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

1Athena1 · October 2012

The trend is visible even within states, where those who preach the most self-reliance are actually more likely to be dependent on government:

For example in California:

Marin residents lead the state on a per-capita basis helping to fund public programs, including MediCal, welfare and parole services, according to a new report on who supplies - and who spends - California's public dollars.

The report shows a disparity between the givers and the takers:

Counties such as Marin that provide most of the state's revenue streams like income and sales taxes reliably elect Democrats, who traditionally want to take more of your money. And counties whose Republican representatives argue most vociferously for social services cuts draw, per capita, the most state aid.

More here: http://www.marinij.com/ci_15345671

RetiredLibby · October 2012

Ah, Brother Krugman on the pathetic attempt by Romney to portray the President (ahem -- the President who killed Osama Bin Laden, no less!) as soft on terror:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/chicken-hawk-down/

Preach it, Paul!

1Athena1 · October 2012

A very neat Aaron Carroll chart shows that, on average, conservative states feature more "dependency" on federal programs than do liberal ones. You can slice this kind of data in a variety of ways, but you always end up with the same aggregate pattern. It happens to be the case that the richest parts of the United States (think the San Francisco Bay area or Connecticut) favor Democrats and also that conservative areas of the country are overrepresented in the Senate. Transfers, on average, flow away from high-income and underrepresented areas and toward low-income and overrepresented areas. I think the overall pattern is best described as a coincidence and not a pattern of large-scale hypocrisy but there are two important points to make about it.

One is that high-income people living in low-income states are generally very conservative in their political ideology but probably benefit more from federal income support programs more than they realize. If you own fast food franchises in the Nashville area, for example, you're going to form a self-perception as a self-reliant businessman but the existence of Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit are helping to ensure that your customers have adequate income to sometimes eat at your Taco Bell. These chains of dependency snake even longer. If you sell luxury cars in Florida, many of your customers are probably medical professionals who are earning high incomes because other people have Medicare benefits. The aggregate geographic transfer patterns, in other words, do make a real difference to the economic life of the nation. The existence of transfer payments props up the entire local economies of low-income, low-productivity parts of the country.

By Matthew Yglesias. More here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/02/14/how_blue_america_subsidizes_red_america.html

Bren-2007 · October 2012

Hey Guys,

Sorry to go off topic just now ... but I'm so upset and I can't stop crying.

Just got off the phone with my friend Brenda/Naniam. They were on their way back to Hickory, NC, from Chapel Hill after having a second opinion consult with a team of doctors at that hospital.

The upshot is ... the doctor wants her to have another brain MRI. He feels that the lesion on her brain is cancer and he wants her to have the gamma knife procedure.

She was very tired, so we didn't talk too long. I don't know if the new regimen of morphine was controlling her pain or not.

love,

Bren

1Athena1 · October 2012

A take by Ezra Klein:

The red state ripoff

Over at the Fourth Branch, they've got a nice map showing the states that receive more than a dollar back for every dollar they pay in taxes (which they've coded red), and the states that receive less than a dollar back for every dollar they pay in taxes (which they've coded blue). Just to repeat: Red states are getting a good deal, and blue states a bad one. Here's the map:

Source: The Washington Post

pupmom · October 2012

Bren, so sorry to hear about Brenda. Hope she can get relief soon.

Athena, glad you didn't actually pass out, if I read you correctly.

ananda8 · October 2012

((brenda)) is in our thoughts and hearts. I can't say anything else.

RetiredLibby · October 2012

Oh, Bren, I'm so sorry to hear about Brenda. Sending peaceful and pain-free thoughts down south -- your way and hers. (((((Bren and Brenda)))))

L

lewing · October 2012

So sorry to hear this news about Brenda. She's in my thoughts; and she's very lucky to have a friend like you, Bren. Please be good to yourself, too.

bluedahlia · October 2012

I'm heartbroken to hear this news Bren.

bluedahlia · October 2012

Thanks Athena. That's what I thought.

RetiredLibby · October 2012

Another EXCELLENT piece from The Atlantic on Benghazi:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/the-benghazi-embarrassment/263735/

The Benghazi Embarrassment

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Oct 17 2012, 8:43 AM

The embarrassment of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi is not that it happened. America has its victories against terrorism, and its defeats, and the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American security personnel represents one defeat in a long war. The embarrassment is that political culture in America is such that we can't have an adult conversation about the lessons of Benghazi, a conversation that would focus more on understanding al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa, on the limitations and imperfections of security, and on shortfalls in our intelligence gathering, than on who said what when in the Rose Garden.

What we've got now is a discussion about who needs to be fired, and which candidate is in a better position to score cheap points. Does Mitt Romney actually think that Barack Obama doesn't believe that what happened in Benghazi was an act of terror? A larger question: Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama, a president who is at war in more Muslim countries than any president in American history, is soft on al Qaeda? And one other question: Does Barack Obama believe that Republicans somehow aren't allowed to raise serious questions about the Administration's response to the attack? Again, I wish the Republicans would frame these questions not to raise doubts about the commander-in-chief's innermost feelings about terrorism, but to ask what specific actions do we need to take, quickly, to try to prevent follow-on attacks? Whatever happened to that whole notion of politics stopping at the water's edge?

Four quick points:

1) Because the conversation around Benghazi is so stupid, we're going to end up with more mindless CYA security "improvements" that will imprison American diplomats in their fortress compounds even more than they are already imprisoned. 2) It would be good if at least some of the blame for the assassination of Chris Stevens was apportioned to his assassins. Both candidates would do us a service if they would re-focus the debate on ways to defeat Islamist terrorism.

3) Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama can both take the blame, or the responsibility, for this attack if they want, but the truth, quite obviously, is that neither one of them is in charge of assessing the security needs of individual American embassies and consulates. The job of leaders is to hire well, supervise their hires to the degree possible, and then, if something goes wrong, spend the time and energy to figure out how to fix the problem. It is unrealistic to believe that either leader could have known about what is ultimately a small problem in a large war. We should spend more time judging them on how they respond to defeats then on blaming them for the defeats. (By the way, I would hold George W. Bush to the same standard re: 9/11, and Bill Clinton to the same standard when it came to his Administration's unsuccessful efforts to stop the spread of al Qaeda in the late 1990s.)

4) As Blake Hounshell put it, "Amb. Chris Stevens was a big boy and he made his own decision to go to Benghazi despite the risks. If he thought it was too dangerous, he should not have gone." We've lost thousands of American government employees over the past 10 years in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. Nearly all of them were in uniform, but Foreign Service officers know the risks as well. We need to treat the loss of these four men in Libya as a battlefield loss. That would require people such as Darrell Issa, who chaired a House Oversight committee hearing on the Benghazi attacks, from saying foolish things, like he did the other day. I wrote about this in my Bloomberg View column:

What Republicans shouldn't do is make statements like the one Issa made on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Oct. 14. Issa argued that if security officials had repeatedly requested reinforcements for U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya "and that's not being heard, then it isn't just Ambassador Stevens who is now dead -- it's everybody who works throughout the Middle East is at risk."

Eleven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and 12 years after the fatal raid on the USS Cole in Yemen, and Issa has just realized that assignment to the Middle East might pose risks for American government personnel!

Here's the problem with Issa's stunning insight: In his desire to cast the administration as incompetent, he does an enormous disservice to the cause of forward-leaning diplomacy and engagement. American embassies are already fortresses. Issa would dig a moat around them. After a point, there's simply no reason to dispatch diplomats to hostile capitals if they can't engage with actual citizens. Risk is inherent for U.S. diplomats posted to the Middle East.

Wabbit · October 2012

(((Bren and Brenda)))

If Romney/Ryan do manage to win this election a lot of people in the red states are going to find out the meaning of "Sometimes the worst punishment of all is getting exactly what you want."

RetiredLibby · October 2012

Or, WR, as Mr. Spock so elegantly put it in Star Trek, (they) ". . . will find that having is not half so pleasing as wanting."

L

pupmom · October 2012

Just heard the FBI thwarted an attempt to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City! The 21 year suspect is in custody.

QuinnCat · October 2012

Can't wait to see how Romney et al try to exploit this one. It was very heartning to see Romney get caught with the wrong facts (so much for a competent staff, let alone candidate) while trying to exploit our dear foreign service workers in Libya.

Cheers for Obama for staring that idiot down for Romney accusing his administration of playing political hay with his employee's deaths. It's offensive. Trying to find the transcript for the exact words. It did show that CEO Romney doesn't do good staff work, at the least. Thought that was suppose to be his strong point?

Anonymous · October 2012

Bren - so sorry to hear this news. Maybe, maybe, it won't be cancer? but something much easier to "deal with" - darn - so, SO hard when a dear friend is going through this, makes me go weak in the knees - hope you can think of something to encourage Brenda to "think positively" - as B9 is a possibility?

Yorkie - I just emailed that identical picture to friends before I signed on. Priceless is right. And that point he spent so much time rehearsing as a "zinger" turns into one of the President's finest moments. Courage, strength, empathy, resolve - and responding quickly ( also known as thinking on one's feet) which Willard doesn't seem capable of doing.

Athena - my 2¢, it's your body getting adjusted to the new situation, meds - takes a while, but hoping it will stabilize.

alexandria58 · October 2012

So so sorry bren and brenda. Sending hugs.

O kicked butt last night. Yeah team

Only short messages while in LA. Hand holds a pain

QuinnCat · October 2012

Is Brenda a poster at BCO? I just can't seem to get a handle on everyone in this group. So sorry for your friend bren.

pupmom · October 2012

Kam, yes, it's going to be real interesting next Monday, during the foreign affairs debate, to see how Romney handles Obama having just thwarted yet another terror attack!

Sun, that was definitely one of the best "gotcha" moments in political debate history!

Anonymous · October 2012

Anonymous · October 2012

Oooops...posted in the wrong thread.

Anonymous · October 2012

Can't remember who asked - but it WAS a real earth quake at about 7:15 last night - mainly centered on coast of Maine, felt to about 10 miles east of me. Mighta' been felt here too...but I was busy beginning to worry about the debate & didn't notice

208sandy · October 2012

Oh Bren - so sorry to hear about Brenda's latest diagnosis - where is it going to be done? and when? Please try to get some rest yourself - we don't want you getting sick because you're run down - she is so lucky to have you with her.

Hugs, Sandy

Bren-2007 · October 2012

Kam ... Brenda posts under the name "Naniam." There is a thread in the Stage IV forum with her name as the title. I've been trying to keep her friends there updated.

Sandy ... When are your scans scheduled?

Thanks everyone for your good wishes .. I'm sure Brenda really appreciates it.

hugs,

Bren

YramAL · October 2012

Bren-I'm so sorry to hear about Brenda. I sure hope it turns out to be better than she thinks.

I'm loving the "accidental" drive bys today.

Mary

Moderators · October 2012

You'll find the Naniam thread here - we're all sending her best wishes too.

Belinda44 · October 2012

Bren, hugs and prayers for you and Brenda (Naniam)!

rosemary-b · October 2012

Bren

You are such a good friend.

QuinnCat · October 2012

As long as they're driving by....Your guy is going to lose!!! Oh, and the reason his $5 trillion tax cut and his increase of $2 trillion to the military budget won't cut the deficit is because there aren't enough deductions to make up $5 trillion, let alone $7 trillion dollar cut in revenues. As Obama said, your Romney has no 5 point plan, it is one point plan, making his rich friends richer!

And go figure out the deductions a rich guy takes in proportion to his/her income (not talking about capital gains, which is a whole nother story as it is taxed even lower)...it is inconsequential....the biggest winner in Romney's one point plan are the Paris Hiltons and/or those drawing their million dollar salaries.

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

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