8) Changes to the current tax structure incrementally by increasing the marginal rate each year for nine years at 1% for those with income of 500K and more; and ½ % for income of 200K and ¾ % for 300- 499K. Elaborate 8: For twenty years the wealthy in the nation have experienced the most sustained windfall of huge tax give-away and “trickle down” nonsense not seen since the end of the Hoover era. It is time for these people to begin to pay back the billions pocketed to forge unh...

12)Details on a time table for withdrawal from Iraq. 13)Details on what still has to be done in Afghanistan, 14)Proposal for a prestigious figure, such as Carter or the first Bush, as ambassador to the UN to emphasize a new aggressive diplomacy world-wide. 15)Stiff penalties on businesses that out source and awards for corporations that don’t. Elaborate 12: Unlike the Kucinich approach, the US cannot simply cut and run once the UN takes control of peace-keepi...

Elaborate 5: 5) Immediate free and total health care, including at home, for patients who have been victimized by malpractice adjudicated by a panel of legal, medical, and consumer experts. Clear and egregious offenders, physicians and hospitals, shall be suspended from practice, pending corrective investigation and measures. If death is a result of malpractice, survivors are entitled to compensation, though less, similar to the families of the 9/11 tragedy. Malpractice lawsuits shall be t...

Some crucial items on the political campaign agenda should cover: 16) Raise the minimum wage rate one dollar each year for the next three years and legislate cost of living index thereafter. 17) Fund a public education overseas TV channel in foreign languages giving an objective account of democracy at work. 18) Develop a peace project for the western hemisphere stressing the need to replace dictatorships and oppression with democratic objectives. 19) Assist in mor...

Some crucial items on the political campaign agenda should cover: 1) A voluntary civilian defense corps made up of primarily school drop-outs, and high school students not college-bound and senior citizens for nominal stipend; this corps would be organized and supervised by local enforcement agencies and paid for by Homeland Security. 2) Incentives should target the national guard to recruit more for the express purpose of border patrol. 3) Appropriations should be increa...

  “Since 1932" [Hoover’s last year] “we have not had a president who has been more closely allied with business and more sympathetic to large and powerful corprporations.” says historian Alan Brinkley, specializing in the American Presidency. Edsall of the “Washington Post” highlights Bush’s immigration proposal as enlarging the pool of workers to perform the “dirtiest and most dangerous tasks for low pay.” This initiative, not surprisingly is backed by what is called The Essential W...

During these primaries the exchange has been more about the economy than the war. The bleak picture the Democratic candidates paint is echoed by many of the Democratic faithful who feel for those affected by job loss and outsourcing. To the Republican faithful, however, this scenario flies in the face of a stock market rebounding that is attributed to the tax cuts. Most Republicans voters are of the unscathed middle class and higher and don’t care about factory-shut downs or the exodus of job...

The old cry that communism equally degrades everyone to little above serfdom could conceivably be apropos to the current economic strategy of corporations in search of minimal labor costs abroad. Conservatives and Clinton Democrats as well argue that it is logical to continue relentlessly free trade since they claim it creates jobs here, too. What they don’t tell you is what kind of jobs are created here. Free trade generates flea markets, dollar store, auto foreign parts outlets, Wal-Marts an...

In the nation’s quest to leave no child behind, the politicians are admitting that indeed there are children left behind. In the spirit of the land of opportunity, the nation is ostensibly bent on bringing up to par the nation’s children by impossible tests that have nothing to do with the reality — a term more than ever blurred by “reality” TV — which everyone knows has to do with the child’s home environment, the child’s DNA, the schooling of the parents, the disrepair of the school attended, ...

“We follow too easily, question authority too little. We cannot allow ourselves to go abroad again with guns. I do not trust our society enough to hold back.” No, this is not a protester of the war, or Howard Dean. Still, it would serve us well to heed these words in light of the cacophony of disinformation filling the foul atmosphere of our foreign policy, regardless of its quasi-humanitarian efforts to sanitize parts of the world of their totalitarian leanings. We have the UN to do th...

“The earth belongs to each… generation during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter from Paris, September 6, 1789 ...

“If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have used them [unconfirmed data]. I did it; it was a mistake. I’m looking deep within myself, about what I did and didn’t do.” No, this is not a Bush confession in going to war in Iraq, but Dan Rather’s soul searching. … 60 Minutes had definitely lost its confidence and prestige; it cancelled the scheduled report on WMDs. … Why in the world does Florida permit anchored mobile and pre-fab home communities highly vulnerable to hurricane dest...

Theresa Heinz Kerry is fortunate that a 527 hasn’t attacked the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism she received for her dedication and contributions to the environment, education, women, children and health care. … I hope the trust in Allawi is stronger than the faith the administration had in Chalibi. … The tax cuts for the lower and middle class has already been wiped out by the price of gas. … It is feasible that a large part of the insurgency is due to UN and US envoys fav...

Today our darling representatives etched in stone the tax cuts. It reminds me of a hard working couple who just had to have a Widescreen HDTV and dipped into their savings for the children’s future college fund; after all, they can work their way through college.  With all the brouhaha about Iraq being the main election issue, apparently congress, unlike Kerry, isn’t worried about where the money is coming from — let our children pay it off. … Where did the idea come from anyway? — if yo...

Fortunately for Bush, the economy has been sucked into a black hole by Swift Boats, Texans for Truth, the CBS blunder, and the luck of the draw that few know what’s going on in Iraq. Unfortunately for Bush, one of the debates will be on the economy and he will have to face issues regarding the economy — disappearing quality jobs, rising health costs, out of range college tuition, erosion of Pell grants, shortchanging NCLB, prescription drug plan designed to increase the profits of pharmaceuti...