As you may or may not know, the UC Board of Regents, an unelected body that governs the UC system without any oversight by the people of California, voted on Thursday to increase student fees by 32% (15% for spring quarter and an additional 15% next year).  In protest to the fee increase and a variety of other serious problems facing the UC community and public education in California as a whole, students have occupied school buildings throughout the state.

Below the fold is a press release from UC Santa Cruz students currently occupying Kerr Hall and Kresge Town Hall.

...or should I say, one picture is sometimes worth a thousand words.

Anna Baltzer, peace activist and author of Witness in Palestine and Haithem El-Zabri, founder of the Palestine Online Store, Austin, TX, November, 2008.

This is the last part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Ohio. The previous parts can be found here.

Republican Ohio

What parts of Ohio vote Republican?

All of it, of course, except for the parts that vote Democratic.

That is a pretty facetious answer to a fairly serious question, but there is something to it. Blue Ohio has a set of defined, separate characteristics. Red Ohio does too, but not to the same degree. It is far easier to describe Democratic Ohio than Republican Ohio.

The following map is a good beginning in exploring Republican Ohio. It indicates strongly partisan counties in 2008.

These are the places which most heavily supported John McCain (for those who are curious, the most Democratic counties were Cleveland, Toledo, Ohio University, and Youngstown). They are located primarily in the southwestern portion of the state, away from the Democratic "7″. Interestingly, practically none are part of Appalachia - considered Obama's weakest region in the country.

Southwest Ohio historically - and to this day remains - the most conservative part of Ohio. Geographically, it is the Republican base; even in Democratic landslides, it often will vote for the red candidate.

There is another trait the highlighted counties have in common: most are semirural and somewhat less populated. Another map, below the fold, helpfully illustrates this.

Tonight on PBS, Bill Moyers Journal will focus on the LBJ telephone and office tapes created during the escalation in Vietnam, in a program called "Hearing History".

Bill Moyers considers a President's decision to escalate troop levels in a military conflict. Through LBJ's taped phone conversations and his own remembrances, Bill Moyers looks at Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam.

President Lyndon Johnson's taped conversations are a treasure-trove for both historians and current policy makers. On the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers explores the tapes to review Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam. Some of the names on the tape, such as Robert F. Kennedy, will be familiar to Americans young and old -- others less so.

When Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, set out to write Clean Energy Common Sense her goal was simple- To bring more people into the climate change conversation now. Now? Conversations on climate change are happening in real time across the internet, on talk radio, in nightly news casts, and beside the water cooler. With only weeks until the UN's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, a book seems like the wrong medium to insert yourself into the conversation.

Rocky has so far saved the Children's Health Insurance Program from being swallowed up by the mysterious but probably pretty crappy health care to be forced on poor families in the new health care system's 'health insurance exchanges'. He has got Reid's bill to preserve CHIP till 2019! Not that it was just Rocky. Good on yah to Marian Wright Edelman too, and the Children's Defense Fund, who are fighting for CHIP and children too. And Cynthia Tucker:

. . . the [new health insurance] exchanges might easily be more expensive. Yes, many families would be eligible for subsidies; but there is no guarantee the policies for their children would be as affordable, or as comprehensive, as they are under the CHIP programs.

When my business partner and I formed Donkey On The Edge Productions a year ago, it was our hope that we would be able to parlay our years of advertising experience into a progressive advocacy production company. So far, we've been lucky enough to work with Courage Campaign on a couple of videos and now we're thrilled to be working with Blue America on a project that I am so excited about.

This year's fight for real health care reform is arguably the biggest battle the modern progressive movement has fought or ever will fight. As the focus shifts from the House to the Senate where we have a putative "filibuster proof" majority but where conservative Democrats are threatening to join a Republican filibuster, we must hold those Democrats' feet to the fire. So when Blue America approached us about producing an ad to help pressure Senator Blanche Lincoln to allow an up or down vote on the public option, we jumped at the chance.

As expected, there are plenty of new public opinion polls on health care and health care reform.  Though some people may already be tired of the topic, it is more important now than ever that we understand where the public stands on health care, how the trends in opinion are changing, and why.  Indirectly related to issues of healthcare is a new public opinion poll on capitalism, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

HEALTH CARE
Health Care: the Individual Mandate and a Public Option
The October Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll found that 66% of those surveyed report that they are in favor of requiring all Americans to have health insurance (provided there is financial help for those who need it).  A majority of those surveyed (57%) also expressed support for the creation of a government-administered public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers.  In addition, a majority expressed that “it is more important than ever to take on health care reform now” (55%).

Who will be better Off with Health Care Reform?

According to the above Kaiser poll, a majority asserted that the country as a whole would be better off if Congress passed health care reform (53%).  A plurality (41%) expressed that individually, they or their families would be better off if Congress passed health care reform, with 27% expressing that they would be worse off.