A Blog for the People... + one.
But I won't link to my work here...
That might seem to much like bragging, and besides, tomorrow begins yet another week, right?
Slowly but surely, talents and effort pay off.
Surely in the end, the work product still matters? More than superficial characteristics, or even "team bonding" exercises.Even in Especially in, America.
Believe!
Uh huh:
TakuanSoho:
Every partisan thinks that their opponent's leader is an idiot. They have to, because if they were intelligent, well then that leader would be on their side. Ford was an idiot, Carter was an idiot, Reagan was an idiot, G H W Bush was an idiot, Clinton was a bit of an exception, but Bush II was an idiot, and now Obama is an idiot. Of course how much of an idiot can any of them be when they can get 50% of the country to vote for them doesn't cross anyone's mind on either side.
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
I really didn't think Bush II was an idiot--at least not an idiot in any way that concerned succeeding at politics. That's the only relevant metric.
Craig:
That is a really narrow lens through which to view a politician's success.
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
I mean, I guess. The point is to win elections. It might be fun to talk about how the dude who kicked your backside isn't really "smart," but it doesn't much matter. He was smart enough to beat you. I've heard Muhammad Ali was never that great of a tennis player either. This isn't a book-reading contest.
Craig:
The point is to govern. That is still why people try to win these things, right? In your analogy, Muhammad Ali-as-Bush is someone who is really gifted at training and then gets creamed by Foreman on fight night. Getting yourself into office is the preliminary job. Actually doing something with the office is what's on record.
All parties agree that Ron Paul is not, personally, racist and that he didn't write the passages. This is comforting. I am not an anti-Semite. But give me a check to tell Harlem the Jews invented AIDS, and I'll do it.*
Did you ... exchange...
a walk-on part in the war,
for a leading role in a cage?
“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”
― James Baldwin
Stopped at Kwik Trip for bananas and bagged milk this morning, the Rice Lake Northside one... Only two copies of the News-Shield left on the stands -- we cover the county, but that's The Chronotype territory.
Still, I think our courtroom photo, and prominent play above the fold, sold this week. Plus, new Macs at work, so they're still working out the bugs this weekend...
Nevermind, as the kids say.
ADDED: Oh, and make it a warm week out there. (With a deliberately shaggy dog who really, really likes to walk, even with morning temps in the teens and single digits, this winter is shaping up to be a great one here. 2012 -- it's about time...)
When I started here last May, the boss told me that putting out a weekly paper was a bit like giving birth, or helping to give birth, once a week.
Tuesday night was probably our best paper yet, the most news and decent pictures. Yet we didn't get out until about 1:30 a.m., flowing the copy, writing captions, placing photos (him, not me) and figuring out what to hold for next week, to get all the ads in. Then, things weren't jumping right...
When I called in this morning, I reminded him of that "birthing" analogy and said this week, it was like having to yank that baby out! Yet ... it turned out great, the end product. (Links to come, when the stories are online.)
I was in and out of court last week -- my first defamation lawsuit (not me!) And the highway worker won, against a former county administrator. A high legal standard to meet, but the jury -- they're not know as softies here in conservative Barron County either -- awarded the man $175,000 overall, on three verdict forms (for the three instances the man was defamed in the press and at public meetings.)
This civil suit had been dimissed previously, but the Appeals Court ruled it didn't classify as a workers' comp case, because the worker was no longer employed by the county when the defamatory statements were made. Again, when we get it online, I'll link. Quite an interesting case...
Anyway, after a Wednesday sleeping in, catching up at home, and romping on the trails with Buddy (we got 3+ inches of the lightest fluffiest snow Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), I'm recharged. The snow made for an interesting drive home up Cty. Hwy. 25 early Wednesday morning, a straight shot but more guessing where the lane/fog lines were, as the plows hadn't made it through yet.
Still, all's well that ends well, and have I mentioned earlier how satisfying it is to hold your week's work in your hands on Wednesday, seeing the fruits of your efforts come in to play?
Make it a great day; I've got a meeting to cover tonight, and we're already looking ahead here, with another one due out next week. Fertile ground in Barron County, Wisconsin, indeed!
It turns out I shouldn't have blogged that I was even briefed about the SOTU. I thought I just had to keep the contents to myself. One thing you learn pretty quickly about this White House: transparency is a theory, not a reality.
The future is understood by Chris Christie who just nominated an openly gay African-American, married for thirty years, to the state supreme court. Christie still opposes marriage rights for gays, but has left the door open if the legislature moves forward, as it wants to do. But when you are treating a potential member of the state supreme court as a second-class citizen, in the end, the position becomes untenable.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Republican Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday he'd veto a gay marriage bill advancing in the Legislature and instead wants same-sex unions put to a referendum. Angry Democrats said lawmakers have an obligation to protect civil rights and the issue should not be put off for a public vote.
Maybe it will work out better for President O. than it will for Seal, eh?
(Don't you wish couples were a little less selfish and figured out if things were permanent BEFORE they brought children, even well-financed children, into the mix?? Or is that just my conservative nostalgia -- put your children first, parents -- coming into play?)
Via his tax dollars, that is:
Typically, liberal rhetoric on taxes makes it seem as if the wealthy are getting a free ride on the backs of middle and lower-income Americans who are doing all the work and are really paying the taxes. But to put things on perspective, here’s what $3.2 million in federal taxes — Romney’s estimated 2011 burden — pays for:
— The monthly food stamp allowance for about 23,909 people.
— The cost of educating 302 elementary and high school students.
— The base salary (before bonuses and allowances) of 178 privates in the U.S. Army.
— The federal contribution to the benefits of 636 Medicaid enrollees.
In addition to his taxes, Romney has given around 16.4 percent of his income over the past two years to charity through his family charity, the Tyler Foundation. In addition to donations to the Mormon church, here’s where else Romney and his wife Ann donated money: the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, the Center for the Treatment of Pediatric MS, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Homes for Our Troops, and the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, among others
This past week, The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher attacked this country’s great media divide. He embedded with South Carolinians of differing political viewpoints and tracked their divergent news diets. “There’s more campaign news and commentary out there than ever before,” writes Fisher, “but more and more citizens are tucking themselves inside information silos where they see mainly what they already agree with.”
For further evidence of this phenomenon, try pumping “liberal dead cat arkansas” into Google News. Those search terms fetch a chilling and apparently partisan story from Russellville, Ark. The skinny is this: Jacob Burris, the campaign manager for Arkansas Democratic congressional candidate Ken Aden, found his family’s cat slain in front of his house, the word “liberal” painted on its dead body.
The extended version, as Burris relates it to me, has more sickening detail. On Sunday morning at about 8:30, the 31-year-old Burris loaded three of his kids into his van for a trip to the gas station. When they returned, Burris’s 5-year-old boy got out and went around to the other side of the vehicle to help unbuckle the other kids, who are nearly 2 and 3 years old. On his way to assisting with the arrival, the 5-year-old spotted something. ”Dad, think the cat’s dead,” said the youngster to Burris.
The child wondered what the letters on the cat meant. Burris tried to explain them away. “It could be tire tracks,” the father said. Once the kids were inside, Burris moved the cat with a shovel into a wooded area behind the house. That night, he called the police, and the events were on their way into the country’s news stream, to Burris’s dismay.
The Russellville Police Department is investigating the incident and animal-rights groups are offering rewards. PETA is offering a reward
“I don’t enjoy, after something like this happens, having the thing be high-profile. . . . I understand that a news story is a news story and they’re gonna run it, but I’d much rather it be on something else, for sure,”Burris said.
There’s some consolation for him on that front, and it has to do with the country’s partisan media divide.
Many local Arkansas outlets have picked up the story, as have the Huffington Post, CBS News, and Gawker, among other broader platforms.
Yet the nation’s conservative media machine hasn’t yet jumped on it, according to Google News. FoxNews.com, for instance, just posted a wire piece on it, about a day after the story broke.
Vince Leibowitz, a principal with the Austin, Texas-based Dawn Group and the general consultant to the Aden campaign, characterized the conservative media response this way: “My honest impression of it is that the conservative media probably looked at this story and said there’s really no point in giving a progressive candidate any coverage at all at this point,” says Leibowitz. “We don’t want to give a progressive candidate like Ken Aden airtime on the network or bandwidth on the website.”
A story like this, however, will have the cardiovascular chops to last a few news cycles, according to Leibowitz. So more news organizations will jump in. “When conservative media realizes that even conservatives are outraged by such a despicable act as killing a child’s pet for political purposes, that they will have to pick up the story unless they have simply lost all news judgment,” says Leibowitz.
Burris hasn’t had a chance to play media critic on this one. He’s had some technology problems, and last night he went off grid to spend some time with his family. “From everybody, I’ve talked to, everybody’s as disgusted as I am,” he says.
or, The Trouble with Tribbles. Mandates:
[S]uddenly, we have headlines about the president's "war on the Catholic Church." Mostly they stem from a Health and Human Services mandate that forces every employer to provide employees with health coverage that not only covers birth control and sterilization, but makes them free. Predictably, the move has drawn fire from the Catholic bishops.
Less predictable—and far more interesting—has been the heat from the Catholic left, including many who have in the past given the president vital cover. In a post for the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters minces few words. Under the headline "J'ACCUSE," he rightly takes the president to the woodshed for the politics of the decision, for the substance, and for how "shamefully" it treats "those Catholics who went out on a limb" for him.
The message Mr. Obama is sending, says Mr. Winters, is "that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our Church has built over the years to be Catholic in ways that are important to us."
Mr. Winters is not alone. The liberal Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, blogged that he "cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience"—and he urged people to fight it. Another liberal favorite, Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., has raised the specter of "civil disobedience" and vowed that he will drop coverage for diocesan workers rather than comply. They are joined in their expressions of discontent by the leaders of Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities, which alone employs 70,000 people.
In the run-up to the ruling, the president of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins, suggested a modest compromise by which the president could have avoided most of this strife. That would have been by allowing the traditional exemption for religious organizations. That's the same understanding two of the president's own appointees to the Supreme Court just reaffirmed in a 9-0 ruling that recognized a faith-based school's First Amendment right to choose its own ministers without government interference, regardless of antidiscrimination law.
A few years ago Father Jenkins took enormous grief when he invited President Obama to speak at a Notre Dame commencement; now Father Jenkins finds himself publicly disapproving of an "unnecessary government intervention" that puts many organizations such as his in an "untenable position."
Here's just part of what he means by "untenable": Were Notre Dame to drop coverage for its 5,229 employees, the HHS penalty alone would amount to $10 million each year.
The irony, of course, is that the ruling is being imposed by a Catholic Health and Human Services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, working in an administration with a Catholic vice president, Joe Biden. A few years back the voluble Mr. Biden famously threatened to "shove my rosary beads" down the throat of those who dared suggest that his party's positions on social issues put it at odds with people of faith.
Does he now mean to include Mr. Winters, Cardinal Mahony and Father Jenkins?
...
Conservatives may enjoy the problems this creates for Mr. Obama this election year. Still, for those who care about issues such as life and marriage and religious liberty that so roil our body politic, we ought to wish Catholic progressives well in their intra-liberal fight. For we shall never arrive at the consensus we hope for if we allow our politics to be divided between a party of faith and a party of animosity to faith.
Tuesday's our deadline day here, so I won't be listening myself but reading text, but Andrew's (Sullivan, that is) insider description is not promising:
I just got briefed a little, in a rare moment of outreach from the White House communications team. Everything is embargoed, so no details. And being briefed about the contents is not the same as listening Obama deliver the case. But sheesh. Get some caffeine ready.
but today, the NYT editorial board concedes: Ross Perot* was right!
That race to the bottom is exactly what was warned against in the rush to globalization. And the response was that the low wage stuff would go away and we would retain all the high “value added” stuff. Didn’t work that way.
I wish for a song and a dance.
No, really.
Some Al Green.
He could do his own half-time show.
PS: Yes, my tax rate is a lot higher than Romney’s. And I support policies that would raise it further.
Ah, Andrew (Sullivan, not Rosenthal this time).
A self-confessed one-percenter, just listen to this logic:
The future is understood by Chris Christie who just nominated an openly gay African-American, married for thirty years, to the state supreme court. Christie still opposes marriage rights for gays, but has left the door open if the legislature moves forward, as it wants to do. But when you are treating a potential member of the state supreme court as a second-class citizen, in the end, the position becomes untenable.
The eternal borrowing,
and entitlement programs,
are ... Built to Last !
Ditto that "policeman to the world / our drones are always watching" thing. If he tries to bring up Clinton's foreign policy leadership "success" in Libya, and our seemingly newly created responsibility to ... protect by participating in civil wars , then it kinda seems inconsistent with what's been going down in Syria and Africa, no?
That was another overreaching policy of this administration, and a costly one too in terms of lives and dollars. (Re. lives, rememember: I could the civilians casualites too.)
Andrew Rosenthal asks:
Whatever Obama says tonight, GOP will reject it out of hand. Actually will they even wait for speech?
For those of us concerned about the encroaching reach of government into our daily lives and finances, consider Ilya Somin on Volokh today, and then George Will in the WaPo last weekend. (I wrote about Will's piece, then parked it, but found it adds in directly to Somin's piece today: Do we really want to encourage such dependence on federal funds? At what price? Freedom?)
Somin:
The Dangerous Growth of State Dependence on Federal Funds Ilya Somin • January 23, 2012 11:57 pm
Tad DeHaven of the Cato Institute has a good post highlighting the data on state governments’ growing dependence on federal funds. Since 2001, federal grants have risen from 25.7% of state government spending to 34.1% today. Most of that growth has occurred since the present recession began in 2008.
One of the main distinctive benefits of American federalism is that, historically, state governments have had to raise most of their funds from their own taxpayers, rather than relying on grants from the feds. This gives states incentives to compete for taxpayers and improve the quality of their policies and public services, thereby increasing the effectiveness of voting with your feet. I cover these points in more detail here.
In most other federal systems, the central government provides the lion’s share of subnational governments’ funding. If present trends continue, the United States may join this trend. State governments will increasing look to Washington for most of their funds, and incentives for competition and innovation will be undermined. It’s possible that fiscal policy will return to “normal” as the economy improves. But state governments are likely to lobby for current grant levels to continue even after the recession ends. Current federal subsidy levels could easily become the new normal.
rimfire says:George Will in today's WaPo:
Take the king’s gold, dance to the king’s tune
Grants and such are the way the federal government takes over state/local institutions such as schools.
The Supreme Court can pack large portents in small details. When in late March it considers the constitutionality of Obamacare, there will be 51 / 2 hours of oral argument — the most in almost half a century.George doesn't go on here, but ask yourself: how many states have the 18+ drinking age now? When they can be military, vote, work and are considered adults. (except in the eyes of the healthcare insurance policies.)
...
An hour of argument will be devoted to whether Obamacare’s enormous expansion of Medicaid is so coercive of states that it is incompatible with federalism — the Constitution’s architecture of dual sovereignty. The court’s previous rulings about compulsion point toward disallowing this expansion.
Spending on Medicaid, a theoretically cooperative federal-state program, is approximately 40 percent of all federal funds given to states and 7 percent of all federal spending. Enacted in 1965 as a program for the poor, it has exploded. The increase in its costs by the end of this decade is expected to be $434 billion. Its cost is projected to rise 7.9 percent a year — faster even than Medicare’s (6.9 percent).
...
In theory, state participation in Medicaid is voluntary; practically, no state can leave Medicaid because its residents’ federal taxes would continue to help fund the program in all other states. Moreover, opting out of Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid would leave millions of poor people without affordable care. So Obamacare leaves states this agonizing choice: Allow expanded Medicaid to devastate your budgets, or abandon the poor.
The Constitution created a federal government of limited and enumerated powers and promptly strengthened this with the 10th Amendment
lBut even with the federal government paying most of the costs, in many states their portion of Medicaid costs is the largest item in their budgets, even exceeding education. And Obamacare, which forbids states to restrict the eligibility criteria it adopted before this new burden, would deny all Medicaid funds to noncompliant states.
...
The Constitution created a federal government of limited and enumerated powers and promptly strengthened this with the 10th Amendment. The Supreme Court has held that the states therefore retain “a residuary and inviolable sovereignty” incompatible with federal “commandeering” of states’ legislatures and executives. Under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, states are dragooned for the furtherance of federal objectives.
In 1987, the court upheld a federal law denying a portion of federal highway funds to states that refused to implement a drinking age of 21. The court held that the threatened loss of funds — only 5 percent — was a “relatively small” inducement and hence “not so coercive as to pass the point at which pressure turns into compulsion.” The court thereby said the federal government cannot behave like Don Corleone, making offers states cannot refuse. At some point, government crosses the threshold of unconstitutional compulsion.
The crucial consideration is the degree of threatened impoverishment. Because of Obamacare, the nation needs clarity from the court. If it now thinks Congress has unfettered power to place conditions on states receiving money from it, the court should explicitly disavow its coercion doctrine. But if the coercion doctrine is to survive, Obamacare should not.
The Obamacare issues of Medicaid coercion and the individual mandate are twins. They confront the court with the same challenge, that of enunciating judicially enforceable limiting principles.
If there is no outer limit on Congress’s power to regulate behavior in the name of regulating interstate commerce, then the Framers’ design of a limited federal government is nullified. And if there is no outer limit on the capacity of this government to coerce the states, then federalism, which is integral to the Framers’ design, becomes evanescent.
So, the time the court has allotted for oral argument about Obamacare is proportional to the stakes. This case is the most important in the more than half a century since the Brown v. Board of Education cases because, like those, it concerns the nature of the American regime.
No, not that closet.
The "I AM ... a rich man!" one-percent closet:
I pay almost half my income in taxes of various sorts. It's nuts that I should be paying far, far more as a precentage (sic) than a man like Romney. And I'm a one percenter.
Remarkably sane! Imagine that...
It seems to me that this is not about Romney and shouldn't be about Romney. He broke no laws; he seems admirably charitable; his massive wealth is not a marker against him.
The issue is the system.
“I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more,” Mr. Romney said during Monday night’s debate. “I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”Exactly! The question isn't what he paid — unless he cheated — but what his tax policy for the country would be.
Andrew Rosenthal:
Romney Tax Returns Show 2-Year Income of $45 Million. What do yours show?: http://t.co/1NNNZsc3 about an hour ago
Andrew Rosenthal:
Romney got about $13 mill in "carried interest" last 2 years. Not familiar? Don't worry, not avbl to you. http://t.co/iDaPUolx about an hour ago
-------------------
C'mon Mr. Rosenthal: Work it, work it, work it!
If you can only sell the "Coveting Another Man's Wealth" envy theme, then surely right-thinking people, out of jealousy and spite, will turn against Mr. Romney, who's clearly just playing under the same tax system as Mr. Rosenthal and the rest of us. By the rules as the status quo has determined. (Much like plenty of heterosexual couples benefit by the status quo tax rules that disadvantage others. Do we hear daily whines of envy and jealousy out of Mr. Rosenthal on that meme? I wonder why not... other than that happens to be off the current Democrat scorecard.)
The fact that Mr. Romney -- and his family -- have seemingly acquired more marbles in the game than Mr. Rosenthal and his kin, surely outrages us all?!?
Not. Next thing you know, he'll have us coveting the candidate's classy wife and photogenic sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.
"Do I smell personal prosperity out there that the rest of us don't share?!? Gather your pitchforks, and start your fires, peasants! This way everyone..."
Luckily, I don't think many other Americans, outside Mr. Rosenthal's cocktail and dinner party set, are that covetous of other people's choices. How many of us -- even if we magically could -- would swap our own situations for Mr. Romney's blessings?
"They'll have theirs,
and you have yours,
and I'll have mine....
and together we'll be fine!"
Name that Tune?
...
Answer: Different Strokes theme song.
Remember that one, Mr. Rosenthal?
Conrad Bain played a very generous, kindly (white -- if that need be added...) rich guy. (Culturally, you're really gonna have to work that Rich=Evil meme for it to pick up any steam, I'll bet...)
ah buh-buh buh buh-buh buh... :
A-B-C.
It's easy as 1-2-3.
It's simple as Do-Re-Mi ...
A-B-C, 1-2-3,
Baby, you and me...
That's how easy love can be.
Ibid, W.L. White:
"Back at the quarters I found an old navy captain who'd arrived the day before -- used to be in charge of the industrial department at Cavite. He listened to my story, and MacArthur's promise, and then said, "The way it looks, I don't think I'm getting out.' Then he talked about the thirty years he'd spent in the navy, all of them training so he would be useful in case of war, and you could see it was discouraging for him to end like this -- apparently forgotten by the country he had wanted to serve. What had his life been for?
"He warned me not to count on it -- 'There aren't enough planes and gas to take us all.' He was discouraged himself, and for the next six days the old man talked it all the time -- we are not getting out, can't get out, won't get out. I suppose he was afraid to get his own feeble hopes up.
...
"I went back to my quarters and had just packed to go when the phone rang. I was to report to General Sharp at the landing field at once, and bring everything I had with me.
"The old navy captain who shared my quarters knew what that meant. 'Good luck, Kelly! You were right," he said. There were tears in his eyes, and I could see why. He'd devoted his life to his country, and yet here at the end, in spite of rank and those years, it wasn't enough.
"What they needed outside now was technicians in the new weapons, and that meant young fellows like me. So now, in spite of the many things he was able and trained to do, and wanted to do, they weren't quite enough, so he was to stay and die in a fox hole or be captured. I said what I could, but it wasn't much, because the old man already knew."
--------------------
Btw,
R.I.P. Joe Paterno.
Sincerely. You did nothing wrong, and were robbed of due process by those to whom you were loyal. Cause of death? Broken Heart.
Ibid, W.L. White:
"The second day we heard planes at dawn and all scrambled back out of sight in the hut -- peering up through the palms. It was three bombers in formation at about fifteen hundred feet.Expect to hear that in President Obama's Tuesday address to the nation: Blaming the weather conditions in
Somebody said, pointing, 'Why look -- they're ours!' But I could hardly believe it -- even when I saw the stars on their wings, even when I heard the faraway rumble of their bombs dropping on the Japs in Cebu. They were the first American bombers we had seen since before the start of the war. Then we heard more planes -- looked up and again they were American, a new type with a split tail I'd never seen before but which I learned later were B-25's, and now I realized that here was our big American offensive -- the one which we though had pooped out on us the morning after we sunk the cruiser. Here it was at last -- three days too late! Because in the meantime, Bataan had fallen, and Cebu, and all they could do now was pester the Japs and sink a few empty transports. I was sore as hell.
"Because we little guys -- the ones who are expended -- never get to see the broad picture of the war, never find out the reasons back of the moves or failures to move. We only see our part -- look up through the palm trees at the seamy side of it. So when something poops out, and help doesn't come, and everything goes to hell, we can only hope help didn't come in time for some sensible reason like bad weather conditions in Australia. We hope, but at the time we can't be sure, and we get mad.
Ibid, W.L. White:
"Finally we hit a little native village on the coast and started looking for boats, but the major said there were none -- the native troops had used them to evacuate that day. But they were swell to us -- always out in the country they were swell to us -- ignorant guys, maybe, but nice and kind as they could be. I remember on the trail we overtook a ramshackle cart and a few natives, and an old native woman gave the cart driver hell for not putting the baggage in his cart -- said we Americans were fighting for their people and they should help us.
"The driver tried to pile it on, but it broke his cart down. He wouldn't take any money -- just said he was sorry he couldn't help us more. In those days in the jungle I learned more about how nice the simple Filipino people are than I'd learned in months in Manila; I also learned the more Americanized they are, the lousier they are.
...
"We arrived at the next island soaking wet but thankful, and glad we were halted on the beach by native volunteer guards with home-made rifles, instead of by the Japs.
"Here I said good-by to the American civilians. They owned sugar and coconut plantations and wanted to get to their families. Then they would try to get them to safety, but where was safety? Or maybe, instead of wandering from island to island, it would be better to wait for the Japs in their homes. They couldn't decide. The whole easy, comfortable American world was cracking up fast in those islands. It wasn't nice to watch."
Save a bit of your time this Monday; here's the summary:
How goes the state of the union? Well, the state of the economy remains terrible. Three years after President Obama’s inauguration and two and a half years since the official end of the recession, unemployment remains painfully high.
But there are reasons to think that we’re finally on the (slow) road to better times. And we wouldn’t be on that road if Mr. Obama had given in to Republican demands that he slash spending, or the Federal Reserve had given in to Republican demands that it tighten money.
Why am I letting a bit of optimism break through the clouds?
...
We have failed to provide significant mortgage relief, which could have moved us much more quickly to lower debt. And even if my hoped-for virtuous circle is getting under way, it will be years before we get to anything resembling full employment.
But things could have been worse; they would have been worse if we had followed the policies demanded by Mr. Obama’s opponents. ...
And if this year’s election brings the wrong ideology to power, America’s nascent recovery might well be snuffed out.
Another Week Over...
and a new one just begun...
They Were Expendable. W.L. White:
"Then I went out to this sympathetic American stranger's home, which was on the outskirts on a hill overlooking Cebu City and harbor. I went right to bed after supper, but first I turned on the radio by my bed. It said that Bataan had just fallen. Maybe if they could have been told that those seven fat interisland steamers were on their way loaded with food and quinine, maybe those poor, starved, fever-ridden guys could have held the line a little longer. Well, we in the torpedo boats had done what we could. And I wished that Peggy could know that, and that I could thank her for those two codeine tablets, and tell her how they let Reynolds sit out on the deck and really enjoy his last cigarette.
"Right now Peggy was probably standing in the tunnel entrance on Corregidor, where she and I had sat so many evenings, looking across the narrow waters to the tip of Bataan where the Japs now were, and back up from the water in the hills would be bright pin-points of rifle fire, where the Japs were hunting down like rats those few brave, silly expendables who still wouldn't admit they were expended, who still had a little fight left and so kept on fighting even after the generals had said it was done. Looking at this, probably she was, and knowing their turn on the Rock would come soon. Well, we in the MTB's were expended now, but we had done what we could for Bataan. and I wished that the swell brave gang on the Rock could know this. Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ! Finally I got to sleep. "
A missing phrase might add more to my meaning in this past post:
But if we can change expectations and lifestyle choices, if we can build back the economy bit by bit by breaking things down to the basics (as Mitt Romney did with the SLC Olympic Games, and plenty of underperforming companies), then maybe the underclass can learn something from the successful non-libs, black white and Hispanic, in how they got what they did. Hint: it really ain't all about being born with a rich daddy, no matter how much the media would like to sell that meme.
What'd I tell ya this year's theme would be, again? Here's Ta-Nehisi Coates today, a young black writer in his The Atlantic blog:
When a professor of history calls Barack Obama a "Food Stamp President," it isn't a mistake to be remedied through clarification; it is a statement of aggresion. And when a crowd of his admirers cheer him on, they are neither deluded, nor in need of forgiveness, nor absolution, nor acting against their interest. Racism is their interest. They are not your misguided friends. They are your fully intelligent adversaries, sporting the broad range of virtue and vice we see in humankind. If you are a praying person, you should pray for their electoral destruction in November. Surely they are praying for yours:Let his days be few; and let another take his office
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
James Taranto writing in the Wall Street Journal takes issue with Lee Siegel's recent racial analysis piece:
Siegel writes that "Mitt Romney is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory." That sounds like a promising start to a Chris Rock comedy riff, but Siegel means it as a serious thesis.Slam!
"I'm not talking about a strict count of melanin density," Siegel writes. Rather, he refers to something he imagines is less ludicrous: Romney's "whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America."
This is almost like a Peggy Noonan observation from a few months ago:Mr. Romney's added value is his persona. He's a little like the father in one of those 1950s or '60s sitcoms that terrorized and comforted a generation of children from non-functioning families: Somewhere there was a functioning one, and it was nice enough to visit you on Wednesday at 8. He's like Robert Young in "Father Knows Best," or Fred MacMurray in "My Three Sons": You'd quake at telling him about the fender-bender, but after the lecture on safety and personal responsibility, he'd buck you up and throw you the keys.Almost but not quite, for Noonan did not racialize the type. In her telling, it is Romney's confident, responsible masculinity that is reassuring. In Siegel's, it is the color of Romney's skin.
...
Siegel isn't the first to define the "opportunity society" as being for whites only. Last June, as we noted, MSNBC's Chris Matthews accused Romney of having employed a "slur" for observing of Obama that in his approach to economic policy, "he's awfully European." Matthews apparently is unaware that Europe's biggest export to America has been white people.
Romney and his fellow Republicans are making a case (at least relative to President Obama) for economic freedom and against the expansion of government. To be sure, one may prefer Obama's policies on reasoned grounds that have nothing to do with race. It is also true that for most of America's history, and as recently as the 1960s, blacks were denied the freedoms, economic and otherwise, that whites took for granted.
But no Republican running for president is proposing a return to Jim Crow or a repeal of civil rights laws. Siegel's implicit notion that only whites are capable of benefiting from economic freedom under a regime of legal equality amounts to an insidious theory of racial supremacy.
That is the idea that Newt Gingrich repudiated in answer to Juan Williams's (not particularly objectionable) question. That is what brought the crowd to their feet.
Romney will release his tax returns. Then what?
By Ed Rogers
Mitt Romney is going to release his tax returns. No doubt he made a lot of money and has followed the rules when paying his taxes. Will Republicans gasp and have a negative reaction to his wealth and the amount of taxes he paid? Aren’t we for more Romneys in America? That is, people who have made money and who are allowed to keep it and invest their savings in ways in which their money isn’t taxed twice at the full rate?
Is there now some amount to have paid in taxes that sounds right and feels right politically, based on a candidate’s income, and if you fall below that number, you have a political problem? Do we think that a wealthy candidate who is following the rules but paying below the “feels right” amount in taxes, is somehow a less desirable candidate for president?
Should GOP candidates now boast, “I paid a higher income tax rate than you did,” as if that distinguishes them in a positive light?
...
It will be revealing to see how we Republicans handle it when we are suddenly confronted with not just the abstract concept of wealth and low taxes, but with its personification in the front-runner for our party’s presidential nomination. We are for success, wealth and low taxes in theory, but when these are personalized in a GOP candidate, do we think it’s bad politics? Is it disqualifying? Much more to come.
An attitude adjustment must come first, if we're to truly make change in this country. If we seek to reduce reliance on entitlement programs, open up as many choices and provide as much independence to the individual as possible, we've got to start changing mindsets.
and please, for the overly sensitive out there?
I do not think that the biggest entitlement attitude adjustments need to come from our underclass, or our current minority ethnic/racial populations.
It's the bigger players, who take out more and more, who use the "safety net" as a cushion really and think the answer is more skewing of the gameboard. It's not a game, the numbers need to add up one day, and the elite liberals who push this entitlement mentality prosper, simply can't lose by being protected by other taxpayers, big and small, from the consequences of their risk-taking.
Let's not be fooled by pretending this is about poor children, racial hatred, or otherwise pitting this group against that. We've had enough of that falseness, and need to properly frame the issues. Then, get onto the serious job of reforming our social progams via policies that step back and provide as much opportunity as possible, with the newfound understanding of the natural importance of cause and effect, actions and consequences, and paying one's own way/carrying your own weight in the world.
That's my hope, still. Backed by daily work, prayer, and small steps (so you don't slip and fall) toward well-envisioned goals.
You go, Mar.
Seems she thinks she's got a winner in the "Release the Returns!" drive. (romneys-campaign-botches-his-tax-returns)
Funny but I don't think all Americans are as convinced as she that this issue is the biggest one facing the country and worthy of all the ... Drama! And learning that a Republican candidate practices what he preaches in seeking to lower tax rates. That's a killer. Not.
It's been interesting to watch Romney's Republican opponents doing the Obama campaign's dirty work in roughing up Romney over his record at Bain Capital. That damage was not completely foreseeable — Bain was an obvious general election target but not necessarily an issue for the GOP primary — nor was it self-inflicted. The same cannot be said about Romney's income taxes. Somewhere in the White House, David Plouffe is smiling.
You worked too hard yourself to settle for this.
As a fellow Chicago girl myself (Thornwood 1986), I'd advise you don't exchange ... a walk-on part in the war for a leading role in a cage.
Anger can be a decent motivating force afterall, especially if there's a reason for that anger, don't let them tell you otherwise. Just make sure you've got the proper targets to "change" or blame. Hint: I don't think it's Mitt Romney's team or supporters.
If the Supreme Court gives thumbs down on the legality of the individual mandate, which pushes non-consumers into the hands of privately profitting health insurance companies, do you see that as a victory for the Obama administration, or a big embarrassing slap in the face to his legal skills?
Can you imagine how his numbers would drop if all he's worked for and accomplished, some say sacrificing the economy in order to get this big new federal entitlement program through, is undone in the bright light of day? (None of these Christmas Eve eve sneak plays needed)
Cherrypicking the past (I remember a Mass. liberal named Dukakis! *)... but missing out on today. (Where exactly are voters going to go? Obama??)
When November arrives, the election is likely to be close, and will depend on economic conditions, just as the experts have said all along.
If my scenario comes to pass, I expect we’ll be hearing a lot in the spring and summer about Romney’s political savvy, and then when the inevitable narrowing of the polls comes in the fall, we’ll hear all about the ineptitude of his campaign. Really, though, it will just be voters working out where he stands on the issues.
Something similar happened in 1988. Out-party candidate Michael Dukakis...
From yesterday's blog:
Ann Althouse said...
I worked in a big law firm for 2 years. The first year I was pregnant and took a 3-month maternity leave. Paid! The second year I searched for a lawprof job, traveled to interviews, and accepted an offer, then continued to work until my new job started.
It was very rewarding.
Does that make you think it's harder or easier to make partner if you enter a big law firm and you are female?Most people who end up in Biglaw have no desire to make partner. They want to do it for a few years, pay off their debts, and build up some credentials so they can do what they really want to do. But some people show up at the firm so hungry for the brass ring that they can taste it. You know what they say: “Making partner is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie.” Yet there isn’t a lot of analysis and study about what one actually has to do to win this career race.See the point of my question?
" A smart, talented female attorney who is prepared to bust her *ss and jump through the same hoops as the men has a significantly better chance of making partner than a male of equal caliber..."
That was my guess (and the reason I asked the question I did in the post).
Ah, Bawdy Humor in the Headlines:
Election 2012
Show Me Your Taxes!
Brooks and Collins wonder what’s too much...
The NYT, like a stubborn child, simply refuses to let go of their black racial analysis, and instead doubles down on the theme: If you're against entitlement programs, you're against the blacks.
No, no, a thousand times no.
If you look at the actual language used, (and not this double-secret-probation "codespeak" that apparently only elite New York liberals can pick up on), Newt Gingrich steered Juan Williams' questions away from talking solely about black people. (Btw: Why in this 21st century do we divide up by race, and ask questions about this particular racial group or that, when in reality, where exactly do biracials fit in? Black immigrants? Can we please get over this noxious "special" designation?)
Using his own daughter as an example, he explained how children of all races could learn to use work as a means to make their own money. To start off small, at a "menial" job (and surely all those elite libs who employ ... household help to clean their own toilets look upon janitorial work as lowly and menial), and work their way up: to essentially "own" that job, while developing a work ethic that works to enrich the poor population.
Is it wrong to teach that today?
To blacks, as well as whites, and every color in between?
You see, that's the key distinction Republicans like Mitt Romney are making this year: these almost 50+ years of Democrat-sponsored entitlement programs? They are not working, instead trapping people in a cycle of poverty, where government handouts, rather than competitive performances in schools, in the workplaces, in life are the "reward", the best hope promised by non-delivering Democratic politicians.
G-d bless the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's departed soul. He, and his brothers, surely meant well. But how'd it work out in reality? Meritorious rise via equal opportunities of poor people of all races? Or a slow slide into the world as we know it now -- with rich elite libs on top, surrounding themselves with paid help to care for their elderly, pick their crops, and do society's dirty work ... while the middle class gets squeezed in being asked to pick up the tab for these generous social programs for who libs deem society's biggest losers.
Thankfully, welfare was reformed, built on a Wisconsin initiative. The incentives to break up homes, stay on the dole, and breed (again, for whites as well as blacks and others) was taken away. We've got to do this, again and again, with the unaffordable entitlement programs that take away options and breed dependence.
America as a whole gets it. You've got to have somebody call to bring down costs of these behemoth and growing social programs. Not simply promise to rope more suckers into the mix (see the health insurance mandate) or take more from those with the most to keep on with the current status quo.
A social safety net is just that: a rarity that should be pulled out in case of emergency to help the truly "needy" in our society. Not something to build a long-term lifestyle around.
Unemployment insurance simply has to end at some point. The SNAP (food stamp) numbers should be there for emergency needs only, for a short period of time while the person gets back on their feet. The role of the President is to lead the economy -- not to parent us personally -- so that people indeed do have opportunities open to them.
President Obama, blessed coming into this with a Democratic Congress, didn't heed those needs. He gave us instead MORE entitlement promises. "Kids" over 26 from wealthy families that can afford to continue coddling them, who are blessed to be covered by a private insurance plan themselves, got promised care under their parents' plan. Who pays for that exactly? The young healthy under 26-year-old who is struggling himself to make ends meet, who now has to incur an expense which he likely will see no benefit. (Healthy young people simply do not incur the same medical expenses as the ill with pre-existing conditions, middle age Boomers confronting their own morality, or the elderly, often more wealthy themselves than those starting out. Do you think -- be honest here, please -- that this helps the poor, struggling upward Horatio Alger's still believing out here? Honestly?)
Again and again,
we see the entitlement programs "reward" the wrong types. If you can't afford a baby, please don't conceive and bear her on the public dime. Practice preventative maintenance (contraception) or if it will be a struggle from the get-go to bear, clothe, shelter and feed this new little life, admit it and give her up at birth to some loving family that clearly can. Plus, please don't breed again until you are in a better financial situation.
Do you see that as racist advice? Why exactly? Don't plenty of white mothers rely on these programs for their white or bi-racial children too? Is that ok? Even when the money is running out, and we're calling for those making money to subsidize more and more the growth of the underclass?
I don't think it's racist to address, honestly, these issues.
I think it's simply common sense. Seeing what's coming demographically (Hel-lo Boomers!) and understanding that unless we reform our definition of "safety net" now, more and more people will fall on their head in the future. Including the truly needy.
But if we can change expectations and lifestyle choices, if we can build back the economy bit by bit (as Mitt Romney did with the SLC Olympic Games, and plenty of underperforming companies), then maybe the underclass can learn something from the successful non-libs, black white and Hispanic, in how they got what they did. Hint: it really ain't all about being born with a rich daddy, no matter how much the media would like to sell that meme.
Most of us understand, like it or not, America is still the best, greatest hope for so many seeking out a land of opportunity. Not of entitlements, not of handouts, not of long-term paternalist programs that promise to provide good health, healthy food, medical care, good educations, clean air and water, etc. etc. etc. all for free, without anybody working for it themselves.
Nope nope, a thousand times no.
America is rejecting that language, just as we rejected the bloated liberal programs and polices that discounted merit and artificially got us here. If you can compete, and you can do better than the next guy in the seat next to you, you win. Just like in sports, there's no "fixing the game" to help the preferred you pity.
Sure, keep the safety nets, but keep them in reserve. For the people that really need them. All us others, it's ok to draw short term, but eventually, you've got to be flexible, cut back and adapt, as necessary. Elite liberals don't really know much about this. They've never had to practice thriftiness, it seems.
If you really care about America's poor though, you'll stop carving us up into this racial group or that, and start concentrating on the roots of the problem: too many high-end elites still feeding at the public trough, who expect others to pay their bills. Did Mitt Romney and his family do that, like the Kennedy bloated legacy? I don't think so... whether this election is about substance, or just hangin' on to the status quo, remains to be seen.
compares Mitt Romney to George H.W. Bush.
Though she pokes fun, she never gets all nasty and thankfully never disses the fellas for "acting white".
She simply can't understand, being a nice Irish Catholic woman from a working-class background herself, the ... oddities under which these gents operate. It's like, they're from a different world than the rest of us, or something.
Eh.
I read the whole thing. Chuckled once or twice. And again, admired her tone. She can make a point, without bullying readers into buying into her own prejudices and preferences. Nice like that.*
But one question in my mind remains: Really? You think in her younger days MoDo dropped acid? Or was that just a phrase?
Watching Mitt Romney in the Myrtle Beach debate gave me acid flashbacks to Poppy Bush.
A few years ago, Rosie, who helped me raise my children and now helps me raise my dogs, found a hungry and bedraggled dog at the local dog park. He was wearing a tag, so she called the number. It turned out the family had been away during the Malibu fire, and when they finally got home, the dog was gone. He walked all the way to our neighborhood. It is one of my favorite stories.
is taken to task by "expert" Dan Drezner, for missing the gist of what he was explaining to her in a phone conversation about President Obama's proposed reorganization of foreign economic policy agencies.
Now, based on that quote,“If you look at American exports, it’s dominated by big business,” said Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University. “If you want small and medium enterprises to get more involved in exporting” — a goal of the Obama administration — “having small business and the trade office in the same agency makes sense,” he said. “So this could be a boon for that.”you might think that I'm pretty enthusiastic about this initiative. If, however, you checked my initial tweets about this proposal, you would notice a lot more agreement with what Stephen Teles said in the paragraphs above me.“My gut tells me those benefits will end up being much smaller than advertised, and the costs much larger,” said Steven M. Teles, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, pointing to the time wasted during the consolidation and the changed political dynamic between the agencies and Congress.My instant assessment was that this was one of those "reorganizing government" initiatives that makes a lot of sense in the abstract but probably leads to more transition costs than long-term benefits. Indeed, the first thing that came to mind could be summed up in four words: Department of Homeland Security.
So what gives? This is what happens when I talk to reporters. I had a long chat with Annie Lowrey during which I listed A) the various ways in which Congress won't go for this; and B) why merging different organizational cultures will likely be a big mess. Lowrey then asked me if there was any rationale for this kind of reorganization. At which point I said what was quoted in the paper of record.
Now if you know my views about the National Export Initiative, you'll see I don't hold out much hope of this accomplishing anything. Still, to repeat, Lowrey's quote of me is completely accurate, and it is a decent motivation for this kind of initiative.
This is one of those mismatches between reporters and experts. It's not really the reporter's job to convey the full gist of a conversation with an expert. This story isn't "What Dan Drezner The Expert Thinks About Something," after all. Still, this is often the natural expectation of many experts, because we think about the entire conversation, not just one part of it.
...
This is a long-winded way of saying that what I said in the Times was the truth but not the whole truth. And that the odds are good that I'm probably going find myself in this situation again. And that's OK -- one of the perks of having this blog is that when this sort of thing happens, I can ramble my way to a more fuller explanation of my views.
Apologies to Erasure,
but that was my first thought upon reading this:
Megyn Kelly has declared that I am "not a real journalist." She has also just said that I have written that Trig is not Sarah Palin's child. As longtime readers well know, I took great pains never to state that and merely to ask Palin, given her insane story about the birth of her child, to provide some evidence for it, which she said she would but never did. The Beast has asked for a correction. Real journalists do not tell untruths on air without correcting them.
What I want to know is why they cannot invite the author of an essay to debate it, rather than two random individuals (including Rich "Starbursts" Lowry) to discuss. Surely that's only fair - unless, of course, I am on a blacklist.It's all about ... me. Surely they're discriminating against me, probably because I'm a gay man with HIV. Eh?
So this is an open challenge to Fox News. If you want to trash my work, have me on to defend it. Any time, Megyn. Any time. What are you afraid of?
Apart from the truth, that is.
Oh goodness:
Charles M. Blow
FoxNews: Newt on Obama: "I Don't Want to Bloody His Nose. I Want to Knock Him Out"
Keep it classy Newton Leroy
Haven't we been through this before?
I actually believe that getting rid of free-riders in an already-socialized system is a good, conservative idea, as once did Gingrich and Romney. So sue me.
Andrew M. Sullivan, the British author, editor, and political commentator, is one of the best-known figures in the new-media elite, and his blog, The Daily Dish, is among the most popular on the Web. But a federal judge says Sullivan did not deserve preferential treatment from prosecutors who dropped a marijuana possession charge after the journalist was recently caught smoking a joint on a federally owned beach on Cape Cod.
In a strongly worded memorandum issued Thursday, US Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings said the decision by Acting US Attorney Michael K. Loucks to dismiss a federal misdemeanor possession charge against Sullivan flouted a “cardinal principle of our legal system’’ - that all persons stand equal before the law.
Three other defendants charged with the same offense had to appear before Collings the same day as Sullivan, the judge noted. But Sullivan’s case was the only one prosecutors did not pursue, out of concern that the $125 fine carried by the relatively minor offense could derail his US immigration application.
“It is quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances,’’ Collings wrote in the 11-page memorandum, adding that prosecutors’ rationale for the dismissal was inadequate.
Collings added with obvious irritation that he had no power to order prosecutors to pursue the case, and granted their motion to dismiss it. The fact that he did, however, “does not require the Court to believe that the end result is a just one,’’ he wrote.
Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off — and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.
"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.
Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.
De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"
"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.
"Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge"
...
The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship's officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship's owner and was made captain in 2006.
Schettino hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.
A judge is to decide Tuesday if Schettino should stay jailed, as requested by prosecutors. He could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.
Earlier Tuesday, Italian naval divers exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship, trying to speed up the search for the missing while seas were still calm. Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the holes would help divers enter the wreck more easily.
"We are rushing against time," he said.
Paul Krugman / Robin Wells:
I'm looking at you two kids!
Oh, and don’t give me the argument that private equity is special because it’s a risky business, in which you put in a lot of effort for an uncertain return. So is any kind of small business venture; and so, as it happens, is textbook writing. Yet small businessmen and textbook authors pay normal tax rates.
It's not unique to the American black experience.
Plenty of other races, ethnicities have horror stories in their past too.
It's a shame our liberal culture encourages our young black people to wallow in their ancestors' mistreatment, concentrating on Black Studies and roleplaying sadistic ways of beating "slaves" in their private black fraternities, who have no choice still but to ... "take it".
Every now and then though,
you get a sense that they can peer out of their self-imposed shackles some, and see a better world a-waitin'. Turn off the rants, and look and see things for what they really are, not what your culture has conditioned you too see.
Welcome, to the human race.
Charles M. Blow
Sorry I'm ranting this morning ppl ...
I kinda hope Mitt Romney has it in him to buck tradition and be a rebel: Keep his tax returns private.
Just because others have done it -- allowed the privacy veil to be pierced, doesn't mean anyone owes it to us, as part of the job application.
Suffice it to say:
He's a Rich Man.
With more money than you.
Nobody has (yet) suggested he got it in any illegal way, and we all know about his father and the son's privileged upbringing. There's no allegations in the background stories about anything unsavory, other than committing hard, early to succeeding in business and providing for his growing family.
Nobody owes the release, unless there are lingering questions. Just like, I thought it was small of President Obama, after so much time lapsed, to partially respond to those who questioned his qualifications.
Sorry, can't have 'em. Try this:
My financial documents will remain private, not because there's something there to hide, but because the issue at this time is not, and has never been, my own personal financial background. Let's concentrate on the numbers that matter: opening and exploring the nation's fiscal books. I'm eager to get started, and I'm confident that I can make a difference, and I'm not just running for this office because of my daddy or because I need to take care of my wife and child. I want to help America, because like so many others out there, I know already: It's not about me. It's bigger than that. It's about this country we love so much that people will ridicule us for almost being cornball about it. Those are the numbers we need to look at now, in the harsh open sunlight, in black and white. I'm sorry if this disappoints those of you who want to make a story about my personal financial choices and decisionmaking. But again, I'm not here asking for a handout or a loan, so I don't think my own numbers are relevant. I'm comfortable, but I'm not overly spendy. I think people can appreciate that in a leader. And if anyone has any doubts about the high premium I place on privacy, rest easy. I'm not blindly following tradition here, and on principle, I'm keeping my records private.
When I see the Jewish and black pundits misinterpreting the white men, I must speak up a bit louder...
Do you see any distinction made here between black people using food stamps (SNaP cards) and white people relying on them, from the government, to feed themselves?
[W]e actually think work is good (applause). We actually think saying to somebody “I’ll help you if you’re willing to help yourself” is good (applause). And we think unconditionally efforts by the best food stamp president in American history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country (applause).It's the concept, the absence of independence, that is saddening. Not "picking" on black victims, or poor whites either. Just holding out the hope, that we can offer them something better here.
Gingrich went on to say that he was going to continue to “find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job.” (Roaring applause. As if poor people don’t work. As I’ve pointed out before, most of them do.)Friend, haven't you seen the numbers? Young men are having trouble finding jobs these days, white young men, black young men... especially, poor and ill-educated young men. Even if they have jobs, likely they could use a more challenging, better paying, more skilled one, particularly if they one day aspire to feed a famiy, say.
You saw some of this during your visit to a black church in South Carolina where a woman askePresident Obama as “the food stamp president.” It sounds as if you’re seeking to belittle people.
(More boos from the crowd.)
Gingrich: Well, first of all, Juan —
(Crowd giggles. Talk about belittling people. “Juan.”)
The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history (applause). Now, I know among the politically correct you are not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable (more applause and laughter).
Charles M. Blow
Anyone who can't see through Newt's tainted language needs a dog and and cane... He may try to fix it up with fancy phrasing, but the framework is the same...
Ppl try to tell you that you're not seeing what you're seeing. "Who are you going to believe: me or your lying eyes?" My eyes...every time.*
Mine eyes have seen the Glory,
of the Coming of the Lord...
and He is trampling through the Vintage
where the Grapes of Wrath are stored...
"Nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can write that can't be run..."
