C.J. Werleman: The United States of America is Increasingly Looking Like a Failing Nation

The United States of America

C.J. Werleman's article in Alternet is linked below.

C.J. Werleman: America Failing

"America has become a RINO: rich in name only. By every measure, we look like a broken banana republic. Not a single U.S. city is included in the world’s top 10 most livable cities. Only one U.S. airport makes the list of the top 100 in the world. Our roads, schools and bridges are falling apart, and our trains—none of them high-speed—are running off their tracks. Our high school students are rated 30th in math, and some 30 countries have longer life expectancy and lower rates of infant mortality. The only things America is number one in these days are the number of incarcerated citizens per capita and adult onset diabetes.

Three decades of trickledown economics; the monopolization, privatization and deregulation of industry; and the destruction of labor protection has resulted in 50 million Americans living in abject poverty, while 400 individuals own more than one-half of the nation’s wealth."

---C.J. Werleman, Alternet 

Washington Post: Radical Tea Party Republican Congressman Steve Stockman to Run Against Incumbent Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn in a GOP Primary Challenge

The article in the Washington Post is linked below.

Washington Post: Radical Conservative Congressman Steve Stockman to Challenge Senator John Cornyn, a Fellow Republican

"In doing so, Stockman not only threw a wrench in Cornyn’s plans. He also intensified the broader GOP civil war that is vexing the lives of Republican senators like never before. Seven of the 12 up for reelection next year now face capable or potentially tough primary challengers, including the two top-ranking Republicans and a third who used to serve in leadership."

---Washington Post

Nikos Konstandaras of The New York Times: Greece and Its Looming Demographic Disaster

Greece

Nikos Konstandaras' article in The New York Times is linked below.

Nikos Konstandaras of The New York Times: The Looming Demographic Problem for Greece

"The Greeks are in a struggle for survival. And the odds are piling up against us. The fight is not only on the economic front, as we try to meet our commitments under an international 240-billion-euro bailout deal that has resulted in greatly reduced incomes, higher costs and taxes, and an overriding sense of insecurity. The danger is even more basic: Deaths are outnumbering births, people are leaving the country, and the population is aging so fast that in a few decades Greece may be unable to produce enough wealth to take care of its people and may cease to be a viable nation state."

---Nikos Konstandaras, The New York Times 

National Journal's Matt Berman: The Politics of Festivus, Feats of Symbolic Strength for the Airing of Grievances

Seinfeld's Frank Costanza (played by Jerry Stiller)

The Father of George Costanza and Festivus

The National Journal article is linked below.

National Journal: Festivus Gets Political

"The Wisconsin and Florida state capitols will both have Festivus poles on display this holiday season. In Wisconsin, a silver pole is already standing between two nativity scenes in the packed rotunda. A sign hangs on the pole promising an airing of the grievances on the 23rd, but no feats of strength 'due to liability issues.'"

---Matt Berman, National Journal 

Dave Zirin of Edge of Sports: Analysis of the Jameis Winston Situation

Dave Zirin's column at Edge of Sports is linked below.

Dave Zirin: The Jameis Winston Situation

"College football culture will place a black man on a pedestal as long as he can deliver bragging rights, championships, and millions of dollars in revenue to small-town colleges and universities. Off the football field, or after your playing career ends, good luck. If Florida’s system of criminal justice has sent any discernable message this past year, it is this: if you are an African American teenager, you want to be Jameis Winston, not Trayvon Martin."

---Dave Zirin, Edge of Sports 

The Florida State Seminoles and the Auburn Tigers Will Play for the BCS College Football National Championship

Coverage of the BCS Bowl picture is linked below.

Sports Illustrated: BCS Rankings, December 8, 2013

AL.com: The SEC Extends its Consecutive BCS Title Game Appearances to 8 Years, the State of Alabama to 5 Years

NBC Sports: Florida State vs. Auburn for the BCS Title Game

ESPN: Coverage of the 2013 BCS Bowl Picture

Jacob Helbrunn of The American Prospect: 2001 Article Chronicling the Role of U.S. Conservatives as Apologists for South Africa's Apartheid Regime

South Africa

Jacob Heilbrunn's 2001 article at The American Prospect is linked below.

Jacob Heilbrunn: American Conservative Apologists for White-Rule in South Africa

"Exposing the conservative crusade for South Africa is not a matter of engaging in retrospective moral condemnation. Conservatives were arguing against liberals who stated that it was imperative to isolate and condemn South Africa. Liberals correctly understood that ostracizing a white ruling class that posed as an avatar of Western civilization might sap its confidence and cause it to lose its putative moral edge. Perhaps most important, liberals grasped a fundamental moral truth: The struggle for liberty and justice in South Africa, as Robert Kinloch Massie shows in his magisterial new Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years, was a direct continuation of the American struggle for civil rights. Just as conservatives were on the side of repression in the American civil rights battle, so they joined ranks with the tyrants in South Africa."

---Jacob Heilbrunn, The American Prospect 

Igor Volsky and Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: From William F. Buckley to Jerry Falwell to Dick Cheney, a Timeline of U.S. Conservative Opposition to the Anti-Apartheid Cause of Nelson Mandela

President Ronald Reagan
and Conservative Author William F. Buckley

Igor Volsky and Zack Beauchamp's timeline at Think Progress is linked below.

Think Progess: Opposing Mandela's Cause, From Buckley to Reagan to Falwell to Cheney

"The world is celebrating Nelson Mandela as a selfless visionary who led his country out of the grips of apartheid into democracy and freedom. But some of the very people lavishing praise on South Africa’s first black president worked tirelessly to undermine his cause and portray the African National Congress he lead as pawns of the Soviet Union.

In fact, American conservatives have long been willing to overlook South Africa’s racist apartheid government in service of fighting communism abroad."

---Igor Volsky and Zack Beauchamp, Think Progress 

The American Conservative's Patrick J. Deneen: The Unwise Responses of the American Right to Pope Francis and Evangelii Gaudium

Pope Francis

Patrick J. Deneen's article at The American Conservative is linked below.

The American Conservative's Patrick J. Deneen: American Rightwingers and Pope Francis

"Since the release of Evangelii Gaudium there have been countless articles and commentary about the economic portions of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation. Some of the commentary has been downright bizarre, such as Rush Limbaugh denouncing the Pope as a Marxist, or Stuart Varney accusing Francis of being a neo-socialist. American conservatives grumbled but dutifully denounced a distorting media when Pope Francis seemed to go wobbly on homosexuality, but his criticisms of capitalism have crossed the line, and we now see the Pope being criticized and even denounced from nearly every rightward-leaning media pulpit in the land."

---Patrick J. Deneen, The American Conservative 

The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart: Though He Receives Bi-Partisan Praise in the U.S. Now, Nelson Mandela Was Once Disliked by Much of the American Right

Nelson Mandela
1918-2013

Peter Beinart's column at The Daily Beast is linked below.

The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart: Nelson Mandela Was Not Always Popular With the American Right

“In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of ‘terrorist groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail.  In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his ‘vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.’ As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.”

---Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast

Salon's Joan Walsh: American Rightwing Opposition to Nelson Mandela

Flag of the African National Congress,
South Africa's Current Ruling Party

Joan Walsh's article at Salon is linked below.

Salon's Joan Walsh: Much of the American Right Opposed Mandela

"Ronald Reagan made it a priority to fight domestic and international divestment efforts — efforts that, in the end, helped pressure the South African government to enter negotiations and free Nelson Mandela. Reagan vetoed an amazingly (if belatedly) bipartisan bill to impose tough sanctions on the apartheid regime. Of course then-congressman Dick Cheney had voted against the sanctions in 1986, and he defended his position while running for vice president in 2000, telling ABC: 'The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization … I don’t have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago.'"

---Joan Walsh, Salon 

Denver Nicks of Time: U.S. Unemployment Rate Down to 7 Percent

The article by Denver Nicks of Time is linked below.

Time: U.S. Unemployment Rate Has Fallen to 7 Percent

"November’s employment gains, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, beat Wall Street expectations. Four consecutive months of strong hiring have cut the unemployment rate to a 5-year low. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.3 percent to 7 percent."

---Denver Nicks, Time 

The New York Times: American Unemployment Rate is at its Lowest Point in Five Years

The New York Times article is linked below.

The New York Times: U.S. Unemployment Rate Down to its Lowest Point in Five Years

"While the 203,000 jump in payrolls in November was an improvement over the 158,000-a-month rate that prevailed in the summer, it is not much better than the 198,000 level in the first nine months of 2013."

---Nelson D. Schwartz, The New York Times 

Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013

Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013



December 5, 2013: At 95 years of age, South Africa's Nelson Mandela died. Nelson Mandela fought against the white-supremacist Apartheid regime in South Africa, ultimately 27 years of imprisonment at the hands of the white-controlled South African government. He was released in 1990. He became President of South Africa in 1994, serving one term in office.



Above: Nelson Mandela---Revolutionary and Statesman; Nelson Mandela walking free in 1990

Baldwin County High School Student Tributes to Nelson Mandela

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: Reductions in American Pregnancies and Abortions

Sarah Kliff's article in the Washington Post is linked below.

Washington Post's Sarah Kliff: Recent U.S. Trends in Pregnancies and Abortions

"The pregnancy rate for American women between 15 and 44 dropped 12 percent between 1990 and 2009, according to a new Center for Disease Control report out today on pregnancy and abortion. In 2009, there were 102.1 pregnancies per 1,000 women, a drop from 115.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1990."

---Sarah Kliff,  Washington Post 

Washington Post's Carol Morello: U.S. Pregnancy Rate is Down, Per Government Data Through 2009

The Washington Post article is linked below.

Washington Post: The American Pregnancy Rate is Down

"The report only examined the trajectory of pregnancy rates through 2009, stopping there because more recent data on abortions is not available yet. But newer statistics on birth rates suggest the decline is continuing, though not as quickly as it did in recent years when the recession accelerated trends well underway."

---Carol Morello, Washington Post 

The Raw Story's David Edwards: Rush Limbaugh Claims that Pope Francis is "Ripping America"

Rush Limbaugh

David Edwards' article at The Raw Story is linked below.

Raw Story: Limbaugh Unloads on Pope Francis, Claiming That the Pope is "Ripping America"

"This is the president citing the pope, his new best friend, because the pope is ripping America, the pope ripping capitalism…"

---Rush Limbaugh, Radio Show, December 4, 2013, Quoted by The Raw Story 

Benjamin H. Harris and Melissa S. Kearney of the Brookings Institution: Twelve Things Worth Knowing About the Lower End of the American Middle Class Demographic

The Brookings Institution article is linked below.

The Brookings Institution: 12 Things to Know About the Embattled Segments of the American Middle Class

"Compared to families living in poverty, families in the struggling lower-middle class are more likely to be headed by a married couple, to have a second adult worker, and to be headed by an individual with some college education. Those in the struggling lower-middle class still face many of the same challenges as those in poverty, however, including food insecurity and a reliance on government programs for income support."

---Benjamin H. Harris and Melissa S. Kearney, The Brookings Institution

Washington Post's Kathleen Parker: Conveying the Awful by the GOP

Kathleen Parker's column at the Washington Post is linked below.

Kathleen Parker: What the GOP Conveys is Awful

"Democrats have targeted the GOP’s soft spot, which is a hard line on social services. Thus, when Republicans want to drastically cut food stamps, it is a piece of cake (and not the moldy sort Marie Antoinette suggested the peasants eat) to designate conservatives as cruel and heartless.

When Republicans say the health-care plan is doomed, a train wreck, a disaster, etc. — and offer no hopeful options — they appear to be rooting only for failure."

---Kathleen Parker, Washington Post 

Politico's Stephanie Simon: Globally Speaking, Educational Mediocrity is the New Normal for American 15-Year-Olds

Stephanie Simon's article at Politico is linked below.

Politico: American 15-Year-Olds Nothing Special on World Stage

"Average American scores on PISA tests haven’t budged in a decade, despite bipartisan efforts to shake up the status quo through reforms such as mandating more frequent testing, publicizing student proficiency rates and opening public schools to competition from charter and private schools.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the U.S. performance 'a picture of educational stagnation.'"

---Stephanie Simon, Politico