Monday, February 29, 2016

Looking forward

Rss@dailykos.com (mark Sumner) · Friday, February 26, 2016, 10:41 pm

You know what? I’m looking forward to improvements in the healthcare system that include a form of public option and reduction of the power of private insurance companies.

I’m looking forward to the appointment of a Supreme Court justice who will not just safeguard Roe v. Wade, but help to roll back the hundreds of restrictions and complications which have reduced a woman’s right to choose.

I’m looking forward to a broad, national effort to address climate change and at the same time boost the economy by focusing on new, clean energy technology.

I’m looking forward to a vast reduction in the mandatory sentences and unreasonably severe punishments applied for nonviolent offenses in the name of getting tough on crime.

I’m looking forward to more funding for early childhood education, for a massive expansion of affordable public colleges, and to a renewed focus on creativity in the classroom.

I’m looking forward to a thoughtful humane plan on immigration that will recognize the contribution of the many immigrants already in our nation who need a path to officially become American citizens.

I’m looking forward to some restrictions on the hidden carry, open carry, stand your ground, shoot to kill legislation that has driven up both violence and unease.

I’m looking forward to seeing our crumbling infrastructure replaced by modern, safe replacements that include smart alternatives in public and private transportation.

I’m looking forward to changes in the tax system that will rein in the out of control disparity between rich and poor and restore to our nation a healthy middle class with opportunity to achieve.

I’m looking forward to greater justice. Across races. Across sexes. Across genders. Across religions. Across social classes. I’m looking forward to all these things.

And you know who I think will give them to me?

In One Month We Will Begin Intentionally Starving Poor People

Hamilton Nolan
Today 5:35pmFiled to: THE POORS

At the end of March, 22 states will begin imposing work requirements on people who want food stamps. Hundreds of thousands of people will likely lose their food aid.

The Wall Street Journal reports that starting on April 1, all of those states plan to reinstate a rule that had been set aside after the financial crisis led to mass unemployment: that adults with no dependents or disabilities are limited to “three months of food stamps in any three-year period—unless they work at least 80 hours a month, or meet education and training or volunteer benchmarks.”

Food stamps, by the way, are a government program that works extremely well.

If people are unable to find a job, it is cruel to force them to starve, and it is foolish to make a poor, unemployed, hungry person sit through classes that will not directly lead to a job, or spend their time volunteering, for no income, simply so they can have food to eat, but no money or free time to obtain it. The likely outcome of reinstating these rules: “The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 500,000 to one million people will lose access to food stamps this year, citing the experience in states where work requirements already returned.”

This is the human cost of all of those years of right-wing rhetoric about fairy tale “welfare queens” ripping off the system. That rhetoric was used only for momentary political gain. But it engendered a deep belief in certain parts of the public that even food is too gracious of a gift for our poorest citizens. So now, hundreds of thousands of people will go hungry, so that some other, smaller number of better-off people can believe that they are not being ripped off by people they do not know and will never see.

Congratulations.

The secretly-elected Heritage crew creates new headaches for House Speaker Paul Ryan

By Joan McCarter
Wednesday Feb 24, 2016 · 2:53 PM EST

For a former budget committee chairman—and GOP golden boy—House Speaker Paul Ryan is proving astoundingly inept at leading his conference in coming up with a budget. He began the Congressional session in January promising that once the House failed one more time to repeal Obamacare, they'd get the 2017 budget and spending bills done first thing. “First thing” has turned into March, and March is clearly going to turn into maybe sometime before November. Because the House Republican conference can't be led, except by the Heritage Foundation, with all the money its attached Heritage Action group has to spend.

Further complicating Speaker Paul Ryan's effort, the Heritage Foundation—the right's most influential think-tank—unveiled a budget blueprint that goes far, far beyond anything Ryan is proposing when it comes to slashing government spending.

The aggressive conservative wish list, provided to POLITICO, is likely to increase unrest in the Republican conference and boost hardliners’ resistance to leadership’s pitch of sticking to a spending deal made with President Barack Obama.

“The point of the blueprint is both to educate the public but also to influence Congress and the presidential candidates,” said Paul Winfree, director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

The public would be horrified by reading what Heritage has in store for them in their wish list. Of course there's the obligatory defunding of Planned Parenthood, and cutting off of funds for clean air and water enforcement. But they go all the way down to things like eliminating grants under the Violence Against Women Act (make those domestic violence shelters have bake sales!), disaster assistance for small businesses, and healthy food for school children. This is what the House maniacs are going to line up behind.

Meanwhile, the current budget chairman and Ryan are working within the realm of budgeting and spending that they inherited from the agreement outgoing speaker John Boehner worked out, the one that could actually pass in both the House and Senate and be signed by the president. But they have been working with the Freedom-y types toward something those guys might not totally oppose, "a compromise in which discretionary spending would remain at the higher level, but the House would pursue significant cuts to mandatory and entitlement spending through the appropriations process or in a reconciliation bill." That might lose them some fed-up Republicans and all Democrats—and thus would make it impossible to pass. And now that Heritage has released its marching orders, a compromise probably isn't going to be good enough for all the Freedomy folks.

So Ryan is in the thickets, where any Republican "leader" is going to end up. Meanwhile, John Boehner must be kicking his feet up with a bourbon and a cigarette, having a great time not having to deal with this particular set of clowns.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/24/1490470/-The-secretly-elected-Heritage-crew-creates-new-headaches-for-House-Speaker-Paul-Ryan

Re-post of a favorite: Willful, destructive ignorance...


Re-post of a favorite: The economy - it's not rocket science.


Five OBG posts - remembering the George W Bush years






Religiously speaking

In truth, the reason for the Burka 

Religion - when you really WANT to be deceived.
Just a piece of the crazy behind every facet of religion.

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