How is $15K for an individual above the poverty line?
That seems really low to me. I mean, you can make that work, but if anything happens to your health or you need to make a car payment you're basically fucked. And I've seen what an apartment that goes for <$500/mo. looks like. It ain't pretty.
How is $15K for an individual above the poverty line?
That seems really low to me. I mean, you can make that work, but if anything happens to your health or you need to make a car payment you're basically fucked. And I've seen what an apartment that goes for <$500/mo. looks like. It ain't pretty.
America in large part due to compassionate conservatism punishes the absolute fuck out of the poor, and you have to be god damn destitute before we even let you sniff assistance.
You can thank Clinton for some of this garbage as well.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
How is $15K for an individual above the poverty line?
That seems really low to me. I mean, you can make that work, but if anything happens to your health or you need to make a car payment you're basically fucked. And I've seen what an apartment that goes for <$500/mo. looks like. It ain't pretty.
America in large part due to compassionate conservatism punishes the absolute fuck out of the poor, and you have to be god damn destitute before we even let you sniff assistance.
You can thank Clinton for some of this garbage as well.
This is the reason a stake needs to be driven through the beating heart of Third Way.
That's ludicrous. I live on the East coast with my parents and I can't even so much as think of moving out- let alone having my own place to myself.
EDit- and that's on 30k! Context!
When Morgan Spurlock was doing his "30 Days" series, they did one of the episodes on this. Well, technically it was living on minimum wage, but it's effectively the same thing. Convinced his fiance to do it with him. Was pretty damn sobering. Also uplifting in some ways, mostly by how the community takes care of it's own regardless of the circumstances.
Maybe some communities do, plenty of people are willing to let people rot in this country figuring someone else will take care of the poors.
I guess I should have been more specific. Poor communities tend to each other. I wouldn't trust someone in an upper class suburb farther than I can spit.
The article behind this is just....breathtaking. I want to pity him, but that's tough when he doggedly refuses to see whats sitting right in front of his eyes. IE that his ideas are bullshit and he's been living a lie. Also that's he's clearly lonely and unfulfilled.
Yellen just got confirmed and so will be the Chair of the Fed come February 1st. Final vote 56-26 with all 26 nays being Republicans, 11 yays being Republicans, and 18 Senators being lazy fuckers.
Well with the huge cluster goose that is air travel this week its very possible those 18 senators simply could not get to the capital on time. I know quite a few people who have been stuck for days at various airports.
Feh. I walked to work when it was -40 degrees. Both of them.
Yellen just got confirmed and so will be the Chair of the Fed come February 1st. Final vote 56-26 with all 26 nays being Republicans, 11 yays being Republicans, and 18 Senators being lazy fuckers.
Is that good? Or is that another wallstreet insider
She is one of the few people involved in economic policy with literally no Wall Street experience/exposure. She is also perhaps the best qualified person in the Fed's hundred year history to be appointed, and has been frighteningly prescient in a lot of ways. Here's a good story on her.
House Republican leaders sent a memo this week to the entire GOP conference with talking points designed to help rank-and-file Republicans show compassion for the unemployed...
In the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, House Republicans are urged to be empathetic toward the unemployed and understand how unemployment is a "personal crisis" for individuals and families.
Yep. Totally normal for the human emotion "empathy" to need to be directed by means of a conference-wide memo.
I'd imagine it goes into more detail than that, basically selecting what terms are to be used when discussing poor people in order to ensure unified message discipline rather than exposing your own personality or opinions. It's hardly anything new. Message control at the upper echelons have been a thing since TV became a thing. Lamentable, but hardly surprising.
I'm sure one of them will still compare it to rape somehow.
I think that's really the goal of the memo, to not so subtly say: "Hey you idiots, try not to say anything totally stupid when you talk about this stuff."
The article behind this is just....breathtaking. I want to pity him, but that's tough when he doggedly refuses to see whats sitting right in front of his eyes. IE that his ideas are bullshit and he's been living a lie. Also that's he's clearly lonely and unfulfilled.
Christ, that guy is just completely insane. He's stared into the void of republican madness for one second too long, and now he can't look away.
Well, fortunately it seems he is an utterly terrible person who is responsible for many of the problems we face today, so let us hope his self inflicted misery continues! I hope he continues to be made miserable as a tide of social consciousness rises against the poison he's been preaching.
Its funny that Luntz says that we don't need safety nets because our neighbors should just help us out when we're in a tough spot, when the entire premise of our government, as told by our founding fathers, is that "men are not angels."
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Its funny that Luntz says that we don't need safety nets because our neighbors should just help us out when we're in a tough spot, when the entire premise of our government, as told by our founding fathers, is that "men are not angels."
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
States which have had their entire infrastructure washed away should also bootstrap themselves out of the problem...
Or maybe your neighbors have decided that in order to better share the burdens of distributed assistance, they've banded together to create a democratically elected body of representatives to which they delegate their finances and responsibilities for assisting each other...
Its funny that Luntz says that we don't need safety nets because our neighbors should just help us out when we're in a tough spot, when the entire premise of our government, as told by our founding fathers, is that "men are not angels."
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
To say nothing of the fact that, at least in my adorably naive worldview, the fact that we have a representative system of government means that the government is our neighbors!
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Its funny that Luntz says that we don't need safety nets because our neighbors should just help us out when we're in a tough spot, when the entire premise of our government, as told by our founding fathers, is that "men are not angels."
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
States which have had their entire infrastructure washed away should also bootstrap themselves out of the problem...
Or maybe your neighbors have decided that in order to better share the burdens of distributed assistance, they've banded together to create a democratically elected body of representatives to which they delegate their finances and responsibilities for assisting each other...
Well they also banded together so they can keep each others' dogs from shitting in on all the lawns.
(I may have lost track of the metaphor at some point.)
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The article behind this is just....breathtaking. I want to pity him, but that's tough when he doggedly refuses to see whats sitting right in front of his eyes. IE that his ideas are bullshit and he's been living a lie. Also that's he's clearly lonely and unfulfilled.
Christ, that guy is just completely insane. He's stared into the void of republican madness for one second too long, and now he can't look away.
Well, fortunately it seems he is an utterly terrible person who is responsible for many of the problems we face today, so let us hope his self inflicted misery continues! I hope he continues to be made miserable as a tide of social consciousness rises against the poison he's been preaching.
Honestly...at least from that article he seems like a fairly chill dude with all the same hangups and the million little daily failures the rest of us all have. I figure a lot of the "ideas" guys who have so happily ruined conservatism for the last 20 years are doing a lot of this soul searching right now. But in much the same way that conservatism can't possibly, ever be wrong; Frank Lutz can't possibly be the reason Frank Lutz is having an existential crisis. So he'll continue to be miserable for awhile, and eventually either double down and get back into the game, or have a come to jesus moment, start a church, and get rich (er) off of fleecing his flock.
Vegas though..fuck, what a miserable place. That's the land of broken dreams.
Its funny that Luntz says that we don't need safety nets because our neighbors should just help us out when we're in a tough spot, when the entire premise of our government, as told by our founding fathers, is that "men are not angels."
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
What he wants is basically a friendlier crab bucketing. Neighborhoods are almost always divided by social class. Interaction between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods through private charity is fairly limited and relies heavily on government assistance. What he wants would basically be the poor using up their limited resources attempting to help another poor person.
Just read an opinion piece on how "The Tea Party is undermining conservatism". It's got some pretty laughable stuff; foremost among them being that if politics are a stop light, liberals are always stuck on green and the TP is always stuck on red.
Not only is it an overly simplistic way of looking at policy, Republicans push laws through just as much as Democrats. DOMA, just as an example. It's just that when Democrats push laws through, it is generally part of their philosophy that government can improve people's lives, and Republicans push laws through to enforce their desired social norms.
If Republicans are supposed to be the yellow light, as the author of the article purports, then they turn red on anything that uses government funds to help poor people and green on anything that vilifies the "others".
In this way, the Tea Party is simply more obvious about it than Republicans are. If you're paying close attention, there's very little difference between the two groups except that non-TP Republicans are better at messaging on the whole.
Just read an opinion piece on how "The Tea Party is undermining conservatism". It's got some pretty laughable stuff; foremost among them being that if politics are a stop light, liberals are always stuck on green and the TP is always stuck on red.
Not only is it an overly simplistic way of looking at policy, Republicans push laws through just as much as Democrats. DOMA, just as an example. It's just that when Democrats push laws through, it is generally part of their philosophy that government can improve people's lives, and Republicans push laws through to enforce their desired social norms.
If Republicans are supposed to be the yellow light, as the author of the article purports, then they turn red on anything that uses government funds to help poor people and green on anything that vilifies the "others".
In this way, the Tea Party is simply more obvious about it than Republicans are. If you're paying close attention, there's very little difference between the two groups except that non-TP Republicans are better at messaging on the whole.
In this analogy, I imagine Republicans cross the street whenever they see a black guy.
Just read an opinion piece on how "The Tea Party is undermining conservatism". It's got some pretty laughable stuff; foremost among them being that if politics are a stop light, liberals are always stuck on green and the TP is always stuck on red.
Not only is it an overly simplistic way of looking at policy, Republicans push laws through just as much as Democrats. DOMA, just as an example. It's just that when Democrats push laws through, it is generally part of their philosophy that government can improve people's lives, and Republicans push laws through to enforce their desired social norms.
If Republicans are supposed to be the yellow light, as the author of the article purports, then they turn red on anything that uses government funds to help poor people and green on anything that vilifies the "others".
In this way, the Tea Party is simply more obvious about it than Republicans are. If you're paying close attention, there's very little difference between the two groups except that non-TP Republicans are better at messaging on the whole.
It's pretty normal thinking.
Hardly anyone ever sees themselves as being on an extreme or even definable end of a spectrum, eveyone assumes they're the reasonable middle road and everyone else is a distortion of their "correct" way of doing things.
Republicans are the world champs at assuming they're right and everyone else is just getting in the way of them applying it.
Just read an opinion piece on how "The Tea Party is undermining conservatism". It's got some pretty laughable stuff; foremost among them being that if politics are a stop light, liberals are always stuck on green and the TP is always stuck on red.
Not only is it an overly simplistic way of looking at policy, Republicans push laws through just as much as Democrats. DOMA, just as an example. It's just that when Democrats push laws through, it is generally part of their philosophy that government can improve people's lives, and Republicans push laws through to enforce their desired social norms.
If Republicans are supposed to be the yellow light, as the author of the article purports, then they turn red on anything that uses government funds to help poor people and green on anything that vilifies the "others".
In this way, the Tea Party is simply more obvious about it than Republicans are. If you're paying close attention, there's very little difference between the two groups except that non-TP Republicans are better at messaging on the whole.
It's pretty normal thinking.
Hardly anyone ever sees themselves as being on an extreme or even definable end of a spectrum, eveyone assumes they're the reasonable middle road and everyone else is a distortion of their "correct" way of doing things.
Republicans are the world champs at assuming they're right and everyone else is just getting in the way of them applying it.
More than that, most of them have a real belief that there is a "silent majority" backing them up.
When you try to penetrate that assumption you trigger some really gross racist shit. It's not actually difficult at all to get an average Republican to admit that poor ethnic non voters are essentially non-persons in their mind.
"Silent majority" means "people like me" and, unfortunately, "people unlike me" wind up being considered not people at all.
Compare and contrast with the typical Democrat who, when frustrated, will tell you that Republicans are wrong about everything and dumb all the time, but doesn't actually think they are less than human.
but doesn't actually think they are less than human.
But I wonder about some. In one of the many political arguments I've had with a libertarian co-worker, he was making the point about how people should be wholly responsible for the their bad decisions in life. To which I replied "so you're going to stand outside the hospital and turn dying people away? (This was when the ACA was going down.) To which he replied that "yes, he would." Total bullshit, but I think a small part of him really believes he would, and it depresses/scares me.
Posts
How is $15K for an individual above the poverty line?
That seems really low to me. I mean, you can make that work, but if anything happens to your health or you need to make a car payment you're basically fucked. And I've seen what an apartment that goes for <$500/mo. looks like. It ain't pretty.
America in large part due to compassionate conservatism punishes the absolute fuck out of the poor, and you have to be god damn destitute before we even let you sniff assistance.
You can thank Clinton for some of this garbage as well.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yup, by more than a grand.
For one person it'ss 11.4 for a family of four it's 23.5.
This is the reason a stake needs to be driven through the beating heart of Third Way.
EDit- and that's on 30k! Context!
IIRC it hasn't been adjusted in a while because politics. But yes, technically it's true.
When Morgan Spurlock was doing his "30 Days" series, they did one of the episodes on this. Well, technically it was living on minimum wage, but it's effectively the same thing. Convinced his fiance to do it with him. Was pretty damn sobering. Also uplifting in some ways, mostly by how the community takes care of it's own regardless of the circumstances.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It's not really a "technical" thing, dude. It's what the thing is per the feds.
Is it higher?
Much!
But not really "technically" correct more so than just "correct."
I guess I should have been more specific. Poor communities tend to each other. I wouldn't trust someone in an upper class suburb farther than I can spit.
And that's why we need better family planning/safe clean abortion.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The article behind this is just....breathtaking. I want to pity him, but that's tough when he doggedly refuses to see whats sitting right in front of his eyes. IE that his ideas are bullshit and he's been living a lie. Also that's he's clearly lonely and unfulfilled.
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
Feh. I walked to work when it was -40 degrees. Both of them.
She is one of the few people involved in economic policy with literally no Wall Street experience/exposure. She is also perhaps the best qualified person in the Fed's hundred year history to be appointed, and has been frighteningly prescient in a lot of ways. Here's a good story on her.
Also, apparently she inherited a very comprehensive stamp collection from her mother, and her relationship with her Economics 'Nobel' Prize winning husband is adorable.
I'd imagine it goes into more detail than that, basically selecting what terms are to be used when discussing poor people in order to ensure unified message discipline rather than exposing your own personality or opinions. It's hardly anything new. Message control at the upper echelons have been a thing since TV became a thing. Lamentable, but hardly surprising.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I think that's really the goal of the memo, to not so subtly say: "Hey you idiots, try not to say anything totally stupid when you talk about this stuff."
Christ, that guy is just completely insane. He's stared into the void of republican madness for one second too long, and now he can't look away.
Well, fortunately it seems he is an utterly terrible person who is responsible for many of the problems we face today, so let us hope his self inflicted misery continues! I hope he continues to be made miserable as a tide of social consciousness rises against the poison he's been preaching.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Speaking of Luntz...
If we could rely on our neighbors, we wouldn't need government. But since we can't rely on them, government it is.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
States which have had their entire infrastructure washed away should also bootstrap themselves out of the problem...
Or maybe your neighbors have decided that in order to better share the burdens of distributed assistance, they've banded together to create a democratically elected body of representatives to which they delegate their finances and responsibilities for assisting each other...
To say nothing of the fact that, at least in my adorably naive worldview, the fact that we have a representative system of government means that the government is our neighbors!
Well they also banded together so they can keep each others' dogs from shitting in on all the lawns.
(I may have lost track of the metaphor at some point.)
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Honestly...at least from that article he seems like a fairly chill dude with all the same hangups and the million little daily failures the rest of us all have. I figure a lot of the "ideas" guys who have so happily ruined conservatism for the last 20 years are doing a lot of this soul searching right now. But in much the same way that conservatism can't possibly, ever be wrong; Frank Lutz can't possibly be the reason Frank Lutz is having an existential crisis. So he'll continue to be miserable for awhile, and eventually either double down and get back into the game, or have a come to jesus moment, start a church, and get rich (er) off of fleecing his flock.
Vegas though..fuck, what a miserable place. That's the land of broken dreams.
Not only is it an overly simplistic way of looking at policy, Republicans push laws through just as much as Democrats. DOMA, just as an example. It's just that when Democrats push laws through, it is generally part of their philosophy that government can improve people's lives, and Republicans push laws through to enforce their desired social norms.
If Republicans are supposed to be the yellow light, as the author of the article purports, then they turn red on anything that uses government funds to help poor people and green on anything that vilifies the "others".
In this way, the Tea Party is simply more obvious about it than Republicans are. If you're paying close attention, there's very little difference between the two groups except that non-TP Republicans are better at messaging on the whole.
http://www.theatlantic.com/daniel-weeks/
He's the real deal by the way, been absolutely a good guy since he was 12.
bout time someone who gives a crap about unemployment has the job
In this analogy, I imagine Republicans cross the street whenever they see a black guy.
It's pretty normal thinking.
Hardly anyone ever sees themselves as being on an extreme or even definable end of a spectrum, eveyone assumes they're the reasonable middle road and everyone else is a distortion of their "correct" way of doing things.
Republicans are the world champs at assuming they're right and everyone else is just getting in the way of them applying it.
More than that, most of them have a real belief that there is a "silent majority" backing them up.
When you try to penetrate that assumption you trigger some really gross racist shit. It's not actually difficult at all to get an average Republican to admit that poor ethnic non voters are essentially non-persons in their mind.
"Silent majority" means "people like me" and, unfortunately, "people unlike me" wind up being considered not people at all.
Compare and contrast with the typical Democrat who, when frustrated, will tell you that Republicans are wrong about everything and dumb all the time, but doesn't actually think they are less than human.
But I wonder about some. In one of the many political arguments I've had with a libertarian co-worker, he was making the point about how people should be wholly responsible for the their bad decisions in life. To which I replied "so you're going to stand outside the hospital and turn dying people away? (This was when the ACA was going down.) To which he replied that "yes, he would." Total bullshit, but I think a small part of him really believes he would, and it depresses/scares me.