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The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
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Topic: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left (Read 239214 times)
Power User
Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left, pay equity
Reply #450 on:
January 23, 2014, 11:52:46 AM »
ccp wrote: "I am sick and tired of hearing how women don't get paid the same as men. I can tell you in health care that is simply bogus. Women may make less than men overall but that is by THEIR design. There are NO conspiracies going on to KEEP WOMEN DOWN. They get reimbursed the same from Medicare, Medicaid, insurers the same as the rest of us."
Quote from: DougMacG on June 19, 2013, 03:35:17 PM
"In a comparison of unmarried and childless men and women between the ages of 35 and 43, women earn more: 108 cents on a man's dollar."
Last Edit: January 23, 2014, 12:53:03 PM by DougMacG
Power User
Posts: 9484
Ann Coulter: The Heroism of Wendy Davis
Reply #451 on:
January 23, 2014, 12:51:27 PM »
Is there something about leftists and lying? Wendy Davis is the latest Hero of The Left and is running for Governor as a Democrat in Texas. Ann Coulter is very much on point and funny all the way through. Read it the end where Davis blames her paraplegic opponent for the news story and complains that he hasn't "walked a day in my shoes."
The Heroism of Wendy Davis
By Ann Coulter - January 23, 2014
Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator running for governor, became a liberal superhero last June when she filibustered a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. (This was the good filibuster, not that awful filibuster three months later by Ted Cruz -- that was just grandstanding.)
Apart from her enthusiasm for abortion (and you have to admit, abortion is really cool), the centerpiece of Davis' campaign is her life story. Also the fact that she's a progressive woman who doesn't look like Betty Friedan.
In a typical formulation, Time magazine said Davis was someone who could give the Democrats "'real people' credibility," based on "her own personal story -- an absent father, a sixth-grade-educated mother, a teen pregnancy, followed by life as a single mom in a mobile home, then community college and, at last, Harvard Law School."
The headlines capture the essence of Wendy-mania:
CNN: Wendy Davis: From Teen Mom to Harvard Law to Famous Filibuster
Bloomberg: Texas Filibuster Star Rose From Teen Mom to Harvard Law
The Independent (UK): Wendy Davis: Single Mother From Trailer Park Who Has Become Heroine of Pro-Choice Movement
Cosmopolitan: Find a Sugar Daddy to Put You Through Law School!
Actually, that last one I made up, but as we now know, it's more accurate than Davis' rags-to-riches life story.
The truth was gently revealed in the Dallas Morning News this week. Far from an attack, this was a puff-piece written by Wayne Slater, rabid partisan Democratic hack and co-author of the book, "Bush's Brain." (He is not an admirer of Bush's brain.) It would be like Sean Hannity breaking a scandal about Ted Cruz.
The first hint that Slater was trying to help Davis get ahead of the story and tilt it her way is his comment that Davis' life story is "more complicated" than her version -- i.e., completely the opposite -- adding, "as often happens when public figures aim to define themselves."
Actually, the truth is much simpler than her story. Also, be sure to look for that "as often happens" excuse the next time a Republican gets caught lying about his resume.
Slater's peculiar obsession with whether Davis was 19 or 21 when she got her first divorce, and exactly how long she lived in a trailer home, is meant to deflect attention from something much more problematic: the huge whoppers Davis told.
Her big lies were about the obstacles she had to overcome and how she overcame them, not about how old she was at the time of her first divorce.
She claims she was raised by a single mother, went to work at age 14 to support her family, became a single mother herself in her teens, and then -- by sheer pluck and determination -- pulled herself out of the trailer park to graduate from Harvard Law School!
The truth is less coal-miner's daughter than gold-digger who found a sugar daddy to raise her kids and pay for her education.
Point No. 1: Davis' family wasn't working-class. Her father owned a sandwich shop and a dinner theater, which puts Davis solidly into middle-class land.
Point No. 2: No one who works at MSNBC would know this, but everyone whose parents run a family business starts work at age 14, if not sooner.
Point No. 3: Her parents were separated, but that is not the commonly accepted meaning of "single mother."
Point No. 4: As for being a single mother at age 19 -- she wasn't a "single mother" in the traditional sense, either. She was married at age 18, had a child at 19 and divorced her first husband, a construction worker, at 21. (He couldn't afford tuition at Harvard.)
So she got married young? That isn't a hard-luck story. Well into the 1950s, nearly half of all first-born children were born to married women under the age of 20.
But Wendy Davis' harrowing nightmare of poverty and sacrifice wasn't over yet.
Just a few years after her first divorce, Wendy was on the make, asking to date Jeff Davis, a rich lawyer 13 years her senior, who frequented her father's dinner club. In short order, they married and had a child together.
The next thing Jeff Davis knew, he was paying off her college tuition, raising their kids by himself and taking out a loan to send her to Harvard Law School.
(Feminists rushed to the stores to buy the shoes Davis wore during her famous filibuster. I'd like the shoes she was wearing when she met her sugar daddy.)
Then Wendy left her kids with the sugar daddy in Texas -- even the daughter from her first marriage -- while she attended Harvard Law.
Slater says Davis' kids lived with Jeff Davis in Texas while she attended law school. Wendy Davis claims her girls lived with her during her first year of law school. Let's say that's true. Why not the other two years? And what was the matter with the University of Texas Law School?
Sorry, MSNBC, I know you want to fixate on how many months Davis spent in the trailer park and her precise age when the first divorce went through. And that would be an incredibly stupid thing for conservatives to obsess on, if they were, in fact, obsessing on it. But I'm still stuck on her leaving her kids behind while she headed off to a law school 1,500 miles away.
The reason Wendy Davis' apocryphal story was impressive is that single mothers have to run a household, take care of kids and provide for a family all by themselves. But Wendy was neither supporting her kids, nor raising them. If someone else is taking care of your kids and paying your tuition, that's not amazing.
Hey -- maybe Jeff Davis should run for governor! He's the one who raised two kids, including a stepdaughter, while holding down a job and paying for his wife's law school. There's a hard-luck story!
Mr. Davis told the Dallas Morning News that Wendy dumped him as soon as he had finished paying off her Harvard Law School loan. "It was ironic," he said. "I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left."
In his defense, a lot of people are confused about the meaning of "ironic." That's not "ironic." Rather, it's what we call: "entirely predictable."
It's ironic -- my car stopped running right after I ran out of gas.
It's ironic -- my house was broken into, and the next thing I knew all my valuables were missing.
It's ironic -- I was punched in the face right before my nose broke.
In his petition for divorce, Mr. Davis accused his wife of adultery. The court made no finding on infidelity, but awarded him full custody of their underage child and ordered Wendy to pay child support.
Wendy boasted to the Dallas Morning News: "I very willingly, as part of my divorce settlement, paid child support." Would a divorced dad get a medal for saying that?
In response to Wayne Slater's faux-"expose," naturally Davis put out a statement denouncing ... her probable Republican opponent, Greg Abbott. Again, Slater wrote the story. But Davis blathered on, blaming Abbott for the Dallas Morning News story and complaining that he hasn't "walked a day in my shoes."
About that she's certainly right. Greg Abbott could never walk a day in her shoes or anyone else's. He's a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair.
I guess Wendy could teach him a lot about suffering.
Davis also said these attacks "won't work, because my story is the story of millions of Texas women ..." Yes, for example, Anna Nicole Smith. Though at least Smith had the decency not to ask for a paid education.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left - (Wendy Davis) We're All Single Moms Now
Reply #452 on:
January 28, 2014, 08:55:52 AM »
We're All Single Moms Now
"Wendy Davis did make a mistake," according to the subheadline of an article by Liza Mundy.
"She thought that we were ready for a single mother." Mundy, author of "The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family," deems Davis "The Most Judged Woman in America."
Mundy turns out to want a transformation of the family beyond basic logic. She writes:
[Davis's] the strategy is risky, in part because our notion of a single mother is rigid: Critics have been picking holes in her story, saying that she didn't live in that trailer long enough, or was too ambitious. We seem to have a pretty strict notion of who a single mother is and how she should live. Truth is, the lives of single mothers are multifaceted and hard to categorize.
It's not that hard to categorize Wendy Davis: She was among the category of "single mothers" who are married to rich dudes.
Heck, if you don't have to be single to be a single mother, it stands to reason, or whatever Mundy is substituting for it, that you don't have to be a mother either. That would make your humble columnist a single mother (James Taranto, WSJ). So don't judge us.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #453 on:
January 28, 2014, 10:23:28 AM »
On this WD story, I think our side would do better focusing on the fact that her older, rich husband stayed home to raise the children, and the day after he paid off her tuition loans, she dumped him. EVERYONE, man and woman, knows that what story reveals is as revolting as it is revealing. Fibbing about the age at which her divorce was finalized and fluffing up having lived in a trailer does not even come close.
Stupid Reps.
Power User
Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #454 on:
January 28, 2014, 08:21:41 PM »
"On this WD story, I think our side would do better focusing on the fact that her older, rich husband stayed home to raise the children, and the day after he paid off her tuition loans, she dumped him. EVERYONE, man and woman, knows that what story reveals is as revolting as it is revealing."
Excellent point. Is this the kind of person one wants as their leader? If she could do that to her husband and caretaker of her own children just think what she could do to an electorate.
Power User
Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #455 on:
January 30, 2014, 09:52:48 AM »
Many chronically ill Americans unable to afford food, medicine
By Allison Bond 42 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One in three Americans with a chronic disease such as diabetes, arthritis or high blood pressure has difficulty paying for food, medications or both, according to a new study.
People who had trouble affording food were four times more likely to skip some of their medications due to cost than those who got plenty to eat, researchers found.
"This leads to an obvious tension between 'milk' or 'med,'" said Dr. Niteesh Choudhry, who worked on the study at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "If you have a fixed income, should you treat or should you eat?"
The findings are based on data collected by the 2011 National Health Interview Survey, a questionnaire that offers a snapshot of the U.S. population as a whole. Nearly 10,000 people age 20 and up filled out the survey and reported having one or more chronic illnesses like cancer, asthma, emphysema or a psychiatric illness.
Among those participants, 23 percent took their medication less often than prescribed because of the cost, 19 percent reported difficulty affording food and 11 percent said they were having trouble paying for both food and medications. In the end, about one in three had trouble affording food, medication or both.
These rates are high but are similar to figures found in previous studies, said lead author Dr. Seth Berkowitz, from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Yet the link between difficulty paying for food and for medications is a novel one.
"The idea of tradeoffs that people might make (between buying medications or food) is something we haven't seen before," said Berkowitz.
The researchers also found that patients who had difficulty paying for both food and meds were 58 percent more likely to be Hispanic or African American.
With each additional chronic illness the patients reported, their risk of having a tough time affording those items went up by 56 percent, according to the findings published in The American Journal of Medicine.
Finally, people having trouble affording medications and food were 30 percent less likely to have public, non-Medicare insurance like Medicaid, and about 60 percent less likely to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC. This program provides supplemental food and healthcare referrals for certain women and children up to age five.
By removing some of the financial pressure from people struggling to afford food, assistance programs like WIC may also help them afford their medications, Berkowitz said.
For that reason, for people struggling to pay for either food or medications, the authors recommend looking into eligibility for food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and WIC, along with community support services like food banks.
When it comes to medications, there may be cheaper alternatives or assistance programs for the medication a patient is already taking.
"The most important thing people can do is talk with their doctors about it," said Berkowitz.
It's also important for people to be honest with their doctor if they are unable to afford enough food, since that may affect which medications and dosages are best.
"If you are eating very irregularly, a medication that might be perfectly safe when you are eating regularly could cause low blood sugar," or other complications, Berkowitz told Reuters Health.
If patients don't bring up the fact that they are struggling to afford medications or food, Berkowitz said, the doctor won't know to adjust medications accordingly.
He said people should "not be embarrassed or ashamed" to bring up the topic with their doctor.
SOURCE: bit.ly/1evzX7V The American Journal of Medicine, online January 21, 2014.*****
*****""This leads to an obvious tension between 'milk' or 'med,'" Only a liberal could say this.
""The most important thing people can do is talk with their doctors about it,"
Is this guy putting me on. Patients have always complained when they can't afford health care.
""The idea of tradeoffs that people might make (between buying medications or food) is something we haven't seen before," said Berkowitz."
How old is this fool. This has always been the case. How about people who always seem to afford cigarettes or booze when they want to yet are always short for more important stuff. Oh this never happens.
This is the problem with Ivy league liberals. This was not a "study". Did tax money go to fund this stuff?
Power User
Posts: 42558
Affirmative Action in Action
Reply #456 on:
February 04, 2014, 11:38:18 AM »
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: Affirmative Action in Action
Reply #457 on:
February 04, 2014, 11:56:09 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on February 04, 2014, 11:38:18 AM
In the US code, the term is illegal alien.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #458 on:
February 04, 2014, 12:54:28 PM »
Well, that might explain why she is uncomfortable with it.
Power User
Posts: 15536
"Illegal alien" as defined by statute
Reply #459 on:
February 04, 2014, 03:19:27 PM »
(3)The term alien means any person not a citizen or national of the United States.
8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien
Search 8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien
3 1542
(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. (b) Improper time or place; civil penalties Any alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to enter) the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty of - (1) at least $50 and not more than $250 for each such entry (or attempted entry); or (2) twice the amount specified in paragraph (1) in the case of an alien who has been previously subject to a civil penalty under this subsection. Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be imposed. (c) Marriage fraud Any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or both. (d) Immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud Any individual who knowingly establishes a commercial enterprise for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, fined in accordance with title 18, or both.
- See more at:
Last Edit: February 04, 2014, 07:48:05 PM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #460 on:
February 04, 2014, 07:47:26 PM »
Power User
Posts: 7843
Perfect timing for a communist Pope for the left
Reply #461 on:
February 09, 2014, 10:30:38 AM »
Now we have a socialist/communist Pope.
****Obama, Francis to meet amid shared economic view
Obama and Pope Francis to meet in the Vatican in March with focus on shared economic view
Associated Press
By Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press January 21, 2014 9:11 PM
Obama, Francis to meet amid shared economic view
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Barack Obama meets Pope Francis in the Vatican in March, both men will speak a common economic language rooted in similar views about poverty and income inequality, giving prominence to an issue that the U.S. president wants to be a central theme of his second term.
In the complicated relationship between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church, the White House sees the popular new pontiff and his emphasis on the plight of the poor as a form of moral validation of the president's economic agenda. When Obama delivered a major address on the economy last month, he cited the growth of inequality across the developed world and made sure to note that "the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length."
The White House and the Vatican announced Tuesday that Obama will meet with the pope on March 27 during a four-day European trip that includes a nuclear security summit in the Netherlands and a U.S.-European Union summit in Brussels. The meeting is the first between the president and Pope Francis.
Obama had an audience with the previous pope, Benedict XVI, in July 2009. At the time, the Vatican underscored the deep disagreement between them on abortion. Benedict gave the president a copy of a Vatican document on bioethics that asserted the church's opposition to using embryos for stem cell research, cloning and in-vitro fertilization. Obama supports stem cell research.
Francis has made it clear that Catholic positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriage and abortion haven't changed.
"But in his view those issues which create conflict need to be deemphasized a bit," said John C. Green, a political scientist who specializes in religion and politics at the University of Akron.
The pope created a stir in November when he decried trickle-down theories that assert that economic growth can result in greater justice and inclusiveness as unproven. "The excluded are still waiting," he wrote.
Paul Begala, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, said Obama can only benefit from Francis' emphasis on economic disparities.
"It becomes very difficult for conservatives to attack President Obama for being divisive, when the world's greatest figure for unity is saying pretty much the same thing," Begala said.
Still, Francis' attention to poverty has also captured the attention of Republicans, among them Rep. Paul Ryan, a devout Catholic and Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012. Other Republicans, such as Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky have also staked out prominent anti-poverty positions.
The economic theme will be a centerpiece of Obama's State of the Union address next week. But his specific policies a higher minimum wage, universal pre-school and ending loopholes for the wealthy face difficulty in Congress in an election year.
"American Catholics as a whole don't tend to take specific policy guidance from the pope, whether it's Pope Benedict or Pope Francis," Green said. "But what the pope can do is to get them thinking about particular issues and thinking about them in distinctly Catholic ways. That kind of rethinking could very well be an advantage to President Obama."
The issue of health care has highlighted other disagreements between the administration and the Catholic Church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been a high-profile critic of a provision in Obama's health care law that requires employers to provide insurance coverage that includes birth control.
Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the control requirement, but affiliated institutions that serve the general public are not. That includes charitable organizations, universities and hospitals, and critics say that violates religious liberty. The issue is now before the Supreme Court.
Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter:
Power User
Posts: 9484
Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Confuses Declaration of Independence with Constitution
Reply #462 on:
February 15, 2014, 09:55:11 AM »
Virginia Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Confuses Declaration of Independence with Constitution
"Our Constitution declares that 'all men' are created equal. Surely this means all of us," Judge Allen wrote on the first page of her opinion. That line opens the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Wright Allen was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama.
The Virginia decision follows a declaration from Attorney General Eric Holder that the federal government will begin to expand same-sex marriage rights from the top down by recognizing marriages between same-sex couples on a federal level that invalidates the ability of states that ban such rights. Privileges included in this expansion by the federal government would include spousal privilege in a courtroom and the right to jointly file for bankruptcy.
How many branches of government do they control?
Power User
Posts: 7843
Liberalism really is a disease
Reply #463 on:
February 17, 2014, 07:45:33 AM »
They just have to find some sort of cause no matter how ridiculous. Maybe she wants some sort of entertainment contract from one of the gay Hollywood people:
****Chelsea Clinton says gay rights have made progress
Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton said Sunday that the gay-rights cause made "incredible progress" on political and legal fronts in 2013, but progress should not be mistaken for success.
Clinton called lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues "the unfinished business of the 21st century" in an address at a national conference in Las Vegas where actress Ellen Page came out as gay days earlier in an emotional speech that's stirred a social media outpouring.
Clinton urged a crowd of 600 professionals who work with children to become more sensitive to the needs of LGBT youth, saying the deck is stacked against them because of bullying, rejection and other harassment.
"I've often been asked why issues of equality are so important to me. Frankly, I don't know why they ask that question," Clinton said. "This is about the premise and promise of our country. (It's) always marching forward to a more perfect union. I was raised in a family where inertia is not an option."
The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign Foundation's inaugural conference, which was designed to promote the safety and welfare of LGBT youth, honored Magic Johnson and his wife, Cookie, former 'N Sync singer Lance Bass and writer Robin McHaelen for their support of gay rights.
The Johnsons' son, E.J., who accepted the award on their behalf, praised his parents for giving him unconditional love after he revealed that he was gay.
During the three-day conference that ended Sunday, Betty DeGeneres, mother of Ellen DeGeneres, stressed the importance of parents in giving support to LGBT children, and Candace Gingrich, the openly gay half-sister of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, served as a moderator for a panel discussion about LGBT youth issues.
On Friday, Page, 26, whose role as a pregnant teenager in the 2007 film "Juno" won the hearts of moviegoers and earned her an Oscar nomination, came out as gay at the conference, saying, "I feel a personal obligation and social responsibility" and that she was "tired of lying by omission."
Clinton praised both Page and Jason Collins, the NBA player who announced he was gay after last season.
"Now others have followed his (Collins') courageous example, and I hope later on this year, we'll be cheering for the first openly gay player in the NFL," Clinton said, referring to Missouri All-American Michael Sam, who came out this month.
She noted how 17 states and Washington, D.C., recognize same-sex marriage and how the U.S. Justice Department recently instructed all of its employees to give lawful same-sex marriages sweeping equal protection under the law in every program it administers.
"With all the incredible progress we had in 2013, it's easy to think progress marks success," she said. "We certainly shouldn't take anything away from the historic victories in 2013 ... But we should not mistake progress for success. We need to continue to push for progress in communities, states and the country."
The conference, which was held in partnership with the National Education Association and American Counseling Association, drew teachers, counselors, coaches, social workers, health professionals and others who work with children.
A report issued in conjunction with the conference focused on youth who identify themselves as transgender or express their gender in nonconventional ways. It found that such youth feel even more marginalized and challenged at school and require more attention, said Ellen Kahn of the Human Rights Campaign.****
Power User
Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left: The Pro-Gay, Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison
Reply #464 on:
February 18, 2014, 04:47:43 PM »
The recent post on Gender thread, Kill the Gays Law Called for by Muslim Association in Malawi
by Pamela Geller, reminded me of the delicate balance Minneapolis congressman Keith Ellison strikes with both constituencies. Can't everybody just get along?
I wonder if Rep. Keith Ellison addressed gay rights on his visit to Mogadishu last year, or kept those views in the vest pocket.
How about when he was in Gaza:
He is at ease with the issue in front of the camera on home turf:
Power User
Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left: Markos Moulitsas: A blue Georgia
Reply #465 on:
February 20, 2014, 11:23:40 AM »
The competitive Georgia Senate race will covered elsewhere. My observation on this piece by the founder of Daily Kos is the left's belief they will win states merely by upping their "non-white" numbers.
"Georgias population grew by 1.5 million between 2000 and 2010. Of those, 81 percent 1.2 million were nonwhite. That brought down Georgias percentage of whites from 63 percent in 2000 to 59.7 percent in 2010. And that trend appears to be accelerating: According to updated census estimates, that number was down to 55.1 percent in 2012. "
Absent in his certainty is any indication, much less proof, that leftist policies have been helpful to "non-white" people.
He also fixates on Presidential year voting with a non-white at the top of the ballot. A bigger political story is the huge level of Obama-2012-voter buyer's remorse.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left: Rule by the Ignorant
Reply #466 on:
March 03, 2014, 01:02:47 PM »
These are dark days - being ruled by the ignorant.
Power User
Posts: 9484
How Obama / Demcrat / leftist policies hurt the poor, George Will
Reply #467 on:
March 16, 2014, 11:22:55 PM »
Democrats are making income inequality worse
By George F. Will, Published: March 14
Someone who is determined to disbelieve something can manage to disregard an Everest of evidence for it. So Barack Obama will not temper his enthusiasm for increased equality with lucidity about the governments role in exacerbating inequality.
In the movie Animal House, Otter, incensed by the expulsion of his fraternity, says: I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture. Such thinking gives us minimum-wage increases that do very little for very few. Meanwhile, there are farm bills, like the one Obama signed last month at Michigan State University.
MSU was one of the models for the land-grant colleges created under the 1862 Morrill Act, whose primary purpose was to apply learning to agriculture. Today, we apply crony capitalism to agriculture. The legislation Obama lavishly praised redistributes wealth upward by raising prices consumers pay. Vincent Smith of Montana State University says small non-farm businesses are almost 30 times more likely to fail than farms, partly because the $956 billion farm legislation continues agricultures thick safety net. The geyser of subsidies assures that farm households will continue to be 53 percent more affluent than average households.
Certain payments are, however, restricted. People making more than $900,000 annually are ineligible.
Seventy percent of Agriculture Department spending funds food services. Nearly 48 million people almost as many live on the West Coast (in California, Oregon and Washington) receive food stamps. This dependency, inimical to upward mobility, is assiduously cultivated by government through outreach initiatives to increase awareness and streamline the application process.
Between 2000, when 17 million received food stamps, and 2006, food stamp spending doubled, even though unemployment averaged just 5.1 percent. A few states have food stamp recruiters. An award was given to a state agency for a plan to cure mountain pride that afflicts those who wished not to rely on others.
Nearly two-thirds of households receiving food stamps qualify under categorical eligibility because they receive transportation assistance or certain other welfare services. We spend $1 trillion annually on federal welfare programs, decades after Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that if one-third of the money for poverty programs was given directly to the poor, there would be no poor. But there also would be no unionized poverty bureaucrats prospering and paying dues that fund the campaigns of Democratic politicians theatrically heartsick about inequality.
The welfare state, primarily devoted to pensions and medical care for the elderly, aggravates inequality. Young people just starting up the earnings ladder and families in the child-rearing, tuition-paying years subsidize the elderly, who have had lifetimes of accumulation. Households headed by people age 75 and older have the highest median net worth of any age group.
In this sixth year of near-zero interest rates, the governments monetary policy breeds inequality. Low rates are intended to drive liquidity into the stock market in search of higher yields. The resulting boom in equity markets up 30 percent last year alone has primarily benefited the 10 percent who own 80 percent of all directly owned stocks. Charles Wolf writes in the Weekly Standard: The financial sectors profits rose from 18 percent of total corporate profits preceding the recession in 2007 to 23 percent in 2013.
Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, says the total reserves of depository institutions have ballooned from a pre-crisis level of $43 billion to $2.5 trillion.
And? The store of bank reserves awaiting discharge into the economy through our banking system is vast, yet it lies fallow. The result is a scandal of squandered potential:
In fourth quarter 2007, the nations gross domestic product (GDP) was $14.7 trillion; at year-end 2013 it was estimated to be $17.1 trillion. Had we continued on the path we were on before the crisis, real GDP would currently be roughly $20 trillion in size. Thats a third larger than it was in 2007. Yet the amount of money lying fallow in the banking system is 60 times greater now than it was at year-end 2007.
The monetary base having expanded 340 percent in six years, there is abundant money for businesses. But, says Fisher, the federal governments fiscal and regulatory policies discourage businesses from growing the economy with the mountain of money the Fed has created. This is why the most vital organ of our nations economy the middle-income worker is being eviscerated. And why the loudest complaints about inequality are coming from those whose policies worsen it.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #468 on:
March 17, 2014, 12:15:39 AM »
Power User
Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #469 on:
March 20, 2014, 05:24:43 AM »
Typical Bloomberg News item. Don't worry Democrats ; Bush approval rating even lower than Brock's.
Barack Obama
Obama Beats Bush
Jonathan Bernstein
Mar 19, 2014 9:31 AM ET
By Jonathan Bernstein
In February, I asked whether Barack Obama's approval ratings had pulled ahead of those of George W. Bush at a similar juncture in his presidency, ending a long period where they were basically tied. We now have evidence they have.
Today, Gallup has Obama at 41 percent approval, which is probably a bit lower than his true Gallup score from the last few weeks. HuffPollsters polling average estimates the president's approval at 43.7 percent and slowly rising. A month ago, the trend was less clear, and results varied depending on whether one looked at regular polls or those that were more sensitive to recent changes. Now the two methods are showing essentially the same thing: Obama bottomed out in November or December and has been improving gradually since.
(Yes, that means the New York Times was wrong to refer to Obamas sinking approval ratings. I wouldnt quibble with low and stable ratings. But sinking? Not in the last several months).
At a similar point in Bush's second term, in 2006, a March 13-16 Gallup reading gave him a 37 percent approval rating. He remained at that level or below until a late-summer rally, which pushed him above 40 percent for the final time of his presidency. So Obamas lead over Bush, which I estimated at around 3 points last month, is up to around 5 points now, and the two men are headed in opposite directions.
This is not to say Obama is doing well. Unless his recent improvement gathers steam, hes going to be a drag on Democrats in November, though he won't be as big a drag as Bush was for his party in the 2006 midterms. And even if Obama rebounds, it probably wouldn't be enough to help the Democrats hang on to some tough Senate seats. Ronald Reagan was very popular until the 1986 election, when Democrats took a number of Senate races, in large part by unseating Republican incumbents who had benefited from having Reagan at the top of the ticket in 1980.
But at least for now, Obama isn't as unpopular as Bush was in 2006. This suggests a good year for Republicans (especially in the Senate), but not a landslide.
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The left is tolerant and compassionate, unless you dare to disagree with them
Reply #470 on:
April 02, 2014, 10:22:53 AM »
Compassion: Anti-Obamacare cancer patient smeared by Reid now receiving death wishes from liberals
posted at 7:51 pm on April 1, 2014 by Guy Benson
Welcome to your feel-bad story of the month. Remember Julie Boonstra? Shes the single mother fighting leukemia who appeared in an anti-Obamacare television ad running in Michigan:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assailed Ms. Boonstra, and others like her, in a breathtakingly mean-spirited floor speech going so far as to say that all of their negative experiences were untrue and lies. Reid now claims he doesnt remember saying any such thing, but theres video tape:
In his effort to discredit Boonstra, Reid relied on a Washington Post fact check, which effectively ruled her story half true. In fact, every claim Boonstra made in the ad has been confirmed, as explained by the Detroit News Dan Calabrese:
Boonstra is on five different medications to help deal with her leukemia. The Blue Cross PR spokesman claimed that they are all covered. But when Boonstra went to fill her prescription for Loratadine a prescription-level equivalent of Claritin that she uses to control congestion brought on by chemotherapy she was told that Loratadine is not covered. She has not yet attempted to restock any of her other meds but she is already having to come with strategies to deal with that problem. The $5,100 cap on Boonstras out-of-pocket spending is for in-network care only. If she has to go out of network, she could spend an additional $10,200 When Boonstra was first diagnosed, she had to go through a painstaking process to get approval for her chemotherapy drugs to be covered. When she finally found insurance she liked, she had no problem with the chemo drugs. She now says that process is starting all over again. Boonstra has already had to cut back on her bone marrow biopsies, which she was having on a regular schedule she had worked out with her doctor, because she doesnt have clarification on whether these will be covered. I could go on, but the bottom line is this: Julie Boonstra told the truth, and arrogant media fact checkers had a lot of nerve claiming she hadnt when they never even talked to her.
Nevertheless, Reids inaccurate nasty gram touched off a torrent of bile from Obamacare supporters, including this delightful care package Boonstra received in the mail:
Die, because your experience is inconvenient to my pissed off ideology. Incidentally, Ms. Boonstra isnt the only Obamacare victim who received a cancellation notice, and whose subsequent plan presents out-of-pocket hardships:
Breast cancer survivor Ginny Mason was thrilled to get health coverage under the Affordable Care Act despite her pre-existing condition. But when she realized her arthritis medication fell under a particularly costly tier of her plan, she was forced to switch to another brand. Under the plan, her Celebrex would have cost $648 a month until she met her $1,500 prescription deductible, followed by an $85 monthly co-pay. Mason is one of the many Americans with serious illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis who are indeed finding relatively low monthly premiums under President Barack Obamas law. But some have been shocked at how much their prescriptions are costing as insurers are sorting drug prices into a complex tier system and in some cases charging co-insurance rates as high as 50 percent. That can leave patients on the hook for thousands.
Another example from North Carolina:
Amy Newbold, a 57-year-old saleswoman from Randolph County, N.C., lost her employer insurance last year. Through HealthCare.gov, she found a mid-tier silver plan with premiums that at first blush are $75 a month lower than her previous policy. But there are no savings, she said, since her old premiums were paid with pretax dollars and Obamacare premiums are paid with aftertax dollars. Newbold said she faces substantially higher drug costs for arthritis and psoriasis and worries that an out-of-pocket maximum of $5,000 could put needed medicines out of reach. I feel left out in the cold, and I dont know why it has to be that way, she said
Maybe Reid can make these liars famous, too. Indeed, unleashing left-wing wrath on ordinary people for the sin of speaking out must be a pretty effective method of stifling dissent which is precisely what Reid wants.
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Dennis Prager on The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #471 on:
April 04, 2014, 09:53:22 PM »
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Cardiomyopathy due to climate change
Reply #472 on:
April 05, 2014, 06:31:51 AM »
Where does the liberal slant end? Even Takotsubo syndrome is due to global climate change - and all "natural disasters" are due to climate change. They never existed before. Now they are all man made
*****By Rachel Hochhauser April 3, 2014 5:45 AM The Daily Beast
Broken Hearts Can Kill You
Day-to-day heartache doesnt hold a candle to scientifically proven heartbreaka real thing called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Turns out, your cardiac muscle can temporarily enlarge and weaken, and whats more, the number of diagnoses is growing, leading a team of researchers to examine the cause. They found a surprising correlation that has the power to impact each and every one of us, even if you think youve got heart health on lock.
First described in Japan, broken heart syndrome got its name because a diagnosed patients left ventricle balloons to resemble the shape of an octopus trap. In non-doctor speak, the condition is essentially an impermanent weakening of the heart, often triggered by extreme emotional or physical stressanything from losing a job to surviving a tsunami. Some physicians postulate a similarity to the fight-or-flight response; stress hormones paralyze the heart, affecting muscle tissues and blood vessels, and impede proper contraction of the left ventricle.
Patients with the condition may experience chest pain, shortness of breath, and other false evidence, such as biomarkers and electrocardiogram changes, bearing the markers of a cardiac arrest.
Though some studies have been conducted internationally, the latest research from the University of Arkansaswhich explores a synergy between natural disasters and cases of cardiomyopathyis unlike any other stateside. Dr. Sadip Pant, an internist at the university and the lead investigator of the report, explains, This is the first study of its kind in the country. We have so many hurricanes and storms but not one has described the spiking of the cases after natural disasters.
His team used a nationwide hospital discharge database to identify a group of more than 20,000 diagnosed cases. When they mapped them out geographically, the results indicated clusters of broken heart syndrome patients around sites of recent tragedies. Essentially, the data illustrates a notably larger number of reported cases in areas that had seen a natural disaster.
Missouri and Vermont possessed the highest number of reported cases, and the latter, with 380 cases per million residents, had more than double most other states. The data came from the same year Hurricane Irene wreaked the worst havoc Vermont had seen in decades. Similarly, the cluster in Missouri occurred near the site of 2011s massive Joplin tornado. And while there might have been a number of other factors affecting these results, the general research takeaway suggests natural disasters can strongly contribute to cardiomyopathy.
The correlation was first noticed after the 2004 earthquake in Japan, and since then plenty of other global examples have popped up on the radar. Dr. Pant says, There have been cases reported from Australia after the great flooding. Similarly, people from France described increasing cases after a village burned down.
Looking at the bigger picture, the studys implications are significant when viewed in light of the increasing number of natural disasters on the whole. According to a 2013 report from the New England Journal of Medicine, the scale of these events is expanding, with three times as many from 2000 through 2009 versus those recorded from 1980 through 1989. Climate-related events account for nearly 80% of the increase, indicating that climate change may affect our health in more ways than we anticipated. The journal also notes that since 1990, natural disasters have affected about 217 million people every year, which just goes to show the importance of furthering our understanding of medical heartbreak.
As if you needed another reason to worry about global warming.
Climate changes aside, there are smaller immediate shifts we can make today, namely prepping response teams for future catastrophic incidents. Dr. Pants most important takeaway is the need for further education amongst physicians. Emergency room staffoften the first to see patients affected by natural disastersand cardiologists need the background knowledge required to properly diagnose the syndrome, because its symptoms usually resemble those of a heart attack. Misidentification of the problem means a delayed legitimate diagnosisno small thing when it comes to matters of the heart. While the syndrome is largely reversible, Takotsubo also requires careful attention during its acute phase.
Dr. Pant says, Its really important to have widespread knowledge of this disease, not just among cardiologists, but among the other medical specialties, so they can detect in time and diagnose accurately after.
A properly diagnosed cardiomyopathy patient usually mendslike most romantic heartbreakwithin a month or two.*****
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The Left Isn't Pro-Gay - It's Pro-Power...
Reply #473 on:
April 07, 2014, 08:20:34 AM »
The Left Isnt Pro-Gay Its Pro-Power
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On April 7, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
Libertarians and liberal Republicans have been proposing a truce on social issues in order to be able to concentrate on fiscal issues, but there is no such thing as a truce on any issue with the left.
Brendan Eich offered the left a truce on gay marriage. He talked about tolerance and diversity and he got his head handed to him. His forced departure from the Mozilla Foundation, which is behind the Firefox browser, should be a wake up call to anyone on the right who still thinks that social issues can be taken off the table and that we can all agree to disagree.
Those on the right who insist that conservatism should be reduced to fiscal issues imagine that the culture war is a fight that the right picked with the left. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The left does not care about gay marriage. In most left-wing regimes, homosexuality was persecuted. It was illegal in the USSR. Gay men were locked up in Cuba and are still targeted in China. Nicolas Maduro, the current hero of the left, openly uses homophobic language without any criticism from his Western admirers. It goes without saying that homosexuality is criminalized throughout the Muslim world.
Engels viewed homosexuality as a perversion born out of the bourgeois way of life that would be eliminated under socialism. The Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States stated that homosexuality is a product of the decay of capitalism and vowed that once the revolution took place, a struggle will be waged to eliminate it and reform homosexuals.
The lefts shift on this issue, as on many issues, was purely tactical. The lefts leading lights were racists who jumped into civil rights. They were sexists who became feminists. They were advocates for the working class who despised the idea of working for a living.
The culture war does not emerge from the lefts deeply held beliefs. Its leaders could care less about the things that they pretend to care about. It emerges instead from the need to maintain a constant state of domestic conflict.
You cant have a truce when the other side wants a war.
Did the activists who claimed Eichs scalp care about him or his $1,000 donation to defend marriage? Theyre already forgetting his name and moving on to the next target. Eich just happened to make a good target. The Mozilla Foundation is shaky, its board was insecure, and once an online dating company cynically came out with a publicity stunt to keep the news cycle churning, the scalp of the man behind Javascript was claimed. If he had hung on for another few days, the whole thing would have gone away.
Next week it will be someone else. And then the week after that.
Opting out of the conflict means standing by while men like Eich are torn down, not because they did anything wrong, but because destroying them allows the left to feel the thrill of its power over people.
Every gang needs to hurt and terrorize people in order to feel its power. Unlike a Chicago street gang which goes in for an honest mugging or beating, the online activists of the left do their dirty work in this way. Afterward there is no blood and there are no bruises, but lives are destroyed and its social justice activists chortle to themselves coming off an adrenaline high before going after someone else.
The purpose of these purges is not to make the country more tolerant, but to make it more afraid. The message of the Eich purge is not, accept gay marriage, its dont question us. As many have pointed out, Eich had the same view of gay marriage at the time he made that donation as Obama and Hillary.
But Eich wasnt us. He wasnt a member of the club.
Members of the club can and do make racist jokes. They can oppose gay marriage. They can sexually harass female employees, pay them less and even kill them. They can do all these things because the club is not about gay marriage or equal rights for race or gender.
Its about the supreme power of the club.
You can call the club, liberalism, progressivism or simply the left. You can call its members Marxists, Socialists or anything else you like. They go by many names, some real and some fake, but they are the club; a totalitarian organization dedicated to absolute power in the name of any available lie.
The left is a totalitarian movement that inverts everything it touches. It fights against poverty by making more men poor. It helps black people by keeping them down, and it promotes tolerance through displays of intolerance. Its endgame is simply raw power. It wants as much of it as it can get its hands on.
We can stand aside, but it will affect us sooner or later. Even if we dont get picked to be the teachable moment of the day, we will find ourselves in a country that is less free and more oppressive every year.
The idea that any part of the lefts agenda can be delinked and ignored is wishful thinking. The lefts incessant accusations of racism show that the refusal to engage an issue does not take it off the table. Its the left that determines the content and the context of the conflict. And thats why the right is losing. It imagines that it can unilaterally retreat to more favorable ground.
Thats a strategy that has yet to work.
The left doesnt do truces. If the right cedes gay marriage, all it will have won is the right to be called homophobes for the next hundred years. And the culture war will move on to the next issue and the one after that. The purges will continue and more criminals guilty of thought crimes will be paraded for the virtual cameras. Yesterdays commonplace idea will be tomorrows act of unspeakable bigotry that prevents you from being employed, opening a business or even staying out of prison.
You may be in the clear today, but you wont be tomorrow.
Wars arent won by constantly retreating. Theyre won by taking a stand for what you believe in.
The left constantly takes stands, but it believes in nothing. Like all totalitarian movements, it worships at the feet of the bronze bull of power. It believes in the virtue of its outrage, the might of its rhetoric and the pleasure of trampling an enemy underfoot. Every one of its beliefs are baseless and expendable in the name of its true god of power.
The right has sold its moral birthright in the hopes of being tolerated by a movement with no morals or beliefs except in the virtue of its own intolerance. It strategically embraces the lefts ideas and hopes that this process will eventually lead to a truce.
It cant and it wont.
The left does not hate the right because of gay marriage. It does not hate the right because it thinks that the right is racist, sexist, transphobic, semaphoric or plasmatic. It hates the right because it is not of the left. The right stands in the way of its absolute power. These two things are enough to be hated.
Totalitarian movements are destructive. They feed off conflict and desire absolute power. They cannot be compromised with, reasoned with or appeased. Instead they have to be exposed for what they are.
The only way to beat a totalitarian movement is to expose the dirty little secret that it is not pro-black, pro-gay, pro-woman or pro anything except pro-power. It is a greedy, corrupt and selfish movement that does not stand for a better world tomorrow, but for unlimited abuses of power in the world today.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
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Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left: Central Planning
Reply #474 on:
April 14, 2014, 10:35:15 AM »
'Smart growth' means that leftist, centrally planned governments will tell you where you may work, live and travel.
Relying on the excellent work of Katherine Kersten, weve written before about the lefts big plans for the Twin Cities. The Metropolitan Council, an unelected body, wants to steer new jobs, homes, and economic development to areas within one half mile of major transportation stops. These stops will mostly be in the urban core and inner-ring suburbs.
In these favored areas, tax dollars will be lavished on high-density housing, bike and pedestrian amenities, and subsidized retail shops. The money thus lavished will come from people who live elsewhere.
The transportation needs of the rest of the metropolitan area will take a back seat. Money to improve highways and bridges will shrink. Congestion will grow and traffic safety will suffer. Residents will be pushed into stack and pack high-density housing.
As Kersten observes in her latest column on the subject, such a regime is a tough sell in a democracy in which people believe they have a right to govern their own towns with their neighbors. Accordingly, it is being promoted as the price the Twin Cities region must pay to remain economically competitive with peer regions. The Council insists that without its program which it markets as Thrive MSP 2040 the Twin Cities will lose jobs and creative young professionals to more enlightened metro areas like Portland and Seattle.
Intuitively, though, it seems obvious that, in Kerstens words, people dont move to a metro area for light rail; they move for opportunity. Similarly, intuition tells us that rigid central planning around a leftist agenda does not promote opportunity.
The facts bear this out. According to the Councils own data, between 2000 and 2010, while the Twin Cities were was losing population and New York and Los Angeles were experiencing a mass exodus, Atlanta gained 415,000 residents; Dallas-Fort Worth 318,000; Houston 241,000, and Raleigh, North Carolina 190,000.
What do these people magnets have in common? Less burdensome government regulation and fewer land use restrictions. Both are strongly correlated with greater economic growth. Thus, Kersten concludes that the Councils plan will push the Twin Cities in exactly the wrong direction.
In reality, though, Thrive MSP isnt about competing with other areas for jobs and creative professionals. Rather, its about implementing a vision of how, as a matter of leftwing ethics and aesthetics, we should live. People always seem to vote with their feet against this top-down, authoritarian approach.
The Councils other rationale for Thrive MSP is concern about the economic plight of the regions low-income households. Here, the Council may be sincere. However, as Kersten shows, these households are likely to suffer most from its misguided policies:
The council deplores our regions lack of affordable housing. Yet its drive for densification likely will significantly increase housing prices, which will harm low-income residents. Rents will rise, too. In Portland, for example, income-adjusted median gross rents in high-poverty areas rose more than 2.5 times the increase in the rest of the metro area during densification from 1999 to 2009.
The gentrification that accompanies transit-oriented development often disproportionately displaces low-income households, driving them from the urban core to more dispersed areas with less transit. Low-income families also suffer disproportionately when bus service must be cut to pay for light rail serving well-heeled suburbanites, as frequently occurs.
Kersten reminds us that the Twin Cities already has a very low rate of business formation and, in recent years, taxes as well as labor, property and energy costs have escalated substantially. Thrive MSP seems designed, almost diabolically, to exacerbate these trends and render them irreversible.
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Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left - Keystone causes "spewing"
Reply #475 on:
April 16, 2014, 11:51:57 AM »
Leftist oppose Keystone XL because the heavy oil is worse than light sweet crude like they have at ANWR.
Fine, then what about oil from ANWR? Who stopped that??!!
Oil from tar sands
17% more greenhouse gas than the average crude oil refined in the United States. ... That's a risk that
climate champions
such as Kerry and Obama shouldn't be willing to take.
New leftist dictionary: Exhale - to "spew" CO2.
Climate Champions? Obama leaves Air Force One on and idling during 15 day golf vacations, flies the family dog on a separate jet, and Kerry's pride is a $7 million, 76 ft imported yacht. Good grief!
Kerry's Yacht - "a departure from the norm in the opulent world of yachting:
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Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #476 on:
May 02, 2014, 09:39:15 PM »
I only post this liberal propaganda because of this line:
"The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense."
I have to ask, since when does the left give a crap about taxpayers. Leave it up these people and our taxes would be substantially higher. Yet here he tries to sound like he is protecting taxpayers.
******Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva Become a fan
Co-chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus
'Drill, Baby, Drill' Has Failed -- And Now We Can Do Something About It
Posted: 05/02/2014 11:18 am EDT Updated: 05/02/2014 11:59 am EDT
In the next few weeks, Congress will decide the country's Fiscal Year 2015 funding priorities. A lot is riding on whether we fund necessary environmental, clean energy and reclamation programs or leave them to wither. I'm hoping we do the right thing.
It's important to know the context. Americans paid an average of $3.57 for a gallon of gasoline last year. Compare that to the $2.40 per gallon average in 2009. The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense. We need a better national strategy.
This year President Obama requested about $6.9 billion for clean energy technology programs at the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. Many parts of his proposal are smart investments in our environmental future. Unfortunately, the administration wants to accelerate the already rapidly expanding exploitation of domestic oil and gas fields. This would do grave damage to our already heavily stressed climate.
How stressed? Last month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a series of reports finding once again that human activities are the leading cause of higher atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) levels and a warming climate. The reports find that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes have contributed 78 percent of total GHG emissions since 1970. The scientific community expects the volume to double -- some even say triple -- by 2050.
Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have other things on their minds. In the guise of being worried about the economy, they have introduced a number of bad bills to allow oil and gas companies to drill and frack wherever and however they please. This won't help the consumer. Since 2008 oil production from federal lands and waters has gone up 7 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Despite that dramatic increase in extraction, gas prices haven't gone down since 2009.
More oil and gas activity adds more CO2 to the atmosphere, causing our climate to get warmer. The scientific consensus on those questions is overwhelming. The only debate today exists in professional climate change denial circles. If my conservative colleagues are concerned about the country we leave our children, my question is this: Is our environmental debt out of control? Is it time for us to scale it back?
Solving environmental degradation and curbing climate change are not easy tasks. But I believe we have the chance to do what's right for our future now, without waiting. We need to curb the carbon dioxide emissions already polluting our atmosphere; just as seriously, we need to start making sustained investments in a cleaner future. Part of the president's proposed budget would address this, especially through increased renewable energy production investments and through the Climate Action Plan.
Republicans keep arguing for sequestration as the only way to reduce the deficit. I think they're wrong, but their argument raises an important question: When you see a problem, when is it time to stop contributing to it? When is enough enough? When Congress finalizes the FY2015 budget, I hope my colleagues bear in mind the need to start chipping away at the environmental debt we're leaving our children. Coming generations of Americans will judge us harshly if we continue to pollute our atmosphere in the name of short-term profits, especially when there's a better way.
This post is part of a series from the Safe Climate Caucus. The Caucus comprises 38 members of the House of Representatives who have committed to ending the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. For more information, visit the Safe Climate Caucus website and like the Safe Climate Caucus on Facebook.*****
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Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left, Harry Reid off the deep end
Reply #477 on:
May 08, 2014, 10:44:26 AM »
Only 30 seconds and there isn't a word in here that is true. This is the Majority Leader of the US Senate?
(And Mitt Romney didn't pay income taxes for 10 years?
This guy is reckless and nuts, and somewhere close to half the country supports what he is doing?
Pollution isnt causing global warming, the Koch brothers are not the two richest people in the world, and the idea that the brothers are somehow one of the main causes of climate change is delusional, even if you buy into the anthropogenic global warming theory. The U.S. is not the main emitter of CO2China isand within the U.S., Koch Industries is far down the list of CO2 emitters. Koch doesnt do any coal mining or oil extraction, to my knowledge, and it doesnt own power plants. No doubt refineries emit some CO2, as do all manufacturing operations, but Koch Industries is not one of the major emitters in the United States, let alone the world.
Last Edit: May 08, 2014, 10:49:16 AM by DougMacG
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Posts: 1028
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #478 on:
May 08, 2014, 10:59:20 AM »
Democrats and leftists (now one and the same) have zero interest in truth. They care only about how they can manipulate the public into doing their bidding. It's all about centralized control. There is clearly no lie which Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama will not spout - knowing full well it is in fact a lie - to influence low-information voters.
I honestly don't know how this situation can possibly be fixed without the country splitting into constitutionally conservative and social democratic fragments. Far too many of our citizens are ignorant and disengaged. This will not end with the nation's borders as we know them now. Secession and quite possibly violent resistance are all but inevitable at this point, IMHO.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
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Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #479 on:
May 08, 2014, 11:05:26 AM »
Agree with two previous posts. I am very pessimistic that it is already too late. The left is winning big.
We have immense corruption in government, wall street and the rest. We hear about "1% ers" when it suits the left's political purposes. The answer is always to tax the rich and buy votes with the cash. Obamster reduced funding for the FBI for white collar crime. And yet the illegals get more legal help than the rest of us:
******Administration to pledge equal education for illegal immigrants
By Benjamin Goad - 05/07/14 02:27 PM EDT
The Obama administration announced Wednesday it would issue new guidance requiring U.S. schools to provide equal education to all children, regardless of their immigration status.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are expected to detail the proposal Thursday morning during a conference call with reporters.
The Justice and Education departments sought through 2011 guidance to ensure equal treatment for children living in the U.S. illegally in accordance with the Supreme Courts 1982 Plyler vs. Doe ruling, which prohibited a school district from charging illegal immigrants extra tuition fees.
The Obama administration continues to receive reports that school districts are adopting policies and practices that have the effect of discouraging, and in some cases preventing, undocumented children and children from immigrant families from enrolling in public schools, the Justice Department said in announcing the follow-up guidance. The new guidance is intended to help address these issues.
The updated guidance is intended to help schools understand their responsibilities under Plyler vs. Doe and other federal civil rights laws..
Read more:
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Posts: 9484
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #480 on:
May 08, 2014, 12:31:35 PM »
Quote from: objectivist1 on May 08, 2014, 10:59:20 AM
...Secession and quite possibly violent resistance are all but inevitable at this point, IMHO.
Possibly true, but I think discussion of the s-word or taking up arms is out of bounds politically. For one thing, the deep divisions are not geographical. I would love to see an inside the nation, opt-out plan where I could give up my claim to government benefits and cronyism perks in exchange for lower levels of taxation and regulation. But its not going to happen.
More realistically, the conservative movement could - win over the Republican party, win the House, gain more than 10 seats in the Senate and put forward a half dozen really good Presidential candidates that would run against leftist-fascism this time instead of running against each other - all this year!
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Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left- Rbt Reich's 6 Principles of Populism
Reply #481 on:
May 08, 2014, 11:50:38 PM »
First this, from wikipedia: Populism is a political doctrine in which one sides with "the people" against "the elite".
Reich is as far left as they come, in my view. Therefore it is funny when we find areas of agreement. The so-called populism argument is one conservatives need to articulate to win. The left uses it heavily in their rhetoric but not in their governance. A purer leftist like Reich might actually want them to embrace it. Reich starts with this, also showing that the purer conservative thought is populist:
Who made the following comments? (Hint: Not Warren, and not Bernie Sanders.)
A. We "cannot be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street."
B. "The rich and powerful, those who walk the corridors of power, are getting fat and happy..."
C. "If you come to Washington and serve in Congress, there should be a lifetime ban on lobbying."
D. "Washington promoted moral hazard by protecting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which privatized profits and socialized losses."
E. "When you had the chance to stand up for Americans' privacy, did you?"
F. "The people who wake up at night thinking of which new country they want to bomb, which new country they want to be involved in, they don't like restraint. They don't like reluctance to go to war."
(Answers: A. Rand Paul, B. Ted Cruz, C. Ted Cruz, D. House Republican Joe Hensarling, E. House Republican Justin Amash, F. Rand Paul )
Skipping forward, here are
Reich's six principles
, with
my comments
1. Cut the biggest Wall Street banks down to a size where they're no longer too big to fail.
I don't know about making banks smaller, but stop bailing out the Wall Street financial industry.
2. Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment from commercial banking...
No, but he is right in concept. If you want federal insurance, there will be limits on risk taking.
3. End corporate welfare
Yes, but also end the over-taxation, over-regualtion that corp welfare is intended to mitigate.
4. Stop the National Security Agency from spying on Americans.
No, but stop the abuses.
5. Scale back American interventions overseas.
Okay, but replace interventions with successful deterrence, not disarming, surrendering or pretending to not see the evil in the world.
6. Oppose trade agreements crafted by big corporations.
Free trade agreements should not be crafted in the shadow of big government either. A real free trade agreement can be written on one side of a cocktail napkin. Anything more is government regulated trade. This concept is better labeled 'freedom to trade', a basic economic right.
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Posts: 42558
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #482 on:
May 09, 2014, 11:50:05 AM »
This would fit well in the Way Forward for the American Creed thread as well.
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Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of left - The Bailout Secretary, Geithner, writes a book
Reply #483 on:
May 12, 2014, 09:58:36 PM »
I don't want to help this guy publicize a book, but this WSJ review should save us the trouble or finding and reading it.
... Mr. Geithner makes a persuasive case that he is the man most responsible for the federal bailouts of 2008.
Some prefer to credit his Treasury predecessor, former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson. Others focus on the role of former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But Mr. Geithner insists that, time and again as the crises flared in 2008, he was the most consistent and tireless advocate for government aid to struggling firms. His core principle is that, during a crisis, the creditors of large financial institutions should not suffer any losses.
Bear Stearns was heavily exposed to subprime mortgages, had been planning to file for bankruptcy protection, and its regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission were prepared to protect customer brokerage accounts. This was standard practice when securities firms failed. But Mr. Geithner intervened to give the firm short-term liquidity and arranged a sale to J.P. Morgan, a move that put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for some of Bear's risky mortgage paper. And so the taxpayer safety net was stretched to cover not just commercial banks but Wall Street investment houses as well.
...Mr. Geithner's difficulty in understanding the health of large financial firms. He admits that he didn't see the mortgage crisis coming and didn't grasp the severity of the problems after it appeared. He didn't require that the banks he was overseeing raise more capital because his staff's analysis couldn't foresee a downturn as bad as the one that occurred.
None of this is particularly surprising in a man who, at the time he became president of the New York Fed, had never worked in finance or in any type of businessunless one counts a short stint in Henry Kissinger's consulting shop. At Dartmouth, Mr. Geithner "took just one economics class and found it especially dreary."
*more at link*
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Prager says we are right
Reply #484 on:
May 13, 2014, 11:30:57 AM »
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Man bites Dog: Jon Stewart nails Harry Reid
Reply #485 on:
May 14, 2014, 04:07:13 PM »
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The Democrat Party's Brain Damage...
Reply #486 on:
May 16, 2014, 07:16:59 AM »
The Democratic Partys Brain Damage
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On May 16, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
In 2008, Democrats insisted that Senator John McCain was too old to be president. At a rally introducing Hillary Clinton, Congressman John Murtha criticized him for even running. Its no old mans job, he said.
Obama and Kerry used language suggesting that McCain was senile. Left-wing activists claimed that he could die of skin cancer at any moment. Late night comedians turned McCains age into a target.
McClatchy headlined a story, Some wonder if McCains too old and wrinkly to be president.
There are no stories in which reporters ask passerby if Hillary is too old and wrinkly to take 3 AM phone calls.
In Newsweek, Anna Quindlen, a fanatical Hillary supporter, wrote that, The senators pursuit of the presidency reminds me a bit of those women who decide to have a baby in their late 50s. If she has any objection to Hillarys pursuit of the presidency while pushing 70, she hasnt written about it.
By October, spurred by repeated media attacks on his age, 34 percent of Americans said that McCain was too old to be president. The sharp spike in the poll numbers over one month showed how effective the Democratic age smear was.
Had McCain been elected, he would have taken office at 72. If Hillary Clinton wins, shell be 69. And age is suddenly no longer an issue. Neither is health.
Quindlen emphasized that McCain couldnt lift his arms over his head. No one is going to ask how flexible Hillary Clinton is in body (the political flexibility of the woman who opposed and supported nearly everything at one time or another is already renowned).
The problem as it turned out was not that McCain was old. It was that he was a Republican.
Slate ran an article claiming that McCains brain would go bad over the next eight years, but discussing the state of Hillarys brain is out of bounds. Late night comedians wont be making jokes about how old Hillary is or how confused she gets in the morning.
Those jokes could only be made about a man who was three years older than she is now.
Its outrageous to question the medical consequences of Hillarys traumatic brain injury which took her six months to recover from after passing out and falling down while boarding a plane. But ridiculing Bob Doles dead arm, an injury he suffered while dragging one of his men into a foxhole out of enemy fire during WW2, or McCains inability to lift his arms or perform certain tasks after they were broken by his torturers, was part of the political game.
We can question the health of war veterans, but not of a career politician.
There will be no stories about how wrinkled Hillarys skin is. No one will ask her if she can tie her shoes or use Twitter without an assistant. Or whether she forgets things sometimes.
But if a Republican in his late sixties or early seventies becomes a candidate, then the switch will flip and suddenly asking those questions will become fair game.
The issue isnt Hillarys brain. Its that Democrats dont consider themselves accountable in the same way that they expect Republicans to be. Its that they consider attacks on Republicans fair game that they are too thin-skinned to accept.
If McCain was too old and his brain too infirm to serve in the White House, the same people making that argument should have to explain why those same questions cant even be asked about Hillary. Does three years make a world of difference? Has medical science been so dramatically revolutionized over the last eight years that they no longer matter?
If Hillary isnt too old and if her health is off limits, then Democrats should admit that they engaged in cynical ageist attacks to win the White House. But that too would be accountability.
And we have a crisis of accountability.
The Democrat in the White House and his associates refuse to accept responsibility for anything. Any call for accountability results in an explosion of outrage as if the very act of holding the ruling party accountable is a crime.
The huffing and puffing over the suggestion that a woman who took six months to recover from a serious health episode may have health problems that will affect her performance is typical of the way that the Democratic Party behaves.
And of the way that its media auxiliaries echo its agenda.
When Murtha accused McCain of being too old, the media took the attack seriously. When Karl Rove mentioned Hillarys health problem, the majority of the stories focused on it as a cynical attack. This partisan coverage gap is not an anomaly. Its the new normal.
The problem isnt Hillarys brain damage. Its the Democratic Partys brain damage.
The Democratic Party, which has been around since the early 19th century, is just too old. The parts of its brain that relate to accountability and integrity have been burned out. The political party suffered a traumatic brain episode in the sixties and hasnt recovered from it since. The left side of its political brain is dominant while the right side has completely withered away.
The Democrats keep insisting that theyre moving forward, when theyre actually wandering off to the left. They insist that theyre centrist when theyve completely drifted off the road.
It doesnt matter how young or old its candidates are as long as they base their worldview around discredited 19th century ideas about economics and equally discredited 20th century ideas about the virtues of central planning. A youthful body with a decayed brain rotting with ideas that were old when Nixon and LBJ were toddlers isnt progressive.
Its hopelessly reactionary.
Obama may have been in his late forties when elected, but his ideas were around one hundred and forty years old. No matter what age Hillary is, her ideas are equally old. Its not the state of her brain thats the problem; its the things that shes been putting in there since a young age.
If Hillary and her Democratic Party really want to demonstrate their mental fitness, they can start by naming one single new economic idea that theyve brought to the table in the last seventy years. And if they cant, Americans will ask themselves whether they can afford another eight years of 19th century economics from a party whose last new idea is even older than Hillary.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
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Posts: 7843
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #487 on:
May 28, 2014, 06:31:48 PM »
Thursday, May 19, 2011
USS Cesar Chavez? Why not the USS Saul Alinsky?
Incredibly, the U.S. Navy has decided to name a cargo ship after the guy who came up with the Obama campaign slogan, "Yes, we can!" That man is the late labor agitator and community organizer Cesar Chavez. Chavez's union, the United Farm Workers, used the saying he coined as its official motto. (In Spanish, "¡Sí se puede!")
The decision to name a Navy ship after this radical is remarkable not only because President Obama's teleprompter has the phrase "Yes, we can!" burnt into it from the phrase's overuse, but because the far-left leader was a disciple of communist sympathizer Saul Alinsky. Chavez, who died in 1993, worked for the Community Service Organization from 1952 to 1962. CSO was a pressure group created by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. Chavez has been lionized by the left because he hated capitalism and shared Alinsky's contempt for the American system. The man even sounded like Alinsky, insisting he loved America while working to undermine its institutions. Chavez said
Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system - its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union - whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens - and that if it does not, there will be chaos.
"There will be chaos?" Prediction or threat? You decide.
Chavez is also connected to ACORN founder Wade Rathke, a fact I reported in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
When Rathke was employed as an organizer at ACORN's parent organization, the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), he was trained by a man named Bill Pastreich who had studied Alinskys in-your-face organizing techniques. Pastreich had also been employed by Chavez's United Farm Workers.
Is it just a matter of time before the Obama administration commissions the USS Saul Alinsky? No doubt it will be a destroyer.
Follow me on Twitter and check out my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obamas ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
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Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #488 on:
May 28, 2014, 09:00:20 PM »
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Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #489 on:
May 28, 2014, 09:46:50 PM »
Well, Cesar Chavez was strongly against illegal immigration.
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Posts: 9484
Cognitive Dissonance of the left, Elizabeth Warren and Thomas Piketty
Reply #490 on:
June 05, 2014, 10:51:07 AM »
Together in Boston, a dream event for the silent leftists on the forum:
Described here on National Review for the rest of us:
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left, left fights left in Minneapolis
Reply #491 on:
July 11, 2014, 01:37:08 PM »
I wrote about this race somewhere, probably under election fraud, but the ugliness exposes a rift in the Dem party. Jewish liberal Democrat incumbent since 1972 Phyllis Kahn is facing a serious primary challenge from Islamic Somali immigrant Mohammed Noor. Phyllis Kahn is a household name around here, on a par maybe equal to what Ted Kennedy was nationally. The liberal lioness is now blowing the whistle on Democrat fraud they perpetrated earlier as it backfires against her. More fraud incidentally than the Al Franken margin of victory that gave Obamacare it's 60th vote in the Senate. Perhaps more interesting than cheating is the cultural divide in the party the race is exposing. I wonder how well her position on gay rights fits with Sharia law, lol. Minneapois-based Powerline is covering the race, calling it business as usual:
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Posts: 89
Tear down this wall!
Reply #492 on:
July 12, 2014, 02:21:07 PM »
Not sure this hyperlink will work but I don't have a url to the original cartoon.
Last Edit: July 12, 2014, 02:32:17 PM by Crafty_Dog
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Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left
Reply #493 on:
July 12, 2014, 02:30:51 PM »
I had to cut and paste the entire URL and then it worked.
Good one!
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Posts: 89
Cool Hand Baraq and the Children
Reply #494 on:
July 14, 2014, 05:08:42 PM »
Another scorcher, I thought...
(Marc: You will have to cut and paste the entire link to see it)
Last Edit: July 14, 2014, 05:18:30 PM by Crafty_Dog
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Re: Heads in the proverbial sand... WH claims world more tranquil under O
Reply #495 on:
July 15, 2014, 11:00:40 AM »
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Posts: 42558
Bill Maher surprises
Reply #496 on:
July 16, 2014, 04:32:22 AM »
When he first came on the scene he was more capable of this much more often, but still quite nice to see he still has it on occasion.
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Posts: 9484
Re: The Cognitive Dissonance of the left, INCOME INEQUALITY IN 2010
Reply #497 on:
July 24, 2014, 11:45:10 AM »
Leftist power, leftist results, how did it all work out?
(skip to the bottom if you don't like my long intro)
In November 2006, based mostly on Iraq war fatigue, the American people transferred nearly all power in Washington to the left. The last initiative won by the lame duck George Bush was the surge; all domestic policy momentum shifted to the Democrats, led in name Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and in fact by the Presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What happened in that time? Unemployment doubled. Real estate crashed. There was a financial run on the too big to fail institutions unprecedented at least since 1929. Then there were the bailouts, TARP, a Presidential change, QE, cash for clunkers, cash for home buyers, cash for solar, cash for hybrids, cash for quitting work, artificially low interest rates and a debatable 'recovery' of sorts and a recession ending in the summer of 2009, the recovery summer of 2010 and so on. If you invested everything you owned at the exact bottom of the market, you would have at least two or three times (nothing) today!
For the left, this was the perfect storm, complete control of the House, the White House, and the swearing in of the (stolen) 60th Democratic Senate seat in July 2009. Tax increases on the rich became inevitable, along with the passage (or "deemed passed") of Obamacare along with a couple dozen more taxes that made it all possible. As good as it gets!
Jumping forward, Republicans swept the House elections in Nov 2010 to be sworn in and take control of the one chamber in Jan 2011, limiting the growth and spread of leftism to just Republican caving and administrative over-reaches. So the best year to judge the results of our leftist American storm was in their last big year, 2010, when George Bush had totally and completely left the building.
Here are
the results of all this leftist euphoria, measured in terms of progress on their number one priority, income inequality
Today's New York Times, Journal of the Left, Pravda on the Hudson, lifted from the trusted Editorial Page, from one of their most trusted columnists, Nicholas Kristof, telling us how bad income inequality is, (drum roll please):
In 2010, 93 percent of [all] additional income created in America went to the top 1 percent.
Idiot's Guide to Income Inequality
This, from the party of the middle class and the expanding underclass?? Unfortunately, the policies of cronyism, government takeover, class envy and punishment of personal achievement are not how you rise the tide that lifts all boats.
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Posts: 42558
Smart power, smart diplomacy with Lurch
Reply #498 on:
July 27, 2014, 07:19:03 PM »
Even if you knew nothing else about our Secretary of State except this:
"Kerry had a cumulative average of 76 and got four Ds his freshman year - in geology, two history courses and political science, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday."
then THIS would not come as too much of a surprise:
"Leaked comments from unnamed senior government sources to Army Radio, Channel 2 and other Hebrew outlets have described the secretary as amateurish, incompetent, incapable of understanding the material he is dealing with in short, a blithering fool."
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Posts: 89
Re: Cognitive Dissonance - Prediction: Left will move more left in coming years
Reply #499 on:
July 28, 2014, 05:42:33 PM »
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