I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

crazy4carrots

Jackie, it makes me think of this:  You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool ALL of the people ALL of the time.....no matter how hard Faux Noise wants to!

bluedahlia

Does anyone remember this "peanuts" character?

bluedahlia

I'm all full of questions this morning!  Should be more productive with my disconnected life!  hbahahahahaha!  Have you ever wondered?

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/dead-rock-stars-today/

QuinnCat

 That chart also reminds me of the old stock market saying "Buy the trend."

pip57

Blue, some those were pretty scary.  Elvis was just creepy.  

Did you notice the ads for Sick Kids?   They were my dil work.  She came up with the concept to follow the stories of the children from last years campaign.  Miranda touched me the most.  She had the same cancer as my daughter.  

bluedahlia

I'll keep an eye out for them.  I usually tune out commercials.

IllinoisLady

The last few words of this article...."Ya don't say" got me.  The GOP 'confronting a new reality' on healthcare.

The Obama administration won’t have an official announcement on December’s health care enrollment numbers for a few more weeks, but chances are good that we’ll see a spike in the number of newly enrollment Americans. At the end of November, the Affordable Care Act had helped bring coverage to about 1.2 million people; by the end of this month, that total will include millions more.

And with each new enrollment, it slowly dawns on congressional Republicans that the larger calculus has changed in fundamental ways. Jonathan Weisman reported overnight that GOP policymakers are “confronting a new reality.”

The enrollment figures may be well short of what the Obama administration had hoped for. But the fact that a significant number of Americans are now benefiting from the program is resulting in a subtle shift among Republicans.

“It’s no longer just a piece of paper that you can repeal and it goes away,” said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and a Tea Party favorite. “There’s something there. We have to recognize that reality. We have to deal with the people that are currently covered under Obamacare.”

And that underscores a central fact of American politics since Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act during the Depression: Once a benefit has been bestowed, it is nearly impossible to take it away.

Quite right. The Republican repeal crusade, whether the party wants to admit it or not, is over. Sure, Boehner & Co. can schedule a few dozen more repeal votes to help Tea Partiers feel warm and fuzzy, but even that’s less likely in light of the millions of consumers who’ve signed up for coverage – in an election year, candidates don’t generally thrive running on a platform that says, “Vote for me so I can take health care benefits away from your family.”

Indeed, GOP officials are desperate to talk about the “cancellation notices” a small sliver of the population received, but it gets a little tricky for these same Republicans to draw up plans to cancel millions more health care plans on purpose.

As we discussed a few weeks ago, the fight over health care is no longer an abstraction over hypothetical benefits. There’s a profound difference between “Republicans are voting to deny you a benefit you don’t yet enjoy” and “Republicans are voting to take away your health insurance and replace it with nothing.” The former struck GOP officials as plausible; the latter is politically suicidal.

So, as of this minute, what’s the Republican position on health care? No one, including GOP policymakers themselves, has any idea. For years, it was a straightforward push to repeal the entirety of the law, regardless of the consequences or human suffering. Now, some still want to pretend repeal is possible, others want to tinker around the edges with “reforms.” Some believe it’s time for Republicans to craft a policy alternative of their own to present to voters, others believe incessant complaining should be enough to give the GOP a boost on Election Day.

“The hardest problem for us is what to do next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Weisman.

Ya don’t say.

Jackie

crazy4carrots

"Once a benefit has been bestowed, it is nearly impossible to take it away".  Quite right.  Just ask those of us who live in countries with universal healthcare.  Sure, we're all dealing with rising healthcare costs, and many of our systems require periodic tweaking and overhauls of a kind.  But when it comes down to paying a few dollars more each year in taxes in order to keep healthcare for all, we do.

Good luck to any TPers who keep harping on repeal.  Ain't gonna happen, idjuts!

Anonymous

And may I hear an AMEN....

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/12/29/obamacare-insurance/index.html?iid=Lead

Reading the New York Times article RL linked in hard copy, requires concentration, it's a very COMPLEX issue, can't be reduced to a sound bite, so the teahadists, are trying to make sound bites...alas, how come some people seem to have such a flat learning curve?

Anonymous

Hi, Kam,

My favorite about the stock market, is a card someone sent me years ago ( when I used to work on Wall St) and it showed Chicken LIttle on the front runnin' & squawkin' "the sky is falling" - inside:  "Sell Sky."

ooohh..it's a gonna get cold tonight - w-a-a-a-ay below 0, no snow til Thursday..

almost Happy New Year, to all the Wise Women who post on this wonderful thread

(thinking of Enjoyful, and hoping she can return with GOOD NEWS!)

RetiredLibby

Here is an EXCELLENT article from the Atlantic on how to respond to the regressives who advocate for more unnecessary voter ID laws"

"If I Need ID to Buy Cough Syrup, Why Shouldn't I Need ID to Vote?"

How to respond to an ubiquitous, and misleading, question about voting rights

Andrew Cohen Dec 30 2013

I spent hundreds of hours talking about the law on the radio this year but one question, one exchange, especially sticks out. It was this summer, a few weeks after the five conservative justices of the United States Supreme Court extinguished the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. The station's host had with him a local lawmaker who supported voter identification efforts underway in her state. "If I need to show identification at a pharmacy to get cold medicine" she asked me on the air, "why shouldn't I have to show identification to vote?

It's a question loaded with import as we begin what promises to be yet another year of voter suppression in America. For it's a question that Republican officials and other supporters of voting restrictions have been asking all over the country over the past few years, in countless iterations, as they relentlessly push ahead with measures that purport to ensure "fairness" and "accuracy" in voting but that are designed instead to disenfranchise the poor and the elderly, the ill and the young, and, most of all, people of color.

They ask that question in Florida and in Texas and in North Carolina and in Virginia, in virtually every state that was, until last June, encumbered by Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. And they ask that question in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Ohio. They ask that question wherever partisan efforts are underway to further cleave the electorate into haves and have-nots. It's a question as simple as it is flawed, one that polls well even though it is based upon a series of self-perpetuating myths.

The challenge for those who oppose these new restrictions, for those who believe the current generation of voter suppression laws are a pernicious assault on core democratic values, is to find an answer to that question that creates traction among the American people. That answer must make it clear why—as a matter of law, politics, history, and morality—going into a pharmacy (or boarding an airplane, or buying liquor) is (and ought to remain) a different American experience from going into a voting booth to cast a ballot.

You know who had a good answer for this variety of question? Richard Nixon. In 1957,  after the Senate passed an amendment that watered down that year's already-diluted civil rights legislation, Eisenhower's vice president said, "This is one of the saddest days in the history of the Senate. It was a vote against the right to vote." And so are votes today for these new ID laws. They are votes against the ability of fellow citizens to cast a ballot or to have that ballot counted. They are votes that are hostile to the least powerful, the most vulnerable, among us.

What did I do when confronted with that question on the radio? I told my host and his guest, the elected official, that most Americans have a constitutional right to vote but no constitutional right to cold medicine. Alas, there wasn't nearly enough time, and it certainly wasn't the proper venue, to respond as fully as I would have liked.  That time now has come. There are many good answers to the dubious question at the heart of the voter suppression fight. Here are a few of them. 

Registered voters already have to show identification.

If I need to show identification to get cold medicine, why shouldn't I have to show identification to vote? First of all, the premise of the question is false. Registered voters today do have to identify themselves in order to vote—and they always have. They have to provide proof of who they are and have that identification checked against registration records. For centuries, the vast majority of American citizens have done this accurately and honestly, using a variety of documents that establish their citizenry and/or their place of residence.

The central question surrounding the new voter identification laws instead is what type of identification registered voters now must show to cast a ballot or to have that ballot counted in our elections. In the name of combating "voter fraud," or preserving what we now euphemistically call "ballot integrity," this argument posits that some of the old forms of identification—like a receipt from the electric company—are insufficient. So lawmakers now seek to require voters to get new forms of ID—like state-issued photo cards akin to driver's licenses.

Now, if you can afford to drive and already have a driver's license, the idea of obtaining such a government-issued photo identification is no big deal because it was no big deal to you when you first got your license. You drove (or were driven by family or friends) to a licensing office, you waited in a line, and you got your card. The whole episode took a few hours—and then you largely forget about the process for the next five years or so, until you lost your license or had to renew your old one.

But if you cannot afford to drive, and thus don't need a driver's license, the idea of getting a photo identification is much more daunting. Since you don't drive, it's difficult to get to and from a government office to get your new photo identification. Maybe most of your friends and family don't drive, either. Or maybe you are too old or too ill to get behind the wheel. Or maybe you cannot get time off from your hourly job. Or maybe the cost of getting there, in terms of transportation fees and lost work hours, is prohibitive. Here's how the ACLU puts it:

Research shows that more than 21 million Americans do not have government-issued photo identification; a disproportionate number of these Americans are low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, and elderly. Voter ID laws have the potential to deny the right to vote to thousands of registered voters who do not have, and, in many instances, cannot obtain the limited identification states accept for voting. Many of these Americans cannot afford to pay for the required documents needed to secure a government-issued photo ID.

Which is why the partisan marketing effort surrounding these new measures is as cynical as it is shrewd. It divides and conquers, relying either on the self-satisfaction or the indifference many Americans feel about the progress that has been made toward ending racial discrimination in voting. More than that, the pitch tugs on some of the most ancient inequalities that were built into our legal system. In 1790, don't forget, only monied, male property holders were permitted to vote in 10 of the 13 original states.

The new voter identification laws divide rich from poor and, in so doing, further separate whites from people of color. To upper- and middle-class citizens who drive, new voting rules don't seem like a big deal. And if they are a very big deal to low-income citizens, so what? The poor have no lobbyists in Washington; they contribute to no PACs. From the Republican perspective, the genius of these laws is that they mask great racial inequality—which is unconstitutional and poor political optics—with great economic inequality—which sadly is neither.

Voter fraud is even more of a myth today than it was in 2012.

Implicit in the cold medicine question is the idea that new voting restrictions are necessary to solve the growing problem of voter impersonation or other kinds of "voter fraud"—that it should be at least as difficult to exercise the right to vote as it is to buy cold medicine. In the same way we don't want teenagers to so easily get the ingredients they need to make methamphetamine, we don't want people who shouldn't be voting casting a ballot that dilutes the votes of citizens who are dutifully registered to vote. It should be harder to vote, goes this theory.

But the assumption behind that theory is demonstrably false. Surely we can all agree that government restrictions on the ability of citizens to vote should be only broad enough to protect all voters from legitimate inaccuracies in our voting systems. Exercising the right to vote should be only so hard as is necessary to protect everyone's right to cast an accurate ballot. But if 2013 proved anything, it proved that the core partisan justification for voter ID laws—voter fraud—is virtually non-existent where it has been invoked to disenfranchise citizens.

In Iowa, for example, a Republican search for "voter fraud" in 2013 cost about $150,000 and revealed just a handful of cases statewide. As the year ended, those officials responsible for the probe were under investigation for misusing the money. In Ohio, Ari Berman reported last month, ".00023 percent of votes in 2012 were referred for prosecution, none have resulted in a conviction so far, and none would have been stopped the legislature’s proposed voting restrictions."

In South Carolina, the news on "voter fraud" in 2013 came in July when the AP reported that "no one intentionally cast a ballot in South Carolina using the names of dead people in recent elections, despite allegations to the contrary." In September, a Tampa Bay Times editorial described "voter fraud" as a "phantom." In Texas, the Attorney General who is running for governor on the state's new ID law has, since 2004, prosecuted 66 people statewide for any kind of voting fraud—and only four of those cases would have been blocked by the new identification law.

The false cry of "voter fraud" must be answered as resolutely as was the "birther" cry, or any other half-crocked conspiracy theory unsupported by facts. And this mandate ought to extend to journalists covering this front in the partisan war. It is no longer acceptable, if it ever was, to let stand unchallenged the assertions of officials that new voter identification laws are necessary to prevent "voter fraud." The manifest lack of proof of such fraud, despite earnest efforts to find it, is today as much a part of the story as anything else.

The new voting measures are discriminatory in both intent and effect.

In the same way that the myth of voter fraud may no longer be tolerated, the myth that new voting restrictions are racially neutral must also now be exposed at every turn. Two weeks ago, in a Washington Post story that was largely ignored by other media outlets, two university researchers made public their findings about the extent of the link between voter suppression efforts and minority voting. The headline of the story says it all: "States with  higher black turnout are more likely to restrict voting." Here's a sample from the piece:

In a new article, we examined the dominant explanations (and accusations) advanced by both the right and left, as well as the factors political scientists know are important for understanding state legislative activity.  We began with no assumptions about the veracity of any claim.  What we found was that restrictions on voting derived from both race and class.  The more that minorities and lower-income individuals in a state voted, the more likely such restrictions were to be proposed. Where minorities turned out at the polls at higher rates the legislation was more likely enacted.

More specifically, restrictive proposals were more likely to be introduced in states with larger African-American and non-citizen populations and with higher minority turnout in the previous presidential election.  These proposals were also more likely to be introduced in states where both minority and low-income turnout had increased in recent elections.  A similar picture emerged for the actual passage of these proposals. States in which minority turnout had increased since the previous presidential election were more likely to pass restrictive legislation.

It's not as though these conclusions could have come as a surprise. For years now candid Republican lawmakers have been supporting new voter identification measures in either explicit or implied racial terms. In 2012, for example, a year before the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights act, a University of Delaware poll revealed that "support for voter identification laws is strongest among Americans who harbor negative sentiments toward African Americans."

This is the ugly reality that the conservatives on the Supreme Court ignored in Shelby County when they declared that the Voting Rights Act's impositions were no longer justified by racial conditions in the South. We have here the joining of opportunity (state legislatures gerrymandered into Republican majorities) and motive (fear of the coming racial upheaval in the nation's demographics) to produce laws that deprive poor and/or minority citizens of the equal application of laws. We should not be afraid to say this.

Just stop for a minute and ponder what's really happening here. Our economic policies have already widened the gulf between rich and poor, and devastated communities of color. And now these new identification laws aim to undermine the only real power these people have left to combat their dire condition: their right to vote. The only thing subtle about this class warfare is the ability of the American people to delude themselves into the smug belief that it is necessary to ensure "accuracy" and "fairness" in voting.

I believe that same-sex marriage bans are teetering not just because they are constitutionally unsustainable but because enough white, straight, well-off Americans finally came to realize the countless ties that bind them to gay and lesbian Americans. But at precisely the same moment  in our history, voter suppression efforts prove that those same white, well-off Americans are losing sight of the countless ties that once bound them to poor and minority citizens. We celebrate burgeoning equality—and then we ignore sprawling inequality.

Just as the nation is awakening to the new concept of equal rights for gay citizens, it is nodding off to the old concepts that animated the civil rights movement and led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The rise of these new voter suppression laws, and the tacit embrace of them by otherwise well-meaning people, means we are moving again toward an America in which your right to vote depends upon the color of your skin or the size of your wallet. That was unjust and unfair at the dawning of the Republic, it was so half a century ago when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed, and it is so today.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/if-i-need-id-to-buy-cough-syrup-why-shouldnt-i-need-id-to-vote/282636/

pip57

Blue, the ads were links on the page you posted.  

bluedahlia

Oh OK!  LOL!  I have no script on my computer which won't allow anything on my screen unless I give it permission. 

IllinoisLady

RL......an excellent article that totally disgusts me on one hand....though I'll admit at times it takes little these days and at the same time makes me sad.  We should be so much father along -- especially with those things that are a "right" that should not be tampered  with for someone's' advantage. 

Exciting  morning and afternoon.  Fed our dogs in the pen and let them out to run a bit after.  Later, when I was getting ready to go feed at the feral colonies in town I looked in the pen only to discover we had forgotten to put the dogs back in.

I got some treat bones and called.  The little brown Puggle came first.....wet from heat to toe.  Ok....I knew then they had gone down to the lake.  I got him in the pen.  After calling a bit more the Lab Retriever showed up....wet from head to toe..  He would not go in the pen but went up on the first step of the deck and just stared in the direction of the lake.  I ran up and opened the kitchen door just far enough to yell for Dh to get his coat and gloves that Poncho was stuck in the ice on the lake.

We found him a few minutes later....unable to pull himself up.  He is a Bishon-Poo and they have so much hair this time of year.  He was quite wet where he was visible.  Dh realized he was going to have to wade in and get him.  I ran for reinforcement help.  Found someone to help...By this time Poncho was lying on a small mesa.....unable to move but shivering all over with a small whimper.  Mr. Watson went down the mesa ( Dh's hands were too cold to close anymore ) and carried Poncho to the car.  We got him home and on the bath floor where I turned on a small but powerful heater.  Called the Vet who said to get a dryer and get Poncho's hair dry.....and rub sugar water on his gums.....as much as I could while drying him.  He was so stiff and cold and we worked on him for over an hour with little result though the intense shivering did lessen somewhat.  Towards the end...he was eating some left-over Christmas ham....an shortly after was able to walk again though he staggered a bit. 

Took him into the Vet later and we have some meds to give him but she says she thinks he will be just fine.  His core temp. was good at that point and he seemed none the worst for wear.  The dogs will not be taking breaks outside the pen until the ice is gone from the lake. 

Dh was able to get his hands un-thawed and working again and has no wish to wade out at the 15 degree temps we were having at the moment to retrieve anyone else.  I say amen to that.  Long, hard, scary day but Poncho is back to being Poncho.

Jackie

IllinoisLady

I think they should have said Extremely delusional  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/29/1265859/-Delusional-Limbaugh-Claims-the-Tea-Party-Shall-Rise-Again  I think the thing rising most right now is the loss of a lot of Limbaugh's former territory.  He apparently doesn't believe in polls either since the T P er's are at a all time high of those thinking ill of this portion of the Repugs.  51% high. 

Jackie  

RetiredLibby

Oh, Jackie, you had quite an afternoon full of non-fun excitement!  Glad to hear that DH and Poncho have recovered from their horrible, terrible, no good, very bad adventures today and think it is a wise course of action to curtail breaks outside their pen until the weather warms up!  Now sit down and have a nice hot cuppa something nice (maybe with a little snort of something a little stronger?) and relax!  Wow!

pip57

Oh Jackie, that must have been frightening for both you and the dog!

QuinnCat

Just read your dog story Jackie.  So glad your pup is going to be ok (and husband too).  Scary stuff.   Do you think the Lab was really telling you Poncho was still at the lake?

QuinnCat

I will add, in contrast to your frozen lake story, I hand washed my car today.  In December!  It was pleasant too.  Never never never have I washed a car in December where I live.  2013 is the driest year in recorded history in California.  Now it might be the warmest too.

IllinoisLady

Bill, my Lab Retriever ----- was telling me Poncho was in trouble......I had to call for some time to get any response from any of the dogs.....and the Puggle came first ....... I'm sure Billy stayed behind to comfort Poncho however he could as he had reluctance to  come back and here at home he sees me as his big time Alpha.  He refused to go into the pen.....which he never does when I'm putting the dogs back in. 

He also returned to the lake and Poncho when Dh directed me to drive the car over to the far side of the cove ( out of sight of our house, but behind someone else's ).  He stood on the bank watching his "best buddy" be rescued.  When we got Poncho back home.....he returned and stood by the gate to the pen....waiting to be let in since he knew that Poncho was with us again. 

Yes, I absolutely believe that both dogs stayed right with Poncho and that Bill did the only thing he knew how to 'help' me realize that Poncho could NOT return on his own.  Bill is a very intelligent dog and since I rescued him ( from my brother-in-law ) he has complied with all of my directions though not completely today....however; did not leave our yard until I did and I think he realized by our tone of voice and actions that we "KNEW" something was wrong that needed investigation. 

I'm a bit on the worn side as I feared not only for Poncho, but sending my 74 yr. old husband down an embankment ( thank god for the couple of small mesa's that were part way down )  and knowing when he got to the bottom that he would have to go in the lake ( Poncho was about 10 ft. out )  to get Poncho.  I do believe that things happen for a reason as well.  The lake was spilled during the last of our warm weather so one of the gates could be repaired.  It was no longer deep in the cove like it normally would be this time of year.  I shall be sleeping well this evening.

Jackie

suzieq60

Happy New Year girls - we are still away visiting our daughter - baby is totally gorgeous - will post a pic of him when we get home tomorrow. Very hot down here - 37C expected today. Steve is off playing golf and I am helping the SIL mind the baby.

pip57

Jackie, I think you are right about your Bill. We had an old shepherd-collie cross and a little sheltie years ago.  Living on a farm they were able to run free.  One winter day the sheltie came to the door.  She kept backing up and barking.  When I noticed the other dog was missing I said out loud "Where's Chyenne?"   Well, the sheltie took off when she heard the name so I got my coat and boots to follow her.  She led me to a large surface of sheer ice.  The old dog was splayed helplessly on the ice struggling to get up.  He reminded me of Bambi in the movie.  He was very chilled and in shock.  I have no doubt that his little friend saved his life that day.  

crazy4carrots

Absolutely agree.  Dogs will do the same thing with their own dog packs as they would with, as Jackie says, their human Alpha dog.  Thank goodness you were both attuned to their behaviour to follow them, and thank goodness those poor animals were rescued.

Happy 2014, everyone!  

pupmom

Jackie, yikes, what a story! Your Bill sounds amazing. Thank goodness all are well.

Kam, washing the car?? I can only dream. Water from my hose would probably freeze in the air!

Happy New Year's All!  

bluedahlia

Happy ending, thank goodness.  Happy New Year!  Can't wait to see baby pics suzie!

alexandria58

Been out of town, various places, so just popping in now to say Happy NEw Year to all of my wonderful friends here at Yes/No.

My New Year wish - May 2014 be the year the Dems retake the House!!! 

pupmom

"My New Year wish - May 2014 be the year the Dems retake the House!!!" What alexandria said!

I'll second that New Year wish!

IllinoisLady

I will gladly add my wishes to what Alexandria said and Yorkie agrees with too.  I am ready to be un-frustrated with so much of the GOP craziness.  Knowing that some Dems are not so highly logical too, but are you being illogical just because you are, or because you are not going to be seen as endorsing the Pres.  Sigh!!!!

Feeling much better today, rested and looking forward to this opportunity that comes this time of year to start over in a way.  Sometimes I am amazed at the grace, style and amt. of statesmanship displayed by the Pres. as I think I would just deck a couple of those GOP clowns.  Mr. Issa is on that list along with the usual suspects. 

I'm hoping for good things not just for a party ( Dems, of course ) but for the country that has had to undergo so much from the GOP since 2012. 

Jackie

pip57

I am wishing that no more names have to be added to our Angels thread.  

Happy new year everyone!   Have a safe celebration.

QuinnCat

Pip - I second that.  And what about a cure?  I keep reading about this breakthrough and that breakthrough.  It would be nice to have the big picture.  When do all of these breakthroughs add up to THE ANSWER.  Maybe there isn't one answer, but it would be nice to see a professional discussion on how these puzzle pieces might add up and where we are on the timeline to a cure.

I remember, in 1968, when my mother died of BC, and given my family history, I suspected I would also get it, and I did, but in 1968 I thought, surely, there would be a cure by the time I was my mother's age.  Do we need to wait yet another 40 years?