US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[benjipwns]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/12/obamas-flirt-with-danish-prime-minister-is-a-disgrace/
 

NY Post says, oh yeah, you liked that last one did you?

http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/how-the-west-was-lost-2/

How the West was lost by the selfie president

My bookshelves sag with encyclopedic volumes arguing that America and the West are in decline. But proving that a picture is worth a thousand books, the “selfie” seen ’round the world ends the argument.

It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.

President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment.

But the “selfie” episode also symbolizes the greater global calamity of Western decline. With British prime minister David Cameron playing the role of Obama’s giggling wingman, the “look at me” moment confirms we have unserious leaders in a dangerously serious time.

Iran marches toward nuclear weapons and already there is talk in military circles that a nuclear-armed Iran could mean mushroom clouds in the Mideast within five years.

China is flexing its muscles throughout Asia, its ships brazenly confronting ours on the high seas. Russia is expanding its writ in the Arab lands and in Eastern Europe while making casual threats about bombing America. Syria’s Assad uses chemical weapons and Obama and Cameron rattle little sabers before meekly agreeing to become his partner.

The sign-language interpreter wasn’t the only fake at the Mandela funeral. Obama and Cameron were posing as world leaders.

They will never be confused with FDR and Churchill. The fratboys stand in stark contrast to the days when the “special relationship” meant two great leaders uniting two great countries in the fight for freedom. Those leaders understood the consequences if evil prevailed and were committed to victory.

Churchill coined the term “special relationship” during World War II and used it again in his “Iron Curtain Speech” in 1946 that marked the unofficial start of the Cold War. Fearful the West would disarm again, as it did after World War I, he wanted to combat communism by maintaining the “special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”

To him it meant our “kindred systems of society” must grow ever closer to provide mutual security and a framework for global peace. That special bond later cemented the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher partnership that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Try to imagine any of those four embarrassing their nations by acting like indulgent teenagers while civilization hung in the balance. You can’t because they wouldn’t.

Hitler’s greatest mistake was being born too soon. If he were on the march now, would there be will in Washington and London to stop him? Would there be an arsenal of democracy to save mankind from darkness?

In fact, while Obama and Cameron were yukking it up in South Africa, the White House was denouncing bipartisan efforts in Congress to pass more sanctions against Iran. Doing so, it said, would scuttle the feeble interim deal Obama and Cameron accepted. Incredibly, administration arguments echoed Iran’s position.

Try to imagine FDR and Churchill siding with Hitler against their national legislatures. You can’t because they were the antitheses of the appeasers of their times.

World War II proved that the international order collapses when there is no one to support and enforce it. Obama himself has said that, but apparently believes talk is sufficient.

Cameron also talks a good game, but hollowed out the British military to where it is no longer capable of sustained missions.

Words don’t matter to tyrants and genocidal maniacs. They push until they are convinced there will be consequences if they go further.

Our weakness invites their aggression and makes war more likely, not less. That is the perilous state of the world, as the clown kings of the West party on.

[Mandark]

I still wouldn't want to be on the side of a bet against a Democratic administration throwing military force around, even if only to avoid appearing "soft" on defense, especially a Gore-Lieberman administration.

Yeah, and I think the Afghan war happens in some form or another no matter who's president.  But both Clinton and Obama were much warier about major commitments of ground forces than the Bush administration was (where Clinton was criticized from the right for relying on airpower in Serbia and from the left in failing to intervene in African genocides).  Plus PD's right, the people who thought ousting Hussein should be a high priority had mostly made their home in the Republican party and its attendant networks and institutions.

If a President Gore had decided to invade Iraq post-9/11 I'd expect most of his party would have fallen into line, but I don't think the impetus for a an invasion would have been there.  Plus Gore spoke against the war in real time, which I think is a pretty strong indicator of how hypothetical President Gore would have acted, whether you interpret his speech as sincere, or as posturing from someone who thought the war would become a political liability.

[benjipwns]

I haven't looked too closely at Obama and a lot of this type of thing you can only really look at years after the administrations are out, but Clinton did increase the number of tiny little and longer involvements quite a bit and then did some fancy legalize to say they weren't ground troops or in combat and stuff. And in a more sane world* the Republicans missed the boat on not impeaching him for ignoring the House voting down his actions regarding Kosovo (iirc) if they were intent on some impeachment.

Which I think examining the counter factual is the question of how many Clinton-era holdovers stick around into the first few years of the Gore Administration, how much influence Lieberman and his various friends gain,  how far Gore changed from his openly "hawk" days and just how much he desired to differentiate and distance himself from Clinton. Because for all of Bush's failures in the nine months they were technically "new people on the job", if you have the same people in power who were botching bin Laden things for years (and wouldn't take him!), headed up the U.S.S. Cole situation, the infamous FIREWALL, etc. then I don't think it's a stretch to hypothesize an overreaction.

If I had to guess, I'd just assume that had Gore actually been interested in running again in 2004, the "played on our fears" speech and Deaniac alignments would have been less likely than shacking up with the dopes who were trying to say they opposed Bush and sorta opposed Iraq but not too much, Bush just screwed it up and they'd do it better!

The reality is the most likely course of action of a Gore Administration though would have been for him to ban the use of oil in the U.S., announce a surrender to the Muslims and invade Israel to help restore The Caliphate. He'd have banned Christmas by the time of Tora Bora in our timeline. EDIT: And used nationalized health care to deny medical treatment to anyone who didn't follow Sharia Law.

*The same one where Bush gets impeached for stating that a law he was signing was unconstitutional and he hoped the Supreme Court would strike it down.

[Brehvolution]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/12/obamas-flirt-with-danish-prime-minister-is-a-disgrace/
 

NY Post says, oh yeah, you liked that last one did you?

http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/how-the-west-was-lost-2/

Conservative fan fiction at it's best.  :mollywater

[ToxicAdam]

A new USA Today/Pew Research survey finds 45% of 18- to 29-year-old Americans say they approve of the way President Obama is handling his job while 46% disapprove of his job performance.

"The president's approval rating with young Americans -- which stood at 67% just ahead of his second inauguration less than a year ago -- now mirrors the general population."

22 point swing. Think it's because of the reality of mandated health insurance hitting many people?

If the Dems want to make 2016 gainz, they probably need those people engaged and back into the fold.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/12/15/usa-today-poll--obama-millennials/4012257/

[TakingBackSunday]

A new USA Today/Pew Research survey finds 45% of 18- to 29-year-old Americans say they approve of the way President Obama is handling his job while 46% disapprove of his job performance.

"The president's approval rating with young Americans -- which stood at 67% just ahead of his second inauguration less than a year ago -- now mirrors the general population."

22 point swing. Think it's because of the reality of mandated health insurance hitting many people?

If the Dems want to make 2016 gainz, they probably need those people engaged and back into the fold.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/12/15/usa-today-poll--obama-millennials/4012257/

 

get that shit out of here

More likely the approval downturn is related to the botched rollout and the NSA bullshit.

[Joe Molotov]

Hitler’s greatest mistake was being born too soon. If he were on the march now, would there be will in Washington and London to stop him? Would there be an arsenal of democracy to save mankind from darkness?

 

[Phoenix Dark]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/12/obamas-flirt-with-danish-prime-minister-is-a-disgrace/
 

NY Post says, oh yeah, you liked that last one did you?

http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/how-the-west-was-lost-2/

This is straight out of The New Frontiersman.

[Great Rumbler]

I guess I missed the news story where Chinese/Russian/Syrian tanks were tearing across an entire continent and millions of civilians were being slaughtered wholesale, because otherwise the comparison to Hitler/Nazi Germany might come across as just a little bit silly.

[Steve Contra]

It's not the US was exactly chomping at the bit to go to war with Germany anyway.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/toure-says-theres-already-a-benevolent-black-man-who-gives-gifts-to-kids-obama/

Grade A troll

[benjipwns]

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/16/who-tops-cruz-in-early-iowa-2016-poll/

the comments 

They start off reasonable enough, get a little crazy conservative which is expected, then by the tenth post somebody's saying the Bushes had Hinckley shoot Reagan to derail the conservative movement and 50% of all labor in Wisconsin are illegal immigrants and someone else is talking about the Jews using George W. Bush to take over the government and Ted Cruz is using GMO's to pollute the PH of the soil or something while everybody accuses everyone else of being a media matters troll.

Picked up this awesome nickname though:

Fear Not... No matter how smart you think you are.... YOU ARE NOT!!!!! You emit a certain Smell like OVOMITCARE...Sick and Sicker

Are you really an OVOMIT POTTED PLANT?? OR a Cheap Imitation of Carney???

Take that you DEMOCRAPS!

Oh and Hillary is a member of the "Muslim Sisterhood" and is trying to become the next "muslim communist" president.

Lynn K  Joseph Gardner • 9 hours ago −
We are doomed if another non natural born (Cruz) takes the seat in the Oval Office. Might as well tear up the Constitution totally rather than one page at a time as is now happening.

[Human Snorenado]

Well, that's a good argument for no affirmative right to vote in the Constitution.

[Phoenix Dark]

My twitter line is going crazy over Brooks' latest article. I haven't read it, but will post it for Mandark.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/opinion/brooks-the-thought-leader.html?smid=tw-nytdavidbrooks&seid=auto&_r=1&

[benjipwns]

There is no writer so obscure as a 26-year-old writer.

[Barry Egan]

edgy stuff.

[Human Snorenado]

Why are you guys trying to kill Mandark? SHIT'S NOT COOL.

[Barry Egan]

are David Brooks' pieces usually peppered with that much ennui or is that only a post-Obamacare rollout thing?

[Human Snorenado]

ASPLAIN YOURSELF NOW, LIBRULS

[Mandark]

[Phoenix Dark]

A malfunctioning HealthCare.gov website and confusion over canceled policies have kept millions of Americans from choosing new health plans so far this fall. But with website access improving and the initial deadline to sign up for coverage looming Dec. 23, insurers are starting to blanket the airwaves and social media with glitzy ads urging consumers to buy their plans.

WellPoint Inc. – which has held off for weeks on a planned campaign as problems with the website made it impossible for many consumers to sign up – said it expects to spend up to $100 million by the end of this year on TV, social media and print ads targeting mostly young and healthy people – the consumers it covets most because their premiums will help offset the medical costs of older, sicker policyholders. […]

The enrollment surge has compelled some insurers to snap up TV ad time, said Scott Roskowski, director of business development at TVB. “It’s already very noticeable that the December pace has begun to pick up” with insurer advertising, Mr. Roskowski said. TVB projects that insurers will spend about $500 million on ads on local TV stations in 2014.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/insurers-the-rescue

Many have been watching insurance company's reaction to the roll out in relation to ad money. Now it seems like they money is about to start pouring in.

BCBS (of Michigan) had an interesting ad campaign in mid October/early November, hyping their own insurance website and noting how reliable it was. It was a pretty direct jab at Healthcare.gov, and probably effective given how much of a monopoly BCBS has here. I haven't seen any ads from them lately.

On the dental side, I talked to an insurance agent friend about the flood of Medicaid eligible children being signed up by various practices, now that the program has raised their provider reimbursement rates. He said "it's fucking Black Friday every day for dental practices. But instead of getting electronics they're getting new patients."

[benjipwns]

Matt Ygelsias is Costanza? http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/16/amazon_mom_save_money_with_a_fake_baby_or_a_real_one_if_applicable.html

[Joe Molotov]

ASPLAIN YOURSELF NOW, LIBRULS

(Image removed from quote.)

Yet another reason to support gay marriage, because gays don't need birth control.

[Brehvolution]

My wife's birth control and 3 births(after stopping bc, duh) were all covered by insurance 100% before Obamacare. I think it's great we are moving to direct payments from conservatives to women and their reproductive systems.

It's time to stop listening to these idiots talk about insurance.

[Human Snorenado]

I know people here hate fisking (because you're all a bunch of panties in a bunch pussies) but this is a truly magical take down of Brooks' latest travesty.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-brooks-thought-leader-column-121713

[Dickie Dee]

Charles Pierce

[Joe Molotov]

I support fisking when it's used in the service of pointing out what a tool David Brooks is.

[Great Rumbler]

And it was still a more substantive response than that David Brooks article warranted.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/mitch-mcconnell-debt-ceiling-101249.html?hp=l1

Would love to have this idiot tried for treason already.

They already proved they aren't willing to go over the cliff, so who cares.

[Phoenix Dark]

[benjipwns]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/worried-about-looking-ignorant-team-sebelius-seeks-media-help/article/2540790

Concerned that senior leaders, including Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “can be left ignorant and unaware” of what Congress and the public are saying about them and their policies, officials at the agency in charge of Obamacare are seeking help to track everything the media is writing about the Department of Health and Human Services.

The sprawling department that is supported by a large communications shop is collecting the names of private companies that can produce a customized daily digest of news better and more complete than the one HHS aides currently compile.

The reason, according to HHS, is that there is too much media to monitor and the department’s public affairs office is having trouble meeting deadlines and producing readable summaries. What’s more, like with the website issues plaguing Obamacare, the internal staff has had difficulty getting their news summaries to work on mobile devices.

“While the secretary, the agency heads, and senior leaders across the department are critical customers, it is important to the department in general that staff at all levels in all agencies be aware of how the department and its agencies are being cast in the public eye. All HHS staff essentially are ‘ambassadors to the public on the department's behalf,” said a department notice.

“Without this knowledge, HHS leaders can be left ignorant and unaware of what the public, Congress and stakeholders may be saying and reacting to, thus leaving HHS officials less than fully informed in their decision making processes,” added the department.

Interested small businesses have until Dec. 23 to tell HHS if they can handle the job. After that, HHS will determine if it wants to move ahead with farming the job out.

what

[Rufus]

(Image removed from quote.)

Oh man, popping that bubble must have felt good.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/worried-about-looking-ignorant-team-sebelius-seeks-media-help/article/2540790

Concerned that senior leaders, including Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “can be left ignorant and unaware” of what Congress and the public are saying about them and their policies, officials at the agency in charge of Obamacare are seeking help to track everything the media is writing about the Department of Health and Human Services.

The sprawling department that is supported by a large communications shop is collecting the names of private companies that can produce a customized daily digest of news better and more complete than the one HHS aides currently compile.

The reason, according to HHS, is that there is too much media to monitor and the department’s public affairs office is having trouble meeting deadlines and producing readable summaries. What’s more, like with the website issues plaguing Obamacare, the internal staff has had difficulty getting their news summaries to work on mobile devices.

“While the secretary, the agency heads, and senior leaders across the department are critical customers, it is important to the department in general that staff at all levels in all agencies be aware of how the department and its agencies are being cast in the public eye. All HHS staff essentially are ‘ambassadors to the public on the department's behalf,” said a department notice.

“Without this knowledge, HHS leaders can be left ignorant and unaware of what the public, Congress and stakeholders may be saying and reacting to, thus leaving HHS officials less than fully informed in their decision making processes,” added the department.

Interested small businesses have until Dec. 23 to tell HHS if they can handle the job. After that, HHS will determine if it wants to move ahead with farming the job out.

what

Why does she still have a job at this point.

[Great Rumbler]

Exactly.

[Mandark]

The weird thing about the Brooks column is that EVERYONE immediately sees that he's the poster boy for the phenomenon he's trying to capture.  So the working theories are...

* He's criticizing the younger generation of aspiring public intellectuals without realizing his hypocrisy
* Someone said something mean about him and he's calling them out without naming them, Carly Simon style
* The column is entirely self-loathing, and he may or may not be aware of it
* It was meant to be a breezy and self-deprecating take on his own social class, like his description of blue state people back in the day, only he's such a terrible writer that he can't control the tone of his prose and the piece curdled



The other column that benji posted earlier is more representative.  Take some middlebrow source material, summarize it, and suggest some major change as The Solution To All Our Problems.  Bonus points for any sociological or institutional explanation for a problem (in this case the current gridlock in DC) that avoids blaming movement conservatism or the GOP.  He'll likely never revisit the subject again or bother to learn/speak about the details and difficulties involved, no matter how big or radical the change is.  Then he'll talk about Burke and humility and shit with a straight face.

[Human Snorenado]

If the Occupy people really gave a shit about the world, they'd send suicide bombers to the Aspen Ideas Festival.

[Phoenix Dark]

If the Occupy people really gave a shit about the world, they'd send suicide bombers to the Aspen Ideas Festival.

The Big Four doesn't appreciate your humor, sir.

[benjipwns]

So the working theories are...

Early deadline and accidentally sent in his suicide note.

Take some middlebrow source material, summarize it, and suggest some major change as The Solution To All Our Problems.  Bonus points for any sociological or institutional explanation for a problem ...  He'll likely never revisit the subject again or bother to learn/speak about the details and difficulties involved, no matter how big or radical the change is.

How dare you suggest there's any comparison between obscure 22-year-old "radical" Social Democrat David Brooks:


And serious thinker "national greatness" conservative David Brooks:

It would be silly to try to lay out some sort of 10-point program for American greatness. In any case, the particular policies are less important than getting Americans to begin to think differently about politics. The gravest threat to America today is the complacent mediocrity and petty meddling of the nanny state. Efforts to get big government off our backs, to strengthen families and to invigorate communities are healthy responses to the threat. But they are insufficient without the ambitions and endeavors of a conservatism committed to national greatness.

America isn't in a state of moral degradation and decay, as some of the Cassandras fear, but neither is it in a state that should make us content. If you drive around the country, looking into the cultural institutions of the middle class, you do not find widespread depravity or picturesque collapse reminiscent of the last days of Rome. Instead you see a nation that is good-hearted and bourgeois, and nobody should castigate the bourgeois virtues since they are responsible for most of the good things around us. But if there is a flaw, it is that American society may now be too bourgeois; it is tranquil to a fault. It is, as many social critics have noticed, characterized by a pervasive non-judgmentalism. Alan Wolfe calls this small-scale morality; Allan Bloom called it easygoing nihilism. Whatever its name, it is radically anti-contentious. Americans today are suspicious of vehemence, of people who radiate certitude. American culture recoils from those who try to "impose" their opinions or lifestyles. It is unfriendly to those who seem too passionately attached to higher ideals or who otherwise threaten to shake things up.

...

This seems to be what McCain and others are getting at when they speak of the enervation of the American spirit. The fear is that we have become a nation obsessed with risk avoidance and safety. We allow soft sentimentalism to replace demanding moral principles. We shrink our time horizon, becoming disconnected from our common past and less mindful of our future. We detach from public and political life and look on everything that does not immediately touch our own lives with an indifference that is laced with contempt. In short, in seeking to avoid the Scylla of overpoliticized turmoil, we may founder on the Charybdis of underpoliticized complacency.

McCain and others seem to sense that the way to combat some of these trends is to reattach people to the meaning of America, its highest ideals and transcendent glories. In other words, patriotism can serve as an antidote to the temptations of affluence. It can provide a counterpoint to enervation, inspiring people to live up to their principles. It can act as a counter-vailing force to excessive individualism, reminding people of their common bonds and reengaging Americans in national life. It can help inculcate virtue in the young. And it can protect against embourgeoisement, enlarging an otherwise pragmatic spirit that reduces life to the prosaic and mundane.

...

If we are going to encourage a new 21st-century patriotism and preserve the vigorous virtues that the pioneer ideologists rightly celebrated, we can't just re-brew the elixir that worked in the past. We will need another national narrative, and another public philosophy to guide us.

...

But it's interesting to turn back to John McCain, because he is a centrist figure in American politics and because, of the leaders who seem to have thought most about patriotism and the national identity, he is a relatively centrist figure in American politics, in tune with mainstream culture.

Like most people in America, McCain has learned the etiquette of the multicultural creed, and he is sympathetic to many of its goals. He loudly calls upon the Republican party to be the party of inclusiveness and boasts of his sensitivity to Hispanic concerns. He supports some bilingual education programs and urges his party to move beyond affirmative action debates. But, also like most people, McCain is clearly dissatisfied with the multicultural vision. America is a diverse country, but it cannot be just that. It is united by something more than its diversity, and when McCain talks about his patriotism, he is groping to articulate what that is.

Right now his sentiments are vague. He talks about the military. "I have never had a prouder moment in my life than after Desert Storm," he says. And he tells stories of military heroism, like the one about Roy Benavidez in Cambodia. But personal courage is not the same as patriotism, because it doesn't indicate what cause the hero serves. So McCain gropes, struggling to articulate a solid goal in the midst of slippery swamps.

...

McCain has no central narrative to organize his thinking, and no public philosophy to explain America's purpose.

McCain, of course, is a politician, not a public philosopher (TR fancied himself both). McCain's job is to promote policies. And in this he is more specific. In fact, if you look at his policies, you can begin to imagine a national narrative and a public philosophy that might be erected around them.

...

But there is something else the heroes of the American Century exemplify: citizenship. They dedicated large parts of their lives to public service, believing it the most honorable of professions. They believed, too, that public service requires certain virtues, like duty, loyalty, honesty, discretion, and self-sacrifice -- virtues that can always use reinforcement in Washington and across the land. Citizenship implies a set of habits and obligations that counteracts the decentralizing tendencies of American life, the impulses to autonomy and self-expression. And the duties of citizenship join people across class, race, and region to involve them in the political fate of the nation -- in the task of self-government.

This is where, at the beginning of the 21st century as at our Founding over two hundred years ago, politics and patriotism come together: in self-government. They come together in the individual's self-government that makes possible self-sacrifice and virtue; they come together in the civic self-government that underlies healthy social institutions; and they come together in the political self-government that is America's achievement and model for the world. It wasn't until John McCain lost America for a while, he says, that he realized how much he loved her. Perhaps it's only after we've forgotten the meaning of our patriotic pride for a while that we're now ready to realize how central to us is, in the words of James Madison, "that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."

[benjipwns]

[benjipwns]

I'm really starting to get behind the idea of it. Really liked the bit in there about telling people to think of it in terms of how they'd spend it themselves.

Hey Spencer, this is a little pricey but it's a book that came out this year on Guaranteed Income that seems to be quite well regarded:
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Income-Guarantee-Economic-Exploring/dp/1137347880/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

Can the U.S. afford a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)? In 1983, Sheahen published Guaranteed Income: The Right To Security. Today, with the constant conversation about the role of the US Government and how it should be handling debt problems and welfare programs, this question is one among many in need of reexamination.

A BIG is the unconditional government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs without a work requirement. Reading about BIG can be confusing since the topic's terms are used in different ways by different people. In Basic Income Guarantee, Sheahen uses his expertise to delve into pressing issues and questions such as why we should adopt a BIG, if everyone has the right to BIG, and if a BIG would even work. In easy-to-understand language, Sheahen answers these and many more questions, as well as updates the statistics from his break-through 1983 work.

Although, one of the endorsements makes me a bit uncomfortable:

"Absent as an issue for almost fifty years, Allan Sheahen places the idea of a basic income for all Americans squarely back on the national agenda. In plain English, this radical idea is not only clearly explained but answers even the toughest objections that can be raised. This book should make sense even to my most dysfunctional colleagues in Congress." - Bob Filner, U.S. Congressman of San Diego and former chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee

Saw these cheaper ones (from different perspectives) in the related:
http://www.amazon.com/In-Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare/dp/0844742236/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3

America's population is wealthier than any in history. Every year, the American government redistributes more than a trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for retirement, health care, and the alleviation of poverty. We still have millions of people without comfortable retirements, without adequate health care, and living in poverty. Only a government can spend so much money so ineffectually. The solution is to give the money to the people.

This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. Murray suggests eliminating all welfare transfer programs at the federal, state, and local levels and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone age twenty-one or older. In Our Hands describes the financial feasibility of the Plan and its effects on retirement, health care, poverty, marriage and family, work, neighborhoods and civil society.

From Charles Murray who quoted on the above book as well:

"Sheahen and I are as far apart on political philosophy and the causes of the nation's current mess as two people can be, but we both think that a basic income guarantee has to be part of the solution. That says something about the potential of this important idea whose time, as we both hope, is coming. Basic Income Guarantee will help make that happen." - Charles Murray, author of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

http://www.amazon.com/Redesigning-Distribution-Stakeholder-Cornerstones-Egalitarian/dp/B00EBGNOWA/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_4

Are there ways that contemporary capitalism can be rendered a dramatically more egalitarian economic system without destroying its productivity and capacity for growth?

This book explores two proposals, unconditional basic income and stakeholder grants, that attempt just that. In a system of basic income, as elaborated by Philippe van Parijs, all citizens are given a monthly stipend sufficient to provide them with a no-frills but adequate standard of living. This monthly income is universal rather than means-tested, and it is unconditional — receiving the basic income does not depend upon performing any labor services or satisfying other conditions. It affirms the idea that as a matter of basic rights, no one should live in poverty in an affluent society. In a system of stakeholder grants, as discussed by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott, all citizens upon reaching the age of early adulthood receive a substantial one-time lump-sum grant sufficiently large so that all young adults would be significant wealth holders. Ackerman and Alstott propose that this grant be in the vicinity of $80,000 and be financed by an annual wealth tax of roughly 2 percent. A system of stakeholder grants, they argue, “expresses a fundamental responsibility: every American has an obligation to contribute to a fair starting point for all.”

EDIT: Worth mentioning as well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

Maybe check your PMs.

[Phoenix Dark]

agreed but good lord that OFA ad is fucking horrible. It's something I'd expect from Nintendo.

[benjipwns]

I think one thing telling about the current state of things is how often politicians are using "playing politics" or "partisan" as a epithet. It seems like it's increasingly becoming common. "I propose this law to feed school children toxic runoff." "That's a bad idea, I'm gonna have to say we vote against that." "My opponent is just playing partisan politics with this issue!"

I like to pretend it isn't effective. 

[Phoenix Dark]

pour out a 40 for Christie 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/nyregion/christie-agrees-to-in-state-tuition-for-undocumented-immigrants.html?_r=0

[Eric P]

this is pretty awesome

https://www.facebook.com/MassStatePolice/posts/555772124506775

Trooper Joe Petty assisted by Tpr Dave Stucenski & K9 Frankie Locate 1250 Bags of Heroin in Hatfield

Early this morning, Trooper Joseph Petty was on a traffic stop of Route 91 in Northampton when a vehicle passed by him. Trooper Petty observed several violations. Trooper Petty stopped the vehicle a short time later in the Town of Hatfield. Trooper Petty made contact with the operator and passengers.

During the stop, evidence of illegal narcotics led to a request for a State Police K9. Trooper David Stucenski and K9 Frankie located 1,250 individual bags of heroin in the vehicle. Four people were taken into custody and charged with narcotics violations.

[Phoenix Dark]

500k people enrolled in the ACA exchanges this month alone, total of 1mil enrolled thus far. Great news but frustrating in light of the earlier problems; if the website had worked in October, it might be near 2 or 3mil by now.

[Steve Contra]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57291925-78/marriage-utah-state-sex.html.csp

If only you had a Utah facebook feed to watch.  The salt is off the charts

[Phoenix Dark]

the judge straight up trolls Scalia

 

Obama appointee

[Brehvolution]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57291925-78/marriage-utah-state-sex.html.csp

If only you had a Utah facebook feed to watch.  The salt is off the charts

Enough salt to fill a lake and a city.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2013/12/youngest-obama-daughters-real-name-not.html

[Great Rumbler]

[Joe Molotov]

 

[benjipwns]

that 'Sasha's actual legal name is 'Nastasha', a diminutive form of 'Natalia' which means 'birthday' or 'Christmas' in the language of the USSR.

Overcompensating for being an atheist Muslim.

[Phoenix Dark]

from the comments

Natasha spelled backwards is Ah Satan! 

 

It was Barky and Mantoinette's adult decision to choose a Russian name for their baby so that is certainly fair game. They made many calculated political decisions including later not using her given name. One of the reasons thin skinned Barky absolutely hates Mittens is that Mittens has 5 sons and he has none.

[benjipwns]

[Phoenix Dark]

(Image removed from quote.)

500k enrollees in December

[Joe Molotov]

It's also distracting us from the real issue - Natashagate.

[Phoenix Dark]

How the GOP became the “White Man’s Party”
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/22/how_the_gop_became_the_white_mans_party/

haven't read it yet, posting so I don't forget to read it tomorrow

[helios]

[Barry Egan]

such zeitgeist

paid for wow

[Brehvolution]

Cornoge