Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Morning Twitter Messages -- June 25

Zimmerman attorney's opening statement included a knock-knock joke. Not making this up. Check it out for yourself.
" The Board is unanimously of the view that now is not the time to sell the company. The Board is committed to a strategic plan carefully developed by CEO Doug Ewert and the rest of the company's experienced management team, which we all believe will maximize long-term value for all shareholders."
[Shorter version: We've worked whole careers for this moment. It's time to cash in our chips and make a killing.]
But this may be a more balanced explanation than mine...

He's referring to the Paul Ryan Eat the Poor approach to poverty.
Just last week, the House provided another example of Ryan’s anti-poverty principles in action. It enacted a large cut in food stamps, as Ryan has been calling for. Then, concluding this hadn’t gone far enough, it added a provision allowing states to cut off beneficiaries who didn’t have a job. As Robert Greenstein explained, this was completely unlike the welfare provisions designed to encourage people to get jobs:
Work requirements in low-income programs require unemployed people to look for jobs, to accept any job offer, to participate in workforce or training programs if there is a slot available in a program, and the like. If the individuals fail to comply with the requirements, they can be sanctioned by having their benefits cut or terminated. The SNAP program also disqualifies people who quit a job. 
This is not what the Southerland amendment would do. It would allow states to end benefits for most adults who receive or apply for SNAP — including parents with young children and many people with disabilities — if they are not working or participating in a work or training program for at least 20 hours a week. The amendment provides no jobs and no funds for work or training programs, and it does not require states to make any work opportunities available. People who want to work and are looking for a job but haven’t found one could be cut off.

A conventional analysis would call this approach cruel, bordering on sociopathic. It’s one thing to tailor policy to encourage people to work. It’s another to create a new punishment for people who can’t find jobs. And given the baseline reality of mass unemployment for low-skilled workers, and a bill that proposes nothing to create more jobs or even job training, the Southerland amendment would do nothing but punish the poor. Ryan voted for it, naturally.

Mario Garcia, a 29-year member of the California National Guard, kisses his dog Russell at home in Sacramento. Garcia marched in uniform in the Sacramento Pride Parade and met with potential recruits.



Is anybody surprised? Really? 




Although "1984" is Orwell's most terrifying novel, its portrayal of a totalitarian surveillance state remains a work of science fiction. His other novels, however, show how in contemporary society people everywhere are trapped by the relentless march of progress, capitalism, commercialism, communism, and other negative aspects of modern society. Orwell warned us about all of it.



I think Tom Watson's on to something...
"Let's be honest - how many progressives of color are critical of President Obama in context of #Snowden #NSA security etc - why is that?
Perhaps it's because they perceive an angrier personal tone in the criticism of the President from a corps of critics that is whiter than the guest list at a Paula Deen dinner party? 
Let's be honest here, folks. 
This is long enough for one post. More later. 
Different links. Stay tuned.  
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