JC,
This is when you are at your best, dissecting the political groundswell, finding nuggets in the shift in debates. (ELIZABETH WARREN UNLEASHED – Issue: 5/27/15) Elizabeth Warren is just like you said a kind of outlier for the Democratic Party, but one that is as pertinent to the left as the TEA Party was and is for the right. Her battles with Obama, which I think have just begun and the emergence of Bernie Sanders as a legitimate voice in the party will go a long way to effecting how Hillary Clinton runs her primary campaign. She stays centrist at her own peril, I think. She needs to learn from the lessons of 2008 and stop acting as if she is above it all.
I am one of the few liberals who hopes Warren does not run for president in 2016. She is much more effective for the environment and for fights against Wall St. and income inequality in Congress. That is where the real battles are fought and won. The presidency, a long shot anyway, is a popularity contest. It does not truly effect our legislation at the grass roots. If the TEA Party taught us nothing, and I think it is pretty much nothing, it shows that you can maneuver the talking points through congressional shifts in ideology. And even though you have done a fine job painting the TEA Party in a less than influential light, it still remains a thorn in the side of progress and therefore it needs a counter argument from the other side.
—Jeremy Steger
Elizabeth Warren is an insane socialist and is the fringe of the fringe. It’s like giving Ted Cruz credit for merely being in opposition to things. I know Warren means well, but she is not nor are her ideas viable in this age of economic stagnation. Spend! Spend! Spend! Or more to the bottom line she uses the word “Invest!” Invest what? Or invest in what? We are broke! We spend money on wars. Not people. And I think we should spend on neither. I want to keep my money.
Fuck Elizabeth Warren!
—ARXX547P
Damned right about this: “This is why I laugh when people call Barack Obama a lefty.” I laugh harder when they call him a socialist.
I think you’re wrong about TPP being a done deal; the more info that gets out about it, the harder the fight is going to be. And it was already derailed enough to prevent its being fastracked (see? the derailed metaphor works).
I think you may also be wrong about Liz. She’s NOT a politician. She had to be dragged into the senate race in MA, but she and Bernie Sanders may have touched off a firestorm. And I don’t think it’s going to burn out in a summer.
We’ll see!
—Vincent Czyz
This trade agreement like all trade agreements will be a disaster. Companies will not invest in America. Warren is right. The president is wrong. Check the data on every one of these trade agreements. We get screwed every time and by screwed I mean the American worker. This is only good for business not workers. It is only good for the profits of companies that do not give back to America, but instead use cheap, unregulated environments to sell us poison. More politicians should stand up for us like Warren and stop trying to just get elected for ego or to be quoted on FOX or MSNBC. This is a serious issue for this economy going forward. Not sure why no one else sees this?
—Barrow2576
That is impressive, James. (THE BODY EXPERIMENT –Issue: 6/24/15) Not sure I can do what you did, but it is nice to know if I did that in only 40 days I can half my cholesterol. It seems like over the past 30 years or so this has become an epidemic. Kills more people than anything we’re always afraid of like Ebola or Terrorism or Climate Change. It is something we need to really be on top of as a nation. And I don’t mean passing laws or anything, but maybe more stringent regulations on food companies that put in all this extra crap we don’t need or that our bodies can’t process.
What we eat and drink is more important than economic issues or international issues or social issues. It is what we eat and drink for Christ’s sake! And it is killing us!
Bravo on your experiment. I am almost certain though you cannot keep that up.
—Alison T.
- Notice how refined sugar seems good now, compared to the mercury-processed high fructose corn syrup. The fact is that every refined sweetener, even honey and the much-vaunted agave nectar, will wear out the pancreas (type I) or train the muscles not to obey the insulin instruction to remove glycogen from the bloodstream (type II). Even so, every sweetener, natural, processed, refined, man-made or organic can’t do the damage that manufactured pharmaceuticals can.
- Unhealthy food is soooo early 20th century:
“They had always been accustomed to eat a great deal of smoked sausage, and how could they know that what they bought in America was not the same—that its color was made by chemicals, and its smoky flavor by more chemicals, and that it was full of ‘potato flour’ besides? Potato flour is the waste of potato after the starch and alcohol have been extracted; it has no more food value than so much wood, and as its use as a food adulterant is a penal offense in Europe, thousands of tons of it are shipped to America every year.” —The Jungle, Chapter 11, Upton Sinclair
The examination of the non-functioning FDA and other federal protectorates is left as an exercise to the reader. For bonus points, see if you can identify all of the repealed and unwound laws and regulations put into place after the Great Depression.
I believe that we’re about to learn for real what it means to ignore the lessons of history. As both William Gibson and Neal Stephenson observe in their latest novels, we innovate like crazy in the midst of crisis. It’s worth noting that financial crises are slightly inconvenient for the wealthy, but arduous and sometimes fatal for the remainder of the population. Even so, we tend to ignore social crises (especially health care), and we can’t navigate environmental crises at all.
—Brad Morrison
The FDA is a joke. They are in bed with all these lobbies and continue to print lies. Cow’s milk does not and never did add calcium to your bones. In fact, scientific data says that it fools your system into thinking it does and therefore it weakens bones over time. The FDA has known this for half a century, yet they continue to repeat this fairytale and worse yet promote to our children that milk, intended for a baby cow, is somehow nutritious for humans. I remind you, these are the same people who gave us “pizza is a vegetable.” The food lunches for our kids are an abomination. Since the 1980s when during the Reagan administration food was taken out of the hands of the federal government and given over to companies that pile on the crap to our kids, we have seen a decrease in health for our children. And entire generation of fat kids. It is sad and a national crisis.
Damn right you should do what you did to get healthy. Now everyone read this article and get to work or suffer the consequences.
—Jenn-One
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight For Cinderella” and “Y”.
