Quote from: Julie Marie on August 10, 2011, 01:21:12 PMI'm calling SS & Med a return on my investment.  No way am I giving them an out.

Good luck with that.

Quote from: Sarah Louise on August 10, 2011, 01:26:56 PM
They need to quit lying

And especially good luck with THAT.

Quote from: Julie Marie on August 08, 2011, 08:21:52 AM
No doubt the US citizens are still too blind, too uneducated, and still too lazy, to do their homework and make the right decision for themselves and their country.  The evidence of that is everywhere.  So the thinking citizens will be strapped with more of these blood sucking politicians until we hit bottom.  Then, maybe enough voters will wake up and vote them out.

Though the American people occasionally rise up at the polls to vent their discontent with "Capitol Hill",  business resumes as usual. Ask someone if they voted in the last election, any election, and the response you get is "it doesn't matter". That's why things by and large remain the same. Nowadays we have the ability to monitor to some extent what's going in our government through the Internet, we don't see everything but there's enough information to stay informed.

Money talks...Obama proved how much money one can raise by going directly to the people and letting them give what they can, something Hillary Clinton didn't realize until it was too late. But people get caught up in the day to day things of living and the rest is just 6 O'Clock News. Once again, did you vote? One vote doesn't make a difference but many do.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Abraham Lincoln

Its about action...and money, do ya have enough money to take action or enough action to get take the money?

Do you know where your Voter's Registration card is?

Has SS stopped issuing checks?  Nope.  Mater of fact it's been working exactly as designed - and more so - for over 60 years now. 

There is this bump going on as the last vestiges of the old way of thinking get on their (medicare provided) Rascal scooters (because they are too fat to walk anymore) and go out and do the Tea'tard thing.  But they are dying, one or two at the top election cycles and they will be all but gone and so too will their antiquated values. 

And I think it's all going to work out in the end, largely because people who like to work are working at it.  Is there going to be a level of sacrifice required?  Yes, and I think a lot of people (enough anyway) are going to be willing to make it.  I'm pretty much content that no matter what I'm not really going to retire (I don't want to either) and it's going to be necessary for most of the Baby Boomers to skip that (well those of us who do work) or push that retirement deal way out and balance the system.  That's fine, I took a lot of my retirement when I was in my 20's and could still enjoy the things in life I really like.  (Why the hell would I want to retire at a point in my life where my dick has already retired before me?).  The other groups that's going to have to bite it are people who are now about 25-35 who are not (perhaps ever) going to get real jobs because of the non-retirement deal (i.e. - I should be rights be training my replacement now, when I'm about 55, so that in 10 years they can have my job, but it's not happening) - and because of the Baby Boomer reality, which is that they have been the most productive generation ever, which sounds weird, but is true.

Quote from: tekla on August 11, 2011, 09:28:15 AM
The other groups that's going to have to bite it are people who are now about 25-35 who are not (perhaps ever) going to get real jobs because of the non-retirement deal (i.e. - I should be rights be training my replacement now, when I'm about 55, so that in 10 years they can have my job, but it's not happening) - and because of the Baby Boomer reality, which is that they have been the most productive generation ever, which sounds weird, but is true.

That's the very sad truth... I'm going to be 34 next month and only once have I had a job that paid over $30k and none of my jobs had room for growth.  It also didn't help that many in my age group graduated college in the midst of the dot-com bust and the 2001 recession.  Got my first degree in June 2001, weeks after the three biggest companies in my field shut their doors and put a few thousand seasoned professionals into the job market.  I was turned down for an $8/hour job, because the person who wound up getting hired was someone at the company I did my internship with, who was previously making $250k/year.  My age group got skipped.  Our ships never came in.  Out of all my long-time friends, only three are currently employed, two in jobs that don't pay living wages, and one who actually makes a living because he's almost 20-year military.  We really got skipped.  By the time the jobs returned, we were out of work long enough to be obsolete.

So I did whatever crap jobs I could and decided in 2007 to go back to school for another degree so that I could find a job and make some money.  I graduated last December.  Been unemployed since state law forced me out of my $12/hour job in May.  This is working out like a house on fire...

Know where your Voter's Reg Card is?

Quote from: SandraJane on August 11, 2011, 12:51:46 PM
Know where your Voter's Reg Card is?

On the top of a stack of papers sitting next to the arm of my couch.   Like really!  I know exactly where it is.  Saw it this morning as I was getting ready to go, actually.  I haven't missed a single election since I became eligible to vote in '96.

You're right though, it sucks and the house is burning! Definitely no trouble with expression. The thread started  about who's runnin' for prez, SS, Medicare and burning houses later...

Thanks

Quote from: Zoë Natasha on August 11, 2011, 09:47:41 AM
So I did whatever crap jobs I could and decided in 2007 to go back to school for another degree so that I could find a job and make some money.  I graduated last December.  Been unemployed since state law forced me out of my $12/hour job in May.  This is working out like a house on fire...

Adding to what Zoe said, the years of a long and enjoyable retirement are just that...long gone.  Those of that are lucky enough to be working have seen what little we'd started to save for retirement completely gutted and no apparent hope for recovery.  Retirement will come when our bodies are so broken as to prevent working another day.  Death probably won't be too far behind that.

Meanwhile, our politicians, that we elected are worth nothing more then their talking points and their soundbites.  People have literally been destroyed by this recession, many of who will never recover, and yet the politicians are more concerned about their talking points then they are creating real solutions.

latest Gallup poll (numbers from memory):

Percent who say congress doesn't deserve re-election 76%
Percent who say their own representatives do: 54%

THIS is why you don't see much change.

I'm doing research on every candidate. Where they get their support from? Their voting record? Their positions on issues? I WILL NOT vote for a Democrat or Republican again. I'm looking at REAL progressive candidates.

That and the fact that about 80% of the money for both parties comes from the same sources, corporate American buying both sides, because it's the only smart thing to do.

Do your parties & candidates have to reveal were their money is coming from?
In Oz they are supposed to but 'they' keep the water as murky as possible.

Cindy

The TV news tonight had a story on Michelle Bachmann's statement that women should be submissive totheir husbands.  It was all a bit bizarre, and more than a little worrying that the other Republican candidates seemed to think that the question shouldn't have been asked.
Maybe her husband should be running instead?
I would probably consider myself to be somewhere around the Left end of the Republican Party, and all I can come up with in their favour is that if Sarah Palin  put the hard word on me I wouldn't say no!
Karen.

Michelle Bachman elevates stupid to a new level.  Seriously, she makes Sarah Palin look like a candidate for MENSA.

It's almost this simple to me: If you really want the job, you're disqualified from ever holding it.

Quote from: Cindy James on August 13, 2011, 02:46:29 AM
Do your parties & candidates have to reveal were their money is coming from?

Not any more.  Our conservative majority Supreme Court made sure of that.  So anyone from anywhere can donate to the U.S. political parties and candidates.

It's funny, because you sure wouldn't get an atheist running for the Republican slot, not a Jew or Hindu either.  Nope, the Republican Party back in 1980 asked (begged, pleaded, did everything except get down on their knees and suck 'em) the true believing and feeling left out of it part of the Xian community in the US, which has a huge evangelical segment, a huge fundamentalist segment, a very large Pentecostal/Four-Square segment, and a lot of one-off 'minister by mail' joints in their fold.  In the past this group didn't matter much.  A huge segment of it never voted, didn't register - they didn't think it was proper to put the Lord into the political sector.  The Catholics and the Mormons voted, in large numbers too, as did the main stream Xians your Methodists, Episcopalians, Unitarians, and the like.  But the far-right fringe - which has a long standing historical tradition in the United States, it runs deep in the nation's psyche - was always (until Reagan) out in the cold.

America has a problem: It's filled with people who take the Bible seriously. America has a blessing: It's filled with people who take the Bible seriously. How does this blessing coexist with the curse derived from the same source: the Bible? The answer is that the Bible is a curse or a blessing depending on who is doing the interpreting. Sometimes belief in the Bible leads to building a hospital. Sometimes it leads to justifying perpetual war and empire building. Same book—different interpretation.

And the worst seem to have crept out of the woodwork and are attempting to take over.  Known as Reconstructionists (also:Dominionism)   seeks to reconstruct "our fallen society" along biblical lines.  Specificially they seek to apply "the whole Word of God" to all aspects of human life: "It is not only our duty as individuals, families and churches to be Christian, but it is also the duty of the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere to be under Christ the King. Nothing is exempt from His dominion. We must live by His Word, not our own."

In this vission, all nations on earth should be obedient to the ancient Jewish/Christian version of "God's Law," so that the world will experience "God's blessings." Biblical salvation will then turn back the consequences of the Fall, and we'll be on our way to the New Eden. To achieve this "turning back," coercion must be used by the faithful to stop evildoers, who are, by definition, anyone not obeying all of God's Laws as defined by the Calvinist and Reconstructionist interpretation of the Bible.

Now, given that Sara and Michelle both have ties with such groups, the question is how much is OK, or proper to ask someone about their faith and how much their faith controls their lives.  Now - and we know this because they pound this sand up our ass all the time - some of them LOVE talking about it whenever it's convenient and/or it's pandering to the audience with their religious twaddle, but ask them any serious question about it and it's off limits and out of bounds.

As indeed it may well be.  Custom tends to prohibit such questions (Kennedy got some, but he's about the only one), there is a strict 'no religious test' for public office part of the Constitution that works against such questions and lines of attack.

Do know this: If that debate had been on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow or Chris Mathews had asked it heads would have exploded. But that it was an 'in' debate (Republicans Only) on friendly ground (FOX) it has opened the door to others asking the question.  And that's going to be hard to put back in the bag now the the pubs asked it of themselves.


Oh yeah, we now have Rick Perry running.  He's gov of a state that's undergoing like the worst drought in memory.  It's real hot and dry.  Yet, he denies global warming theory and other scientific solutions and supports having prayer meetings to end the drought.  Is anyone going to question him on this 'policy'?  (So far no answer to the prayers, Texas is still bone dry.  Though perhaps EVEN MORE people are praying for the drought to continue.  You never really know with prayer.)

And... Bachmann wins the Iowa straw poll.  Gee, there's a shock.

http://news.yahoo.com/michele-bachmann-wins-iowa-republican-poll-004004700.html

It's going to be scary for anybody not of the flock (or those shunned by the flock) if the biggest religious zealots wind up getting through.  As a far-left progressive, I've been incredibly disenchanted with both major parties for a long time, and I really don't like the idea of having to once again vote for the lesser of two evils in order to keep the greater evil out.

Please note, I'm not painting people of a religious stripe as "evil."  Not by any means.  As Tekla pointed out, religion has been used for great things.  But the people who boast about their religion and crave power have nothing good to offer anybody who's not like them.  And the moment they try to legislate everyone else out of existence because they won (or stole) the gavel, then we'll truly have something to fear.

I'll admit, this crew makes Dubya look as moderate as Colin Powell.

(Obligatory disclaimer: this is strictly my opinion and does not reflect on the rest of the site staff).

Huntsman is pretty moderate.  That's why he hasn't a chance.

He was governor when I first moved here and he never once infuriated me.  That's not something I can't say about many Republican politicians.

Quote from: Julie Marie on August 13, 2011, 06:52:14 PM
Not any more.  Our conservative majority Supreme Court made sure of that.  So anyone from anywhere can donate to the U.S. political parties and candidates.

"Corporations are people, my friend."