Tag: conservatives

I believe

I believe that both political parties have lost their minds. They’re both so far out of touch with what their voters want and need that they may as well run the country from Mars.

I believe that the no-fly list as it exists today — with many ways on, no clear way to get off if there’s an error and no accountability — is a dumb idea exceeded only by PreCheck. PreCheck is proof that the whole process is Security Theatre, and that some people are willing to pay for convenience. It assumes that nobody ever hides radical tendencies, nobody ever becomes a Bad Guy, nobody ever goes crazy, and certainly nobody ever has their identity stolen. Oh yeah, and the current long airport security lines? They may well be designed to manipulate you into paying.

I believe that making the no-fly list into a no-gun list is also stupid. Funny how nobody suggested the idea until we had some Muslim mass shooters. The problem is that none of them were actually on the list. In fact, this last asshat was actually removed from the watchlist. Twice. Yet now sensible ideas such as universal background checks are being conflated with this bad idea.

I believe that the Second Amendment — along with the rest of the Bill of Rights — was written by men who overthrew the legal government.

I believe that, since it costs 18 times as much as life in prison (not just a little bit more, but 18 times more!) and there’s the possibility of making a mistake, there is no reason to support the death penalty. Conservatives should oppose it on fiscal grounds. Liberals should oppose it on fairness grounds. The end.

I believe that Obamacare is neither as good nor as bad as everybody says. I further believe it could be greatly improved by allowing people to buy in to Medicare: a public option that means I don’t have to enrich for-profit insurance companies to follow the law.

I believe that a social safety net is a good thing. Don’t believe it? You don’t even need to read Les Miserables to understand how that works, you can now watch it.

I believe immigration is hopelessly messed up in this nation. That is partly due to quotas, which are both artificially low and outright discriminatory against people who are not white and English speaking. Illegals need to “go to the back of the line“? That line is something like 17 years long. Talk about a sick joke.

I believe that America’s largest employers, including and especially the military, deserve to know that any high school graduate from any school in the United States has certain skills in reading, writing, and math. However, I believe that Common Core is not that standard.

I believe in school choice. I also believe that taxpayers should not pay for your choice if it is not a public school. And as many rules as get forced down as a condition of receiving funds? Parents should not want money that could have strings attached later.

I believe it’s entirely possible that I’ve become so liberal that I’ve come around the other side of the spectrum and somehow become conservative. In fact, I actually agreed with Glenn Reynolds about something. I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

Music Monday: ?

Happy Birthday to both John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness) and Alex Kingston (Melody Pond River Song).

 

In Closing: let’s just get all the TSA bashing out of the way; hope nobody is surprised that Federal law still says pot businesses aren’t legal; Sir Patrick Stewart; no plan is a plan; I already said this; perspective; and it’s getting worse; and even worse; oh, that’s why; actually, people’s opinions are center-left.

Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Shorties

I haven’t been as posty as I’d like lately. As some of you know, I have recently gone back to school. That means I have a lot of reading, and a bit of getting used to classmates who occasionally make me feel like this:

misc-jackie-chan-l

I remind myself that I am old enough to be mommies to some of them. So without further ago, shorties.

Social Media: It’s embarrassing that social media is now little more than yet another way to send me ads.

Social Security: There’s only a crisis if you want there to be one.

Too much Social, too little work: Up to 80% of a worker’s internet time might be spend “cyberloafing.” It’s easier to hide that you’re doing nothing at the computer than at the water cooler.

Bad Association: Turns out that Countrywide kept doing “business as usual” after B of A took over. I hope this surprises none of you.

Social Promotions for Educational Reforms?: I still like Kevin Drum.

Social Studies: The Avengers and The Breakfast Club.

Fitting in to Society: On immigration reform.

Vegas: Visitors are at a record high despite reduced convention traffic.

Reducing the deficit without slashing our own throats: From the progressives. But it won’t happen because the conservatives really want to make the majority of us into modern serfs by slashing the safety net instead.

Speaking of modern serfs: A third of student loans are subprime. They can’t be discharged through bankruptcy. They are creating a generation that may always be in debt.

Obesity is bad for you: even if you are the Governor.

On Republicans: From a Republican woman (endangered species, I know).

Gee, you don’t say!: Global climate change might adversely effect agriculture. Who knew?!?

Music Monday: He would have turned 257 yesterday

Rock me, Amadeus.

 

In closing: as true as this is, the other half of the solution involves prison time for supervisors and managers that ignore the law; facts can be twisted; work out before breakfast; how to cancel almost anything; hahahahahaha what planet are they from that they think doctors set their own prices??; 150 things really smart people are worried about; what kind of moron texts his girlfriend to say the baby isn’t breathing instead of calling 911??; deadliest jobs in America; Fluffy’s Dream Home.

Music Monday: What’s Going On

 

In Closing: the cat came back; the wages of austerity; aww rats; adventurous surrogate mother wanted; rubber duckies; well yeah, it looks silly when he does it; too redacted; Clouds! Pork Exercise! Mexico! Pass the word; backtrack; never occurred to them that’s not an option for everybody; locking up the dumb b**** for not knowing what’s good for her baby; dealing with climate change; some bosses think Jesus wants them to break laws they don’t like (I seem to remember a line about rendering unto Ceasar…); on math; on history; and a prototype of facebook.

No Reason to Subscribe to Fortune

Let’s cut to the meat:

[I]f America fails to enact historic, structural reforms in spending, an entirely new source of revenue will be needed. And it’s likely to be enacted in haste and near-panic, as the only option to forestalling a crisis. “The gap between revenues and outlays will be simply too large,” says J.D. Foster, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former budget official under President George W. Bush. “Three points of GDP need to be closed to make budgets sustainable. Either government spending gets back near where it used to be, or we’ll need an completely new type of tax.”

The new levy will need to be big, so big that the most probable choice is a European-style value-added tax or VAT. That looming revenue machine is the phantom in the room, the tax that’s still invisible to most Americans, but that threatens precisely the group that’s supposed to emerge from all the deal-making as the Great Unthreatened, our middle class.

Now then, let me explain why a VAT — particularly a hastily enacted VAT — is absolutely not going to happen. It’s called the 16th Amendment:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Congress has two ways of taxing us. The first is a tax based on the number of people in the state. It should be obvious that it’s not entirely fair to make your tax bill based on state population without regard for your ability to pay (it seemed like a good idea in the 18th century), so the 16th Amendment had to be passed to make income tax legal. I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar, but I don’t see a damn thing in the Constitution or Amendment 16 that makes a national sales tax legal.

Anybody who wants a VAT had better start working on an amendment to the Constitution. That cannot be done in haste.

This article is supposed to scare you and I into insisting on austerity rather than implement this improbable, middle class “crushing” tax. Heaven forbid we should raise additional revenue through higher taxes on the wealthy at the rates they were under Reagan, or Nixon, or heaven forbid Eisenhower (all “conservative” Republicans of their day). Nope, easier to frighten you into giving up the things your taxes have paid for: well maintained roads; safe water coming out of your tap and safe food available at your local grocer; police and fire services; public schools that make sure businesses can hire literate employees anywhere in the nation; a minimal retirement income you already paid for. Nope, gotta cut back somewhere.

In Closing: scientific method suggests that when your experiment doesn’t work, you change the hypothesis; what a sleeze; let’s not lock kids up in solitary; wealth gap grows; agreed; women will die because their parents are afraid they will think sex is ok; I find it hard to believe that’s cost effective; “Just how many female-headed single-parent families with two children under 10 are there in the United States making $260K/year, anyway?”; and wouldn’t that be a waste.

Music Monday: Happy New Year

 

In Closing: My new favorite blog; disgraceful; AC saves lives; damned if he doesn’t sound reasonable; no deal may well be better than a bad deal, but it doesn’t matter because there will be no vote tonight; yeah, that does sound kinda dumb when you put it that way; Baby Boomer Nuns; they wouldn’t be there if they could farm it legally; we never had a chance; even a broken clock is right twice a day; and somebody must write a sci-fi epic based on this picture.

Let the Spin Begin

Ok, the good news first. Poverty is down ever so slightly. The number of people without health insurance is down, despite the fact that health insurance premiums went up 4% (far exceeding the official inflation rate).  The bad news is that  typical American income is down for the 4th year in a row. Adjusted for inflation, we’re back to the Clinton Administration.

Sit back and watch the two parties fight about what this means and who is to blame.

In Closing: converted RINO; crass; type 3 diabetes; turns out that training makes for better employees, who knew?!?!?; apples and oranges; voter suppression works too well; and the rules.

Compare and Contrast

Alright. I’ve been trying real hard to stay away from talking about Paul Ryan. Every newsman, blogger, and their dog have been on about Paul Ryan for the last 36 hours. That being said, I would like to point something out.

One of the core things that Mr. Ryan wants to do is replace Medicare with a “voucher system” where seniors can pick out and pay for their own private medical insurance. That’s the number one thing CNN has to say about him! Of course anybody who actually understands math and insurance knows that a premium that would actually cover a typical Medicare patient’s medical expenses would be unaffordable for most seniors, even with a voucher (just like with private schools). Therefore, it would be most accurate to say that Mr. Ryan wants to abolish Medicare.

Now then, please consider this second item. The Head of the RNC says that it’s Obama that wants to destroy Medicare. Even the NBC interviewer had to step back and ask but what about Paul Ryan’s voucher plan.

Listen. It’s pretty simple. Obama is no saint, but he’ll do less damage to Medicare than the Rolls-Royce Romney/Ryan ticket.

In Closing: I hate to say it –and I’ll probably never say it again! — but Insane Clown Posse has a good point; by contrast, Chris Rock will probably have another good point in the future; how much of high food commodity prices are the drought and how much is banker speculation?; there’s got to be a way to legally troll this system; on White Terrorists; what? you mean housing and unemployment are related issues??; and your brain.

Facebook

Facebook is a social media site that I don’t use. At all. Ever. You see a Bridget Magnus over there? It’s not me. Probably that lady from Vancouver.

Ok, disclosure out of the way.

So, it seems that their stock is at a record low. And it’s expected to dump more altitude in a couple of weeks when employee stock can start to trade.

Is it really relevant to talk about a stock being at an all time record low when it hasn’t even traded for 6 months yet?? Seriously?

If you want a real Facebook story, how about the fact that 80% of ad clicks might be bogus? That’s where Facebook makes it’s money; is it possible that their profits are padded by bot-generated activity? Which of course begs another question: who ever clicked on those ads? I had about 3 hours where I thought it might be a good idea to advertise over there, but then I came to my senses.

As for myself, I’m not buying their ads, not buying their stock, and not taking their free membership either.

In Closing: life lessons; Jill explains why the Post Office is really in trouble; enough with biometric security already (hello!); how far will this scandal reach?; sugar; Orwelling; nope, no such thing as global climate change (BTW it’s raining in Vegas today).