Study Confirms US Is Ruled by Rich, Corporate News Ignores It

Study Confirms US Is Ruled by Rich, Corporate News Ignores It

American democracy is no longer very democratic, according to a new university study (4/9/14; Perspectives on Politics, Fall/14). Instead, it's dominated by moneyed elites in a process where public opinion has little to no impact on policy. Released a month ago by Princeton's Martin Gilens and Northwestern's Benjamin I. Page, the study concludes:

Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

How Jerry Brown Got Californians to Raise Their Taxes and Save Their State | The Nation

How Jerry Brown Got Californians to Raise Their Taxes and Save Their State | The Nation

Dems Should Appoint Alan Grayson To Benghazi Panel

Dems Should Appoint Alan Grayson To Benghazi Panel

Obama, the feckless tyrant

article: But the condemnation continues, unrestrained by consistency. The conservative commentariat has turned on a dime from talk of “King Obama” to worry about the “price of weakness” and the president’s missing “backbone.”
A month ago, the Heritage Foundation president, former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), called Obama a “playground bully” and an “imperial president.” Now DeMint accuses him of making “weak statements” that will “only invite aggression.”
Six weeks ago, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a Senate candidate, posted a photo of Obama on Facebook with the messages “Stop the imperial president” and “Stop the Obama power grab.” Now Cotton has issued a statement accusing the president of “trembling inaction.”
Grabbing power with trembling inaction? Only the most diffident of despots could pull that off.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-the-feckless-tyrant/2014/03/03/73470bdc-a320-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html

Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi

There were more than enough opportunities to lay blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials’ feet. But unlike today’s Congress, congressmen did not talk of impeaching Ronald Reagan, who was then President, nor were any subpoenas sent to cabinet members. This was true even though then, as now, the opposition party controlled the majority in the House. Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like today’s opposition leaders in the House, demanded an investigation—but a real one, and only one. Instead of playing it for political points, a House committee undertook a serious investigation into what went wrong at the barracks in Beirut. Two months later, it issued a report finding “very serious errors in judgment” by officers on the ground, as well as responsibility up through the military chain of command, and called for better security measures against terrorism in U.S. government installations throughout the world.

In other words, Congress actually undertook a useful investigation and made helpful recommendations. The report’s findings, by the way, were bipartisan. (The Pentagon, too, launched an investigation, issuing a report that was widely accepted by both parties.)



http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/05/ronald-reagans-benghazi.html

THE VOICE ITALY 16-4-2014 "GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN" | SUOR CRISTINA ...

Under the Influence | Boston Review

Under the Influence | Boston Review

Democracy requires that all citizens—rich and poor alike—have influence over the policies their government adopts. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect everyone to have equal sway. Citizens differ not only in economic resources but also in time, knowledge, and interest in social and political affairs. Still, when influence becomes too skewed toward the affluent, when political power becomes too concentrated in the hands of a few, democracy itself is threatened.