Obviously Obama is doing something right if he can piss two people who thrive on hate--Limbaugh and Bin Laden--at the same time. Odd--or maybe not--how those two have so much in common.
The right-wing think-tank American Enterprise Institute just released a report funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called “Diplomas and Dropouts,” which revealed that a large percentage of college students fail to graduate after six years. It is fair to say that the Institute has a class and racial agenda, but if its intent was to demonstrate that “unqualified” students who never graduate (like Bill Gates) should not be allowed in colleges and universities, the graduation rate of the University of Washington should be taken as a caution of how racist and classist assumptions get in the way of facts (and vice-versa).
The UW, which amusingly likes to think of itself as the Stanford or Berkeley of the Northwest, has about 9 percent African-American, Native American and Latino students—or less if we subtract Latinos who classify themselves as Caucasian. Yet UW has only a 59 percent graduation rate after six years. Like all right-wing organizations and pundits, the AEI blames affirmative action for allowing “unqualified” students access to college (me, I dropped out of high school, joined the Army, got a GED, and later graduated in three years with honors from one of those universities with a perennial nationally-ranked football program). Unfortunately for the AEI, the “progressive” state of Washington passed the anti-affirmative action I-200; although under-represented minority enrollment initially decreased, they are back to previous levels. But the real problem with the right’s assumptions should be all too obvious: even if none of the under-represented minorities graduated, that still leaves 80 percent of non-graduates who are the supposed Caucasian and Asian geniuses. Arrogance is a poor substitute for aspiration.
I have to admit that whenever I look from outside a UW campus library window, I see a lot of students who seem quite ordinary to me. It isn’t hard to suppose who has the best chance to succeed—anyone who is tall and white. But being short isn’t the only roadblock to success; in fact it is another thing that right-wing think-tanks get wrong: there is a glut of people with bachelor’s degrees—just in the wrong fields where there are few jobs tailored to them. Liberal Arts continue to be the most popular choice for degrees, and in our technological world, there are fewer and fewer American students obtaining degrees in the sciences and engineering. Because of the decreasing number of native students earning these degrees, foreign students and graduates are being imported to fill the need.
The glut of college graduates (let alone those who don’t graduate) finds these people taking jobs that would normally be filled by high school graduates—and high school graduates are taking jobs that might otherwise go to people without them.
Whether-or-not all of this is due to the fact that increasing majorities in the student population are women, or insufficient quality math and science education in K-12, or the over-use of computers as teaching aids, or as in this state the horrible under-funding of education (I once heard an old gentleman ask why should he vote for a school levy—he didn’t have any kids in school, as if he were never a kid) are matters of speculation. But it may be due to something else altogether. When I was a younger, kids were fascinated by the prospect of space exploration; man had walked on the moon, science books were filled with imaginings of self-sustaining cities in space, colonies on the moon, space-ships orbiting Jupiter by 2001. These possibilities seemed real, the next logical technological step. In 1929, man on the moon was sheer fantasy; in 1969 there seemed no limits to what man could do. Now, science texts have literally come back to Earth. We seem to have hit a technological dead-end, and space travel—which fired the imaginations of so many would-be scientists—is, in the year 2009, back to where it was in 1929—sheer fantasy.
That is the reality. Right-wing organizations like the American Enterprise Institute bring only pre-ordained—and usually false—assumptions to the table to suit an unprogressive agenda.

Brilliant Thom!

You had me nervous for a moment because I thought you were going to trample on Obama for some reason, maybe because you are so nice to these folks like Scott who is obviously, the enemy of the Golden Age of Peace we could have.

The thesis that President Obama's Cairo Speech swayed Lebanese voters to vote pro American is brilliant and true. The World loves President Obama and this takes hate as a tool away from these bizarre creepy fear mongers; those that truly do not love what America is all about.

911 happened on the Republican's watch!

As a Jew and American, I wish to go on the record as stating that it would take a seriously drug-infested reading of the text of the speech to come up with that idea that Obama was equating the Holocaust and the conditions under which those who call themselves ‘Palestinians’ live.

This is exactly the brand of happy horse hockey that is most un-useful.

Thom,

You left out an important fact in your reporting of the Supreme Court's decision to not hear the appeal on a "don't ask, don't tell" case. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the position of the administration of His Holiness President Barack Obama.

Here's a link to an Associated Press article followed by the first paragraph of the article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090608/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_gays...

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday agreed with the Obama administration and refused to review Pentagon policy barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

I guess all I can say is "Praise the frog."

Thom

your contempt for your listeners and your own grandiose belief in your superiority is growing to a level of an unhinged dictator. in one breath extolling the intelligence of your listeners all the while reaching for the cutoff button. i can't believe that when a caller calls in paralleling what's going on in the USA and what went on in NAZI Germany he gets dismissed out of hat. YOU YOURSELF HAVE WRITTEN A PAPER TITLED EXACTLY THAT!!! (or have you forgotten about WHEN DEMOCRACY FAILED: THE WARNINGS OF HISTORY?) you have a SEVERE l.i.s.t.e.n.i.n.g problem.

it seems that the almighty Thom Hartmann is the only one "allowed" to highlight such parallels. pathetic hypocrisy at its best.

and while we're on the subject of hypocrisy......NO KKKristian should EVER make fun of another's religion. so steeped in stupidity, fairytales and LIES is the bloodthirsty KKKristian death cult, that ANY indoctrinated participant and perpetuator of the zionist agenda and the Palestinian extermination would surely rot in your hell.

your moral foundation is sooooooo fundamentally flawed and any "activism" that you may do as result is nothing more than building a house on the sand.

Thom,
Twice in the first two hours you talked about the need for tax reform on the top income brackets...
People’s Lobby’s Fair Tax Bracket Reinstitution Act (FTBRA) http://www.worldservicecorps.us/Tax%20bracket%20proposal.htm starts fixing the tax code and escrows the funds to American World Service Corps voluntary service congressional proposals… but it needs public support, which you can garner for PLI’s congressional proposals by mentioning them specifically. Please mention http://www.worldservicvecoprs.us and http://www.peopleslobby.us, so the public will start understanding that they can begin pushing the specific laws that are needed turn this from a nation moving toward the "landed rich" to a healthy community of doers…

Key AWSC proposal is at http://www.worldservicecorps.us/world%20service%20key%20proposal%202yr%2...

God bless this woman for being a vigorous advocate for single-payer health care, but I think she's deluding herself if she thinks Max Baucus' statement that they "probably shouldn't have left single payer out of the discussion."

I think Baucus' statement is just another tactic, while still avoiding the issue.

My previous statement was about Gerry Jenkins, CalNurses.org.

ABC, that story is heartbreaking. There's SO MUCH that is heartbreaking in this country whose multinational corporations (and, therefore, much of congress) are run or "owned" by sociopaths...

Hyperbole and sloganeering short-changes a truly unhelpful conversation. Rhetoric seeped in anger and reeking of lack of self confidence will do little to solve the Israel/Palestine issue. Folk throwing flames and calling names contribute nothing. If you really wish to contribute to the conversation, do so. If not, there are a plethora of forums you can continue inflicting your brand of impolite languaging upon.

Both Israel and Palestine deserve dirt they can call their own. Obama is correct in his vocalization that these will have to be to separate pieces of dirt to have any chance of peace succeeding. The fact that these hunks of land are adjacent is a fact.

One of the real issues not being discussed is the lack of leadership on the Palestinian side. There is a group of people with folk claiming to be their leaders and treating them as a marketing campaign against Israel. It does not help that the majority of the Arabic world have a dramatically similar view of the Palestinians and are using them as a tool to economically damage Israel.

We must deal with the situation from the real.

Thom,

Unfortunately, the worst thing about "Morning Joe" is, in my opinion, Joe Scaborough! He shouts over guests and others without letting them get their points across and he is so busy expressing HIS point of view that I want to shout, "Shut up!" Instead, I just turn the TV off!

Good luck having any kind of balanced conversation with him tomorrow.

Hey Renaztz, Thom is intelligent but he's not ten times smarter than you or me. Thom actually has his talking points down and repeats them so often that I at times have thought he was in "The Best Of". Thom also has repeated the same errors for a year or more, ie The Fillibuster Rules. He was unaware that the rule was changed during the civil rights era. A quick look on Wikipedia could have solved his mistake. I love Thom too, but please no groveling.

DRichards progressive candidates in Dem VA gov primary.

Creigh Deeds lost so closely to Bob McDonnell for Atty General in 2005 that it took a week or 2 to finish counting. He has bought ads on website of Thom's old syndicator Air America. He may be trying to at least give the impression he is most progressive. Bob McDonnell unopposed in Repub primary. He quit as Atty general to run-some commitment to VA people to serve in capacity elected to he's just another ambitious professional politician. Terry McAuliffe is former DNC chairman after 1998 elections who could raise a lot of money and was close to B and H Clinton. Brian Moran is a state senator or delegate and is a relative of Cong Jim Moran. Am Jewish and I forgive Jim for stating Jews (like Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Krauthammer, Kristol, and their ilk) were pushing for Iraq war and could have stopped it before it started. It was, what conservatives like N Boortz and G Beck like to call painful truth or only saying what everyone is thinking. Progressives need to appropriate same rhetoric when they say something unpopular but correct. The condemnations and heated disputes only prove to me how true it was.

Not understanding why these guys on the right are saying the left is more anti-Semitic, Thom. They need to provide examples. Saying Obama isn't investigating something doesn't mean he's anti-Semitic. I guess not rubber stamping everything Israel does, is anti-Semitic now. Interesting.