Really, really smart.
Pete on You Tube at Politics and Prose.
He is a lot smarter than I realized and a lot smarter than his competition.
Maybe.
Can't imagine Trump doing anything remotely like this.
Showing posts with label You Tube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label You Tube. Show all posts
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Friday, February 7, 2020
Not so much for Pete as against Bernie
How the Democrats handled Iowa.
The panic of leading talkers at Democratic media at the prospect of Bernie being the nominee.
The shrill insistence that he can't win disguising the desire to keep him and his agenda (not really socialist but really progressive) out of the White House, or anyway from gaining more traction in the Democratic Party.
Some You Tube commentators flatly characterize this as class war within the Democratic Party, with neolibs of the Clintonista variety, old and new, old and young, denouncing Bernie and his supporters as an ideological cult, a cult of personality, a cult of purity, loony lefties far more committed to taking over a party they despise than actually driving out Trump.
His Democratic enemies pretend pushing Bernie aside is all about beating Trump.
But are they just using the necessity of beating Trump as a smokescreen for class war?
Well, yes, of course there's that.
But for some of them, anyway, both concerns could be real.
Did Mayor Pete lie to kill a poll that would have embarrassed him?
Did he demand a recount to deny Bernie a clear win?
MSNBC more and more open to such skepticism about Bernie.
The panic of leading talkers at Democratic media at the prospect of Bernie being the nominee.
The shrill insistence that he can't win disguising the desire to keep him and his agenda (not really socialist but really progressive) out of the White House, or anyway from gaining more traction in the Democratic Party.
Some You Tube commentators flatly characterize this as class war within the Democratic Party, with neolibs of the Clintonista variety, old and new, old and young, denouncing Bernie and his supporters as an ideological cult, a cult of personality, a cult of purity, loony lefties far more committed to taking over a party they despise than actually driving out Trump.
His Democratic enemies pretend pushing Bernie aside is all about beating Trump.
But are they just using the necessity of beating Trump as a smokescreen for class war?
Well, yes, of course there's that.
But for some of them, anyway, both concerns could be real.
Did Mayor Pete lie to kill a poll that would have embarrassed him?
Did he demand a recount to deny Bernie a clear win?
MSNBC more and more open to such skepticism about Bernie.
Inexplicable America
Just watched somebody's elderly aunt prepare genuine Hungarian Goulash on You Tube.
It's an extravagantly rich soup with no roux, not a thick soup, using lard, onions, garlic, sweet peppers, tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, cut up pork chops, spices including a lot of paprika, parsnip and celery greens, and small bits of Hungarian pasta made from eggs and flour but no water and no oil.
Not much like the American Chop Suey variant people in the US refer to as Goulash (sometimes American Goulash).
There are other recipes on You Tube using other meats than pork, but otherwise generally the same ingredients.
It's an extravagantly rich soup with no roux, not a thick soup, using lard, onions, garlic, sweet peppers, tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, cut up pork chops, spices including a lot of paprika, parsnip and celery greens, and small bits of Hungarian pasta made from eggs and flour but no water and no oil.
Not much like the American Chop Suey variant people in the US refer to as Goulash (sometimes American Goulash).
There are other recipes on You Tube using other meats than pork, but otherwise generally the same ingredients.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Watching Bernie clips on You Tube
AOC in Iowa, campaigning for Bernie, is urging an agenda of the working class and working class power.
Socialism is the opium of lots of people, but anybody who has the balls to campaign for working people (Bernie, AOC, etc.) rather than "the middle class" has my attention.
The agenda is what it is, a modest dose of social democracy that is of immense value to tens of millions of ordinary Americans that will cost the plutes of America much more than they ever thought they would have to pay for social peace.
They are the authoritarian, almost fascist plutes.
And they pretend to be terrified by the socialism of AOC, Bernie, and an entire wing of the Democratic Party when they are merely enraged by it.
The threat is not AOC, Bernie, or their "socialism".
The threat is the billionaires who might rather sink the republic than see such advances for the working people of America, with its consequences for everybody above them in the social scale.
Socialism is the opium of lots of people, but anybody who has the balls to campaign for working people (Bernie, AOC, etc.) rather than "the middle class" has my attention.
The agenda is what it is, a modest dose of social democracy that is of immense value to tens of millions of ordinary Americans that will cost the plutes of America much more than they ever thought they would have to pay for social peace.
They are the authoritarian, almost fascist plutes.
And they pretend to be terrified by the socialism of AOC, Bernie, and an entire wing of the Democratic Party when they are merely enraged by it.
The threat is not AOC, Bernie, or their "socialism".
The threat is the billionaires who might rather sink the republic than see such advances for the working people of America, with its consequences for everybody above them in the social scale.
Friday, January 10, 2020
John Kerry on the Trump-Pompeo "outright lie"
At You Tube.
Iran sued to recover those frozen assets and won.
Oh, and NATO-ME?
Bozo is a complete idiot and Pompeo is a contemptible lying thug.
Iran sued to recover those frozen assets and won.
Oh, and NATO-ME?
Bozo is a complete idiot and Pompeo is a contemptible lying thug.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Top 10 Obama Scandals
The Top 10 Obama Scandals from the Daily Show, uploaded today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWxq80oze0
From the same Fox and other assholes who can swallow absolutely anything from Bozo.
Hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWxq80oze0
From the same Fox and other assholes who can swallow absolutely anything from Bozo.
Hilarious.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
The Republican Party is full of human horribles and Christian blockheads.
From its top national leadership to its most insignificant local voter.
Georgia Governor Signs ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Abortion Law
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation on Tuesday, effectively banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when doctors can usually start detecting a fetal heartbeat.
Georgia is the fourth state to enact a so-called fetal heartbeat law this year.
. . . .
Governors in Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio signed bills similar to Georgia’s this year.
They have not gone unchallenged: A federal judge is expected to hear a challenge to the Mississippi law later this month, and a judge in Kentucky blocked the law there.
Similar measures in Iowa and North Dakota have been found unconstitutional.
Lawmakers in South Carolina and Tennessee have pressed for fetal heartbeat bills of their own, and in Arkansas, the state government narrowed the time frame in which women can have abortions.
Alabama is considering a different tack. Under a bill approved by the State House of Representatives last month, doctors would face up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion in most instances.
Alabama Senate Set to Take Up Bill Effectively Banning Abortion
The Alabama Senate is scheduled to take up abortion legislation on Tuesday that would essentially ban the procedure outright.
. . . .
The proposal is among the most aggressive efforts in decades around the country to curb abortion. Doctors who perform the procedure could be charged with a felony and face up to 99 years in prison.
. . . .
Other state measures to restrict abortion rights have advanced in the South and the Midwest this year and invited legal fights.
Already, the governors of Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have signed fetal heartbeat bills.
And Arkansas moved up the cutoff point for legal abortions to 18 weeks of pregnancy, from 20 before.
The Alabama measure, though, goes farther.
In addition to the potential 99-year sentence for performing abortions, doctors face the threat of a 10-year term for attempting to perform one.
The possible problems of a new Georgia law
It's a fetal heartbeat law that forbids abortion as early as six weeks.
The new law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, gives a 6-week-old fetus the legal status of a human being.
One definition of second-degree murder in Georgia includes cruelty to children during which “he or she causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.”
This raises the question of whether a woman who miscarries because of what is perceived to be her conduct could be held liable for that conduct.
“This suggests that women who ‘cause the death’ of a fetus, with or without malice, could be charged with second-degree murder,” said Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, and a supporter of abortion rights.
. . . .
[T]he new law says doctors who perform abortions will be prosecuted, and that could still have an impact on women who miscarry.
. . . .
It would be helpful, of course, if legislators and judges and prosecutors understood the basics of miscarriage. Early pregnancy loss is not uncommon.
It occurs in about 10 percent of recognized pregnancies. Four out of five cases occur in the first trimester.
Many women miscarry before they know they’re pregnant.
About half of miscarriages are because of abnormalities in the fetal chromosomes.
These defects are usually incompatible with life, and spontaneous abortions occur.
The chance of an early pregnancy loss rises with age.
While it is less common in younger women, about 80 percent of pregnancies in 45-year-old women can end this way.
. . . .
A bigger concern is that a fear of becoming part of an investigation may cause women to avoid medical care.
John Becker, a state representative in Ohio, recently sponsored a bill that would also change how pregnant women with unsustainable pregnancies are treated.
Georgia Governor Signs ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Abortion Law
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation on Tuesday, effectively banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when doctors can usually start detecting a fetal heartbeat.
Georgia is the fourth state to enact a so-called fetal heartbeat law this year.
. . . .
Governors in Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio signed bills similar to Georgia’s this year.
They have not gone unchallenged: A federal judge is expected to hear a challenge to the Mississippi law later this month, and a judge in Kentucky blocked the law there.
Similar measures in Iowa and North Dakota have been found unconstitutional.
Lawmakers in South Carolina and Tennessee have pressed for fetal heartbeat bills of their own, and in Arkansas, the state government narrowed the time frame in which women can have abortions.
Alabama is considering a different tack. Under a bill approved by the State House of Representatives last month, doctors would face up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion in most instances.
Alabama Senate Set to Take Up Bill Effectively Banning Abortion
The Alabama Senate is scheduled to take up abortion legislation on Tuesday that would essentially ban the procedure outright.
. . . .
The proposal is among the most aggressive efforts in decades around the country to curb abortion. Doctors who perform the procedure could be charged with a felony and face up to 99 years in prison.
. . . .
Other state measures to restrict abortion rights have advanced in the South and the Midwest this year and invited legal fights.
Already, the governors of Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have signed fetal heartbeat bills.
And Arkansas moved up the cutoff point for legal abortions to 18 weeks of pregnancy, from 20 before.
The Alabama measure, though, goes farther.
In addition to the potential 99-year sentence for performing abortions, doctors face the threat of a 10-year term for attempting to perform one.
The possible problems of a new Georgia law
It's a fetal heartbeat law that forbids abortion as early as six weeks.
The new law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, gives a 6-week-old fetus the legal status of a human being.
One definition of second-degree murder in Georgia includes cruelty to children during which “he or she causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.”
This raises the question of whether a woman who miscarries because of what is perceived to be her conduct could be held liable for that conduct.
“This suggests that women who ‘cause the death’ of a fetus, with or without malice, could be charged with second-degree murder,” said Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, and a supporter of abortion rights.
. . . .
[T]he new law says doctors who perform abortions will be prosecuted, and that could still have an impact on women who miscarry.
. . . .
It would be helpful, of course, if legislators and judges and prosecutors understood the basics of miscarriage. Early pregnancy loss is not uncommon.
It occurs in about 10 percent of recognized pregnancies. Four out of five cases occur in the first trimester.
Many women miscarry before they know they’re pregnant.
About half of miscarriages are because of abnormalities in the fetal chromosomes.
These defects are usually incompatible with life, and spontaneous abortions occur.
The chance of an early pregnancy loss rises with age.
While it is less common in younger women, about 80 percent of pregnancies in 45-year-old women can end this way.
. . . .
A bigger concern is that a fear of becoming part of an investigation may cause women to avoid medical care.
Women who are bleeding or are heading toward septic shock may not come to the emergency room or doctor’s office.
They could die.
This would only increase America’s maternal mortality rate, which is already much higher than that of most other advanced nations.
. . . .
John Becker, a state representative in Ohio, recently sponsored a bill that would also change how pregnant women with unsustainable pregnancies are treated.
He suggested that ectopic pregnancies, which are not viable, should in part be handled by “removing the embryo from the fallopian tube and then reinserting it in the uterus so that’s defined as not an abortion.”
This procedure is not possible.
This procedure is not possible.
It’s not clear that those who are writing many of these bills understand how pregnancy works.
Friday, May 3, 2019
Automation, AI, and the vanishing need to employ humans for anything at all
Kurzgesagt has a YouTube video on automation that considers these matters, and briefly the possibility that the capitalists who own the machines of the all-machine economy might abandon the rest of us, or put us on some subsistence dole, or something.
But, since the number of capitalists, relative to the total population, is slight, the machine economy could very well produce only for them without completely gobbling up the world's resources.
Assume that, since the AI led machine economy can do any job a human can cheaper and better, humans not among the (metaphorical) 1 % cannot lay hands on any currency with which to buy anything produced by that economy.
But this means both the need and the capacities exist for the 99 % to have their own well-functioning economy in which they are paid in human-economy currency good for buying the products of the human economy.
Products made with machines as advanced as you like, but not AI driven and not so advanced as to make anyone willing and able redundant.
Still, everything produced in the human economy costs more than it would if produced in the AI machine economy, so there is no currency exchange rate, since it is never worthwhile for the capitalists who own the machine economy to buy anything made in the human economy.
Two societies that never touch, economically, though they coexist.
Grist for a sci-fi movie?
But, since the number of capitalists, relative to the total population, is slight, the machine economy could very well produce only for them without completely gobbling up the world's resources.
Assume that, since the AI led machine economy can do any job a human can cheaper and better, humans not among the (metaphorical) 1 % cannot lay hands on any currency with which to buy anything produced by that economy.
But this means both the need and the capacities exist for the 99 % to have their own well-functioning economy in which they are paid in human-economy currency good for buying the products of the human economy.
Products made with machines as advanced as you like, but not AI driven and not so advanced as to make anyone willing and able redundant.
Still, everything produced in the human economy costs more than it would if produced in the AI machine economy, so there is no currency exchange rate, since it is never worthwhile for the capitalists who own the machine economy to buy anything made in the human economy.
Two societies that never touch, economically, though they coexist.
Grist for a sci-fi movie?
Monday, April 29, 2019
Now that you mention it . . .
The other day I watched a video on YouTube about GMO food crops and it put me in mind of insulin.
My wife is a type II diabetic and uses a fast acting insulin at mealtimes and a long lasting insulin at night before she goes to sleep.
I googled them each and both are produced through recombinant DNA techniques producing appropriately modified strains of E. Coli.
Frankencoli, if you will.
(Joke)
On current evidence, the worries of the anti-GMO folks seem about as evidence-based as the worries of the anti-vaxxers.
The YouTube video claimed the global population is expected to top out and stabilize at about 12 billion, but feeding a human crowd that size will absolutely require the use of GMO food organisms.
My wife is a type II diabetic and uses a fast acting insulin at mealtimes and a long lasting insulin at night before she goes to sleep.
I googled them each and both are produced through recombinant DNA techniques producing appropriately modified strains of E. Coli.
Frankencoli, if you will.
(Joke)
On current evidence, the worries of the anti-GMO folks seem about as evidence-based as the worries of the anti-vaxxers.
The YouTube video claimed the global population is expected to top out and stabilize at about 12 billion, but feeding a human crowd that size will absolutely require the use of GMO food organisms.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
The Alex Jones network
It seems to me they and the Republican Party they feed this rotted garbage to have gotten whackier, over the years.
Birtherism seems tame, in retrospect.
Today they and the YouTube wingnuts insist when there's no evidence it's a Jihader attack.
Tomorrow when there is proof it was a right wing nut job they'll say that's a frame-up to provide cover for Muslim terrorists.
Or have they already gone there?
Lou Dobbs Plants Conspiracy Theory On Notre Dame Fire
Who you gonna believe, us or the lying deep state?
Birtherism seems tame, in retrospect.
Today they and the YouTube wingnuts insist when there's no evidence it's a Jihader attack.
Tomorrow when there is proof it was a right wing nut job they'll say that's a frame-up to provide cover for Muslim terrorists.
Or have they already gone there?
Lou Dobbs Plants Conspiracy Theory On Notre Dame Fire
Who you gonna believe, us or the lying deep state?
Friday, April 5, 2019
Wow. The best conspiracy theory ever
Blonde in the Belly of the Beast (Rebecca Hargraves) on YouTube, How Marxists Hijacked Our Culture is just awesome.
Alex Jones is an ignorant, illiterate clod compared to this girl - supposing she's actually read any of the works of the Marxist thinkers whose names she drops so rapidly.
So, Gramsci was right about the possibility and effect of a "long march through the institutions", American academia fell to cultural Marxism the day the Frankfurt School scholars fleeing Hitler got jobs at Columbia (yes, she said exactly that), the long parade of judges and politicians who powered the sexual revolution in the law since maybe Griswold were apparently all in on it or dupes, ditto Hollywood, Trump is right but he can't save America by himself, and so on.
And she is a really fast talking, well-scripted, evil nutjob.
Wow.
Alex Jones is an ignorant, illiterate clod compared to this girl - supposing she's actually read any of the works of the Marxist thinkers whose names she drops so rapidly.
So, Gramsci was right about the possibility and effect of a "long march through the institutions", American academia fell to cultural Marxism the day the Frankfurt School scholars fleeing Hitler got jobs at Columbia (yes, she said exactly that), the long parade of judges and politicians who powered the sexual revolution in the law since maybe Griswold were apparently all in on it or dupes, ditto Hollywood, Trump is right but he can't save America by himself, and so on.
And she is a really fast talking, well-scripted, evil nutjob.
Wow.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
"Cultural Marxism"
The term used to refer to Gramsci's idea that mature and entrenched capitalism cannot be overcome without a preparatory stage in which the pervasive cultural hegemony of bourgeois values is gradually replaced over time with a cultural hegemony of values of and favoring the working classes.
Those using the expression "cultural Marxism" were generally right wingers like Pat Buchanan and others wishing to spread alarm that the transitional process in the West is well underway, pointing to the influence of the left, and particularly of political correctness and those called "social justice warriors" on American campuses.
But a YouTube clip of James O'Brien talking with an anti-alt.right caller led to O'Brien claiming it is somehow tied to some right wing and specifically anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
You know, Marx, Trotsky, and a lot of the others were Jews, as were members of the Frankfurt School.
So I guess that was going to happen.
And it is after all a central theme uniting Nazi anti-Semitism with Nazi anti-Communism.
What the Fascists did to Gramsci.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier.
The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to the Roman prison Regina Coeli.
At his trial, Gramsci's prosecutor stated, "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning".
He received an immediate sentence of five years in confinement on the island of Ustica and the following year he received a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment in Turi, near Bari.
Over 11 years in prison, his health deteriorated: "His teeth fell out, his digestive system collapsed so that he could not eat solid food... he had convulsions when he vomited blood, and suffered headaches so violent that he beat his head against the walls of his cell."
An international campaign, organised by Piero Sraffa at Cambridge University and Gramsci's sister-in-law Tatiana, was mounted to demand Gramsci's release.
In 1933 he was moved from the prison at Turi to a clinic at Formia, but was still being denied adequate medical attention.
Two years later he was moved to the "Quisisana" clinic in Rome.
He was due for release on 21 April 1937 and planned to retire to Sardinia for convalescence, but a combination of arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout and acute gastric disorders meant that he was too ill to move.
Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at the age of 46.
Those using the expression "cultural Marxism" were generally right wingers like Pat Buchanan and others wishing to spread alarm that the transitional process in the West is well underway, pointing to the influence of the left, and particularly of political correctness and those called "social justice warriors" on American campuses.
But a YouTube clip of James O'Brien talking with an anti-alt.right caller led to O'Brien claiming it is somehow tied to some right wing and specifically anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
You know, Marx, Trotsky, and a lot of the others were Jews, as were members of the Frankfurt School.
So I guess that was going to happen.
And it is after all a central theme uniting Nazi anti-Semitism with Nazi anti-Communism.
What the Fascists did to Gramsci.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier.
The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to the Roman prison Regina Coeli.
At his trial, Gramsci's prosecutor stated, "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning".
He received an immediate sentence of five years in confinement on the island of Ustica and the following year he received a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment in Turi, near Bari.
Over 11 years in prison, his health deteriorated: "His teeth fell out, his digestive system collapsed so that he could not eat solid food... he had convulsions when he vomited blood, and suffered headaches so violent that he beat his head against the walls of his cell."
An international campaign, organised by Piero Sraffa at Cambridge University and Gramsci's sister-in-law Tatiana, was mounted to demand Gramsci's release.
In 1933 he was moved from the prison at Turi to a clinic at Formia, but was still being denied adequate medical attention.
Two years later he was moved to the "Quisisana" clinic in Rome.
He was due for release on 21 April 1937 and planned to retire to Sardinia for convalescence, but a combination of arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout and acute gastric disorders meant that he was too ill to move.
Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at the age of 46.
Looks like he's guilty and Michelle Obama pulled strings
Right leaning sources on YouTube are all over this.
This is going to get ugly.
This is going to get ugly.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Ah, the cradle of Nazism
Hitler was born an Austrian.
Hansjoerg Bacher, spokesman for prosecutors in Graz, said Martin Sellner, head of the Identitarian Movement - which says it wants to preserve Europe’s identity - received 1,500 euros ($1,690) in early 2018 from a donor with the same name as the man charged with murder following the Christchurch attack.
“We can now confirm that there was financial support and so a link between the New Zealand attacker and the Identitarian Movement in Austria,” Kurz said.
Sellner published a video on YouTube in which he said he had received a donation from the man and that police had raided his house over the possible links to the Christchurch attacker.
In it, he said: “I’m not a member of a terrorist organization. I have nothing to do with this man, other than that I passively received a donation from him.”
Sunday, March 24, 2019
So often frank, so often right.
Forthright AOC explained in an interview how Republicans in general and Reagan in particular have used racism.
“One perfect example – a perfect example – of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working Americans in order to just screw over all working-class Americans is Reaganism in the '80s," Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview [at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.]
In a TYT video on YouTube, the folks expand on the point, making reference to his campaign speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi, the county seat of Neshoba County notorious as the site of the murder of three civil right workers, a place at which he could have no other reason to speak than to send a very clear signal that white racists exasperated by the Democrats' support for Afro-Americans' civil and voting rights would be welcome in the GOP.
Per Wikipedia,
During his speech, Reagan said:
Why, Barry Goldwater, of course.
AOC also referred to Reagan's diatribe against "welfare queens".
"So you think about this image, 'welfare queens,'” Ocasio-Cortez continued, “and what [Reagan] was really trying to talk about…
"He's painting this really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing, [who] were sucks on our country, right? …
"That's not explicit racism, but it’s still rooted in racist caricature. It gives people a logical — a ‘logical’ — reason to say, 'Oh, yeah, no. Toss out the whole safety net.'"
Per Wikipedia,
The idea of welfare fraud goes back to the early-1960s, when the majority of known offenders were male.
Despite this, many journalistic exposés were published at the time on those who would come to be known as welfare queens.
Readers Digest and Look magazine published sensational stories about mothers gaming the system.
Additionally, Ronald Reagan employed the trope of the "Welfare Queen" in order to rally support for reform of the welfare system.
During his initial bid for the Republican nomination in 1976, and again in 1980, Reagan constantly made reference to the "Welfare Queen" at his campaign rallies.
Some of these stories, and some that followed into the 1990s, focused on female welfare recipients engaged in behavior counter-productive to eventual financial independence such as having children out of wedlock, using AFDC money to buy drugs, or showing little desire to work.
These women were understood to be social parasites, draining society of valuable resources while engaging in self damaging behavior.
Despite these early appearances of the "Welfare Queen" icon, stories about able-bodied men collecting welfare continued to dominate discourse until the 1970s, at which point women became the main focus of welfare fraud stories.
The term was coined in 1974, either by George Bliss of the Chicago Tribune in his articles about Linda Taylor, or by Jet Magazine.
Neither publication credits the other in their "Welfare Queen" stories of that year. Taylor was ultimately charged with committing $8,000 in fraud and having four aliases.
She was convicted of illegally obtaining 23 welfare checks using two aliases and was sentenced to two to six years in prison.
During the same decade, Taylor was additionally investigated for murder, kidnapping, and baby trafficking.
Stories of her activities were used by Ronald Reagan, starting with his 1976 presidential campaign, to illustrate his criticisms of social programs in the United States.
I think nowadays we see a little better what that Bitburg visit was all about, too.
TYT also mentioned Reagan's removal of sanctions on the Apartheid regime of South Africa, a regime ardently defended back in the day by William Buckley and his National Review, and his bitter private opposition to the creation of Martin Luther King day, a measure he signed only because it was passed with veto-proof majorities.
When Reagan was reelected I was plunged into gloom for days.
See this for more.
“One perfect example – a perfect example – of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working Americans in order to just screw over all working-class Americans is Reaganism in the '80s," Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview [at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.]
In a TYT video on YouTube, the folks expand on the point, making reference to his campaign speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi, the county seat of Neshoba County notorious as the site of the murder of three civil right workers, a place at which he could have no other reason to speak than to send a very clear signal that white racists exasperated by the Democrats' support for Afro-Americans' civil and voting rights would be welcome in the GOP.
Per Wikipedia,
During his speech, Reagan said:
I still believe the answer to any problem lies with the people.
I believe in states' rights.
I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level, and I believe we've distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.And what earlier Republican, an idol of Reagan's, had taken just this sort of tack?
Why, Barry Goldwater, of course.
AOC also referred to Reagan's diatribe against "welfare queens".
"So you think about this image, 'welfare queens,'” Ocasio-Cortez continued, “and what [Reagan] was really trying to talk about…
"He's painting this really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing, [who] were sucks on our country, right? …
"That's not explicit racism, but it’s still rooted in racist caricature. It gives people a logical — a ‘logical’ — reason to say, 'Oh, yeah, no. Toss out the whole safety net.'"
Per Wikipedia,
The idea of welfare fraud goes back to the early-1960s, when the majority of known offenders were male.
Despite this, many journalistic exposés were published at the time on those who would come to be known as welfare queens.
Readers Digest and Look magazine published sensational stories about mothers gaming the system.
Additionally, Ronald Reagan employed the trope of the "Welfare Queen" in order to rally support for reform of the welfare system.
During his initial bid for the Republican nomination in 1976, and again in 1980, Reagan constantly made reference to the "Welfare Queen" at his campaign rallies.
Some of these stories, and some that followed into the 1990s, focused on female welfare recipients engaged in behavior counter-productive to eventual financial independence such as having children out of wedlock, using AFDC money to buy drugs, or showing little desire to work.
These women were understood to be social parasites, draining society of valuable resources while engaging in self damaging behavior.
Despite these early appearances of the "Welfare Queen" icon, stories about able-bodied men collecting welfare continued to dominate discourse until the 1970s, at which point women became the main focus of welfare fraud stories.
The term was coined in 1974, either by George Bliss of the Chicago Tribune in his articles about Linda Taylor, or by Jet Magazine.
Neither publication credits the other in their "Welfare Queen" stories of that year. Taylor was ultimately charged with committing $8,000 in fraud and having four aliases.
She was convicted of illegally obtaining 23 welfare checks using two aliases and was sentenced to two to six years in prison.
During the same decade, Taylor was additionally investigated for murder, kidnapping, and baby trafficking.
Stories of her activities were used by Ronald Reagan, starting with his 1976 presidential campaign, to illustrate his criticisms of social programs in the United States.
I think nowadays we see a little better what that Bitburg visit was all about, too.
TYT also mentioned Reagan's removal of sanctions on the Apartheid regime of South Africa, a regime ardently defended back in the day by William Buckley and his National Review, and his bitter private opposition to the creation of Martin Luther King day, a measure he signed only because it was passed with veto-proof majorities.
When Reagan was reelected I was plunged into gloom for days.
See this for more.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
This man is simply a liar
The White-Extinction Conspiracy Theory Is Bonkers
says Farhad Manjoo.
Sure, reports of impending white extinction have been greatly exaggerated.
But mass media have been reporting birth rates below replacement and falling populations among whites for decades.
Peter Jennings decades ago told white Americans they would no longer be a majority of the people in the United States within fifty years and there was nothing they could do about it.
News magazines have been running cover stories about the browning of America for just as long.
I suppose their intention was to prepare public opinion and disarm possible political efforts to prevent such a demographic eclipse.
Didn't work.
In fact, all that publicity seems to have prepared public opinion to desire such efforts, with immigration "crises" and the rise of Muslim terrorism since 9/11 here and in Europe adding urgency.
So now we get a disinformation campaign of demographic decline denial.
I have seen the same nonsense on some progressive and usually highly informative YouTube channels.
Liars everywhere in politics, on all side, there are.
says Farhad Manjoo.
Sure, reports of impending white extinction have been greatly exaggerated.
But mass media have been reporting birth rates below replacement and falling populations among whites for decades.
Peter Jennings decades ago told white Americans they would no longer be a majority of the people in the United States within fifty years and there was nothing they could do about it.
News magazines have been running cover stories about the browning of America for just as long.
I suppose their intention was to prepare public opinion and disarm possible political efforts to prevent such a demographic eclipse.
Didn't work.
In fact, all that publicity seems to have prepared public opinion to desire such efforts, with immigration "crises" and the rise of Muslim terrorism since 9/11 here and in Europe adding urgency.
So now we get a disinformation campaign of demographic decline denial.
I have seen the same nonsense on some progressive and usually highly informative YouTube channels.
Liars everywhere in politics, on all side, there are.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Another word about Charlottesville
Trump lied there were good people on both sides.
But there really were bad people on both sides, people who came to the scene armed not for self defense but to initiate violence.
Nazis, white nationalists, and the like.
And the antifas.
Any cause can find thugs to serve.
Been viewing Daniel on the Youtube Three Arrows channel.
But there really were bad people on both sides, people who came to the scene armed not for self defense but to initiate violence.
Nazis, white nationalists, and the like.
And the antifas.
Any cause can find thugs to serve.
Been viewing Daniel on the Youtube Three Arrows channel.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Rendell, quondam Hillary supporter, says no Dem who embraces "socialism" or the AOC/Bernie agenda can beat Trump
He agrees we should drop fossil fuels but says it's impossible to have it completely done before 2045, and like Fox News he says we can't afford either Medicare for All or tuition free secondary education in publicly owned schools.
He urges making people over 50 eligible for Medicare and some sort of help with the growing problem of student debt, as well as better financing for Obamacare.
He's clearly not a Republican and he calls himself, accurately, a progressive, though not progressive enough to embrace the AOC/Bernie agenda and say it's just more progressivism.
Instead he rejects that agenda as well as socialism and "socialism".
Instead he rejects that agenda as well as socialism and "socialism".
He really needs to stop doing the GOP's work for it.
The GOP and conservatives always call any progressive reform, program, or proposal socialistic, socialism, communistic, Marxist, and Communist.
Screw it.
On You Tube the other day I watched an episode of the David Pakman show in which DP explains that, yeah, we can afford the entire AOC/Bernie agenda.
Unsurprisingly, a necessary part of any plan to finance all that requires raising taxes a lot, partly by reversing the Bush and Trump cuts and partly by adding more income tax brackets topping off at about 50% or more for income above ten million, if I recall correctly.
Pakman, by the way, calls himself a liberal and a progressive and rejects actual socialism, though he willingly calls the AOC/Bernie agenda socialistic or social democratic, in the same sense that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are socialistic or social democratic.
The GOP and conservatives always call any progressive reform, program, or proposal socialistic, socialism, communistic, Marxist, and Communist.
Screw it.
On You Tube the other day I watched an episode of the David Pakman show in which DP explains that, yeah, we can afford the entire AOC/Bernie agenda.
Unsurprisingly, a necessary part of any plan to finance all that requires raising taxes a lot, partly by reversing the Bush and Trump cuts and partly by adding more income tax brackets topping off at about 50% or more for income above ten million, if I recall correctly.
Pakman, by the way, calls himself a liberal and a progressive and rejects actual socialism, though he willingly calls the AOC/Bernie agenda socialistic or social democratic, in the same sense that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are socialistic or social democratic.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Kushner too great a risk for clearance
Reportedly this is legal.
Why?
The CIA in particular flat refused to sign off on clearances for Kushner and others.
So Trump overruled them.
The Jared Kushner security clearance story reveals Donald Trump's two biggest flaws
The President reportedly ordered his then-chief of staff John Kelly to secure a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law Jared Kushner, ignoring the objections of the intelligence community and of Kelly himself.
"It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner's security clearance," read the Times report.
"Officials had raised questions about his own and his family's real estate business's ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners.
The issue also generated criticism of Mr. Trump for having two family members serve in official capacities in the West Wing."
In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Click to subscribe!
Stop and think about this for a second: The President of the United States overrode concerns expressed, according to The New York Times, by intelligence officials, his chief of staff and his White House counsel, to push for a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law, who, not for nothing, he had endowed with such a broad portfolio that Kushner was referred to as the "Secretary of Everything" in the early days of Trump's White House.
Why?
The CIA in particular flat refused to sign off on clearances for Kushner and others.
So Trump overruled them.
The Jared Kushner security clearance story reveals Donald Trump's two biggest flaws
The President reportedly ordered his then-chief of staff John Kelly to secure a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law Jared Kushner, ignoring the objections of the intelligence community and of Kelly himself.
"It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner's security clearance," read the Times report.
"Officials had raised questions about his own and his family's real estate business's ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners.
The issue also generated criticism of Mr. Trump for having two family members serve in official capacities in the West Wing."
In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Click to subscribe!
Stop and think about this for a second: The President of the United States overrode concerns expressed, according to The New York Times, by intelligence officials, his chief of staff and his White House counsel, to push for a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law, who, not for nothing, he had endowed with such a broad portfolio that Kushner was referred to as the "Secretary of Everything" in the early days of Trump's White House.
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