A fair number of political articles this week......they all seem to appear at once.....
1/ Paul Krugman with a great column - how the Republicans are treating the unemployed......
And he uses the example of North Carolina, which is rapidly becoming the state where the right wingnuts have gone off the edge.....see #2......
OP-ED COLUMNIST
War on the Unemployed
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 30, 2013 867 Comments
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Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don’t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they’re acting on that belief: there’s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.
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Consider, for example, the case of North Carolina. The state was hit hard by the Great Recession, and its unemployment rate, at 8.8 percent, is among the highest in the nation, higher than in long-suffering California or Michigan. As is the case everywhere, many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings.
Nonetheless, the state’s government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn’t just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed.
It’s quite a spectacle, but North Carolina isn’t alone: a number of other states have cut unemployment benefits, although none at the price of losing federal aid. And at the national level, Congress has been allowing extended benefits introduced during the economic crisis to expire, even though long-term unemployment remains at historic highs.
So what’s going on here? Is it just cruelty? Well, the G.O.P., which believes that 47 percent of Americans are “takers” mooching off the job creators, which in many states is denying health care to the poor simply to spite President Obama, isn’t exactly overflowing with compassion. But the war on the unemployed isn’t motivated solely by cruelty; rather, it’s a case of meanspiritedness converging with bad economic analysis.
In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, “turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs.
Is there anything to this belief? The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax; some hammock. So anyone who imagines that unemployed workers are deliberately choosing to live a life of leisure has no idea what the experience of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, is really like. Still, there is some evidence that unemployment benefits make workers a bit more choosy in their job search. When the economy is booming, this extra choosiness may raise the “non-accelerating-inflation” unemployment rate — the unemployment rate at which inflation starts to rise, inducing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and choke off economic expansion.
2/ A very good Rachel Maddow - North Carolina is like "Conservatives Gone Wild"......three minutes of incredulity and the blatant stupidity they are up to........
3/ Rihanna with her hit from last year "Diamonds" - a passionate, intense song with a catchy riff married to a sensual video.....sensual, not sexual......the camera caresses her face, smoke wafts around her and some wild horses are thrown in for drama.
Actually very cool......beautifully shot and produced, and she has an incredible voice....
4/ Frank Rich with a major story on the reason the NSA story hasn't resonated with the public - everyone is too busy posting on Facebook and Tweeting about it......
He really gets to the heart of the matter.....another masterful story on our apathetic society and our ever more intrusive gumment.....
When Privacy Jumped The Shark
Note to Edward Snowden and his worrywarts in the press: Spying is only spying when the subject doesn’t want to be watched.
- By Frank Rich
- Published Jun 30, 2013
 |
Here’s one dirty little secret about the revelations of domestic spying at the National Security Agency: Had Edward Snowden not embarked on a madcap escape that mashed up plot elements from Catch Me If You Can, The Fugitive, the O.J. Bronco chase, and “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?,” the story would be over. The leaker’s flight path, with the Feds and the press in farcical flat-footed pursuit, captured far more of the public’s attention than the substance of his leaks. That’s not his fault. The public was not much interested in the leaks in the first place. It was already moving on to Paula Deen.
At first blush, the NSA story seemed like a bigger deal. The early June scoops in the Guardian and the Washington Post were hailed universally as “bombshells” and “blockbusters” by the networks. America’s right and left flanks were unified in hyperventilating about their significance: Rand Paul and The Nation,Glenn Beck and Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh and the Times editorial pageall agreed that President Obama had presided over an extraordinary abuse of executive power. But even as Daniel Ellsberg hailed the second coming of the Pentagon Papers, the public was not marching behind him or anyone else. The NSA scandal didn’t even burn bright enough to earn the distinction of a “-gate” suffix. Though Americans were being told in no uncertain terms that their government was spying on them, it quickly became evident that, for all the tumult in the media-political Establishment, many just didn’t give a damn.
Only 36 percent of the country felt that government snooping had “gone too far,”according to CBS News. A Pew–Washington Postsurvey
An ACLU official argued that the so-what poll numbers were misleading: “If terrorism was left out, it would change the polling results dramatically.” In other words, blame the public’s passivity on the post-9/11 cultural signposts of24 and Homeland, which have inured Americans to a bipartisan Patriot Act regimen in which a ticking terrorist time bomb always trumps the Constitution. Obama, a Homeland fan himself, hit the point hard to deflect criticism. “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” he said when alluding to the terrorist plots NSA spying had disrupted. “We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”
5/ George Carlin with a wonderful five minute riff on "Stuff".......excellent......
6/ What are the banks up to these days? Making sure the people who can least afford it are bolstering their profits.....
This is an appalling story......
Paid via Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees
Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times
Natalie Gunshannon, 27, with her daughter, Anie Popish, 7, said she had to use a card because her employers would not deposit her pay directly into her account.
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: June 30, 2013
A growing number of American workers are confronting a frustrating predicament on payday: to get their wages, they must first pay a fee.
For these largely hourly workers, paper paychecks and even direct deposit have been replaced by prepaid cards issued by their employers. Employees can use these cards, which work like debit cards, at an A.T.M. to withdraw their pay.
But in the overwhelming majority of cases, using the card involves a fee. And those fees can quickly add up: one provider, for example, charges $1.75 to make a withdrawal from most A.T.M.’s, $2.95 for a paper statement and $6 to replace a card. Some users even have to pay $7 inactivity fees for not using their cards.
These fees can take such a big bite out of paychecks that some employees end up making less than the minimum wage once the charges are taken into account, according to interviews with consumer lawyers, employees, and state and federal regulators.
Devonte Yates, 21, who earns $7.25 an hour working a drive-through station at a McDonald’s in Milwaukee, says he spends $40 to $50 a month on fees associated with his JPMorgan Chase payroll card.
“It’s pretty bad,” he said. “There’s a fee for literally everything you do.”
7/ Because the Republicans in the House didn't take any action before the summer recess, student loan rates doubled on July 1st......Joan Walsh with an excellent story on how bad this is for us all.....
We must hate our children
We crush them with debt to go to college -- and today, rates are actually set to double. Are we out of our minds?
BY JOAN WALSH
TOPICS: STUDENT LOAN INTEREST RATES, HIGHER EDUCATION, PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, EDUCATION,STUDEN
(Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder)
This article has been corrected since it first published.
Next time you’re watching a college graduation, as you look out over the sea of caps and gowns, make sure you notice the ball and chain most graduates are wearing as they march onstage to receive their diplomas. That’s student loan debt, which at over $1 trillion tops credit card debt in the U.S. today. The average burden is $28,000, but add in their credit cards and they’re graduating with an average of $35,000 in debt. It’s no wonder that people who’ve paid off their student loan debt are 36 percent more likely to own homes than those who haven’t, according to new research by the One Wisconsin Now Institute and Progress Now.
8/ This is a strange one - a combination of fails, cool stuff and video set to music that matches the images.......oh well, it's a slow week so here it is, five minutes.....
Guys will like this.....
9/ Did you know most Republicans have signed a pledge not to pass any climate action, in exchange for ongoing funding from the Koch Brothers? I didn't, but it's certainly not a surprise......
ULY 1, 2013
KOCH PLEDGE TIED TO CONGRESSIONAL CLIMATE INACTION
POSTED BY JANE MAYER
When President Obama unveiled his program to tackle climate change last month, he deliberately sidestepped Congress as a hopeless bastion of obstruction, relying completely on changes that could be imposed by regulatory agencies. A two-year study by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, released today, illustrates what might be one of the reasons why he had to take this circuitous route. Fossil fuel magnates Charles and David Koch have, through Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group they back, succeeded in persuading many members of Congress to sign a little-known pledge in which they have promised to vote against legislation relating to climate change unless it is accompanied by an equivalent amount of tax cuts. Since most solutions to the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions require costs to the polluters and the public, the pledge essentially commits those who sign to it to vote against nearly any meaningful bill regarding global warning, and acts as yet another roadblock to action.
10/ NFL Fantasy Football tryouts- not sure if all of these football feats are real, or how many takes they took, but they sure are impressive......
A great 2 minute video for the lads......
11/ Some of our readers may have this issue, but more probably your grandchildren will be facing this hurdle - many health plans don't cover pregnancy. Yup, it's now a disease that is excluded from coverage.
The American system of having babies is the most expensive in the world.....
And how do we as a society reconcile this with the Republican war on abortion? They want to force poor women to have a baby, don't give the pregnant mother any help and deny her health care when the fetus is finally born. And most of them call themselves Christians.......the fetus is sacred, but when it's born? Get a job......
American Way of Birth, Costliest in the World
Josh Haner/The New York Times
"I feel like I'm in a used-car lot." Renée Martin, who, with her husband, is paying for her maternity care out of pocket.
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL | Published: June 30, 2013
Source: Truven Health Analytics
YOUR PERSPECTIVE
An average pregnancy costs $37,341.
The charges given here are billed charges – actual amounts paid by an insurance company would be generally less.
YOUR RESPONSE$5,000 wouldn’t cover prenatal care.
Your response is higher than 51% of other readers’ responses.
ACTUAL COST
Prenatal care
$6,257
Before labor and birth.
Birth
$18,136
Maternal care during labor, birth and the rest of the hospital stay.
Postpartum
$528
Maternal care after the mother has left the hospital.
Newborn medical care
$12,419
Newborn care up to the age of 3 months.
LACONIA, N.H. — Seven months pregnant, at a time when most expectant couples are stockpiling diapers and choosing car seats, Renée Martin was struggling with bigger purchases.
At a prenatal class in March, she was told about epidural anesthesia and was given the option of using a birthing tub during labor. To each offer, she had one gnawing question: “How much is that going to cost?”
Though Ms. Martin, 31, and her husband, Mark Willett, are both professionals with health insurance, her current policy does not cover maternity care. So the couple had to approach the nine months that led to the birth of their daughter in May like an extended shopping trip though the American health care bazaar, sorting through an array of maternity services that most often have no clear price and — with no insurer to haggle on their behalf — trying to negotiate discounts from hospitals and doctors.
When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. “It was unreal,” Ms. Martin said. “I was like, How could you not know this? You’re a hospital.”
Midway through her pregnancy, she fought for a deep discount on a $935 bill for an ultrasound, arguing that she had already paid a radiologist $256 to read the scan, which took only 20 minutes of a technician’s time using a machine that had been bought years ago. She ended up paying $655. “I feel like I’m in a used-car lot,” said Ms. Martin, a former art gallery manager who is starting graduate school in the fall.
Like Ms. Martin, plenty of other pregnant women are getting sticker shock in the United States, where charges for delivery have about tripled since 1996, according to an analysis done for The New York Times byTruven Health Analytics. Childbirth in the United States is uniquely expensive, and maternity and newborn care constitute the single biggest category of hospital payouts for most commercial insurers and state Medicaid programs. The cumulative costs of approximately four million annual births is well over $50 billion.
And though maternity care costs far less in other developed countries than it does in the United States, studies show that their citizens do not have less access to care or to high-tech care during pregnancy than Americans.
12/ Jimmy Kimmel's "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship".....2 minutes of "potential" smut......amusing......
13/ A John Oliver compilation......"America Can Suck It"......quite amusing, but not if you are a Tea Partier.........three minutes.....
"The Daily Show" is off this week, so it's the perfect time to get reacquainted with the sassy Britishness of John Oliver.
In this "On Topic" supercut, we get Oliver's thoughtful observations on what it is that makes America great. Just in time for the 4th of July...
14/ The Republican Party has been taken over by the crazies, and this is a good story from the Guardian on what it means for one of our two major political parties to be completely dysfunctional......
Just how low can the Republican party go?
The GOP has become the heartless party of cutting food aid to the poor, abortion bans and denying people health coverage
A sign at the 2012 Republican national convention in Tampa. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
What is the single most consequential political development of the past five years? Some might say the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama; others might point to the passage of the most important piece of social policy (Obamacare) since the 1960s; some might even say the drawing down of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in reality, it is the rapid descent of the Republican party into madness.
Never before in American history have we seen a political party so completely dominated and controlled by its extremist wing; and never before have we seen a political party that brings together the attributes of nihilism, heartlessness, radicalism and naked partisanship quite like the modern GOP. In a two-party system like America's, the result is unprecedented dysfunction.
Whether it was the promiscuous use of the filibuster and other blocking techniques in the Senate to stop President Obama's agenda; the manufactured fiscal crises highlighted by the disastrous debt limit showdown of 2011; or the unceasing efforts to undermine the economic recovery by blocking any and all measures to stimulate the economy, President Obama's first term was dominated by the Republican's unbridled obstructionism and disinterest in actually governing the country. That anything was accomplished is nothing short of a miracle.
But after the results of the 2012 election one might have expected the Republican fever to break and some level of sanity and good sense restored to the party of Lincoln.
Think again.
15/ I must confess a bizarre fascination with these very strange Japanese commercials.......but my favourite, apart from Tommy Lee Jones shooting lasers out of his eyes, is the second one....
A weird six minutes.......
16/ Book Review
Lauren Ritchie with an excellent column on Lake County's infamous Sheriff Willis McCall......if you live in Central Florida, this will be a really interesting book........
Lake schools should teach about Sheriff Willis McCall and book 'Devil in the Grove'.
- Fatma Al MoosaProfessional lawyers in all areas of law.Call us at +971-4-3328182www.
fatmaalmoosa.com
Author Gilbert King spoke at The Villages in April. King was awarded a Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction for "Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America." (Tom Benitez, Orlando Sentinel /January 1, 2000)
|
Lauren RitchieCOMMENTARY
12:13 p.m. EDT, June 16, 2013
I'd met the man, but stories about the late Sheriff Willis McCall were just that: stories.
His personal appearance, when he came into the Sentinel office in the 1980s, only fed the fiction of the quintessential Southern sheriff determined to keep both Jim Crow laws and blacks in their place. By then, however, McCall was an old man, stooped but still wearing his trademark light felt Stetson hat and string tie.
He would come through the door, start at the front of a line of desks and shake the hand of each staffer as he moved toward his destination, Bill Bond, who was the columnist at the time.
This 23-year-old reporter, raised in the North, had no glimmer that a vital slice of civil-rights history lay behind those cool fingers and courtly words.
Of course not. It was too soon. Civil rights for blacks were newly won, and McCall seemed just a caricature of an old square overtaken by history in a time of whirlwind change.
But he was so much more.
Too bad it took another 30 years and a profoundly disturbing book called "Devil in the Grove" to reveal the fascinating part that Lake County and McCall played in the nation's civil-rights movement.
Historian and author Gilbert King penned the tale of what happened after a 17-year-old white Groveland wife told authorities she was raped by four black men.
Todays video - "Worst Movie Dads - Ever"........a compilation of some very twisted chaps.....
Todays lawyer jokes
A mother and son were walking through a cemetery, and passed by a headstone inscribed "Here lies a good lawyer and an honest man."
The little boy read the headstone, looked up at his mother, and asked "Mommy, why did they bury two men there?"
Question: Why are lawyers buried in deeper graves than other folks?
Answer: Deep down, they're much nicer people.
Answer: Deep down, they're much nicer people.
A woman went to her doctor for advice. She told the physician that her husband had developed a penchant for anal sex, and she was not sure that it was such a good idea.
The doctor asked, "Do you enjoy it?"
She said that she did.
He asked, "Does it hurt you?"
She said that it didn't.
The doctor then told her, "Well, then, there's no reason that you shouldn't practice anal sex, if that's what you like, so long as you take care not to get pregnant."
The woman was mystified. She asked "You can get pregnant from anal sex?"
The doctor replied, "Of course. Where do you think attorneys come from?"
An attorney was sitting in his office late one night, when Satan appeared before him.
The Devil told the lawyer, "I have a proposition for you. You can win every case you try, for the rest of your life. Your clients will adore you, your colleagues will stand in awe of you, and you will make embarrassing sums of money. All I want in exchange is your soul, your wife's soul, your children's souls, the souls of your parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and the souls of all your friends and law partners."
The lawyer thought about this for a moment, then asked, "So, what's the catch?"
It seemed that the son of a Spanish lawyer graduated from college and was considering the future. He went to his father, who had a very large office, and asked if he might be given a desk in the corner where he could observe his father's activities. He could be introduced to his father's clients as a clerk. This way, he could decide on whether or not to become a lawyer.
His father thought this to be a splendid idea, and this arrangement was set up immediately. On his son's first day at work, the first client in the morning was a rough-hewn man with calloused hands, in workman's attire, who began the conversation as follows: "Mr. Lawyer, I work for some people named Gonzales who have a ranch on the east side of town. For many years I have tended their crops and animals, including some cows. I have raised, the cows, tended them, fed them, and it has always been my understanding and belief that I was the owner of the cows. Mr. Gonzales died and his son has inherited the farm, and he believes that since the cows were raised on his ranch and fed on his hay, the cows are his. In short, we have a dispute as to the ownership of the cows."
The lawyer said, "I have heard enough. I will take your case. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE COWS!"
After the tenant farmer left, the next client came in. A young, well-dressed man, clearly a member of the landed class. "My name is Gonzales. I own a farm on the east side of the town," he said. "For many years, a tenant farmer has worked for my family tending the crops and animals, including some cows. The cows have been raised on my land and fed on my hay, and I believe that they belong to me, but the tenant farmer believes that since he raised them and cared for them, they are his. In short, we have a dispute over ownership of the cows."
"I heard enough. I'll take your case. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE COWS!"
After the client left, the son came over to his father with a look of concern. "My father, I know nothing of the law, but it seems to me that we have a serious problem regarding these cows."
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE COWS!" said the lawyer. "The cows will be ours!"
Question: Why don't lawyers go to the beach?
Answer: Cats keep trying to bury them.
Answer: Cats keep trying to bury them.
Todays quotes
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (On September 17, 1994, Alabama's Heather Whitestone was selected as Miss America 1995.)Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,"--Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss US A contest.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."--Mariah Carey,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life,"-- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,"--Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,"--Mayor Marion Barry, Washington , DC . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it,"-- A congressional candidate in Texas .,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Half this game is ninety percent mental."--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.."-- A l Gore, Vice President,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "I love California . I practically grew up in Phoenix ."-- Dan Quayle,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"--Lee Iacocca,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."--Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."-- Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."--Department of Social Services, Greenville , South Carolina,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "Traditionally, most of Australia 's imports come from overseas."--Keppel Enderbery,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed, and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."--Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Feeling smarter yet?Send it on to
your brilliant friends.I just did.
Todays joke for the ladies
When my friend's hubby went to the men's room in the Schiphol Airport located in Amsterdam , he saw a fly and did his best to 'wash' it down the drain .... but failed. He figured the fly had super glue foot pads!
Now he knows why it was there, and stayed there.
Who says you can't potty train a man?
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