Religion, politics, sex .. and other taboo subjects

One word: Bernie. :(

Yes.

I do not know any Bernie supporters who are now OK with Hillary.

I very firmly believe that these primaries were rigged. I cannot decide if "they" simply think that the people are so dumb and complacent that we won't notice the shenanigans, or that we will just shrug and vote as we're told, or was this done in this way on purpose to TEST how complacent the people are? Are we supposed to actually believe, despite the evidence of our own eyes, that Hillary fair and square got more actual votes? Because I don't believe it, for one moment! The whole thing is a fraud, and she is a criminal, several times over.

No...I do not know any Bernie supporters who have transferred their actual support to Hillary. I do know some who will vote for her just to keep Trump from winning, and I'm likely to do it myself, after which act I shall go out into the parking lot and have a good vomit.

This election is horrible.
 
I promised my brother I'd check the UK odds, something I haven't done in months --
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner

The Brits give Trump about a 5:2 chance (mostly between 2:1 & 3:1).

Clinton, the range is largely 2:5 to 3:10. Too bad they can't vote. :D
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As to Dem veeps, there's a lot of jockeying. In descending order of momentary likelihood, it's
  1. Tim Kaine
  2. Elizabeth Warren
  3. Julian Castro
  4. Tom Perez
  5. Xavier Becerra
  6. Sherrod Brown
  7. Cory Booker
  8. Bernie Sanders
  9. John Hickenlooper
  10. Martin O'Malley
  11. Amy Klobuchar
  12. Al Franken
with Kaine at about 3:2 & Franken 25:1.

Sadly, I recognize more of the names on the Republican menu. :(
  1. Newton Gingrich
  2. Chris Christie
  3. Jeff Sessions
  4. John Kasich
  5. Mike Pence
  6. Joni Ernst
  7. Bob Corker
  8. Susana Martinez
Here, the range is from Newtie's 10:3 to Martinez's 20:1.

At first glance, I figured Martinez was the shoo-in: female, Hispanic, experienced without being an "insider." But Mother Jones called her the next Sarah Palin: "Petty. Vindictive. Weak on policy." And she's being investigated by the FBI for her role in getting high-pay sweetheart PAC deals for her former political consultant, Jay McCleskey, who has a knack for falling into piles of rose petals & somehow finding dogsh!t, as his activities repeatedly lead to clients siphoning cash for personal use --
McCleskey’s clients have included top Republicans across the state, including Dianna Duran, who last month resigned as secretary of state after pleading guilty to six counts that involved embezzling campaign donations by transferring funds to her personal bank account while making cash withdrawals at casinos.
But, heck, that's just SOP for the GOP, eh?
A Master List of Gingrich's Hypocrisies
Five Other Chris Christie Scandals
5 Things to Remember About Jeff Sessions
What Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Joni Ernst
Feds scrutinizing Corker's finances

(FWIW, looks like Corker may be refusing the nomination.)

Compared to all that, the Dems are horrendously boring. I mean, Warren once claimed to be Native American! :eek: She was told she's 1/32 Cherokee, which up here is pretty much equivalent to "outstate Minnesotan." (I'm 1/32 Chippewa.) Julian Castro got in trouble for not working faster to get people out of HUD housing when their incomes went up. :eek: Xavier Becerra is blatantly ambitious. :eek:

Well, you get the drift: the "bad apples" are at least in the minority, & there's not an omnipresent smell of corruption.
 
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How do I answer to it? Something like I refuse to read biassed hand-wringing hair-tearing hatchet-job screeds written by nutballs of ANY stripe who are clearly incapable of presenting objective facts in an objective manner. :D

There's an emotionally loaded screechword (fnord) in every seven --

You KNOW it'll likely suck when there's repetitious verbiage -- say, starting two consecutive paragraphs with IN OTHER WORDS. :rolleyes: Kinda like Wikipedia articles that use ALSO in six consecutive sentences.

If you have a version that's written in English, I might give it a glance.

Does this mean you're giving a free pass to The Donald for the Trump University scam that netted him millions personally? or just that neither candidate is likely to be canonized?

I'm equally disapproving of both Trump and Hillary. Trump is more blatantly obvious as creepy and such (really a bad candidate). Hillary is slicker and has better PR folks working for her.

How do I answer to it? Something like I refuse to read biassed hand-wringing hair-tearing hatchet-job screeds written by nutballs of ANY stripe who are clearly incapable of presenting objective facts in an objective manner. :D

If you do not read them you cannot assess whether the purported facts are in fact factual. I get your point about the language in the article however. I suspect all of the purported facts are basically factual -- and that perhaps the piece could be better written, with perhaps less vitriol. However, I can understand the anger and resentment of people who are disgusted by the way the establishment and it's "mainstream media" distorts everything, under-reports some things, and totally ignores others ... to the advantage of folks like Trump OR Hillary.
 
POLL: Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won’t Support Clinton

Now, the REALLY depressing part.
Instead, 22 percent say they’ll vote for Trump
To me, this indicates that 1/5 of Sanders' "supporters" didn't realy give a damn about his policies, & would rather vote for the direct opposite of what Sanders stood for, simply to maintain their "outsider" cred.
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Trump is a devious idiot -- that's what made him so good at his type of business. However, thinking he can run a nation, & in fact one of the biggest economies on Earth, is very much like a Hardee's store manager believing he's ready to run Microsoft.

Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if he uses his Congressional GOP brownshirts to stymie Clinton before November... which might indeed force the Dems to give Sanders another look. But, hey, I can dream.
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So many people whine about economic woes under a Dem POTUS. Somehow, I've done pretty okeydokey in those years. But I remember all too clearly how us blue-collar jerkoffs got beat up under pretty much EVERY modern GOP prez: Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush Lite.

Hold your nose, bring a barf bag... but vote for Clinton or accept your share of responsibility for another round of Reaganomics.

And don't forget the pledges to outlaw abortion, eliminate gay marriage, & replace Obamacare & Medicare with discount coupons (no, sadly, I'm not kidding). Given the overwhelming Trumpista demographic -- white, weird Xtian, paranoid, armed, dumb as dirt -- I figure there'll be goonsquad militias going after "enemies of the people."

If your vote goes anywhere but Clinton, you don't have much space to complain.
 
Now, the REALLY depressing part.
To me, this indicates that 1/5 of Sanders' "supporters" didn't realy give a damn about his policies, & would rather vote for the direct opposite of what Sanders stood for, simply to maintain their "outsider" cred.
Gah. Edgy "protest voters". I won't even pretend I didn't despise them.... possibly even more so than people who vote for awful people out of honest ideology - those are folks I can at least respect for internal integrity, much as I vehemently disagree with their views!

Pretty sure that's a sizeable share of the exact kind of fools that is currently bringing the "Brexit" debacle down on Europe, too, this side of the Pond.
 
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Look, it makes me nuts that people put Trump and Clinton in the same category. Trump is a pure demagogue who appeals to everything dark in America - racism, sexism, xenophobia, and just about every 'phobia' I can think of. It would be incredibly dangerous if he were elected. The next president will set the Supreme Court for most of our lifetimes. Also people seem to think that Congress will act as some kind of a brake on the utterly irresponsible things he wants to do. Has anyone seen Congress lately? It's utterly dysfunctional and couldn't stop a puppy from peeing on the carpet, much less a bully like Trump.

Clinton is just an establishment candidate. Nothing more, nothing less. Did anyone really think that the first woman nominated for President would be anything else? Obama is a moderate - there was no way in hell a more radical, or even more lefty, black candidate would have been elected. Does she represent the less lefty, less progressive, more moderate wing of the Democratic party? Yup, she does. It was a mistake to take money to speak from Goldman Sachs - that looks horrible in today's political climate. But she is who she is - a mainstream candidate in a year where everyone hates everything.

Also there were no stolen elections. Clinton won, period. She's got a great ground team. Sanders is too left, too socialist for most people to vote for, even in the Democratic party. There is no conspiracy. That he got the support he did indicates how much is wrong with our current political and economic climate. I also hate how people conflate Sanders and Trump. Sanders is no demagogue but they have a point that the unhappiness and despair that fuels Trumps supporters has an analogue on the left.

I supported Sanders fully and would have preferred he win, despite my desire to also see a woman president in my lifetime. I will now vote for Clinton despite the fact that she is to the right of me in many ways. To do otherwise, to possibly help elect, by my inaction of not voting or wasting my vote, a demagogue who will irreparably harm the United States, is utterly irresponsible.

I'm also happy that Sanders is continuing the press Clinton to the left. I don't think she can win going to the right against Trump. She needs to show a more hopeful, progressive vision of the US and Sanders's ideas can help with that.
 
It bothers me that the Libertarian Party is such a bunch of armchair generals. When they began showing interest -- belatedly, of course -- in Sanders, it came across as them trying to glom onto Bernie's rising credibility. If they'd lent him support early in his candidacy, I'd be more inclined to take the LP seriously.

I'd be swayed more Libertarian if they'd actually spent the past 45 (!!) years building a solid base & working their way up rather than settling for little higher than state representative (not even senate!), much less Congress. The best LP showing in a gubernatorial race: Alaska, 1982, 15%. Best Congressional showing: Massachusetts, 2002, 17% (no credible Republican candidate).

Against the Clinton/Trump debacle, I really WANT to say "that's not enough to win, but certainly enough to make a difference"... but in a presidential race the LP didn't quite make 1.3 million in 2012, only the second time they topped 550,000. Despite waves of anti-Donald GOPers & disaffected Berniebots swinging Libertarian, I'm not at all confident they'll make 2 million.

And then there's the damnable Electoral College that gave us Bush Lite.

The Green Party has been actively reaching out to Sanders supporters, & apparently some discussion of taking him up for VP. Problem is, they've squandered decades focusing on Saint Ralph For President, so likely useless.

Sanders himself has said that he does NOT want to put Trump in office by splitting the vote.

For the primaries, you can register as a supporter of whatever party you wish, & this counts for nothing on Election Day. Call me paranoid if you must, but I'm still inclined to believe that some of the Democratic primaries were infiltrated by GOP supporters who voted for Clinton because that's the matchup they wanted. If Sanders got the nomination, they'd have pretty much nothing on HIM except "well... he's a COMMIE!!" :rolleyes:

As the next few months unroll, you'll see the GOPeratives move past Servergate & Benghazigate, & begin uppacking the stuff they had prepped for eight years ago. Maybe this will drive a bigger wedge into the GOP.
 
Clinton is just an establishment candidate. Nothing more, nothing less. Did anyone really think that the first woman nominated for President would be anything else? Obama is a moderate - there was no way in hell a more radical, or even more lefty, black candidate would have been elected. Does she represent the less lefty, less progressive, more moderate wing of the Democratic party? Yup, she does. It was a mistake to take money to speak from Goldman Sachs - that looks horrible in today's political climate. But she is who she is - a mainstream candidate in a year where everyone hates everything.
Sums it up perfectly, yup.

Same applies to Angela Merkel in Germany, btw... and explains why she's in her 11th year of chancellory (is that a word?), with no sign of stopping any time soon... like it or not, we may well be stuck with her until she herself decides to step down/choose not to run again. (We have no equivalent to the 22nd constitutional amendment here - as long as people keep voting you, you can, theoretically at least, stay chancellor for life).
 
Sorry but I do think that some of these primaries were rigged. I think that whenever the media tells us that someone is "of course" the candidate, and it's just so cute that some spunky little upstart wants to challenge them, but ultimately pointless..that is a clear signal that there are shenanigans afoot.

Yes, Clinton is an establishment candidate. I doubt if my own life will change drastically under her as Pres. Just another corrupt ass politician, doing the expected. Which in my thinking...is not much good.

Trump though...

It made my blood run cold, the whole thing...much as I'll feel sick voting for Hillary, the thing that horrifies me is the potential split in the Dem vote. I believe very strongly that more Hillary people would vote Bernie, rather than Trump or indie...compared to Bernie people who would vote for Hillary.

The Dems, frankly just need all the help they can get because they are the only meaningful opposition to the "Cheetoh faced, ferret wearing shit-gibbon" they're up against. I view the prospect of him in a position to order hostile acts upon other nations, and issue "executive orders"...rather in the way one would view the apocalypse, if one stepped out one's front door and it were flagrantly happening right then and there one morning.

One little bout of vomiting, or...Trump... It's not a hard choice to make, in my opinion.

And frankly what I said here is what really bugs me, more than what he'd do in any domestic policy, is the fact that I've read the accounts from people who worked for him, and who have interacted with him over the years...he's got a temper and he is used to getting absolutely his own way. I wouldn't be shocked in the slightest if he threw a crazy tantrum and directed military violence against any nation that hosted opinions that were anti-Trump (which is, well, most of them.) I could see him coming up with fake reasons to drop bombs on people, out of sheer personal bluster.

He's a damn nut. We need to keep him well away from the nukes, man!
 
Trump as President = evil clown as President
 
Trump as President = evil clown as President

An evil clown would be better. Because at least one evil clown was played by Tim Curry, and Tim Curry is freaking fantastic.

I'd much prefer IT as the president, over Trump.

I like red balloons.

Unfortunately, this is not an option, as he's British.
 
Trump = a Killer Clown from Outer Space
 
[....]

Clinton is just an establishment candidate. Nothing more, nothing less. Did anyone really think that the first woman nominated for President would be anything else? Obama is a moderate - there was no way in hell a more radical, or even more lefty, black candidate would have been elected. Does she represent the less lefty, less progressive, more moderate wing of the Democratic party? Yup, she does. It was a mistake to take money to speak from Goldman Sachs - that looks horrible in today's political climate. But she is who she is - a mainstream candidate in a year where everyone hates everything.

[....]

I supported Sanders fully and would have preferred he win, despite my desire to also see a woman president in my lifetime. I will now vote for Clinton despite the fact that she is to the right of me in many ways. To do otherwise, to possibly help elect, by my inaction of not voting or wasting my vote, a demagogue who will irreparably harm the United States, is utterly irresponsible.

I'm also happy that Sanders is continuing the press Clinton to the left. I don't think she can win going to the right against Trump. She needs to show a more hopeful, progressive vision of the US and Sanders's ideas can help with that.

I agree with you, in essence, about Trump being dangerous.

I disagree with you that Hillary is merely an Establishment candidate. Unless by "Establishment" you mean she will do everything she can to support those mega-corporations and rich folks she has signaled her support for -- in order to get their support for her candidacy.

I'm also happy that Sanders is continuing the press Clinton to the left. I don't think she can win going to the right against Trump. She needs to show a more hopeful, progressive vision of the US and Sanders's ideas can help with that.

By now we should understand that candidates like Hillary will say whatever they need to say to get elected. What such candidates say to get elected and now they behave in office are very different things. Frankly, I do not take her to be a woman of her word.
 
Before this thread goes on to the saddening Second Amendment news of the morning...

Fred Koch was a chemical engineer who worked his way up from the oil fields, developed an improved method to "crack" crude oil into its components, helped set up refineries for Stalin & Hitler, & died fabulously wealthy in 1967.

His time in the USSR soured him on Communism (no word on his views of Nazism/Fascism), & in 1958 he was a founding member of Robert Welch's John Birch Society, which the group remains quite proud of.
In 1962, William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of the main conservative magazine the National Review, denounced Welch and the John Birch Society as "far removed from common sense" and urged the GOP to purge itself of Welch's influence.
There are two main foci of hatred/loathing/fear in the JBS: Communism, & Big Government.

After Fred's death, the business was run by his sons, & made all of them wealthy. Charles & David are very active in politics, propaganda, & social enginnering; according to Bloomberg News, their combined personal net worth topped $100,000,000,000 in 2014.

If you use PBS or NPR, you know the name.
The Koch family foundations began in 1953 with the establishment of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. In 1980, Charles Koch established the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, with the stated purpose of advancing social progress and well-being through the development, application and dissemination of "the Science of Liberty". David Koch established the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation.

They hate subsidies & tariffs with a passion, & have made this a central focus in putting money behind Free Market causes & candidates. Here's a 2013 example of how honest they are.
Koch Industries has taken over $16.5 million in subsidies from 11 different awards, none of which are sales tax breaks (which generally are not subsidies).

Subsidiary Georgia Pacific has received 72 subsidies worth over $43.9 million (none of these were sales tax breaks).

Subsidiary Flint Hills Resources LP has received subsidies from Iowa, Kansas, Texas, and Michigan, according to the Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker; the New York Times subsidy database, which omits Michigan but includes one more Iowa subsidy, puts the value of the Iowa and Kansas subsidies alone at just over $12.5 million (again, none of which were sales tax breaks).

Subsidiary INVISTA has received $217,504 in training grants from South Carolina, according to Subsidy Tracker. Several other subsidies appear to be connected to this subsidiary, but none have available subsidy amounts. Again, none were sales tax breaks.
You've probably heard of the Libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute.
It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974
No surprise that the Kochs have been major supporters of the Libertarian Party from its earliest days.

While their social engineering seems to range the political spectrum, the Kochs have a recurring habit of supporting Right Wingnut groups with Big Brotherish names, like Concerned Women For America,
founded by Beverly LaHaye, wife of Religious Right activist Tim LaHaye, as a counter to the progressive National Organization of Women.... CWA opposes gay rights, comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education, and feminism, while advocating what it calls "pro-life" and "pro-family" values.
Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the "secret bank" controlled by Koch Industries' lobbyists and used to distribute funds to favored groups, gave more than $8.1 million to CWA's issue-advocacy branch. During roughly the same time period, CWA brought in about $8.7 million—meaning the Kochs have been largely footing the bill for CWA's anti-gay and anti-abortion antics.
When you hear on the news about "different groups" protesting against abortion, birth control, same-sex marriage, & so on, don't take it at face value: in this instance, the Kochs also heavily fund Citizen Link (part of Focus on the Family), Americans United for Life Action, the Susan B. Anthony List, and Heritage Action.

Yet the Kochs aren't afraid to play multiple angles. That, or David & Charles have their disagreements -- David Koch has said he's in favor of reproductive freedom & same-sex marriage.

I'm bummed that Koch Brothers don't actually make artifial grass, because they're GREAT at supporting "Astroturf" groups --
seemingly "grassroots" citizen groups or coalitions, but primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms.

... involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.
Like Concerned Veterans for America.
It’s a relatively new group that not only received 100 percent of its start-up funds from a Koch-controlled limited liability corporation (LLC), but was also founded by a former Koch Industries lobbyist. The organization is mostly partisan in nature and has aired TV ads promoting Republicans for Congress while attacking the Obama White House on issues ranging from Benghazi to the Veterans Affairs scandal.

Classical libertarians are skeptical about war and view the prison at Guantánamo Bay as an inhumane waste of taxpayer resources. Koch's Concerned Veterans outfit takes a different approach. "My advice to the president is at a minimum have an air strike—at a minimum you have to flex on some level—as these men will think we're tolerant of their behavior," Jessie Jane Duff, an organizer for Concerned Veterans, said during a radio interview about how to deal with ISIS, the Sunni militia in Iraq. Last month, Duff agreed with a Fox News host that the US government should execute all of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. She tweeted: "If we kill evryone in Gitmo (it wouldn't cost much) we'd be sending a very clear message to jihadist."
Did I forget to mention the "grassroots" Tea Party movement?
... David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch and Koch Industries provided financial support to one of the organizations that became part of the Tea Party movement through Americans for Prosperity.The AFP's "Hot Air Tour" was organized to fight against taxes on carbon use and the activation of a cap and trade program.

Former U.K. ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer wrote in the Daily Mail that the Tea Party movement is a mix of "grassroots populism, professional conservative politics, and big money", the last supplied in part by the Kochs.

A Koch Industries company spokesperson issued a statement saying "No funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundation, or Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties."
(Note the wording of that denial. Koch money went to support groups that put their clout & cash behind the Teabaggers... but didn't send cash directly to the Teabaggers, so that's okay, eh?)

Anyway, though it's a bit tattered, there's a Wikipedia article on the brothers' sociopolitical manipulations. But you'd ned to search the Web because the entry keeps getting "edited" by various self-styled Libertarians who feel that stating established facts is "attacking the Free Market" or some such nonsense.

For those Sanders supporters planning to vote LP, you should probably first read what Bernie has to say about the Kochs.
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This all filled up my head, because yesterday I saw an ad for a new organization, apparently called Taking a Stand. Actually, I was only half-listening... but it sounded a LOT like Sanders' vision for a better, freer society where everyone had a REAL chance to achieve wealth. Well, except for some odd FreeMarketish kinks.
We want to have an open conversation about removing barriers to opportunity and progress. Our aim is to replace America’s two-tiered, winner-take-all system with one free and open society where all can win.

...integrity, responsibility, innovation, respect, tolerance, humility, equality before the law, free speech and exchange, and mutual benefit.

Sadly, decades of misguided policies have eroded these basic values, creating a two-tiered society that gives unfair advantages to the financially privileged and politically connected few. America today is failing our most vulnerable and holding people back from reaching their extraordinary potential.
Intrigued, I looked it up, & got the same visuals -- & the reroute URL made me curse.

Consider some of the groups the Kochs give $$$ to. Then weigh statements like "In a free and fair economy, the success or failure of any business should come from the value of the products or services it offers – not from government handouts or bailouts paid for by taxpayers" or "Free speech and a culture of humility and toleration allow us to engage, through civil debate, people with whom we disagree. We must try to help and learn from one another, rather than hurt and silence each other."

So, as much as I consider myself a lifelong lowercase libertarian, IMNSHO voting Libertarian Party is a vote for a kinder, gentler Fascism. Sorry 'bout that.
 
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the reality of "welfare" in Michigan & elsewhere

Mike Malloy called Bill Clinton "the best Republican president we've ever had." Bill oversaw legislative changes that the GOP had long wanted, such as carving big chunks out of welfare programs in 1996, & turning it into TANF -- temporary assistance for needy families -- & doling it out to the states in big block grants, which were then divided up amongst the needy.

Or so you might believe, if you're suceptible to Doublespeak.

TANF supposedly would save taxpayers gazillions because it removed the Feds from sending out checks to individuals. In that it appears to have succeeded. However, that can't be a primary criterion, else the Feds could achieve the same result from burning the money in a big pile.

It's TANF's 20th anniversary, & today the weekly Marketplace Money financial program on Public Radio is looking at how these moneys are actually spent in Michigan, a cash-strapped state with deeply troubled cities such as Detroit & Flint & Lansing. First, some background.
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It's amazing to find out how (1) the rules are circuitously "interpreted" to support questionable programs, & (2) how little of the block grants actually goes to directly assist poor people.
Alaska spends 91 percent of its TANF dollars on the central goals of welfare reform: cash assistance, promoting work, and providing child care.

South Carolina, on the other hand, only spends 16 percent on these core goals of welfare reform, and nearly 77 percent in a minimally defined “other” category.
Your State On Welfare
The four purposes of TANF --
  1. assisting needy families so children can be cared for in their own homes or the home of relatives;
  2. reducing the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;
  3. preventing out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and
  4. encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
Considering the site we're on, you may have noticed the "two-parent" thing. ;) But the supposed intent of "welfare" -- ensuring that people short on cash can find adequate food & housing & maybe have their kids cared for while obtaining jobs (sometimes called core welfare) -- is buried in #1, & the rest is largely social engineering, thought-shaping. (Jeez -- promoting marriage??? that's like marketing daylight.)

And that's where TANF falls to crap.
7-24-12tanf-f13.jpg

The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities says that when it comes to fulfilling a stated purpose of helping poor families, the block-grant structure is not merely inadequare, but fundamentally incompatible, & will readily fail "where, due to economic or other circumstances, the size of a state’s poor population rises."
An argument often used to support block grants is that states are better at making decisions about how to help families in need. Yet under TANF, many states shifted substantial amounts intended to help poor families to other uses ... in ways that often have left many of the most disadvantaged families without much of a safety net -- and without the employment resources that might help them gain a foothold in the labor market. In every state, TANF plays a markedly smaller role in providing cash assistance to very poor families to help them meet basic needs than AFDC did. Moreover, states have used only a modest share of their TANF resources to help individuals find employment, and few states have invested the necessary resources to help poor parents with the most serious employment barriers find and maintain work.

The tremendous flexibility states have had to use TANF funds for other than core welfare reform purposes has meant that Congress has sent a significant amount of funding to states with little accountability or even knowledge about how much of the money is being used. Under TANF, much of the spending has been used to supplant existing state spending, fill state budget holes, and/or fund new spending outside of welfare reform. Moreover, the difficulty inherent in changing block grant allocations across the states has meant that over time, Congress is providing money that increasingly is not being distributed in a manner that best furthers TANF’s original purposes. States are required to report how they spend their federal TANF block grant dollars and how they are meeting their state MOE requirement, but they must provide detailed data only on those program recipients who receive cash assistance, which constitutes a relatively small part of TANF/MOE spending
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I've seen some damned goofy Lefty social programs in my time, but when there's the smell of cash in the air, it's the Rightists who crowd right up to the trough, & these pigs ain't too proud to cloak themselves in God & Flag at every turn.

First, you can keep up with the Marketplace podcasts (to date) as there's no transcriptions yet:
The Uncertain Hour home
S01-1 -- meet The Magic Bureaucrat
S01-2 -- two lives changed by welfare reform
S-01-3 -- What's love (styles) got to do with it?
S01-4 -- Everything but the kitchen sink

In Oklahoma & other states, middle-income couples can take church-centric classes on how to communicate better. These work to fulfill TANF goals 2-4, after all.

Meanwhile, poor broke Michigan "spends about $100 million a year in TANF dollars on college scholarships -- and many recipients are from families that earn more than $100,000 year." Because that's the same thing as granting a poor single mother enough support (like childcare) to find a decent job, right...?
Michigan is one of eight states that spends less than 25 percent of its total welfare funds on the issues that were at the center of the welfare reform debate: cash assistance, work support and child care, all to help welfare recipients get jobs. The largest share of its spending, 33 percent — nearly $500 million in 2014 — went to out-of-wedlock pregnancy prevention
...which you can do by bullying young women -- pregnant or not -- into marriage. Again, cash for Rightist brainwa-- whoops, educational programs.

And since it's an anti-abortion state, & also against birth control in general, & proper sex education too, that means funding to crypto-religious groups to scare kids away from having sex (because that's worked so well through the ages), & funding church-based groups to "support" pregnant women... which some of us might see as kinda working directly against TANF point #3.
Out of Wedlock Pregnancy Prevention & Two Parent Family Formation/Maintenance, $500m
Child Care, $30.9m
From morbid curiosity, I looked up Minnesota, a notoriously Lefty Liberal Populist state, & was pleased to learn that childcare was second (behind Refundable Tax Credits, a get-a-damn-job carrot that works really well here) followed by cash assistance, & that OWPP/TPFF/M was ninth of nine, a mere $1.48m -- about 0.3% of what Michigan throws away, & less than half what North Dakota (25 miles from me, home to ~15% of my co-workers) spends even though they get a much smaller block grant.
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This is all an outgrowth of a GOP social-control strategy launched in the mid-'80s: since we hate welfare, then we can accelerate "bleeding the beast to death" by lining the pockets of our constituents & supporters, & therefore graft & favoritism is both right & moral.

Better still if they can both cripple AND corrupt the system, because they can work up to pronouncing the whole thing irreversibply damaged & end it altogether.
 
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For me, the GOP convention has managed to be both entertaining & useless.

I once said that talking politics with a Teabagger was like teaching algebra to a chicken.

I am now convinced that talking politics with a Trumpinista is like expecting a chicken to teach algebra.

Easily 90% of the Republican platform is "he's not Hillary," which is clearly -- to anyone sane -- not exactly an endorsement of Trump.

The other 10% is "just vote for Donald & then he'll work his magic."

A few minutes ago, Trump's son told the crowd how it was high time to stop letting rich, entitled people run the government...

:confused:
 
Politics was always a bit of a mystery to me through the years, until I got to about middle age, by which time I had enough sense of history and philosophy that I could begin to wrap my brain around the madness which is American politics and make actual sense of it. By the time this happened, I realized it was all for show, a sham, a farce, a propaganda hoax....

By the time the G. W. Bush fiasco was over I had really gotten an education. It was much worse than I had realized it ever could be. People would go to war at the drop of a hat without knowing a thing and guided mostly by a sold out fraud-hoax which was what had become of "mainstream media" by this time.

I didn't think it could sink any lower, but now we have both Trump and Hillary as our only "viable" two candidates. I doubt that I can sink to voting for either, though I will acknowledge that Trump is an especially egregious fellow.

I no longer have any hope for America, insofar as politics goes. Those days are done.:(
 
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