I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange
Comments
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We all have royal names in my family. My name is Catherine and today I get to visit with my Prince Philip!
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C4C - I like James too - George is a wee bit old fashioned.
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A quick wave hi. Been watching reports and jokes on Anthony Weiner's antics. Would this be nearly the news it is if he had a different name? Anyway, feel really sorry his wife and I really really regret that he's Jewish. I can just see her family saying things like, I told you not to marry that Jew. Sigh. What a weiner.
On other news, Obama gave an inspiring speech.
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A wave from Seattle, too. (It's a GORGEOUS day here
). Anyway, I think Weiner's antics would be news regardless of either his name or his party. It's a pity that American's get so overwrought over such relatively trivial stuff. It's strictly my opinion, of course, but it seems that marital issues should be simply between the married couple and not be smeared all over the media. I have a really difficult time figuring out how the multitudinous peccadilos of politicians have anything to do with how well (or poorly) they can run the country (or some section thereof). -
Another excellent piece from The Atlantic on the Affordable Care Act. Norm Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Even he is flabbergasted at the appalling behavior of the regressives to sabotage the law.
The Unprecedented, Contemptible GOP Quest to Sabotage Obamacare
What the Republicans are doing now goes beyond mere hardball politics -- and could hurt millions of Americans affected by health-care reform.Jul 25 2013, 9:13 AM ETWhen Mike Lee pledges to try to shut down the government unless President Obama knuckles under and defunds Obamacare entirely, it is not news -- it is par for the course for the take-no-prisoners extremist senator from Utah. When the Senate Republicans' No. 2 and No. 3 leaders, John Cornyn and John Thune, sign on to the blackmail plan, it is news -- of the most depressing variety.
I am not the only one who has written about House and Senate Republicans' monomaniacal focus on sabotaging the implementation of Obamacare -- Greg Sargent, Steve Benen, Jon Chait, Jon Bernstein, Ezra Klein, and many others have written powerful pieces. But it is now spinning out of control.
It is important to emphasize that this set of moves is simply unprecedented. The clear comparison is the Medicare prescription-drug plan. When it passed Congress in 2003, Democrats had many reasons to be furious. The initial partnership between President Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy had resulted in an admirably bipartisan bill -- it passed the Senate with 74 votes. Republicans then pulled a bait and switch, taking out all of the provisions that Kennedy had put in to bring along Senate Democrats, jamming the resulting bill through the House in a three-hour late-night vote marathon that blatantly violated House rules and included something close to outright bribery on the House floor, and then passing the bill through the Senate with just 54 votes -- while along the way excluding the duly elected conferees, Tom Daschle (the Democratic leader!) and Jay Rockefeller, from the conference-committee deliberations. (emphasis added)
The implementation of that bill was a huge challenge, and had many rocky moments. It required educating millions of seniors, most not computer-literate, about the often complicated choices they had to create or change their prescription coverage. Imagine if Democrats had gone all out to block or disrupt the implementation -- using filibusters to deny funding, sending threatening letters to companies or outside interests who mobilized to educate Medicare recipients, putting on major campaigns to convince seniors that this was a plot to deny them Medicare, comparing it to the ill-fated Medicare reform plan that passed in 1989 and, after a revolt by seniors, was repealed the next year.
What is going on now to sabotage Obamacare is not treasonous — just sharply beneath any reasonable standards of elected officials with the fiduciary responsibility of governing. (emphasis added)Almost certainly, Democrats could have tarnished one of George W. Bush's signature achievements, causing Republicans major heartburn in the 2004 presidential and congressional elections -- and in the process hurting millions of Medicare recipients and their families. Instead, Democrats worked with Republicans, and with Mark McClellan, the Bush Administration official in charge of implementation, to smooth out the process and make it work -- and it has been a smashing success.
Contrast that with Obamacare. For three years, Republicans in the Senate refused to confirm anybody to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the post that McClellan had held in 2003-04 -- in order to damage the possibility of a smooth rollout of the health reform plan. Guerrilla efforts to cut off funding, dozens of votes to repeal, abusive comments by leaders, attempts to discourage states from participating in Medicaid expansion or crafting exchanges, threatening letters to associations that might publicize the availability of insurance on exchanges, and now a new set of threats -- to have a government shutdown, or to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, unless the president agrees to stop all funding for implementation of the plan.
I remember being shocked when some congressional Democrats appeared to be rooting for the surge in troops in Iraq to fail -- which would mean more casualties among Americans and Iraqis, but a huge embarrassment for Bush, and vindication of their skepticism. But of course they did not try to sabotage the surge by disrupting funding or interfering in the negotiations in Iraq with competing Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish power centers. To do so would have been close to treasonous.
A good example is the letter Senate Republican Leaders Mitch McConnell and Cornyn sent to the NFL, demanding that it not cooperate with the Obama administration in a public-education campaign to tell their fans about what benefits would be available to them and how the plan would work—a letter that clearly implied deleterious consequences if the league went ahead anyhow. McConnell and Cornyn got their desired result. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell quickly capitulated. (When I came to Washington in 1969-70, one of my great pleasures was meeting and getting to know Charles Goodell, the courageous Republican senator from New York who took on his own president on Vietnam and was quietly courageous on many other controversial issues. Roger Goodell is his son -- although you would not know it from this craven action.)
When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable -- unless it becomes an effort at grandstanding so overdone that it detracts from other basic responsibilities of governing. They can try to amend it to make it work better -- not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.
But to do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation -- which in this case means finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance; to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options; to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians; to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law; and to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil -- is simply unacceptable, even contemptible. One might expect this kind of behavior from a few grenade-throwing firebrands. That the effort is spearheaded by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate -- even if Speaker John Boehner is motivated by fear of his caucus, and McConnell and Cornyn by fear of Kentucky and Texas Republican activists -- takes one's breath away.
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Yep.
L
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Some of our lawmakers, if tried, would, I believe, be found guilty of treason. They do not work for the good of the country, nor of their consituency. They work for the good of their pocketbook and their party. And don't get me going on the media....
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GG, it is probably sedition - the active undermining of the government. Here is the section of the U.S. Code that deals with sedition and treason.
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C115.txt
Whatever they are guilty of, they are despicable human beings.
L
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I stand corrected.
Sedition it is. As you say, though, despicable. -
Libby - still laughing at 'Murica' - so true, and funny.
Alexandria - I am SO, SO, SO, disappointed in Huma for "standing by her man" and trying to make it only personal. THIS WAS OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOR by a man who wants to return to PUBLIC office - his judgement is SO BAD, he is so deeply flawed, and this behavior CONTINUED after their sloppy People Magazine roll out before the campaign began. Who the H cares what his "wife" ( who seems to want political power & the $$$ that goes with it) thinks - he is a PUBLIC figure, and wants MORE POWER. If he behaves that way AFTER being "shamed" into resigning public office, and AFTER he decides to run for Mayor - what's he going do if he's elected? Yuck, just yuck.
GG - I look at your avatar and smell plumeria/frangiapani - JOY. Can it be grown as a houseplant? I managed to kill a gardenia, and onyl got one wimpy flower out of a jasmine - having GREAT success with wax hoya, and their cluster blossums smell like chocolate. More joy.
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Alexandria - we aren't the only ones not supporting Carlos Danger:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/poll-anthony-weiner_n_3653422.html
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From Brian Beutler at TPM:
“With the Obama administration poised for a huge public education campaign on healthcare reform, Republicans and their allies are mobilizing a counter-offensive including town hall meetings, protests and media promotions to dissuade uninsured Americans from obtaining health coverage,” Reuters reports. “‘We’re trying to make it socially acceptable to skip the exchange,’ said Dean Clancy, vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks, which boasts 6 million supporters.”
Emphasis mine. It’s bad enough to just not care all that much if the U.S. has a large uninsured population. But if there’s an excuse for encouraging people who have the means to remain uninsured, I can’t fathom it.
It almost goes without saying that this effort is being undertaken to keep younger, healthier people out of the exchanges, and send the individual insurance market into an adverse-selection “death spiral.” That would ruin the system for people who want the help Obamacare offers them. And so the campaign effectively amounts to asking people to continue putting their well-being and livelihoods at risk for the good of the cause of keeping health care for sick people unaffordable.
Who takes pride in this?
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Isn't it sickening, C for C? People who HAVE insurance trying to prevent people without insurance from getting it. People who HAVE money trying to dissuade people without money from getting health care.. People who claim to be patriots, who claim to love their country, doing their damndest to destroy the sense of "we are in this together and what benefits the community benefits me" upon which this country was built. The hatred that oozes from them, the "I've got mine so screw you" attitude (way of living their lives, actually) is the very antithesis of what the better nature of this country is all about. They betray (yes, GG, this kind of treason) the very spirit of "we must all hang together or surely we will hang separately" that actually launched this country. To them, "E pluribus unum" has a codicil - "but only those people who are like me." Ugh. Little do they realize that what they do today to destroy what President Obama is trying to do will rebound on their children and grandchildren tenfold.
L -
Interesting article I read regarding " What do Republican Voters think about the direction of their Party.
Republicans are currently in charge of the least popular Congress in American history. Because of them, Congress has been known as the ‘do nothing’ Congress since January 2011. Since then, the GOP has filibustered hundreds of pieces of legislation in the Senate, and House Republicans are poised to make the 113th Congress the least productive of all time. On top of that, a minuscule 10% of Americans actually approve of Congress.
That brings us to the latest poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post. After years of an agenda that has been hostile toward gays and lesbians, women, minorities and the poor, including a war on voting, a war on contraception and abortion, a war against healthcare, Republican voters seem to finally be getting sick of it.
According to the new poll, a majority of Republican voters, 52 percent, believe the GOP is going in the wrong direction. So even the GOP’s own base thinks Republicans have gone off the deep end.
The news comes at the same time House Speaker John Boehner is planning to hold another meaningless vote to repeal Obamacare for the 38th time and the GOP intends to hold America hostage once again by refusing to increase the debt ceiling unless Obamacare is defunded. The poll numbers are also in the wake of Republican efforts to force passage of voter suppression laws and extreme anti-abortion legislation in various red states around the country. Could this be a sign that even red voters are fed up with the GOP? Or could this be a sign that red voters are fed up with the GOP because it hasn’t moved far enough to the right? The former would be the best scenario; if it’s the latter, we can only assume Republicans are going to get even more extreme.
On the bright side, if Republicans do get more extreme, they will face a significant backlash from voters the likes of which will make them wish they had abandoned their agenda entirely. Democrats, on the other hand, are much happier about the direction of their party. A whopping 72 percent of Democrats are thrilled with the direction the party is heading.
Furthermore, the poll reveals that 68 percent of Americans want more cooperation in Washington while 26 percent oppose compromise. Among very conservative voters, only 48 percent want zero cooperation from the GOP. That means an ever increasing number of Republicans want their party to compromise, further proof that the GOP only listens to its most extreme members. Because the way Republicans are acting in Congress right now is certainly not the way most people want them to, and that apparently includes a large number of Republicans.
In sum, while most Democrats approve of their party, a majority of Republicans disapprove of theirs. If Republicans aren’t careful, the next election may not only see them lose heavily among women, Latinos, and African-Americans, but lose heavily among their own voters as well. This poll may be a small bit of proof that Republicans and their destructive policies are driving the party to its own demise. Any sane and reasonable American must be smiling about that.
RL.....everything ypu said in triplicate.
Weiner and his woman. Laughable and therefore sad. Aspirations by both that will likely never bear fruit which makes the current display all the worse.
Jackie
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Sunflowers - I tried to grow plumeria (frangipani) it as a houseplant, but failed - I think I "overgardened" it
. I did, however, have a hibiscus houseplant for a number of years before I managed to kill it. In regards to Weiner and his antics - I guess I just have a different opinion. I think private life should remain private for "public servants" as much as possible. I honestly don't think their craziness is anyone's business but their own (and their partners if married/committed). (With the obvious exception of if they are breaking the law). I don't think that someone having an affair, or sexting or "whatever" interferes with their ability to govern UNTIL it gets grabbed by the media. If no one cared, the media wouldn't get involved, and the stuff that matters would be HOW the govern, not WHO they play with. JMO, though.
As for the GOP and insurance - so fricking confusing. I guess they prefer that people get really sick and go to the emergency room so that the tax-payer can pick up that bill instead... because it's so much LESS expensive to go to the emergency room than it is to get decent healthcare????
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Enjoyful with her beautiful boy! Finally getting a chance to go through my pictures of the past weekend. Hope to share many more with all of you.
hugs,
Bren
PS .. I think Weiner is an idiot. If he gave a damn about his political life he would have quit the sexting. Sounds like he needs Sex Addicts Anonymous.
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And another good column in Rolling Stone from Matt Taibbi - from July 16 but I just caught it today. It answers all those "people" (I use the term loosely) out there who say that all people have to do is just get a job.
David Brooks Wonders Why Men Can't Find Jobs: Comedy Ensues
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone July 16, 2013
From a David Brooks column in The New York Times this morning:
In 1954, 96 percent of American men between 25 and 54 years old worked. Today, 80 percent do. One-fifth of men in their prime working ages are out of the labor force.
Brooks' point piece turns out to be a popular column topic among conservative writers: Why aren't people working? The twist in this one is that it's a gender-based thesis. Brooks got hold of some stats showing that men are having more trouble recovering the jobs lost in the recent recession than women. He cites a Floyd Norris column from this weekend, "Gender Gaps Appear as Employment Recovers From Recession," which provides all the relevant numbers.
Norris's piece actually offered a simple explanation for the gender gap. The jobs that are coming back, he says, are in the health care sector, where women hold four out of every five jobs. In fact, if you read Norris's piece carefully, you learn that women are actually losing ground in non-health-care related industries like manufacturing and financial services, that men are getting jobs back in those fields at a better rate than women. But, again, there's been more recovery in the health care sector for whatever reason, hence the stats.
Brooks takes all this data and decides that the real issue here is that men are not adaptable and can't bring themselves to make the changes needed to find work. He weaves an elaborate analogy involving the John Wayne movie The Seachers, which I guess is about the end of the cowboy era and how the rugged, violent men who tamed the West had trouble fitting in to the cushy, civilized world they helped create. (What David Brooks knows about any of this is anyone's guess). Brooks writes about Wayne's Ethan Edwards character as the hero who has made himself obsolete. "Once the western towns have been pacified," he notes, "there's no need for his capacity for violence, nor his righteous fury."
There's a famous scene in the film where Edwards brings an abducted girl home after a seven-year quest but, being the obsolete brute that he is, is unable to cross the threshold into her civilized home upon his return. To Brooks, this somehow is a metaphor for the men of modern times, who are unable to "cross the threshold into the new economy."
Anyone who's ever been unemployed knows that statistics like the ones Norris cites have everything to do with what kinds of jobs are available, and very little to do with the willingness of the population to work. Pretty much everyone who doesn't have a job will do just about anything short of organ donation to get a job. If you've got kids and you can't make rent, nobody needs to help you cross any freaking threshold into any new age. If it doesn't involve sucking on someone else's body parts, you'll do it.
Not according to Brooks, who thinks there's another explanation:
But, surely, there has been some ineffable shift in the definition of dignity. Many men were raised with a certain image of male dignity, which emphasized autonomy, reticence, ruggedness, invulnerability and the competitive virtues. Now, thanks to a communications economy, they find themselves in a world that values expressiveness, interpersonal ease, vulnerability and the cooperative virtues.
Surely, part of the situation is that many men simply do not want to put themselves in positions they find humiliating. A high school student doesn't want to persist in a school where he feels looked down on. A guy in his 50s doesn't want to find work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy young things.
Hmm. Men don't want to be put in positions they find humiliating? How many men out there today are working as telemarketers? As collections agents? How many grown men are working in fast-food restaurants, getting yelled at by people like Brooks when they put the wrong McNugget sauce in the take-out bag?
And as for those 50-year-olds not wanting to work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy young things – it's the other way around. Usually, the savvy young things are turning down the older guy. If Brooks thinks there are 50-year-old men out there with families, people maybe facing foreclosure, who turn down jobs because they don't want to take orders from "savvy young things," he's crazy. All jobs involve taking humiliating orders from bosses and everyone who's ever had a job knows that. If you need a job badly enough, you'll take a job offered by Hermann Goering, Hannibal Lecter, Naomi Campbell, anyone.
It's not just Brooks. These days you can't throw a rock without hitting some muddle-headed affluent white dude who spends his nights stroking his multiple chins and pondering the question of the lazy poor, convinced as he is that there are plenty of jobs and the problem is that prideful or uncommitted or historically anachronistic (that's Brooks' take) folks just won't suck it up and take them.
Earlier this year, for instance, when Yale and Penn started suing their graduates for failing to pay back their student loans, Bloomberg asked a Cato Institute fellow named Neal McCluskey for comment. He replied:
You could take a job at Subway or wherever to pay the bills and that's something you need to do if you have agreed in taking a loan to pay it back . . . It seems like basic responsibility to me.
First of all, if you need to take a job at Subway after getting a degree from Yale, that's pathetic and 100 percent on Yale, not on the kid who mortgaged his future to pay for a Yale education. Secondly, it's pretty obvious Neal McCluskey has never tried to live on a Subway salary. He should probably give that a shot and see how much money is left over at the end of every month to pay off his Perkins loan. He'd be hooking in Union Station within a month.
It's amazing how many educated people really believe that the unemployed just don't like to work. I remember seeing Jon Voight, of all people, reading one of his infamous letters on Mike Huckabee's show, talking about the "very poor and needy, who live to be taken care of," who have been fed "poison" by our president, giving them the idea that they're "entitled to take from the wealthy, who have lived and worked in a democracy."
Here's a guy lucky enough to have a job in a fantasy-land business where people hurl money at him round the clock for a few hours of work a day, who somehow finds the time to work himself into creepily genuine anger towards a group of people who have to fight to get jobs cleaning toilets or working fry-o-lators. Talk about a guy who needs a new hobby, or a puppy, something!
Remember that scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale stabs Reg E. Cathey's homeless "Al" character? The part where he's like, "Get a job, Al – you've got a negative attitude, that's what's holding you back!" Fellas, Mssrs. Brooks and Voight, that was satire. About the last thing the millions of broke Americans out there need is someone like you telling them their problem is that they need a more positive attitude. Actually their problem is much more simple: not enough jobs. Really, that's pretty much it. It's not a mystery.
End column.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/david-brooks-wonders-why-men-cant-find-jobs-comedy-ensues-20130716#ixzz2a5bwR3N6 -
It's a good article - but possibly doesn't tell the whole truth. It does seem that there are some jobs that people won't take. For example, here in Washington at the depth of the recession orchard owners were crying for people to pick fruit. Those people who formerly came to pick (primarily unskilled Mexican laborers) were not coming - for whatever reason. The could NOT find anyone to pick, until finally the governor (at the time) had minimum security prisoners picking fruit. (We were actually visiting that part of the state at the time - EVERYWHERE were signs offering picking jobs). Anyway, the point of the story (which really is true) is that some jobs apparently some people won't take - or something.
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IMHO Weiner is one sick puppy and needs to use his time to get well, not to pursue office. I feel sorry for his wife, wish she could/would toss his ass, but that's up to her. If she can't toss him I hope the voters of New York can. I really wish he'd drop out but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
After reading the Brooks' piece he also seems to be a sick puppy, but in a much different way.
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GG, I agree with you with some qualifications on the picking jobs. Growers in upstate New York found that problem, too - their migrant workers, some of whom had been coming for years, stopped coming when the anti-immigrant sentiment got so high that the legal migrants were being beaten, their vehicles vandalized, and hate graffiti spray-painted on their vehicles and campers. They were refused service in restaurants and grocery stores, so they elected to stay home or go elsewhere. The growers couldn't find anyone who would or could do those jobs, which are extremely arduous and highly physical. What is never said, however, is that the picking industry is rife with wage theft in the form of piecework, payment by the pound which results in less than minimum wage, and exhorbitant rents charged to migrants by some unscrupulous growers. There are job people won't take, and there are jobs people can't take, like a minimum wage job at McDonald's when you have to ride two busses and pay for child care that costs more than what you make. It is a complex problem and a complex equation, but only in a few cases is it that people don't want to work.
L -
RR, David Brooks is an odd duck. He is conservative and at times spouts some of the most wrong-headed, Koch-inspired, surreal drivel about some imaginary fantasy conserva-land where good jobs are available for all who apply and people on public assistance are lazy. At other times, he takes the regressives to task for their shocking disrespect and racisim directed toward the President and his family and the unremitting, unrelenting war on women. It is like he doesn't really get some things about living in the real world, with his expensive suits, coiffed hair and immaculate fingernails provided by his salary as a columnist at the NYT. Sometimes he is reasonable but sometimes he is lost in the regressive fantasy land. His column referenced in Matt Taibbi's column was one of those out-of-touch fantasies.
L -
HL....that is quite an interesting article indeed. I have known very few people indeed, male or female, who when necessary would not take a job -- whatever it was, myself included. Partly based on huge need, but when not, based on the work ethic that was instilled early on. I just in fact took on more work...for the 5th. time in my 15 years being back home here. I have not in fact applied for any of that work. People know of my reputation for hard, honest work no matter what I am doing.....and seek me out. Circumstances permitting I'll always be able to 'give' them a hand.
Fact is.....especially after this last illness, though due to my military service most of the costs were handled by the V.A.......there were enough expenses generated though travel, co-pays, and other items not handled before this disease struck that I still must work. It has been great to not have to go look for work, but I say I really do not know anyone who has turned down anything.
Jackie
ETA I was aware of some of the migrant issues and how difficult some of their labor can be. I also understand since I picked strawberries as my first job at 11 years of age and spent 9 yrs. as McDonald manager a very, VERY long time later.....that many of those sorts of jobs can only be taken if their is another good earner in the family. I could walk to work and uniforms provided. So even though wages weren't high, it cost little for me to work there...some shoe leather mainly.
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Libby - I don't disagree with you - the fact is that most of the people who desperately needed work were not living in the same part of the state where the fruit needed to be picked. The work, as you say, is arduous and low-paying. If you don't even have a car you can sleep in - not to mention get to the orchard in - it's not as if it's actually a job. So, maybe the point of the story isn't that there are some jobs that people won't take, but rather some jobs that they cannot take.
Also, back when we were kids, the people who did most of the picking were just that - kids. We would pick fruit to pay for clothes and goodies that we couldn't have otherwise. That's apparently no longer an option for kids - I'm not sure why, but think it has something to do with child labor laws???
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It probably does have to do with child labor laws, GG - because again, the picking industry is rife with abuse of child labor. I used to work for that part of the Department of Labor and the head of the Wage & Hour division grew up as a migrant worker in California. She still had the scars on her hands from the knife she used to pick grapes at 12. State laws vary from state to state, but the Federal laws are the floor beyond which states may not go. www.dol.gov is the placeholder - I will come back and edit to add the Wage & Hour link. ETA - and here is the link to the child labor laws page, which includes handy links to state child labor laws: http://www.dol.gov/whd/childlabor.htm
L -
Re the jobs thing. There is indeed an increasing segment of our male population who are content to live off one woman after another rather than get a job. Watch any of the judge shows lately? Add to that throughout high school and beyond they've been busy ruining their own potential building arrest records with irresponsible behavior. So even the entry level employers don't want them. My son has a friend, says he wont take jobs that are for "wetbacks". Drumroll please......He's Hispanic, quit his last job gathering carts at the grocery store because he didnt like the lady supervisor. Keeps asking my son for $10, especially when my sons disability comes in. We gave him information on job resources, he tossed it. Another friend has a stepson who barely graduated and celebrated by getting caught stealing very expensive shoes at the mall.....did this wake him up.....no he's hanging with two other young thieves and will get caught again soon.
Are they in the majority? No. But their numbers are certainly increasing.
Thank you politicians for opening the door for that giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country. All your corporate buddies got richer while the middle class has almost disappeared. Not everyone was meant for college degrees and professional positions.
I'm rambling. Oh and last word on Weiner, he's a narcissistic pervert and no he shouldn't expect voters to choose him. -
yeah - there's undoubtedly a major difference in how kids of migrant workers are treated compared to middle class kids who are just looking for pocket money. If I didn't like how I was treated, or just got sick of spending time in the berry/vegetable fields instead of the swimming pool, I could just not go back. It's a bit different when your family is dependent upon the money you're making.
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How nice to see you, Chickadee! How are you feeling these days?
Of course there are people who don't want to work. There will always be people who prefer larceny to working, who want to take the easy way, who want people to do for them rather than doing for themselves. That is nothing new ... We have had that group of people with us since we shambled out of the woods. You see opportunists in nature - the cuckoos, for example! But the vast majority of people on public assistance don't want to be there - they would rather work. However, when a minimum wage job (or two) doesn't even net you enough money to pay your rent, get to work and eat, there is something wrong with the way the economy is skewing.
GG, there was a movie called "Harvest of Shame" about migrant workers. I do believe it has been updated from the 1960s version. Back with the link in a jiff.
Yes, "Harvest of Shame" was a 1960 documentary by Edward R. Murrow. CBS News did a segment on it 50 years later - here is the link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-7087361.html
L -
Interrupting, but just for a second.
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Awwwww..... Too cute, Blue!
Just got this in my newsfeed. Pretty funny:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/07/obamacare-confession/ETA from RetiredLibby - this is NOT my blog post and the gentleman referenced below is NOT my father. It is from something that popped up in my newsfeed on Facebook last night. The link to it is above this note. It is very funny and I think a guy like this would be great to have as a dad, but he isn't mine!
This is my father’s facebook status from last night:
The hammer has dropped. The sky has fallen. I have been a staunch defender of the ACA. I have defended Nancy Pelosi’s much maligned (and taken out of context by the right) statement to pass it so we would know what was in it.
Well.
Today, I got a letter from my current insurance company inviting me to call them and find out what the exchange could do for me. The letter informed me that I could keep my current $600 per month, $10,000 deductible policy since it is grandfathered in, or I could get a new policy starting Jan. 1.
For a total of $105 per month, I will be able to get a new silver policy. My current policy equal to a bronze. For a total of $300 per month, I will be able to get a gold policy. The higher your metal, the lower your deductible, your copay, and the higher the drug benefit.
So, instead of $7200 per year for catastrophic insurance for Carol and I, plus paying out about $10,000 out of pocket each year due to the high deductible and pre-existing conditions………we will pay either $1200 or $3600 per year for a damned sight better coverage and much fewer out of pocket expenses.
So, for all the conservatives who have been desperately straining for years to scare me out of this, and to the Republicans in the House who have voted 37 times to repeal the ACA……kiss my country ass. You’re a bunch of lying, fear mongering and ignorant demagogues, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Ayup.
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Hah!
L -
Shhhhh.....
-
Libby, I'm happily married, but if I wasn't I'd say that I LOVE your dad!!
.
I'll try to watch that link later. Can't see anything pm this danged phone!
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