teacherken at Daily Kos:
Torture and the Harvard Man
A parent's response to Arne Duncan
What if . . . . .
mark as read
is the title of an op ed that appeared in yesterday's Harvard Crimson and which I read, and you can read, at Reader Supported News. The author, Glenn L. Carle, is a Harvard graduate who spent 23 years in the CIA, and wrote about his experience in a book titled Te Interrogrator. He write bluntly Torture does not work and provides virtually no useful intelligence. I was involved in the enhanced interrogation program and served as a senior officer responsible for terrorist reporting. The foundation of my understanding, however, came not from my government training but from the lecture halls of
who in continuing to attack those who oppose Common Core told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” (the above quoted from this post at Valerie Strauss's Answer Sheet Blog) The following appeared on the Facebook page of Gretchen Moran Laskas, whose son attends school in Fairfax County VA, and is crossposted here
What if we stopped one day, looked at all the work we had done to try to make the world a better place than we found it, and instead realized despite all of our efforts, we had failed? What if we supported political candidates, helped to get them into office, only to find many of them, far too many of them, coopted by the perquisites of office, concern for reelection, or wanting to be "players" and abandoned what we thought they had promised us? What if we devoted our energy and our time and our passion to trying to make the government more responsive to we the people and less respon
YESTERDAY
words from Charles M. Blow on healthcare
from a column titled ‘Trouble Don’t Last Always’ which focuses on problems with the rollout of the affordable care act. I am going to quote some statistics he took from Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries, which appeared at PBS in October of 2012, as well as one additional paragraph of text. Before quoting from the report, Blow notes Right now, we spend more than any other c
NY TIMES: Democracy Returns to the Senate
For five years, Senate Republicans have refused to allow confirmation votes on dozens of perfectly qualified candidates nominated by President Obama for government positions. They tried to nullify entire federal agencies by denying them leaders. They abused Senate rules past the point of tolerance or responsibility. And so they were left enraged and threatening revenge on Thursday when a majority
NOV 21
"It was time to push the button."
That is the final paragraph of Democrats were forced to go ‘nuclear’ at last, the column for tomorrow's Washngton Post by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson. It is thorough, and every assertion Robinson makes is back up with hyperlinks to support his argument. Or perhaps you might prefer his equally short first paragraph: Way to nuke ’em, Harry. Which is followed by these two paragra
young people & dismal future for Republicans
Bear with me for this. Last night I had occasion to attend a fundraiser for a PAC for an important Democrat. When this Democrat was running for the office currently held, s/he drew the line against marriage equality. S/he had already supported civil unions and legal rights, but was uncomfortable with going further. Yet in the past year s/he has moved to fully support marriage equality. I asked
NOV 19
Remember 150 years ago today
these words were spoken: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to de
Some astute words from Eugene Robinson
from a column titled Eugene Robinson Opinion Writer Cheney sisters, separated over gay marriage. I am less concerned about the specifics of what he has to say about the relationship in particular as I am in how he uses it as a paradigm for the Republican party and the challenge it currently faces. You will want to read the entire piece, including his praise for and deconstruction of Heather Poe's
NOV 15
Leaves at Day 30 - bloodwork now normal
and as a result her transplant procedure is now complete. She will have one more appointment with the transplant practice at Day 100 early next year, but she has no further medical restrictions at this time. She has come a long way since her cancer was first discovered on January 27. She is not cured, because this kind of blood cancer remains in the body, but she is in full remission, and now med
