine, that was done deliberately by BushCo. Common Ground is working to fix this, but they need help.

Isn’t this political speech?

And isn’t political speech the absolute core of what the First Amendment is supposed to protect?

And don’t progressives care about the First Amendment?

You can’t be for the First Amendment only when it protects the speech of people you agree with.

If you’re really for the First Amendment, you are for it when it protects the speech of despicable know-nothing assholes who lie out of both sides of their mouths 24/7.

The cure for bad speech is good speech.