It’s been too busy to write, but here are a few interesting things that deserve attention:
– Houston Pastors whine about being subpoenaed in the lawsuit THEY filed over THEIR own fraudulent petitions in a gay-baiting campaign to stop the City’s equal rights ordinance.
Lawyers defending the city asked the pastors who filed the lawsuit to submit transcripts of their communications (pdf) to organizers, including their sermons on the matter. Their statements from the pulpit are likely to be used as evidence of the apparent lack of concern for rules on what constitutes a valid petition signature. In a response made to be sung to a tune played on the world’s smallest violin, Fox News blowhard Todd Starnes cried persecution and the far-right propaganda machine has fallen in on the harmony. In an unsurprising development, those pastors have now discovered a Constitutional principle they were previously unaware of – the separation of church and state.
– For the moment we’ve stopped hyperventilating about ISIS in order to hyperventilate about Ebola.
Anyone who ever sat next to someone who knew someone who had a cousin who visited Dallas is now taking their temperature every ten minutes – and taking interviews with Fox News. Nigeria and Senegal have both managed to snuff out local outbreaks of Ebola in extremely crowded cities with miserable hygienic conditions, but we’re all going to die. The immigrant children mess was embarrassing. The ISIS freakout was cynical. This makes us look like a nation of bed-wetting neurotic morons.
– Polls in many of the major midterm elections are so close that it all comes down to turnout.
The dynamics of that turnout are very much in doubt. Courts have overturned vote suppression campaigns in several key states and registration campaigns in places like Georgia appear to have been very successful. Early voting in North Carolina is suggesting surprising voter turnout among Democrats. It will be an interesting ride.
– And under the category “Things conservatives won’t blame Obama for:”
Number of new applications for unemployment hit a 14-year low last month.
The dollar is surging in value.
Federal budget deficits have been in decline every year since the last Bush budget, finally dipping below its 40-year average of 3% of GDP this year.
Oil prices are hitting new lows on a combination of rising US dollar, increases in US and Canadian oil output, and supply increases from Saudi Arabia. US gasoline prices are below $3 across much of the country.
Medicare costs in the nightmarish age of Obama continue their surprising decline, putting US budgets back on a path toward health (no pun intended).
Oh, and Sharia Law hasn’t been implemented in the US…yet. Standing by on that one. These are just a few of the reasons why Obama is the worst President in history.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
Hey there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any
problems wit hackers? My last bog (wordpress) was hacked and
I ended up losing many months of hard work due to no
data backup. Do you have any solutions to protect against hackers?
Just the other day Buzzy was crowing about how proud he was of Bristol Palin and her actions at the fight her family started.
“Turtles, actually I am quite impressed that Bristol Palin kicked some guys ass for being an A-Hole and making fun of the family in public”
Buzzy – I am curious. Which are you more proud of the fight, the camouflage skirt, or the pee stain she left in the middle of the road?
Perhaps the kitty thinks she was just marking her territory?
Buzzy – Is that really you?
In other news for the day, stories worth watching …
A city in Idaho is threatening to arrest, fine and jail ministers that refuse to perform same-sex weddings.
Wendy Davis asks Abbott if he opposes inter-racial marriages, while Abbott is in an inter-racial marriage, suggesting that Abbott would want to strip natural born citizens of their citizenship if they enter into a same-sex marriage and imprison them for cohabitating.
Arkansas Dem Mark Pryor is having to defend his pro-segregation paper from his college days, saying that desegregation of public places like schools was a second invasion similar to what happened during the War between the States (yes, HT, I do say that people should be allowed to discriminate in their private lives, private property and private business dealings, not by law in public schools, restrooms, swimming pools, court houses, parks, …).
The UN visited Detroit and scolded the city for cutting off services to people that refused to pay their bills.
Some things one just can’t make up.
And further down on this page, John asks Kabuzz why he is offended that schools “offer” balanced meals, and if Kabuzz objects, just send his kids to school with less than healthy bagged lunches. Sure, parents can do that, and the school will take that bagged lunch from the kid and throw it away, give the kid a school meal, and then charge the parents outragous prices for it.
It gets back to undermining parental authority, indoctrination rather than education. More control over the people, more micromanaginging our lives, less liberty and rights, just what 75 was saying the left wants to do.
Well, shoot, next thing you know they won’t let the kids get high in the cafeteria and won’t the doctors get mad if the teachers give the kids measles indoctrination?
Sternn, really, don’t you feel any shame in offering up such shameless lies?
The “ministers” in Idaho run a public accommodation which, until they decided to start sounding the klaxon of pseudo-Christian hate, offered wedding ceremonies from all types of faiths. Many *real* churches will perform weddings only for parishioners. Because, after all, if they open themselves up as public accommodations, well, they have to serve the *entire* public, without prejudice. It’s a simple choice, really. But craven conservatives want to have their cake and have it too. Hypocrisy is a Republican value, after all.
“A city in Idaho is threatening to arrest, fine and jail ministers that refuse to perform same-sex weddings.”
As per standard practice Cappy leaves out some important details and completely lies on another.
First the chapel is not a church but a for-profit business. Like all for profit businesses they must comply with local laws. If this couple wants to be exempt from anti-discrimination laws they need to open up a church not a business.
The completely lie is they would be subject to a fine not jail time but hey the truth has never been important to Cappy or Buzzy.
As for the rest I am pretty sure we know to take those claims with a grain of salt.
Some things one just can’t help but make up.
Misdemeanor carries jail time of up to 180 days. It is a private business run by religious folks. Not that the left supports freedom of religion or speech.
Now if it were government owned, that would be a different matter.
It’s a business offering services to the public, rather than a church offering services solely to parishioners or co-religionists.
That you cannot see the difference reveals your abject inadequacy in this argument.
They are private individuals that own private businesses that offer services to private individuals or groups. Nothing publicly owned or operated by any level of government. But then you don’t actually support civil rights of others, you support involuntary servitude in violation of the 13th amendment, you oppose property rights in violation of the 4th, 5th and 14th amendments, bird. You have no valuse for individual liberty or rights, the U.S. Constitution or any of the founding principles of this nation.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. So many on the left here, the bird, HT and others, cry about the right wanting to legislate morality, then they turn around and demand we legislate morality.
American liberty does not include the liberty to publicly invoke bigotry.
If you operate a public accommodation, it must be open to the public. ALL of the public, within the description of the laws.
Sternn wants to coddle racists, theocrats, and other bigots in his big warm conservative fantasy. Real Americans know he is a fool.
“Sternn wants to coddle racists, theocrats, and other bigots in his big warm conservative fantasy. Real Americans know he is a fool.”
Usually when people try something and it fails, people realize it, try something else, and toss the old way onto history’s scrapheap. For example, Communism was an idea many left-wing intellectuals considered and toyed with and spoke in favor of about 100 years ago. After they saw it in action in Russia, many realized that it didn’t work so well in practice, and turned away from that failed idea. The USA did a similar social experiment in actually once allowing that freedom to discriminate that Sternn so yearns for. It was a horrid, shameful failure to anyone who actually believes in what Americans claim as our founding principles, and we are still trying to get the resulting toxin out of this society’s system. NO individual freedom is absolute, without limitations- they can’t be, or you would have anarchy. No one who’s looking at reality can seriously think that allowing discrimination in the public sphere (which does include businesses open to the public, no matter how many times Sternn and his crowd deny it) would work out any better if we did it again.
People discriminate every day, Fly, all the time. You do it when you choose what businesses you will patronize, with whom you will associate and whom you allow into your home, what TV channels you watch, what radio stations you will listen to, what music you will play. You want your freedom to discriminate, you just don’t want others to have and exercise their own civil rights.
But people are not businesses, Sternn.
Fuckin’ duh.
People own businesses. It’s called property, and property rights are civil rights. You and many others here do not support civil rights, y’all support involuntary servitude.
Sternn, the fact that you would try to equate choosing which TV station to watch with posting a “whites only” sign in a business only confirms that you don’t have clue one about pretty much everything.
Man Stern…so much goofiness and so little time. I only have 25 minutes before I board my flight, and that is not near enough time to combat that wave of wrongness.
We’ll start small and easy and maybe revisit more later:
Davis asked the question in a slightly wrong way. We should try this, “Mr. Abbott, do you support that right of the state to deny a marriage license to interracial couples?”
Stern, you actually and Abbott would pretend to believe that states should have the right to deny a marriage license to interracial couples.
You believe it, but for reasons unknown, can’t manage to type those words.
Abbott might pretend he believes in states rights on this issue because it might in some strange way do him good politically with some really awful people, but I would like to believe that even he, in his heart, does not believe as you do that the state should have the right to deny marriage licenses to interracial couples.
Stern…you can look around you for support that states should have the right to deny marriage licenses to interracial couples, but the crowd around you is going to be small, and I suspect you are not going to enjoy being in the company of such a crowd.
HT, by now you are boarding your flight, have a good and safe flight.
Now the idea that people can be stripped of their citizenship and imprisoned has been ruled unconstitutional, as it should be. People entering into same sex marriages do not face those penalties, so it really doesn’t compare at all. Same sex marriage (should that be hyphenated or not?) should be recognized as a legal contrat between consenting adults, just as with group marriage and polygamous marriages. Do you agree or do you support the state’s right to discriminate? Waht about siblings getting married? Can you be consistent?
Going to suck doing this on the phone from the plane, but as usual, “huh?”
I don’t think my statement said anything other than denying marriage licenses. No jail, no nothing. Just not allowing interracial couples to have their marriage recognized by the state.
You, Rand Paul but he would never say it outloud, and a whole slew of bad people.
That is the only group planting this flag.
As for the other drivel, I’m confident that Buzz’s sister could do better than him, so no worries there.
Yep, you got a different avatar. Anyway, people are not beien fined, arrested, stripped of citizenship or even being put in prioson. Much less being sprayed with firehoses or attacked by dogs. Hardly any comparison.
What the hell is this “stripped of citizenship” crap Sternn starts to spew whenever the topic of same-sex marriage comes up? Or is it just more Sternnian smegmatic sophistry?
Why drag me into this? Are you referencing my sister? My kid sister? She died four years ago from a long painful illness. No wonder you support Davis, she is as cold hearted as you.
It’s very simple, bird. Back in the day when inter-racial marriages were illegal, a natural born citizen that entered into an inter-racial marriage would be stripped of their citizenship, and people would be sent to pison for cohabitating. HT and now Wendy Davis are comparing same-sex marriage to that.
And here you strut around as if you were intelligent and educated, and you don;t even know the basic facts or history of such things.
“And here you strut around as if you were intelligent and educated, and you don;t even know the basic facts or history of such things.”
Cappy – Please define to us what you mean by “stripped of their citizenship”. Because the way you phrase that statement would mean that these people were being stripped of their US citizenship. Something no state has the power to do, heck they cannot even remove state citizenship. So please provide some clarity and evidence to your claim (I will not hold my breathe).
One quick exception to my general rule of only posting from home for Turtles …
That is exactly what I mean of natural born citizens being stripped of their citizenship, Turtles. Even as late as 1922 and the Cable Act that included Asians as being non-white and those natural born citizens, especially women, that married such a person were literally stripped of their U.S. Citizenship and could be, and often were, sent to prison.
So that is the baseline for those that want to compare same-sex marriage to inter-racial marriage. Y’all have a nice day. May be back this evening.
Sternn vomits forth, “Back in the day when inter-racial marriages were illegal, a natural born citizen that entered into an inter-racial marriage would be stripped of their citizenship,”
Bullshit.
You asinine, barbaric, callow, damned, empty-headed, fatuous, gabbling, half-witted, inane, jack-sauce, kakophagic, lazy, mendacious, namby-pamby, obnoxious, pin-headed, querulous, rancid, sophomoric, testes-less, unworthy, vacuous, want-witted, xenophobic, yammering, zyzzyva.
Wow. An alphabet soup of adjectives.
Buzz…I am sorry to hear about your sister.
You probably could temper your reaction with the realization that no one, or at least not I, knows if you even have a sister, so I may not be quite the horrible person you would think.
Cappy – So your belief is that supporters of same-sex marriage seek to strip the citizenship of those opposed to such marriages based on a law from 1922 pertaining to women that married non-citizen males ineligible for US citizenship and live abroad for 2 years.
How does any of that pertain to same-sex marriage? Do you understand that such claims make you look like a loon. Maybe that passes for critical thinking in your circles but to the rest of us it demonstrates a clear lack of any grounding in reality.
Jesus Hussein Christ
No, Turtles, those that support same-sex marriage are comparing it to inter-racial marriage and the fact that inter-racial marriage was illegal, people would be stripped of their citizenship and sent to prison. None of that is happening, or even being suggested to happen, to those that enter into a same-sex marriage today. The two do not compare, no rights are being denied, nobody is being stripped of their citizenship and they are not being sent to prison.
The SSM argument is exactly like the the interracial marriage issue. People denied their equal treatment of the law. Loving Vs Virginia did not address the Cable Act or other issues concerning the removal of someone’s citizenship. The Cable Bill was a law aim at a very small sub-set of that constitutional issue. No one is suggesting such action take place and is just a canard to stoke up by those that do not believe all citizens are entitled to their constitutional rights.
Homer you would make the perfect politician who ‘apologizes’ by blaming the victim for not understanding something. We as a whole do not attack our sibliings. You are a first and in a comment I had nothing to do with. You have no idea she was by kid sister, ten years younger and she had two big overprotective brothers. But you would have no need to know that. Keep your comments to those on this thread. It is just disgusting.
“The SSM argument is exactly like the the interracial marriage issue.”
Now you are back to claiming that people that enter into a same-sex marriage are stripped of their citizernship and put in prison, and in that way their rights are being violated. I say they are not, so prove me wrong.
Still funny, bird. Even Tutt got a chuckle out of that one. And, of course, you are still wrong.
Boarding yet another flight, eh Mr. Stay at Homer? Houston Traveler by any other name is still HT.
My yearly mileage total for 2014 is going to be a far cry from last year. A new baby and three total kids will put a stop to international trips for work.
If I’m not careful, I’ll be back in steerage with the peasants next year.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Another interesting story right-wing crazy Uncle Michael Savage has had it with all those veterans complaining about PTSD. Michael Savage, whose military experience consists of Rambo movies, claims that “You need men like me to save the country”.
Typical chickenhawk
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/10/michael-savage-sick-and-tired-veterans
As so often, hypocrisy is a Republican value.
A freak out list (with something for everyone):
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/17/6988377/threats-to-americans-ranked-ebola-isis-russia-furniture
My own personal freak-outs:
1. Losing my mind (i.e. getting dementia/Alzheimer’s)
2. Losing my home (i.e. losing my personal, private space)
What freaks me out is other people freaking out over dumb shit. Ebola is nothing compared to the daily commute to my office on I-45.
There’s a history of dementia in my family: my grandmother, her sister, that sister’s oldest son, and, as of late, my father. “Primary progressive aphasia” they’re calling it, now that we’ve got some modern medical folks looking at the problem. So, yes, that’s a very real worry for me, too.
Comments about my current posting style and content are to be expected, I suppose.
Another personal freak-out involves losing my sight. I could probably deal with a loss of hearing, but I simply can’t imagine being blind.
Owl, I’m sorry to hear about your family’s experiences with dementia. If I have time, and access to a real keyboard, I may go more in depth about my mom’s experience as a “demented savant.”
Owl, so sorry about your dad. Unkind comments about personal issues such as family members suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia should be completely off limits.
You are one sharp guy, and although your writing style can be caustic at times, it is always engaging. Fortunately, a family history does not necessarily dictate destiny. If I had to name the people here with the most cognitive reserve, you and Tuttabella would be among the first to come to mind.
Those are sensible freak outs Tutta.
And I hate I45 too.
And I10.
I wonder how we could parlay our personal freak outs into doing good for others.
I came away from my recent jury duty experience with a personal dread over the thought of ever being falsely imprisoned myself. It made me resolve to help others in that respect.
Fly, thanks for the interesting link. Yes, I agree, there is no need for most people to freak-out, but while it is difficult for people in the general population to get Ebola, it is EASY for a health care worker to get Ebola when they have to clean up blood, projectile vomit and explosive diarrhea.
The response at the Dallas hospital was totally unacceptable and highlighted how unprepared we are as a nation for a threat like Ebola. The four hospitals in the US equipped with biocontainment facilities have space to treat only eleven patients total.
At this point the CDC and those in charge of infection control at hospitals SHOULD be freaking-out. They need to be prepared to ensure the safety of their staff.
Tutt, you are right that perhaps some good can come of this, I hope that there will be more of a focus on infection control and good aseptic technique. 721,000 people acquired infections in hospitals in 2011 with 75,000 later dying either due to the infection, the original disease or a combination of the two.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/health/hospital-infections/
Here’s a little bit of raw meat to chew on:
‘Pattakos, 36, a Cleveland attorney who lives in Bath Township, called the health department, which told him to call back if he exhibits any Ebola symptoms. He called a doctor, who told him not to worry.
“I didn’t exchange any bodily fluids with anyone, so I’m not worried about it,” he said. “I’m much more likely to be mistakenly killed by a police officer in this country than to be killed by Ebola, even if you were in the same bridal shop.” ‘
http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index.ssf/2014/10/man_not_worried_about_ebola_af.html
Some on the right in the United States go ballistic over the potential threat of Ebola spreading in America despite the fact that the actual threat to Americans right now is negligible, at most. We hear cries of “What have they been doing?” or “Obama is asleep at the wheel.”
Yet, when the administration, and the First Lady in particular, tries to start a program to encourage young American children to eat better and exercise more in an attempt to address the real risk of obesity and diabetes (you know, diseases that are an actual threat to Americans), those same people accuse the administration of “bullying” or “attacking freedom.”
Just goes to show this is not about rationally addressing real threats to the health of Americans. This is about hysteria and stupid political games. Yet another reason the current opposition is disgraceful.
I don’t think outlawing soft drinks over a certain size compares to containing a deadly virus.
Cashier: Welcome to our place, how may I help you?
Customer: I would like one cheeseburger, a medium drink and a 12 ounce order of Ebola, please.
Cashier: Sorry, we must limit your order of Ebola to an 8 ounce serving. The government has decided that larger servings would be bad for your health.
Customer: That’s crazy, I should be free to order all the Ebola I want!
Cashier: Sorry, that is the law. Would you like two 8 ounce servings of Ebola in place of the one 12 ounce serving?
Customer: Yes, that will do. Two 8 ounce servings of Ebola.
Seriously, 75, you think that is how Ebola works? SMH!
I nominate this for silly post of the year.
When did the mayor of New York join the administration? Is New York’s municipal government now part of the federal government-the FDA took it over? Take a short break and look at all the news you miss.
Fly, I’m glad you see the humor in it.
Yay! My post got nominated for the silliest of the year. It was pretty tough beating out the comment I was replying to, but with hard work I pulled it off. I want to thank all the little people that helped me achieve ths great honor. Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.
On a serious note, I noticed another comment by 75 where he actually comes out and says what the real goal of the left is, control the people. He states that if he is forced to pay for health care for others through insurance, then he has a say in their behavior. Thing is, health insurance was voluntary and run through a private capitalist system, people could choose what coverage they wanted, even none at all.
*gasp*
So democrats went out of their way to take that freedom away from the people, no more freedom to choose, so NOW we are forced into it, and THAT gives democrats and liberals the excuse for more micromanagement, control, over our lives, even down to daily activities and diet. Just add sugar, salt, red meat, etc., to the Controlled Substances Act and require us to buy government approved broccoli in government approved amounts and do daily exercises.
Democrats have made sure government has that power at the federal level, don’t think it won’t be used. A remember, if you think republicans are crazy extremists, especially those with the tea party movement, republicans will win control again and may be heavily influcenced by the tea party movement, and they will have all those powers to use against you.
Cap, sorry to burst your bubble, but being nominated is not the same as winning. We won’t know the Post of the Year winner until the morning of Jan 1. 🙂
But … but … but I got nominated. And I am still ready for my closeup, darnit.
“This is about hysteria and stupid political games.”
And Sternn confirms it, right on cue.
Who is hysterical?
“Who is hysterical?”
Anyone keening that any federal advisories on healthy eating are essentially identical to municipal regulation of serving sizes. Especially when such a hapless loon is regularly in the practice of reminding anyone who will listen to his tired diatribes about the different functions of different levels of government.
Well, I interpreted Cap’s post as an example of humor, not hysteria.
He hardly deserves someone as generous of spirit as you. But obviously needs one.
Back in the day you used to be able to go to “Four for one” and other ridiculous happy hours for alcohol. Since such a dumb consumption meant any participant would be legally drunk, the regulation was changed and while there was mild kickback from the food and beverage lobby back in that day, taking away the price cutting competition probably gave them better profit margins and was actually in the better interests of established business. There is more direct and immediate social impact from alcohol as opposed to sugared drinks, and we’ve accepted government control to a large extent regarding when and how alcohol is served. One generally has the means, if not the ‘right’ to suicide, and it seems silly to many to resort to such drastic measures to take some steps to limit obesity, but the kickback sometimes seems more about getting mad at daddy, rather than accepting limitations which benefit everyone.
Crogg-ED, have you ever read anything by or about Cass Sunstein, the “behavioral economist?”
Mr. Sunstein provides advise on how to “trick” people into doing things for their own good.
Sorry, ADVICE, not “advise.”
No I have not–I’ll look for it-could be interesting. Skepticism of authority is reflex, not a philosophy of self or government.
Crogged, acceptance of authority is just as natural a reflex for some.
Crogged: Andrew Sullivan has written about Cass Sunstein on his DISH page. Just your cup of tea.
Yes and authority looks so much more real in the clean fonts on the screen in front of me. Some I read are real authority, others affirm what I want to believe. My reflex to setting soft drink sizes via regulation-HOW STUPID-CAN’T THOSE PEOPLE JUST CONTROL THEMSELVES…..better….than…I …….do?
My first instinct upon hearing that my soft drink portion size is being limited is to say, “If I want more, I’ll just get a refill.”
So when searching for a post on the Dish referencing Mr. Sunstein the first one says this-( I reordered the paragraphs)……
“Isn’t it understandable, if theoretically regrettable, that people like Sunstein lack interest in foundational debates? The available interlocutors in the conservative movement are so often difficult to take seriously.
The notion that American politics should be grounded in regular debates about first principles is arguably appealing in the abstract. Unfortunately the way those sorts of debates play out in practice make it difficult to wish for more of them. Take the Claremont Institute, where the above piece appears. Ostensibly dedicated to returning the United States to the principles of the Founding, it raises money by trading on nostalgia for the framers and Abraham Lincoln, but spent the Bush years as apologists for the Cheneyite view of foreign policy and executive power.”
The Claremont Review also published a book about Mr.Obama, which was reviewed and I have quoted here in the past.
“Intermission: Conservatives have always been great storytellers; it is their fatal weakness. They love casting their eyes back to the past to avoid seeing what lies right under their noses. The story always involves some expulsion from Eden, whether by the hippies of the 1960s, or the suffragists, or the wretched refuse of the shtetls, or the French Revolution, or the Enlightenment, or Luther, or Machiavelli or the sack of Rome. Next thing you know they’ll be repeating Mallarmé’s judgment that “all poetry has gone wrong since the great Homeric deviation.” (He was only half joking.) The point is, the conservative apocalypse has always been a movable one. So the suspense builds as the reader asks himself: Whom will Charles Kesler blame? Back to the show.
His name was . . . Woodrow Wilson. For some years now the Claremont Institute has been promoting the idea that Wilson was a kind of double agent, whipping the Huns in World War I while surreptitiously introducing the Hegelian bacillus into the American water supply and turning us into zombie-slaves of an elite-run progressivist State. Glenn Beck popularized the notion among grass-roots conservatives by placing Wilson at the center of his Jackson Pollock blackboards, with spokes running out to Bill Ayers, Angela Davis, Saul Alinsky, Acorn, George Soros, Cass Sunstein and now I’m forgetting who else. Kesler gives us a more sober account of what Wilson wrought.”
I read an article on Sunstein (I think it was in the NY Times Magazine), about how he would encourage employees to invest more in their retirement accounts, but without their knowledge that they were being “encouraged.” I think the term he likes to use is “nudge.”
In real life pragmatism isn’t dramatic, fun or showy. Shouldn’t I be free to enrich stock pickers with every single nickle of what I earn, rather than participating in dull boring annuity scenarios? If you make me participate in that dull boring Social Security, I mean annuity, then I don’t have the freedom to enrich that guy on television who will make me rich. I’m not free Besides, the rules of the annuity might have to change every forty years or so, it’s just too much work, freedom is free! Making a system with a public annuity combined with my savings is so not Founding Father, it’s COMMUNISM.
Mr. 75, the difference I see is that one is about protection from an external threat (real or perceived), and the other is about protection from ourselves.
The “protection from ourselves” is when things risk getting too intrusive or personal, although in the case of the First Lady, what she is doing is giving simple encouragement and friendly advice, which I don’t have a problem with.
So, Tutt, are you also opposed to drug laws, and the limits of a legal drinking age, and seat-belt regulations? Those all involve “protection from ourselves”.
External vs internal is one distinction. So is very likely to happen vs close to nil chance of happening.
Good question, Owl. All those “protections” you mention I used to take for granted. Not so much anymore. Our mutual friend, Captain Sternn, has taught me to have a healthy skepticism about such things. Skepticism, not paranoia.
Tutt,
While I acknowledge the difference, I don’t see the relevance. What matters is health, especially public health when we ultimately are all paying for the medical costs of each other in some way or another (either through government taxes or our insurance premiums). I see NOTHING wrong with trying to encourage kids to exercise more, eat better and live a healthier life. Even forgetting the health care cost affects of overweight adults who have chronic diseases, it can be seen as a national security issue. Obesity and the related diseases are becoming an epidemic and every doctor and nutritionist and public health expert I have read and heard from boils it down to our diet and lack of physical exercise. This is EXACTLY the type of public health threat we should be really worrying about. Ebola is scary and horrible for the people who get it and we should do what we can to tackle it overseas and should take precautionary measures here but it should not be the focus of our national attention. Obesity and related diseases should be the focus.
I mean hell, didn’t Nancy Reagan essentially encourage the same thing? I know President George H. W. Bush appointed Arnold Schwarzenegger to lead a national health and fitness campaign. This is nothing new but now that President Obama decides to tackle this, you know, ACTUAL problem he’s accused of “telling our kids how to live.” Stupid.
Mr. 75, as I said above, I don’t have a problem with an authority figure offering friendly advice.
The difference 75 from Kennedy on to HW Bush is no one involved themselves in school boards across the nation to eliminate choices and types of food.
Since alcohol makes most people stupid if abused, I like the DUI law. It is the kind of deterrent we need. I don’t like the drug prohibition all it has done is bring into power thugs. I don’t like the seat belt law because that is inside my car and is nobody’s business especially if you can ride a motorcycle in Texas without helmet. What it is is a cash revenue draw. I don’t like to be told what to eat or drink by removing it from my choices. If history teaches us anything it is when government makes a low against something popular, the black market flourishes and the government loses.
Kabuzz, speaking of “removing something from my choices” . . . I hate it when I get attached to a certain product, and then the manufacturer discontinues it and replaces it with something “new and improved” — by choice of the manufacturer, not the government.
Just something to think about. I wonder if I can demand from a seller that something be produced and sold to me. I guess I can, if I’m willing to pay the price.
“SAT Scores Reach Record High After Onerous Nutritional Standards for Children Removed” or “Scientists Discover Nutritional Value of Apple Declines if Federal Official Praises It” Texas Supreme Court upholds right of Texas school boards to ignore common sense from beyond border of State. SAT scores decline again despite Republican’s controlling state government for thirtieth successive year…………..
“Liberal democrats in Texas are on average 33% less intelligent then people from Alabama.
Buzz, if you are so offended by schools offering modestly healthy lunch options, then send your kids with a bag lunch of a lard sandwich, pork rinds and a big gulp. Schools should concentrate on reasonably nutritious food for the rest of the kids. Your mistake is in thinking that someone else is obligated to provide choices for you.
You might be right Buzz, because I have to pretend and hope against all evidence that Dan Patrick is competent and further hope the Republican farmers who didn’t make the cut to be the state’s Comptroller aren’t put on the SBOE….
Hey Chris..you missed one! The comments are every it as good as the story. Texas, O Texas, all hail the mighty state of delusion…
http://www.texasobserver.org/tony-tinderholt-texas-far-right-candidate-can-win/
Nate Silver says that most flights from Africa arrive here via Europe.
Should we ban European flights, too?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/why-an-ebola-flight-ban-wouldnt-work/
Or here’s a radical thought- go to the source and put out the fire. It’s a humanitarian thing to do, AND it costs less than shutting down all flights into the US.
Yes. Let’s hear it for radicalism.
I don’t think it’s such a radical idea. There’s a lot of talk of fixing the problem at the source, from both a humanitarian and a “practical” perspective.
Everybody could have predicted how ISIS, Ebola, and the illegal immigration issue would converge into a Perfect Storm of Crazy. I don’t watch Alex Jones any more–which may be because I don’t smoke dope anymore–but the conspiracy nutsos must be having a field day with that.
ISIS will bring Ebola into America across the southern border…succinct and bumper-sticker ready. You could even fit a picture of Obama with a banana in there.
I actually heard the guy reading the local news on KUHF this morning say “Oh-bola”. Pretty sure it was accidental and I can see how that could get stuck in your brain from an ear-worm.
Oh, and yeah, Chris is a Republican, just in case anybody forgot… 😉
I can’t see anything partisan in that post, except maybe the part about Republicans blaming stuff on Obama.
Anse is in the echo chamber. If Chris says he is the queen of England, Anse will bow.
Chris is a sensible, moderate, northern Republican. Some such still exist.
Wingnut, extremist, southern Republicans are the idiots who elect people like Louis Gohmert.
There is a serious lack of comprehension of just how radical the GOP has gotten in the last decade. These GOPers still don’t realize just how far they’ve departed from their beloved Saint Ronald, even.
And it’s an article of faith for them that the Democratic Party has solidly and steadily marched leftward (despite the obvious moderation of Clinton and Obama), while the Republicans have held their position in the solid center of American thought.
It’s rather like believing that the countryside is on the move while you’re sitting comfortably in your train seat.
No Privileged Class in America No. 134(b)
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/10/20/a-smashed-pumpkin-festival/
More Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have been killed by Ebola.
Something to ponder.
It’s obvious- quarantine that whole family! They’ve already infected millions. 😛
Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Liz Taylor, eat your heart out!
Thats funny
One suspects Ebola is a fate preferable to marriage to a Kardashian…
Would be an agonizing decision if forced to choose………
More Americans die from the Flu than have been infected and killed by Ebola. Something else to ponder. I am so tired of the panic mongers I could just scream.
To clarify, more Americans die of the flu *every day* than have ever died of Ebola.
On the subject of Ebola and people being face-palm stupid:
http://m.theweek.com/speedreads/index/270252/speedreads-new-jersey-school-forces-kids-from-africa-to-stay-at-home-over-mindless-ebola-scare
On the bright side, maybe those kids would do better learning at home than at a school where they obviously don’t get geography.
More stupid:
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/ebolakindergarten.asp
The subpoenas are a PR fiasco. We all know that the Christian Persecution Complex is a weapon in the Christian Right’s playbook. They needed some way to rouse public outrage, and now they’ve got it. If they can get a repeal on the ballot it’s possible they can get more people to the polls now.
All of it for something that will ultimately prove futile. It’s so simple: a non-discriminatory policy for gay people–from which the churches are exempt anyway!
It’s “idealism”, conservative-style.
The only problem with your rant is the pastors are both republican and democrat. Bad is bad. Christian people understand this.
kabuzz, why “Christian” rather than “christian”, but “republican” rather than “Republican”?
And one would ask why “democrat” rather than “Democratic”, but adjectival forms are apparently too intellectually challenging for the wingnut right.
I could give a rat’s behind about what their party affiliation is.
“I could give a rat’s behind about what their party affiliation is.”
I do not think that the kitty can grok that concept.
One would think a kitty would be very familiar with rats’ asses.
Perhaps he’s more a lap-cat than a mouser.
Anse – they are the number one reason why civil rights should never be put to a popular vote – the fundamentalist religious types always feel that they have a right to discriminate against people they dislike or do not understand – and they do it under the guise of religious belief. Methinks that they don’t actually read the book that they claim to have faith in, or they simply don’t understand what the Christ was actually talking about in all of those sermons and parables about loving thy neighbor as one loves themselves.
Did you get lunch at Chick-fil-A after shopping at Hobby Lobby? Don’t suggest that there are places you won;t shop, ever, or you will be discriminating.
Go on Stern…please enlighten us on how the country would be a better place of businesses were allowed to refuse service to Black folks, apartments would allowed to refuse to rent to Brown folks, and companies could refuse to hire women ’cause they should be home raisin’ babies.
“And under the category “Things conservatives won’t blame Obama for:””
This is hardly a new thing or exclusively a conservative tactic, blaming the President for anything and everything that ails the country. I remember it reaching a comical level with Bush, and Clinton before that, and back and back. It’s inaccurate half the time, but it’s the most basic political tactic there is.
On that note, hopefully everyone will get a kick out of this…
Love it, Scott. Funnier than Michael Moore blaming Republicans. Both are rich. Only one is funny!
Channel 13 is in full bore coverage over the cruise ship/ Ebola story.
I have to wonder what safety protocols that lab had in place if the director of the lab has to stay quarantined in her cabin, and the ship can’t dock anywhere. You’re not supposed to be a risk for exposure from just testing samples.
I agree. I have to think that a lab in a major hospital would have all the gear it needs to protect the people who work there.
But my employer sells equipment to labs that, until they bought it from us, had no protective enclosures for testing fecal samples.
So, to me, it’s not completely beyond imagination that a lab worker could be incompletely protected on the job.
They do have the protocols in place. You are forgetting something. Duncan, patient zero for Dallas, lied on his admission and did not tell them he just came from Liberia. So the usual labs the ER goes through took place. Only after they found out, the genie was out of the bottle.
“For the moment we’ve stopped hyperventilating about ISIS in order to hyperventilate about Ebola.”
I thought I’d take a cue from ROR and insist on taking a private jet when I travel to California next month. Unfortunately, family finances only allow for coach tickets using frequent flyer miles on United. 😦
The good news is that I was able to upgrade my Priceline rental car from a “Impala or similar” to “RAV4 or similar.”
Take the train, enjoy the view.
http://www.amtrak.com/sunset-limited-train
We take trains every chance we get. It’s a fantastic way to travel – if you have the time. Of course, ‘time’ should include airport security, parking, and other hassles that are pretty much nonexistent with rail travel. Right on, RoR!
I agree fifty, a tight schedule and train travel don’t mix. However, you do have space to stretch your legs. On the flights I’ve taken to South America I feel like I’m wedged into a coffee can. Flying in and out of Miami is a nightmare, and 1st class isn’t much better than economy.
I have been trying to talk my wife into a train ride over a few days. She is reluctant probably because the amenities are not up to par like a hotel room would be. Big bathroom.
Buzz, show this to your wife and maybe she will change her mind.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Accommodation_C&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241210576107
The Ebola Express
Tutta, what a “catchy” name! However, as of late, I’ve become greatly concerned over Lifer’s predilection for renting Impalas. Impalas are from Africa and someone might as well paint “Ebola Carrier” in bright, yellow letters on the sides of the cars. You can be assured that I will stay clear of any Impalas in the rental car parking lot when picking up my RAV4 or similar.
Can you rent a RAV4 on a business trip?
After all, the name is “Recreational Active Vehicle”. Shouldn’t that put your reimbursements in peril?
But I’d love to see a cattle-trailer with “Impala Carrier” wheeling down the road.
ROR, Wow! Thanks for the information on train travel. There is a train connection in Albuquerque along a different route that looks interesting. My husband and I will definitely consider going by train next time.
For now, I will stick to using my frequent flyer tickets to Sacramento. My husband and I have a hefty college tuition payment due in December. I shouldn’t complain, though, since it’s all part and parcel of a cultural, “white privilege” imperative to send my child to college and pay exorbitant, nose-bleed high tuition costs. 🙂
Owl, I’m not traveling for business OR pleasure. I’m going to visit my mother-in-law who is a crazy person. 😦
OV, I would say that when you visit your in-laws you’re on official business.
Yes, Tutt, official business it is.
I have to confess my conscience is bothering me because I called my mother-in-law a crazy person. It was an insult to those who actually are crazy. Maybe, the best word to use would be “difficult.”
My trip out to California won’t be all bad. Mr. View will be accompanying me, and since he doesn’t get along with his mother either, we will be staying at a hotel. I might add that my father-in-law is quite nice and a real saint as far as we are concerned.
A trip out to wine country might be in order – maybe two trips depending on how things go with my dear MIL. 🙂
Whining pastors? I suspect that, like the supposed targeting of conservative entities by the IRS, the people of interest in this case deliberately flouted the law in order to create media coverage.
E B O L A, Bola, ebol lol lol la lola. Cross dressing and hemorrhagic fever come together forever. Weird Al we need you, man.
I follow politics, but I don’t buy in. I mean you can’t fool all of the people all of the time but sometimes a one off gets you in the W column come election day, and that’s all that counts.
In the meantime……..I’m being oppressed.
Regarding oil prices, Thomas Friedman has an interesting idea.
“This is business, but it also has the feel of war by other means: oil.”
He suggests that Saudi Arabia and America are deliberately keeping prices low to make life difficult for Russia and Iran, a strategy for fighting a “proxy war’ in Syria.
“The Americans and Saudis did to the last leaders of the Soviet Union: pump them to death — bankrupt them by bringing down the price of oil to levels below what both Moscow and Tehran need to finance their budgets.”
His column cites a Pravda article that concludes, “The planned economy of the Soviet Union was not able to cope with falling export revenues, and this was one of the reasons for the collapse of the U.S.S.R.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/opinion/thomas-friedman-a-pump-war.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0
As always, there are numerous things we can harp on this weekend, like –
The myth of separation of Church and State
The proliferation of your S.S. # on just about every piece of paper you have to submit these days to prove your identity so it can be handily stolen along with your credit card but is taboo for voter ID
Neurotic moronic bed-wetting championships on the campaign trail
Ron Paul, the Anti-Christ without portfolio for President
Banning flights from Texas instead of from Africa,
And sadly, why aren’t we at Padre this weekend???
Loma, I had to present my driver’s license and give out my social security number at the doctor’s office a couple days ago. What an indignity! I would think that I could get a flu shot and a physical without enduring such blatant harassment.
Looks like y’all will have to provide a driver’s license when voting in November. The Supreme Court has made its decision.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/18/politics/texas-voter-id-law/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
You don’t have to give them a ss#. Unless it’s an an employer, the DMV, IRS or you are applying for credit it is not necessary to show your SS#. A friend of mine went into the hospital for knee surgery and had his number stolen and credit cards opened up under his name. It was a mess.
objv, if it is discriminatory to ask people to show a photo I.D. to vote as so many liberals whine, is it discrimination for airlines to make people show an I.D.? Or a liquor store? Or a grocery store if you write a check? Why don’t the race baiters go after them??? Interesting question.
GG, I’ve heard that. Like you, I would rather not give out my SSN. However, I frequently request copies of medical records for my family, and the forms that the hospitals use ask for a social security number. I’m guessing that obtaining medical records might be more of a pain if no SSN is listed. I’m not saying it would be impossible – just that it would probably cause an inconvenient wait.
Kabuzz, since when do I have a constitutional right to travel on airplanes, buy liquor, or write checks?
Oh, right. You simply don’t care about making sense.
We have always had the right to do those things, bird. It would have been a little tough to exercise the right to fly on a plane before they existed, but the right to do so was still there.
The 18th amendment violated our right to purchase alcohol, but it did not take that right away just as the 21st amendment did not grant the right to do so.
You really don’t seem to grasp the concept of rights and liberty for individuals, or legitimatre powers granted to different levels of government, nor the proper role of government. You don’t seem to grasp the very founding principles and ideas of this state or nation. Or if you do, you despise all of it.
Sternn, learn to understand adjectives.
I see others have already beat me to the replies, but anyway …
The Houston Chroncle editorial board has even come out slamming the subpoenas. Mayor Parker is feeling the heat and is backing down.
Ebola is a serious matter. First the President said that it was very unlikely that it would come to the States, and if it did, it would be quickly contained. It has come to the States and it is getting out, even health care professionals are getting infected, even with all the protective gear. Nothing to panic about just yet, and as has already been noted, it isn’t just the right sounding the alarm. Then again, CNN will latch onto anything. They yapped about the missing Malaysia Flight 370 24/7.
The democrats are set to take another “shellacking” next month. Maybe not as big as the 2010 shellacking, but hopefully the republicans can take the senate. No predictions on that one from me.
Under things conservatives won’t blame Obama for …
The workforce as a percentage of the population is down, people have simply given up on finding jobs. Not really something to be bragging about.
We will see what happens to the dollar when interest rates are raised, since that is what conservative leaning economists have been saying all along.
The last republican deficit was $161 billion. Democrats gained control of spending in January 2007. Not even the neo-conservative RINO that was Bush43 would sign off on the 2009 budget. Obama signed that one when he took the oval office. Democrats own the federal government since Janauary 2007 as well as spending, deficits and debt. Obama is included because he was a senator voting on those budgets. Yes, we know that the left will hold its collective nose when reminded about democrats taking control after the 2006 election, but the stink is still on them.
Oil prices are low because of the increased domestic production, that is true. But it is true in spite of Obama’s best efforts. Production on federal land is down, down by 40% last time I looked it up. Obama campaigned on his policies causing energy prices to skyrocket.
Medicare costs going down can be attributed to denying people health care. My mom has a heriditary condition that needs to be closely monitored, yearly exams. Under the PPACA she has been refused her exam and cannot have another for five years. And in five years she will be at the age the exam is simply denied because of her age.
The U.S. Constitution nullifies Sharia. Other nations have allowed it in closed communities, but here, so far, we do not recognize honor killings as such. We still see such things as nothing more than murder and treat it that way. Nor do we recognize gang raping a man’s daughter as a form of punishment for a crime he committed. Not very many people take that threat seriously at all.
No time for a point by point discussion, but Stern…can you think of maybe a few reasons why “workforce as a percentage of the population” might be down and might not be the best metric to use (and getting to be a worse metric every day)?
Come on…I bet you could come up with a few ideas that might not be Obama’s fault.
I know that numbers aren’t always our friends, but here, I’ll help:
Today, October 17th, about 10,000 Americans turned 65. Over 3,000,000 will turn 65 this year. There are not that many kids replacing them in the workforce.
Obama’s recession (that started before he took office) had a benefit of delaying the inevitable retirements because the crash wiped away a few billion in retirement savings and caused folks to work longer than planned.
Sadly, Obama’s march to socialism has been slowed, and the stock market is up and folks are feeling confident enough to leave the workforce.
Then, we have women, often a source of great consternation. For the past few decades, there has been huge growth in the number of women joining the workforce. At some point, that growth has nowhere to grow, and as would be expected, it is leveling off. The gains from women that propped up the percentage of people working are no longer propping it up.
Let’s see, what else could be in play? Well, we have evidence that young folks are spending longer times in school and thus not joining the full-time workforce until later.
Undoubtedly, demographics are not the only cause.
Big corporations sitting on tons of cash and not hiring new employees (due to Obamacare and other draconian regulations) would have an effect as well.
Seriously, I’m not sure who is arguing that the recovery has been robust, but unemployment is down and the stock market is up. We all can fairly recently remember a time when those trends were opposite.
There are still plenty of fundamental problems, but these are conditions about which Mitt Romney would be crowing and around which he would be building a re-election campaign.
Stern…as usual, I’m a bit baffled…you are complaining about the workforce to population being low under obama…and a couple folks point out why such a thing might be, and how maybe it doesn’t have a bunch to do with Obama…then you masterfully go in and show the same thing.
I guess, thanks for the confirmation.
Workforce participation rates by white males have been in steady decline for as long as we have measured it, going back to Eisenhower.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11300028
Now that other demographic groups have started to have the opportunity to participate and have begun to experience the same dynamics that are driving down everyone’s labor demand, they are seeing a similar curve. Women’s participation rates peaked in 2000 and have declined since.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11300002
Whatever bad happens is Obama’s fault. Whatever good happens occurred despite Obama’s best efforts. It’s the exact opposite of how people give credit to their prayer, with just as much relation to reality.
Why did you focus on white people? I will look at your link later this evening, and I bet I can make it give me any statistics I want.
According to the left, all that is good is because of Obama, all that is bad is Bush’s fault. In Iraq? Bush’s fault. Bring the troops home and it all praise Obama. ISIS happens, oops, it’s Bush’s fault because Obama wanted to keep troops in Iraq.
Oil production on federal lands is down, Obama has cancelled leases. Production is up because of private property and private investment. And no, it doesn’t poison our waters. Fracking happens many thousands of feet below any drinking water reserves.
“Why did you focus on white people?”
And more specifically, white males? Because they are the only demographic that’s had full access to the labor market across that period. Looking at participation from women, hispanics and blacks includes distortions related to changes in access to the market over that time.
The only group that has had full access to the labor market has seen their workforce participation drop by nearly 20% in an unrelenting, consistent slide over half a century. Kind of suggests that there is something else going on besides a black President promoting laziness.
So, let us have some fun with your link, Lifer.
Well, that wasn’t nice. I put in a few different data series and the link ony shows one. I spent enough time with that and will not sit here and do each one as an individual search and link, so here is a screen shot.
I suppose I could add more data series, and I did do that but removed them because I messed up and used differnt criteria, then remade it and modified it. In the end they all showed the same thing, the civilian employment to population participation ratio is down across the board among all groups. The peak for many groups was around the year 2000, then started falling around 2008. The exception is men, and I didn’t include specific groups but even doing a graph for black men over 20 trended with white men over 20. Actually, I will do one more thing …
One more graph …
And what?
Workforce participation has been declining for white men for as long as we’ve kept records. The same pattern is evident for almost every other demographic group since about 2000, after a rise starting around 1960 when those demographic groups started to get freer access to labor markets.
What am I missing in the graphs you keep posting?
Um, let us see …
“The workforce as a percentage of the population is down, people have simply given up on finding jobs. Not really something to be bragging about.” – Sternn
Not just white males, but all groups. What are you missing?
So you’re blaming Eisenhower, right? I’m confused.
Jesus (the accountant, not the deity) Stern…the percentage of dudes in the workforce has been dropping for a long, long time, White dudes longer than most since they’ve been in the workforce in greater numbers longer. Been happening for a long, long time.
Women have been propping up this statistic. At some point, there is no where for the growth to grow, so you are now seeing an overall drop because women aren’t pumping up the numbers.
Then, there is the pesky thing of millions of folks hitting retirement age, and they seem to be getting there in greater numbers than they are being replaced by young folks.
If this is this hard for you, you are going to freak the heck out in 15 years when the percentage is even lower and will have been in a 25 year freefall. I’m sure you will view it as all President Chelsea Clinton’s fault.
Did math steal your lunch money when you were a kid, and thus you have sworn a lifelong jihad to oppose math at every opportunity?
People have simply given up looking for jobs seems to be your thesis, Sternn, with the implication that it’s the fault of Obama. But if the trends have existed for decades, then this is obviously not the reason and perhaps there are other explanations. Largely this comes down to demographics: the percentage of the adult population over the age of 65 (and thus more likely to be retired) has steadily increased. The population over 65 has increased by 5 million (from 35 to 40 million) just since 2000. This demographic is now 17% of the U.S. adult population.
Sometimes simple explanations are more likely that vast political conspiracies.
Well let’s see, out of all the points I made in reply to Lifer’s entry, the only focus is on the unemployment numbers. My comment was that the numbers are not lower because people are finding jobs, but because people are giving up on finding jobs and are therefor not being counted.
Lifer responds with a graph showing that the percentage of white males over 20 has been dropping for decades, which really doesn’t have anything to do with my comment. I respond with graphs from Lifer’s choice of source showing that in recent years it applies to all groups across the board, and another that shows it applies to black males over 20 for several decades.
HT responds by saying it is because women have entered the workforce, which really doesn’t apply at all to my statement and the graph shows that the percentage of women in the workforce compared to population is also declining over the past few years. Yes, peoploe also retire, but then the job they were doing has to be filled by somebody else. At least that is how it works in a healthy growing economy. In an unhealth economy, jobs are cut. Jobs have been cut and have not come back.
Yes, many companies are sitting on “piles of cash” and not hiring people. Why are they not hiring people? Because there is no need to hire people, the demand is not there to fill. Companies in the private sector are not stupid, they don’t hire people they don;t need just to be hiring people to sit around doing nothing.
So it all comes back to “things conservatives will not blame Obama for”, one being that the unemployment numbers are lower. That would be good if people were finding jobs instead of giving up. But they are giving up and not finding jobs, so that really is not something to be bragging about.
Bless your heart Stern:
“HT responds by saying it is because women have entered the workforce, which really doesn’t apply at all to my statement and the graph shows that the percentage of women in the workforce compared to population is also declining over the past few years. Yes, peoploe also retire, but then the job they were doing has to be filled by somebody else. At least that is how it works in a healthy growing economy. In an unhealth economy, jobs are cut. Jobs have been cut and have not come back.”
Just because you don’t see how these big demographic trends apply to your statement, doesn’t mean that they don’t absolutely apply to that statement.
If you have some illusion that somehow all the jobs from which people are retiring are miraculously going to be filled by people that do not exist, I’m not sure how we are going to help you. You are going to be one consternated dude for the next few decades as all the boomers retire.
I guess, for you, the free market solves everything, so with a guiding invisible hand of the free market and a growing economy, people will miraculously be created in their early 20s in an equal number to that booming generation of retirees.
John, thing is that the trend has not existed across the board until the past few years. Look again at the first graph I posted, the trend for many groups was upward. Then it leveled off between 2000 and 2008, at that point the trend was downward for those groups. Lifer sought to omit that fact, those groups, and the change in the trend.
HT, people don;t exist? That is a very strange concept. So if a person working on the line in a factory quits or retires, the factory has to shut down because there is nobody to replace that worker? Are human beings becoming extinct? Last I heard the U.S. population was growing. In fact, the world population is growing, so that pretty much goes against the idea that the human race is becoming extinct and human beings do not exist.
Reality is that people do exist, unemployed people exist, even unemployed people that are still looking for work. Maybe more would return to seeking a job if the jobs were available.
Now you, John and Lifer want to put it all on Obama. Obama is part of the problem, but he is not alone. The entire Democratic Party is the problem, Harry Reid is part of the problem, probably has more responsibility on the matters since he is blocking hundreds of bills passed by the house, many of which would help the economyn and job creation by losening the boot the democrats have on the neck of the economy.
But alas, democrats are not like that. They say putting people on long term unemployment and food stamps boosts the economy rather than having those people working.
May I first say that, wow, it’s amazing how much stronger and chaotic the seasonal swings are for African-Americans than for Whites. That’s pretty sobering, by itself.
Now on to Sternn’s latest pathological idiocies.
“Lifer responds with a graph showing that the percentage of white males over 20 has been dropping for decades, which really doesn’t have anything to do with my comment.”
Well, yes, it has EVERYTHING to do with your comment, but because you don’t have the balls to admit you’re wrong you decide to simply deny it. Or, as Lifer suggested, I suppose you could blame Eisenhower. Maybe the John Birchers were right about him, eh? Of course, they’re the direct ancestors of the Tea Party, so perhaps such fervid fantasies wouldn’t be surprising.
“Look again at the first graph I posted, the trend for many groups was upward. Then it leveled off between 2000 and 2008, at that point the trend was downward for those groups.”
…and went down to a level comparable to those go-go 1990s. Is ignorance of scale and context really required for wingnut conservative economic analysis these days?
“Yes, peoploe [sic] also retire, but then the job they were doing has to be filled by somebody else.”
UNLESS the economy is heavily mechanizing. As ours is. As Lifer has pointed out. Repeatedly. Sternn, surely you have a longer working memory than my cat?
“Yes, many companies are sitting on ‘piles of cash’ and not hiring people. Why are they not hiring people? Because there is no need to hire people, the demand is not there to fill.”
…which is why many liberals have pointed out that it would have been better, in terms of supporting the economy, to let the giant investment firms fail, and to give money (whether through tax cuts or other incentives, or even direct payments) to the lower and middle classes. People with less money tend to *spend* it, and that creates demand. People with more money tend to *save* it, and that removes it from economic activity (except when it serves as investment capital, which is important but less effective for the current question).
“Reality is that people do exist, unemployed people exist, even unemployed people that are still looking for work. Maybe more would return to seeking a job if the jobs were available.”
Sternn, your entire rank thesis is based on lazy supposition. Now, we all know you’re the intellectual equivalent of a suppository, so it’s no surprise. But if you want any respect at all, how about using numbers which actually measure what you’re trying to prove? You’re using simple measures of labor-force participation rate to wave your hands about the unemployed not looking for work, without bothering to disentangle pesky demographic issues like retirement, homemaking, education, and the like.
Don’t be stupid. Assuming you can help it any more.
Oh now that IS funny, bird. Suddenly it is the liberals that were against the bailouts and the stimulus. It was all forced on thos poor little democrats and their supporters. I remember how Obama fought against that stimulus, but republicans had a majority in congress, both houses, and forced it on him. They had a veto proof majority and overrode Obama’s veto of that bill.
Sure, and I have a bridge to sell you.
I guess by your own measure, cats have better memories than birds.
And Sternn, as usual, hides his lack of balls behind a fig leaf of irrelevancies.
Once upon a time I almost felt pity for you, bird. But no more.
Good. You need all the pity for yourself and your misshaped, misdirected mind.
And one more thing: Before we start crowing about the falling “deficit to GPD ratio”, I’d suggest a look at our *debt to GDP ratio*, and how that looks as compared to most of the developed world. Historically, it’s only been higher during the Second World War.
Guess you can find good news wherever you look?
I hate owing myself money
If we don’t shrink the welfare state who’s going to buy our professional sports teams, FOREIGNERS?!?! The Kansas City Tsars vs the San Francisco Kaiju?
Louisiana = Foreigners
Speaking of the media exaggerating . . . it had to have been on NPR, because I don’t listen to anything else . . . it was a segment about a trade show in Houston (not the OTC), and the reporter was saying that people had travelled “from places as far away as Mexico and Louisiana” to attend.
I also love hearing how a certain town had not seen such activity “in half a decade.”
I don’t suppose I need to review my religious credentials here, but a small point of order, and please correct me if I’m wrong; it is my understanding that none of the pastors involved in the subpoenas were party to the lawsuit. If this is in fact the case, the opening of this ‘non-blog’ is more than misleading. If I am mistaken, may god have mercy on my soul.
To the second issue, I’d say terrorism and Ebola make us stupid.
On unemployment, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 and http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm Applications for unemployment are a lousy indicator of the real labor situation for a host of reasons, most of which we are all aware. The unemployment rate is, of course), still far higher than it has been for most of the last couple of decades, and the economic recovery has been anemic. A low rate of new applications for benefits, in the face of the current reality, is nothing to crow about if you are in government.
The dollar is surging in value because Europe’s economic situation continues to worsen. Again, no need to explain this.
The price of oil is falling at horrific cost to the environment, the climate, and our planet. Domestic production is surging do to this abominable new technique called ‘fracing’, that’s poisoning our water, causing cancer and autism, and making our taps burst in to flames. We’re doomed.
And finally, my insurance premiums are going up because my old policy, one with which I was quite satisfied, and served my needs adequately, did not have the coverages required by the ACA. This had bupkus about my being a burden on society, pulling my weight, or being able to care for my family were an expensive health issue to present itself. It’s about my having to purchase coverage I neither want, or need.
So you see, there are at least a couple of ways to interpret what Chris has posted here, for what it’s worth.
On the pastors being “party” to the lawsuit, that’s a bit of hair-splitting. The people who lead the organization they were working under are the stated, official parties who filed the lawsuit. That distinction is meaningless enough to get them drawn into discovery.
As for the rest of your comment, it’s all technically accurate though subject to perspective. The unemployment rate is below 6% which places just above technical full employment and right at the long term average. It also fell faster than it did after the Reagan recession in the ’80s.
Lower oil prices are definitely not great news for the environment or for Texans, but considering that Obama is supposed to hate low energy prices, you have to wonder.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the general consensus on the right (still continuing) is that the dollar is doomed to collapse due to Obama any day now. Instead, the US is where everyone wants to put their money, driving down US borrowing costs and increasing the value of the dollar.
And the ACA. Well there’s a complicated subject.
Chris- I’m not sure about the pastors. I think the subpoenas presuppose the inability of the plaintiffs to be ignorant entirely on their own. (Though I’ll admit, the bathroom and “gender identification” bit is really complete and total bullshit.)
I think there are many here who would question my ability to relate accurately the Conservative meme regarding economics, (or perhaps anything Conservative), but..
When we speak of the dollar and its “value”, the concept has meaning only if we are comparing it to other currencies. The RoW is in the midst of issues more serious than our own – many of which are, in fact, the result of profligate government spending. As long as they are sucking harder than we, we’re OK. If that changes, and it inevitably will, the figure of merit will be debt/GDP. And it won’t be pretty.
Post-WWII we basically inflated our way out of the debt, by enduring some years of very low to negative real rates of return. We’re trying to induce inflation with the QE that’s been done, but it hasn’t worked, which is interesting. My money is still on it, though.
JG – Agreed wrt debt after WWII. I think the Fed really cannot allow interest rates to rise in the near term. Were that to happen, our debt service would become crushing. (Again the debt/GDP ratio thing). .Another way to look at inflation resulting from the wholesale printing of money is that it is in fact, a tax on accumulated wealth. Not all of us who have it were born into it, and some of us actually made it the ‘old fashioned way’. As you might imagine, I find the prospect of the application of inflation to address excessive debt to be quite distasteful.
Regarding the upcoming elections, going against history (and Nate Silver) when predicting elections is likely to be a foolhardy endeavor.
Baring sheer idiocy across multiple GOP Senate candidates, there is no math that works for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate. Sure, one or two GOP folks will decide to pontificate on rape, pregnancy, or the role of women in society, and maybe another decides it’s a good time to point out that gay folks are going to hell, but it would take a whole mess of idiocy that I do not believe even GOP candidates can achieve.
Polls fluctuate state by state and week by week, but the overall trends have been stable for a couple of months. The GOP will win the Senate.
Off-year election, relatively unpopular President, and a disproportionate number of Democrat seats up for election. There is no way that ends well for the Democrats.
Predicting elections is like handicapping horses and betting against the house. Both losing propositions.
Even the NYT’s Upshot acknowledges that even their “predicted” 74% likelihood the Republicans will take control of the Senate, doesn’t make it an inevitability. Meantime buzzy still doesn’t have a grasp of probabilities, statistics amongst a whole litany of other basic concepts.
So the NYT is a “liberal rag”, eh buzzy?
So violating my own admonitions, I firmly believe all these oodles of “traditional” polling samples from all sides of the aisle (left, right, and “non-partisan”) are consistently behind the 8 ball in figuring out how to capture a constantly and persistently mutating “representative sample” of the voting populace whether, national (none for this cycle), regional, or local. Not quite an appropriate or accurate analogy to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle but a somewhat similar political corollary. You can measure it, but it’s meaningless the instant you capture it.
And locally, voter registration is at an all time high in Texas.
http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2014/10/record-14m-texans-register-to-vote/
I’m guessing after 8 years of Obama, there weren’t too many “conservative Republicans” on the sidelines FINALLY motivated and induced to vote for the first time this year because they were enthralled with Greg Abbott. Or Dan Patrick.
I’m leaning towards Leticia Van de Putte drawing out the Hispanic and anti Dan Patrick vote and Wendy Davis ironically riding Van de Putte’s coattails to winning the Governorship. Thank you for those incessant nauseatingly racist anti-Hispanic ads Danny! A twofer on your dime.
I don’t know Bubba. I’m a believer in big numbers. When you have enough data pointing in one direction, the limb on which you are going out is pretty sturdy.
For every down to the wire Bush-Gore election, there are five Clinton-Dole elections for which the outcome is well known before the first ballot is counted.
Remember how everyone other than Buzz knew that Romney would lose?
Homer, there is a reason no candidate is asking Obama to visit him. There is a reason why Wendy Davis chose to highlight Abbot’s wheelchair use. It is desperation. Obama fatigue. Chaos in the world. Chaos in our country. The people always know when it is time for a change.
Buzz…I think you are at least a few years older than me.
I know you can remember Vietnam, and a few pissing contests with China.
You might even remember a country tearing itself apart over Vietnam.
You probably saw on TV a disgraced President resigning.
You may even be able to hearken back to the Cuban Missile crisis.
You certainly remember hostages in Iran and a looming Soviet threat.
You probably watched on the TV as tanks rolled into Tienanmen Square.
You saw our troops killed in Beirut and Somalia.
You likely remember Iran and Iraq trying to kill each other.
You will recall the Soviets attempting to take over a country near Middle East oil supplies.
I know you remember Iraqi troops invading a neighboring country.
You probably saw at least a few pictures of US citizens having dogs and fire hoses turned on them in situations that make Ferguson, MO look like a Sunday picnic.
You probably saw something on the news about some planes flying into buildings in NYC.
In just about every year you’ve been alive, malaria has killed over a couple of million people. In the next six months, the flu is going to kill 100 times more people in the US than will Ebola.
You think the country is in chaos and the world is in chaos?
My friend, I fear you are turning into a scared old man that doesn’t remember that the world has been a much scarier place for a long, long time.
Alternatively, you are being silly and trying to play politics by somehow tying pretend chaos to relatively milquetoast President that has managed to captain a relatively uneventful ship for six years now.
I have no idea Homer how you take that I am scared unless you just want to put forth a Bubba type insult which lowers your opinion drastically.
Africa a mess, Egypt a mess, Syria a mess, Iraq a mess, Iran going nuclear, Russia rising and invading, illegal immigrants flooding over our borders taxing our systems both financially and practically then of course you have the abuse cases in Obama’s administration, etc. As I was growing up to this day I haven’t seen the world in quite this mess EVER.
When you create a vacuum of leadership, no telling who will fill the void. We have a detached, inexperienced president who hasn’t a clue. You can go on and whistle and quoting to yourself “the worlds a better place, the worlds a better place” but the grown ups see what is happening or should say is not happening.
Buzz…buddy…you say, “As I was growing up to this day I haven’t seen the world in quite this mess EVER.”
I guess, my friend, congratulations are in order. It seems like this is the first time you’ve been paying attention in the last 50 years.
Homer, nice try at reasoning with the unreasonable.
Give it up. The world won’t be a better place for buzzy until the Black guy is no longer in charge of this country. You’ve eliminated every other possible explanation and have stripped buzzy down to his base, mindless kneejerk scared old White man reflex.
Just for some perspective, here is a timeline for 1968.
http://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html
We had the war in Vietnam going full tilt, with American casualty counts numbering in the hundreds per week. We had that national shame of the My Lai massacre. We had the Pueblo incident with North Korea. We had the assassinations of MLK and RFK. We had frequent violent demonstrations and outright riots over the war and civil rights. We had a bitterly divided country and nasty divisive politics. Things got testy in other parts of the world too: riots in France and Mexico, the USSR crushing the Prague Spring.
Personally I’ll take 2014 with its flaws over the late 60s.
The nice thing about senility like kabuzz’s is that, by wiping out the past, it makes the present so much more exciting.
Soon he’ll be able to wrap his own Christmas presents, or even hide his own Easter eggs.
Riots? That’s it? A day or two of riots makes what’s happening now seem less dangerous. Where I lived, the riots did not put fear in our hearts.
Bobby Kennedy assassinated, man caught right away. Done. King assassinated, man caught right away. Pueblo, 30 days or more of negotiation done. Vietnam the only long lasting problem which was started with a democrat lie.
We have many multiple problems that are going of at the same time and have been for some time. But you Obama lovers refuse to acknowledge any responsibility to the WH. It is you that lack the bravery to admit these problems. You are just “la-la-la-ing” with your fingers in your ears.
“Riots? That’s it?”
So a hugely unpopular war with hundreds of Americans killed or injured each WEEK doesn’t make your cut? So noted.
” A day or two of riots makes what’s happening now seem less dangerous. Where I lived, the riots did not put fear in our hearts.”
And of course where YOU lived and what YOU experienced is perfectly representative of the experiences of every American who was alive then.
RFK assassination done? Do you even remember the assassin’s stated motivation? That reason persists. Also the point wasn’t about whether any 1968 problems persist into 2014, but rather to demonstrate that plenty of bad shit was happening decades ago, and some of it was worse than stuff that’s going on now.
Number 1: Lie. It hasn’t been determined that the petitions or how many of them are faudulent.
2. All cable news is carrying the EBOLA story, but only you focus on Fox News. Not healthy
3. (Chuckle) Yea, you’re right (chuckle) the dems have a great chance. BWAA!
4. Things the left won’t admit. Obama is an absent president. Obama has no experience and it has been proven. The world is much more chaotic since Obama becamee president. The country is more divided since Obama became president. Our rights have been abused more under Obama. Our laws are ignored under Obama. Obama uses the IRS and the Justice Department as his personal guestapo. Obamacare is such a disaster that Obama himself won’t institute the whole program until after elections. Obama always leads from behind like with Isis and EBOLA. Of course the list goes on, but like with Carter, I see the light at the end of this mini kings reign. Whew! What a disaster.
Well, have a good weekend. The echo chamber is due in at any moment to say how great and smart Chris is, how funny, love the post, etc. 3-2-1….go.
I have to admit that you have a point on the media. It isn’t just Fox anymore. Local news may actually be the worst. Abysmal.
Especially in Dallas.
I caught a brief bit of Channel 2’s coverage last night. Evidently, a woman from Nigeria was found dead in her home yesterday. The woman was in Nigeria a few weeks ago. So, all sorts of folks descended on the house, with our intrepid reporter in tow.
The reported kept going on with, “I want to caution people that we do not have confirmation that the death was due to Ebola. Again, authorities have not confirmed that this is Ebola.”
I guess that is more newsworthy than saying, “We have absolutely no evidence in any way, shape, or form that that this is anything other than the tragic passing of a beloved family member. Authorities have not provided any information on the cause of death, noting that being struck by lightening, killed by bees, choking on a pretzel, slipping and falling down the stairs, and shooting herself while cleaning a gun are all far more likely causes than Ebola”.
How about being struck by lightning WHILE choking on a pretzel?
Made from wheat threshed by throwing it down the stairs in, um, an apiary?
Not to be dismissive of the plight of those with Ebola, but l did get sick early this morning, had it coming out both ends. Chemotherapy did the same thing to me also, coming out both ends. Hell of a way to die.
Surprisingly (actually not really if you follow him regularly), Shepard Smith had a nice rant on Fox telling people to pretty much “calm the fuck down!” but within FCC guidelines. Paraphrasing him here, but he noted “two cases is not an outbreak”, there is no massive wave of Ebola infections in the US now or forthcoming, etc. And he was being praised by Rosie Crackpot O’Donnell on “The View” of all places. I think I just saw a porcine type creature sprout wings and soar into the wild blue yonder. And it wasn’t Rosie O.
I don’t know why Shepard continues to slum it over at Casa Murdoch. I guess he feels that’s his contribution to society. To humanize Fox a little and dull that wingnut edge just a smidgen.
STAY ON YOUR OWN DAMN LAWN. Oh for the good ol’ days of 2007 and the simple worries of a global depression and the collapse of financial system supporting every free market state in the world. I miss those simpler, we are all in this for AIG days……….everybody has an opinion because he made you have one!
Kabuzz, are the “guestapo” the guys who chase you down if you take the hotel’s towels with you?
Meh!
Funny, Owl! I had to laugh at your Ebola Caesar comment, as well. You’re on a roll!
“4. Things the left won’t admit. Obama is an absent president.”
Absent compared to what? The hysteria about him playing golf or taking vacations is just that. Bush spent more time away from the White House than Obama has but who cares? The President of the United States never really gets a vacation.
“Obama has no experience and it has been proven. The world is much more chaotic since Obama becamee president.”
What part of the world? The world in which 150,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq? The world in which airliners were crashing in to buildings? The world in which the financial system was melting down?
“The country is more divided since Obama became president.”
Yes. I wonder whose fault that is? It’s sort of like blackmail. The right can say, “vote for our guy or we’re going to make your lives miserable.”
“Our rights have been abused more under Obama.”
Two words: Patriot Act.
“Our laws are ignored under Obama.”
By whom? Certainly he, like all presidents, occasionally tests the boundaries. I am not aware of any instances where Obama has ignored court decisions.
“Obama uses the IRS and the Justice Department as his personal guestapo.”
“Guestapo?” I have a disturbing image of jackbooted hotel workers. Anyway, the only organizations actually sanctioned were left-leaning.
“Obamacare is such a disaster that Obama himself won’t institute the whole program until after elections.”
Not the best implementation, for sure, but it is working to lower the number of uninsured and rates are not increasing out of control.
“Obama always leads from behind like with Isis and EBOLA.”
Yes, by sending U.S. troops to fight both.
“Of course the list goes on, but like with Carter, I see the light at the end of this mini kings reign. Whew! What a disaster.”
Unlike Carter, Obama was re-elected. Quite comfortably, I might add. Must really kill you.
Talking points JG. That’s all you have. Even his ex staff who wrote books on Obama said he is detached. But you know better. Huh! Has nothing to do with golf. I like it when he is playing because he can’t start any mess.
What about not enforcing immigration laws? What about DOMA? I know it is not in force now, but he refused to enforce it.
Why am I bothering to explain to an Obama groupie. Just keep drinking the Kool Aid.
Nothing wrong with detachment. It allows calm decisions. What’s dangerous is someone getting into a rage and starting some shit that will backfire. Remember “revenge is dish best served cold”. Wise words.
But what about all the debt my great grandfather left me and we’re leaving to my great grandchildren to pay? Before you know it, these newly healthy people will start doing things like looking for jobs, no one we’ve bombed likes us and and and WHERE THE HECK YOU THINK YOU’RE GOIN’-GET ON MY LAWN!
I see where your unconventional views on inheritance come from. Paris Hilton’s kids should not inherit her wealth, nor should your own kids inherit your debt. Makes sense to me. 🙂
Those *&^%(*&^ children of mine paying a few grand of my debt still won’t make us even for all the grief they caused me or one of my favorite scenes from Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail.
King points in direction of window and says to son, “Someday all of this will be yours!” and the son replies, “What, the curtains?”
I will save Buzzy and Cappy some time. RINO!!! You are not a real conservative. Why do you hate the constitution, freedom, and yada yada yada.
Chris – I like this format for Friday’s when you use a variety of current news topics for us to discuss. Kinda of like and open topic day but more direct. I hope you start doing this on Fridays going forward. Plus you get the benefit of a new topic without too much effort.
Thanks
I agree with Turtles’s second paragraph. It’s a good way to kick off the weekend. I feel bad for Lifer when he puts his heart and soul into an excellent blog entry posted over the weekend and then gets few replies because traffic is slow at that time. It puts more of the responsibility on us. We, of course, are never at a loss for words. We know how to take a topic and run with it.
Yep, we’ve got to do something with “a nation of bed-wetting neurotic morons” before the weekend is out!
Or run away with it…
Or run FROM it.
Lifer has a soul?
Young lady, some here are non-religious and might have problem with that statement. I haven’t had enough coffee this morning to start a fight over Chris’ soul quite yet. 🙂
OV, wherever there is Life(r) there is a Soul.
Haha, Tutta! I love that you always have a comback!