Noam Chomsky On America’s Rightward Shift

Obama: “a centrist with some concern for liberal ideals and conceptions…but not much in the way of principle or commitment. In some ways, he’s pretty reactionary.” Zing.

Joseph Stiglitz On Failing Our Youth

But don’t believe him, he’s just a Nobel Prize winner. For his insights on what he deems “capitalist fools,” check out his piece in Vanity Fair.

Florida’s Failed Experiment

The Article: What’s It Like to Wake Up From a Tea Party Binge? Just Ask Florida! by Stepanie Mencimer in Mother Jones.

The Text: The really desperate come early. George Bishop, 61, a lanky, gray-haired cabinet builder in a tropical shirt, has a red, swollen nose from a boil caused by his third sinus infection in the past five months. Diana Rios, 54, cheerful despite the arthritis pain in her back and knees, holds on tight to her purse and to her seven-year-old granddaughter and translator, Sofia. Lindsay Oliver, 28, is here because of hypothyroidism, Sjögren’s syndrome (an autoimmune disorder), anemia, chronic hives—and no insurance.

By 4 p.m. on a rainy winter afternoon, they are part of a small crowd assembled on a grassy field behind a chain-link fence outside the Palmer Feed Store in Orlando, Florida. Across the street is the county medical building, where volunteer doctors affiliated with the nonprofit group Shepherd’s Hope [1] see uninsured patients on weekday nights. The clinic doesn’t start until 6, but it’s a first-come, first-served operation, and demand is high.

At 4:30, a security guard opens the doors to let the patients in out of the drizzle. Dozens of them soon fill rows of metal chairs in the lobby. They are anxious and ailing, but also chatty as they munch on the cookies offered up by the volunteer clinic manager. Many have multiple medical issues going wholly or partly untreated. Rios is here for “private” problems as well as back pain, arthritis in her knees, and bursitis in her shoulder that forced her to quit working in September when she could no longer lift the trays she helped prepare for an airline food company. As Sofia translates, Rios explains that she has been in Florida for 16 years but has never had health insurance. She ended up in the emergency room recently after she fell on her arm and was so immobilized that she couldn’t brush her teeth.

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An Atheist Bitchslap

It’s a shame the clip ended where it did, because I’d really like to see how the others in the panel tried to recover from such a stinging blow.

Modern Conservative Values

What happened to compassionate conservative? Thanks to the sequester, as The Washington Post points out, the same groups the GOP uses as props for their causes are the same ones who will be hurt most.