Oct 17, 2014
Oct 16, 2014
2014 Mid-Terms
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
There's also a Proposed Amendment that exempts active-duty military survivors from a certain level of property tax. I'm not crazy about the idea because first, it was proposed by a Repub, which makes me suspicious that they're trying to smuggle in some kinda of general anti-tax bullshit by hiding it behind a cynical and equally-bullshit "concern for our veterans", and second - well, actually I guess that's about it. I don't trust 'em any farther than I could spit one of 'em.
I think you could probably find out what's on the ballot wherever you are by doing what I did - just google the sumbitch.
Get up off your ass for a change - go vote.
Today's Tweet
@TinaDupuy: So far every case of Ebola in this country got it by helping people. So relax, Republicans, you're in the clear.
hat tip = Democratic Underground
Privatizing Public Money
There's a good buncha rubes who're always prattling on about how "taxation is theft; da gubmint holds a gun to yer head and steals yer hard-earned money, and gives it away to welfare cheats yada yada yada".
You've got the process right, Dub - but as usual, you're lynchin' the wrong guys, because you're just too deliberately ignorant to know it.
When your head is that far up your ass, even if you manage to open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit.
From TruthDig:
You've got the process right, Dub - but as usual, you're lynchin' the wrong guys, because you're just too deliberately ignorant to know it.
When your head is that far up your ass, even if you manage to open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit.
From TruthDig:
In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group’s education agenda. The first — and it turns out, only — stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington.
Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the state’s minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the school’s operations.
But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group.
The school’s founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Koch’s free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits.
In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.
The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.
Oct 15, 2014
Today's Self-Parody
Not that long ago, DumFux News was busy slagging Obama for his propensity for the PhotoOp - I seem to recall somebody using language along the lines of "Obama's addiction to the PhotoOp". Here, of course, the Fluxxy Friends need to run in the opposite direction to slag the Prez for his dislike of the PhotoOp.
2nd - as everybody's been pointing out - these guys give us a good look at another example of just saying whatever the fuck they need to say to get the rubes to start flingin' shit - the fact that we don't have an Ebola Czar, even tho' their guys have blocked Obama's choice for Surgeon General; and if we wanna go back just a bit further - these are the guys who were voicing great disgruntlement over Obama's "appointment of all those darned czars"; plus something else that everybody's pointing out - the simple fact that their guys have done nothing but cut the funding to the bureaus and agencies that they now say are letting us down.
Wanna see how Gubmint works when it's run like a bidness? Your wait is over.
2nd - as everybody's been pointing out - these guys give us a good look at another example of just saying whatever the fuck they need to say to get the rubes to start flingin' shit - the fact that we don't have an Ebola Czar, even tho' their guys have blocked Obama's choice for Surgeon General; and if we wanna go back just a bit further - these are the guys who were voicing great disgruntlement over Obama's "appointment of all those darned czars"; plus something else that everybody's pointing out - the simple fact that their guys have done nothing but cut the funding to the bureaus and agencies that they now say are letting us down.
Wanna see how Gubmint works when it's run like a bidness? Your wait is over.
Oct 14, 2014
A Ballsy Ad
I'm not asking anybody to try to match the Repubs crazy-for-crazy, but I really would like it if the Dems could finally getup on their hind legs.
And BTW, Dems - when you don't stand up and make a lotta noise about the Repub Stoopids wanting nothing but more cuts, you're helping people make the case about "both sides", which adds to the gridlock in Washington, which adds to the paralysis of the electorate, which makes it impossible for cooler heads to prevail once the shit really hits the fan.
Step up or step aside.
And BTW, Dems - when you don't stand up and make a lotta noise about the Repub Stoopids wanting nothing but more cuts, you're helping people make the case about "both sides", which adds to the gridlock in Washington, which adds to the paralysis of the electorate, which makes it impossible for cooler heads to prevail once the shit really hits the fan.
Step up or step aside.
Oct 11, 2014
The American ISIS
...meets the Islamic Klan(?)
Whatever I'm doing on any given Saturday morning isn't more important or educational than listening to The Professional Left podcast from driftglass and BlueGal.
Starting at about 37:00, they get to the meat of something that sounds about right. Even if it does end up seeming a little obvious, when somebody connects a coupla dots for me, and there's the sound of a click in the upper part of my brain, I know I've become aware of something worth learning about.
Anyway, listen to it and then tell me there's nothing to worry about with something like the Bullshit Revisionist History Curriculum in Colorado (eg) right now.
It's important to believe as many true things as possible, and to not believe as many false things as possible. (paraphrasing Matt Dillahunty)
Whatever I'm doing on any given Saturday morning isn't more important or educational than listening to The Professional Left podcast from driftglass and BlueGal.
Starting at about 37:00, they get to the meat of something that sounds about right. Even if it does end up seeming a little obvious, when somebody connects a coupla dots for me, and there's the sound of a click in the upper part of my brain, I know I've become aware of something worth learning about.
Anyway, listen to it and then tell me there's nothing to worry about with something like the Bullshit Revisionist History Curriculum in Colorado (eg) right now.
It's important to believe as many true things as possible, and to not believe as many false things as possible. (paraphrasing Matt Dillahunty)
Oct 10, 2014
And Away We Go
Farther down that long and slippery slope. From Rolling Stone:
"In terms of a clear national picture of what kind of military equipment is going to K-12 schools through the 1033 program, we don't have a 100 percent transparent picture," says Janel George, education policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That lack of transparency is one reason the Legal Defense Fund and Texas Appleseed are asking the DLA to end the 1033 program's relationship with school districts and school police departments. George also emphasizes that excessive force against students by school police is already far too common, with many school officers armed with weapons like tasers and pepper-spray. "The concern is not only the potential harm when you add in military-grade weaponry – we're talking about M16s, AR 15s and grenade launchers. It's also, how does this exacerbate existing school climates that are already tense? And how does that contribute to the criminalization of youth of color in particular?"
The disproportionate punishment of Black and Latino students for the same behavior as their white peers is so well-documented that, earlier this year, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education expressed concern that such disparities may constitute a widespread civil rights violation. The fact that students of color, as well as students with disabilities, are so much more likely to be referred to law enforcement leads advocates to wonder: On whom are such military weapons likely to be used?
"In LA, if you depend on public schools – and given that the vast majority of students are students of color – at the moment you walk into school, your interaction with police automatically grows," says Manuel Criollo, director of organizing at the Strategy Center. "You depend on a public service, and that public service is attached to the criminal legal system. Are the police there for [the students'] safety, or are they there because they perceive them as a threat?"Like the man said - "this country is finished".
All we're doing now is arguing about who gets to do what with the corpse.
The KrugMan Speaks
I haven't put up any of Paul Krugman's stuff for a while, mostly because it gets pretty dense and since I'm generally likely to go along with the conclusions he draws, it doesn't seem necessary for me to keep flacking it. But that's kinda the problem - I'm convinced, and so I have what I think is a reasonable expectation for certain actions to follow; certain policies to be put forward and debated and eventually enacted.
I understand that "the other side" is thinking the same way, but c'mon - amending the US Constitution to ban abortion and same-gender marriage? Killing unions by force of law? Denying working people a living wage while funneling billions of tax dollars into corporate off-shore accounts? Slashing Medicare and poverty bennies? Turning Social Security into a cash cow for Wall Street? Privatizing the water supplies? Ya gotta be some kinda serious butt-plug radical dip-wad to call any of that "reasonable".
So anyway, here's Krugman in Rolling Stone, defending Obama - something I've been reluctant to do (not that RS has ever asked me - ahem). But y'know what? With all the time we spend bitchin' about Obama's Neo-Liberal bullshit, I still can't see how those other guys are anywhere near any kind of an improvement.
I understand that "the other side" is thinking the same way, but c'mon - amending the US Constitution to ban abortion and same-gender marriage? Killing unions by force of law? Denying working people a living wage while funneling billions of tax dollars into corporate off-shore accounts? Slashing Medicare and poverty bennies? Turning Social Security into a cash cow for Wall Street? Privatizing the water supplies? Ya gotta be some kinda serious butt-plug radical dip-wad to call any of that "reasonable".
So anyway, here's Krugman in Rolling Stone, defending Obama - something I've been reluctant to do (not that RS has ever asked me - ahem). But y'know what? With all the time we spend bitchin' about Obama's Neo-Liberal bullshit, I still can't see how those other guys are anywhere near any kind of an improvement.
When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.
And I wasn't wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)