The Democratic Party is DEAD.

And now we're suffering the logical culmination of all this: the largest group of government-hati ng, racist, homophobic, misogynistic know-nothing, climate-change denying, evolution-denyi ng, science-denying , anti-immigrant House Republicans in history, bent on taking America back to the 19th century.

We are creating a one size fits all system that needlessly brands many young people as failures, when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardized tests just when the economy is eliminating standardized jobs.

The path to success used to be up and through an organization. Now the path to success is increasingly through self-promotion.

The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream.

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.