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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1

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Hm. This'll be something to keep an eye on: Oregon is trying to reform its public university system

“Oregon plan eliminates tuition and student loans.” “Plan would make tuition free at Oregon colleges.”"Oregon plan would eliminate tuition at public universities.”

Those are three headlines for stories about a bill currently on the desk of Gov. John Kitzhaber (D). All of them are inaccurate. What the bill, passed unanimously by both houses of the Oregon legislature, actually does is instruct the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to design a pilot program — which would require additional legislative action to actually be put in place — to evaluate a college funding system known as “Pay It Forward.” And that system — which, again, the bill being considered would not put into effect for any students — would only “eliminate tuition” in the most technical of senses.

Rather, it provides a way to pay back tuition costs as a percentage of income, rather than as fixed payment installments on a loan package. The plan was proposed in a policy paper late last year by Audrey Peck and John Burbank of the Economic Opportunity Institute in the context of Washington State. “Under Pay It Forward, students pay no upfront tuition fees to attend college,” Peck and Burbank explain. “Instead, they pay a small percentage of their adjusted gross income (AGI) for a number of years after college: 0.75% per year of community college, or 1% per year of university, for 25 years. Payments are placed in a trust fund that covers the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no tuition fees.”​
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
I never tire of seeing this:

imagesizer


http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/07/10/19394847-bush-still-losing-the-blame-game?lite
 
Do any politically active republicans believe what they say aside from "don't tax the rich"?

Ryan, Paul, Cruz, etc. Every single Republican politician to say something dumb about rape/women's bodies. All of the ones planning to try to default the country for no reason. I think a lot are sincere, probably. And they're kind of rubes being egged on by the ones who've woken up and started agitating insincerely for personal gain, so it's kind of sad, but for being sad it's no less terrible and terrifying.
 
Hm. This'll be something to keep an eye on: Oregon is trying to reform its public university system

“Oregon plan eliminates tuition and student loans.” “Plan would make tuition free at Oregon colleges.”"Oregon plan would eliminate tuition at public universities.”

Those are three headlines for stories about a bill currently on the desk of Gov. John Kitzhaber (D). All of them are inaccurate. What the bill, passed unanimously by both houses of the Oregon legislature, actually does is instruct the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to design a pilot program — which would require additional legislative action to actually be put in place — to evaluate a college funding system known as “Pay It Forward.” And that system — which, again, the bill being considered would not put into effect for any students — would only “eliminate tuition” in the most technical of senses.

Rather, it provides a way to pay back tuition costs as a percentage of income, rather than as fixed payment installments on a loan package. The plan was proposed in a policy paper late last year by Audrey Peck and John Burbank of the Economic Opportunity Institute in the context of Washington State. “Under Pay It Forward, students pay no upfront tuition fees to attend college,” Peck and Burbank explain. “Instead, they pay a small percentage of their adjusted gross income (AGI) for a number of years after college: 0.75% per year of community college, or 1% per year of university, for 25 years. Payments are placed in a trust fund that covers the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no tuition fees.”​

This sounds good. I like how the liberal states are going to be doing things that sow the seed for future national reforms. Healthcare is another example. Just like the turn of the 20th century reforms in many western states lead to progressive national reforms (women's sufferage, income tax).
 

ivysaur12

Banned

I don't understand this argument at all.

We're not going to get immigration reform. What a myopic caucus. And this is why:

And second, the Democratic insistence on its long-held prioritization of a path to citizenship for most undocumented immigrants is problematic.

Gang of Eight leader and New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that must include a pathway to citizenship in any House legislation or Democrats will kill it.

That didn’t sit well with GOP rank-and-file.

"For him to him to say basically, 'If you can't do my way then we're not going anything at all,' I think would be very sad in the process," said Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma.

Labrador said earlier Wednesday on MSNBC that the ultimatum means the burden will lie on Democrats if the legislation stalls.

“If Chuck Schumer is not going to accept anything unless he gets 100 percent of what he wants, then he's the one who's killing immigration reform.”

The Democrats SHOULDN'T move on a pathway to citizenship. That's the only part of the bill they should desire to keep, if anything. 100% of what Chuck Schumer wants my ass.

Why don't the Republicans realize they're the ones with the most to lose if this doesn't pass? Do they really believe in the "lost white voter" syndrome?
 
I don't understand this argument at all.

We're not going to get immigration reform. What a myopic caucus. And this is why:



The Democrats SHOULDN'T move on a pathway to citizenship. That's the only part of the bill they should desire to keep, if anything. 100% of what Chuck Schumer wants my ass.

Why don't the Republicans realize they're the ones with the most to lose if this doesn't pass? Do they really believe in the "lost white voter" syndrome?

This is the same party that fully believes they lost because they weren't conservative enough.
 
I don't understand this argument at all.

We're not going to get immigration reform. What a myopic caucus. And this is why:



The Democrats SHOULDN'T move on a pathway to citizenship. That's the only part of the bill they should desire to keep, if anything. 100% of what Chuck Schumer wants my ass.

Why don't the Republicans realize they're the ones with the most to lose if this doesn't pass? Do they really believe in the "lost white voter" syndrome?

I wish the media would call out the GOP's stance here.

What exactly is the point to imimgration reform if there is no pathway to citizenship. Isn't this like 90% of immigration reform - giving those here now a pathway to permanent residency?

They're basically saying "Shumer's position that we must include immigration reform in an immigration reform bill means the democrats are responsible for the death of immigration reform." Fucking idiots.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
How did I miss this amusing article by Krugman?

That is, think of all these economists and wannabe economists as inhabitants of a land we’ll call Derpistan. Everything there is derp; but it’s not undifferentiated derp. Instead, all Derpistan is divided into three parts: Inner Derpistan, Middle Derpistan, and Outer Derpistan.

Middle Derpistan is where most of the country’s inhabitants used to live.It had what looked like highly fertile intellectual soil, easy to cultivate with a few tools taken from the intro textbook: printing money causes inflation! Running deficits drives up interest rates! It’s the 1970s all over again! A lot of people settled in comfortably there circa 2009, and waited for their crops to come in.

It turned out, however, that this wasn’t such a good place to settle down after all. Some of us tried to warn them, on both the interest rate and the inflation front; things aren’t that simple in a liquidity trap. But they didn’t listen; and as inflation and soaring rates kept not coming and not coming, they found themselves like farmers on the Great Plains in the 1930s, watching their chosen ground turn into dust.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/regions-of-derpistan/

More at the link.
 
According to Republicans, immigration reform means stronger borders, and that's it.

Dat outreach.

These people are truly subhuman. I'd offer you asylum, Dax, but I'm in Florida. It's only marginally better.

In fairness, a pregnant women riding a motorcycle could cause an abortion from all the vibrations; the uterus cannot handle it.

- some North Carolinian Republican
 
Another area where bipartisan work could be done. There's no reason for military and VA payments to be so fucked up. Hiring more people to address claim backlogs and modernizing the system, based on Obama's 2012 campaign metrics, would work wonders. This seems like the type of thing Obama could get W Bush, Clinton, McCain, and others to stand on stage with him on.

But instead we get various campaign focused pet issues that DOA.
Yeah. God forbid these guys take a day to fix something.

I love how these clowns pay lip service to the troops but something like this doesn't get national attention and get fixed.
 
In other news, I highly suggest checking out Detroit: an American autopsy. I finished it last night. Is a very interesting look at Detroit and Detroit is a microcosm of what's happening across the nation. The book hit home for me because my family is from Michigan. It's worth a read.

I'm now deep into The Unwinding. Not sure what I think of it yet.

And I started reading the Skies belong to us, which is about the plane hijackings in the 60s and 70's. I can't help but think of empty vessel's av every time I crack it open. Lol
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
So Ed Kilgore was wondering the same thing I was yesterday, why the Washington Free Beacon was slamming Rand Paul:

he second-day story about Rand Paul and the neo-Confederate history of his book co-author and social media director Jack Hunter involves the motives of the Washington Free Beacon in publishing Alana Goodman’s highly negative piece on Hunter. At the paleo-connish American Conservative, where Hunter has been a contributor, Daniel McCarthy says it’s simple:

"The Washington Free Beacon is the neoconservative answer to the Daily Caller, and it made its dubious mark earlier this year with a sustained stream of attacks against Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense. Why the Free Beacon would devote so much attention to Hagel is no secret: Hagel was a somewhat late but nonetheless prominent critic of the Iraq War and America’s foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Free Beacon is now giving the same treatment to Jack Hunter, who has written for The American Conservative and today serves as Sen. Rand Paul’s director of new media. Coincidentally or not, Hunter has also been an eloquent critic of the foreign policy supported by the Free Beacon’s ideological family."

Huh. I have to admit, I didn’t know the Free Beacon (often called the “Free Bacon” by its lefty detractors) had any ideology beyond Breitbartian savagery towards the heathen liberals. Yes, its founder and editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti, is an alumnus of the neocon redoubt The Weekly Standard, and is Bill Kristol’s son-in-law. But Continetti is also closely identified with Sarah Palin, and anyone who can divine any coherent ideology in her opportunistic shrieking is seeing something I can’t see.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_07/rand_paul_and_his_confederate045745.php

LOL @ the bolded. Gotta remember that one...
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
You know, I accidentally bought maple bacon the other day, and while I was originally upset with myself, I decided to just roll with it, and by god, it's delicious! The smell is heavenly, too.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
How did I miss this amusing article by Krugman?



http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/regions-of-derpistan/

More at the link.

That is, think of all these economists and wannabe economists as inhabitants of a land we’ll call Derpistan. Everything there is derp; but it’s not undifferentiated derp. Instead, all Derpistan is divided into three parts: Inner Derpistan, Middle Derpistan, and Outer Derpistan.

Krugman really goes all out with the word "derp" there. It's just a silly word that the south park creators invented and popularized, and here we have a nobel prize winning economist using it like everyone's familiar with it. I especially appreciate the smart/dumb mix with the phrase "undifferentiated derp". Never thought I'd ever hear that one.
 
I don't understand this argument at all.

We're not going to get immigration reform. What a myopic caucus. And this is why:



The Democrats SHOULDN'T move on a pathway to citizenship. That's the only part of the bill they should desire to keep, if anything. 100% of what Chuck Schumer wants my ass.

Why don't the Republicans realize they're the ones with the most to lose if this doesn't pass? Do they really believe in the "lost white voter" syndrome?
They're trying to gut the immigration reform by removing it's central piece of legislation, and crying foul when they are told they cannot do it. It's no longer reform, just slight modification to legal immigration.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Here's some surprisingly good news. It seems Dodd-Frank has some teeth in it after all:

Wall Street, of course, has been mercilessly hammering bureaucrats at federal regulatory agencies like the FDIC to write the least restrictive capital requirements. And cynics have been betting, not without reason, that the agencies would cave. But yesterday, according to the New York Times, the FDIC, the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed significantly stiffer rules than most observers were expecting, rules which would require the nation’s eight biggest banks to find $89 billion more in capital.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_07/the_death_of_doddfrank_has_bee045736.php

I'm glad there's some sort of defense in the bill. If we have another financial crash at the end of Obama's term, it'll be pretty difficult for his successor to get elected.

Oh, and also would suck for the global economy again too.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Here's some surprisingly good news. It seems Dodd-Frank has some teeth in it after all:



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_07/the_death_of_doddfrank_has_bee045736.php

I'm glad there's some sort of defense in the bill. If we have another financial crash at the end of Obama's term, it'll be pretty difficult for his successor to get elected.

Oh, and also would suck for the global economy again too.
Yeah, I was reading about this the other day in the Daily Business Review, which is surprisingly left-leaning for a business paper. Of course, it's for South Florida, so that probably has something to do with it. It's a good read, though.
 
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- To cope with budget troubles, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration has steadily depleted a trust fund for elderly services created with an infusion of federal cash a decade ago.

When Jindal took office, the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly contained more than $830 million. Now, the balance has been cut in half to $410 million, according to the treasurer's office.

By the end of the current fiscal year, it is projected to sink to $250 million or less.


Officials involved with creating the fund expected the state to leave the principal intact and mainly use the interest and investment earnings, so the trust fund would provide a stream of funding for decades to pay for nursing home care and other health care services.

Instead, the Jindal administration — with approval from lawmakers through the budget process — keeps dipping into the principal to plug health care budget gaps and finance Medicaid services at nursing homes.

At the current rate, the money could run dry by the end of Jindal's current term, leaving his successor with a hefty health care financing gap.

"I was surprised and disappointed to learn that this trust fund had been depleted to its current level," said Secretary of State Tom Schedler, a Republican who sponsored the legislation creating the elderly trust fund in 2000 when he was a state senator.

"The loser is, of course, the taxpayer of Louisiana and most certainly the frail and elderly senior citizens for which it was intended to serve," he said this week.

One $122 million payment from the trust fund was tied to a federal determination that the state received too much money when it built up the fund.

The rest has been used to stop cuts to the rates paid to private nursing homes for caring for Medicaid patients, said Department of Health and Hospitals Undersecretary Jerry Phillips.

"We continue to use the trust fund as a way to maintain those nursing home services, because nursing homes are one of those services that are core to the Medicaid program," he said.

To get into the elderly trust fund, DHH assigned cuts to nursing homes, which triggers the ability to use the principal to "rebase" nursing home payments to cover their costs. It also has been used to increase nursing home rates in the Medicaid program.

In the budget year that began July 1, nursing homes are estimated to receive $893 million in state and federal Medicaid payments. Of that, $184 million is slated to come from the elderly trust fund, used to draw down about $500 million in federal matching money, Phillips said.

Three-quarters of the Medicaid spending on 29,000 nursing home residents is tied to use of the declining trust fund.

"It's analogous to paying your household bills out of your savings account after you've stopped working and you don't have any income," said Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project, an organization that has raised concerns about the use of the trust fund.
http://news.yahoo.com/jindal-administration-draining-elderly-trust-190223735.html

New Orleans should see some relief next year with their medicaid expansion.

OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT JINDAL SAID NO TO THAT.

1. raid elderly trust fund to pay for medicaid
2. reject medicaid expansion
3. ???
4. Elected President in 2016!
 
http://news.yahoo.com/jindal-administration-draining-elderly-trust-190223735.html

New Orleans should see some relief next year with their medicaid expansion.

OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT JINDAL SAID NO TO THAT.

1. raid elderly trust fund to pay for medicaid
2. reject medicaid expansion
3. ???
4. Elected President in 2016!

He's also been taking money from disabled people. I don't even know what his long game is anymore. He's too toxic for national politics and too awkward for Fox.
 

KtSlime

Member
Holy shit.

Do these idiots realize their base are old people?

They'll (the elderly) be dead soon and have no base other than the rich. But if they have their way, that's all they'll need. They get their agenda accomplished (most of it anyway) regardless of who is power - plutocracy.
 

Tamanon

Banned
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/r...meys-fbi-nomination-over-drones.php?ref=fpblg

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Rand Paul is threatening to block approval of President Barack Obama’s nominee as the next FBI director until he gets answers about drone use inside the United States.

The Kentucky Republican says he has written the FBI twice seeking the agency’s rules for domestic drone use. He says he has told the FBI he’ll put a hold on James Comey’s nomination until his questions are answered.

Comey spent 15 years as federal prosecutor before serving in Bush administration. Obama has nominated him to replace outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Paul cited Mueller’s June 19 testimony about FBI drone use in the U.S.

Paul told The Associated Press on Wednesday his questions are “reasonable” but have been ignored thus far.

He says Americans should know what privacy protections exist.

At it again on the drones. Gotta keep in the news just enough for 2016.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/jindal-administration-draining-elderly-trust-190223735.html

New Orleans should see some relief next year with their medicaid expansion.

OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT JINDAL SAID NO TO THAT.

1. raid elderly trust fund to pay for medicaid
2. reject medicaid expansion
3. ???
4. Elected President in 2016!

This and the attempted hospice care cuts will make him DOA, especially in Iowa. Has any candidate talked a better game with nothing to show for it (well, outside of 2007/2008 Obama amirite)? He constantly talks about how the GOP needs to modernize and stop being "stupid" yet nearly every action he has taken as governor has been stupid. In fact, many have been too stupid even for Louisiana republicans, who shitcanned his ludicrous income tax cut.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Actually, NC > Florida because of the variety in the landscape. Asheville is amazing. But I appreciate that sentiment.
I'm in the genderless dystopia of South Florida. The variety in the landscape is just fine. Particularly at the beach.
 
Bikinis are dumb.

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Unless you go full nude, otherwise

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
D.C. Council approves ‘living wage’ bill over Wal-Mart ultimatum


If signed by the mayor, the D.C. Council measure would require retailers with corporate sales of $1 billion or more and operating in spaces 75,000 square feet or larger to pay their employees no less than $12.50 an hour. The city’s minimum wage is $8.25.

...

“The question here is a living wage; it’s not whether Wal-Mart comes or stays,” said council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large), a lead backer of the legislation, who added that the city did not need to kowtow to threats. “We’re at a point where we don’t need retailers. Retailers need us.”

...

“Nothing has changed from our perspective,” Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo said in a statement after the vote, reiterating that the company will abandon plans for three unbuilt stores and “review the financial and legal implications” of not opening three others under construction.

Good for them not backing down. Seriously who cares if walmart does stay or leave? The hole they leave behind will just get filled by other employers anyhow. Even if it does increase unemployment some, we can't bend over backwards and make everyone's life shitty in pursuit of that unemployment like that's the only metric of happiness society can have.

I bet it's more of a political play than a strict business one anyhow. Walmart could probably still make profits with the higher salary costs, but can't be seen doing that, else the rest of the country decides to follow suit. Of course the ones that actually would cost money to close down aren't closing down yet.

I'd rather they'd include more businesses in this bill, but its still a very good win for labor rights.
 
This and the attempted hospice care cuts will make him DOA, especially in Iowa. Has any candidate talked a better game with nothing to show for it (well, outside of 2007/2008 Obama amirite)? He constantly talks about how the GOP needs to modernize and stop being "stupid" yet nearly every action he has taken as governor has been stupid. In fact, many have been too stupid even for Louisiana republicans, who shitcanned his ludicrous income tax cut.

He flip-flopped on that, actually.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
D.C. Council approves ‘living wage’ bill over Wal-Mart ultimatum




Good for them not backing down. Seriously who cares if walmart does stay or leave? The hole they leave behind will just get filled by other employers anyhow. Even if it does increase unemployment some, we can't bend over backwards and make everyone's life shitty in pursuit of that unemployment like that's the only metric of happiness society can have.

I bet it's more of a political play than a strict business one anyhow. Walmart could probably still make profits with the higher salary costs, but can't be seen doing that, else the rest of the country decides to follow suit. Of course the ones that actually would cost money to close down aren't closing down yet.

I'd rather they'd include more businesses in this bill, but its still a very good win for labor rights.

It'll be better for them in the long run as Walmart tends to put local businesses out of business and the jobs they do replace them with have very low wages, bad hours and next to no benefits, if any at all.
 

Aaron

Member
I don't think all of them think it'll stop it. I think that their main concern is that if we allow abortion we're morally condoning it. God doesn't take too kindly to that.
Except in the Bible God conducted more abortions than any doctor ever could, and he went way into the late term. Not that I expect Christians to know what's actually in their holy book.
 
D.C. Council approves ‘living wage’ bill over Wal-Mart ultimatum




Good for them not backing down. Seriously who cares if walmart does stay or leave? The hole they leave behind will just get filled by other employers anyhow. Even if it does increase unemployment some, we can't bend over backwards and make everyone's life shitty in pursuit of that unemployment like that's the only metric of happiness society can have.

I bet it's more of a political play than a strict business one anyhow. Walmart could probably still make profits with the higher salary costs, but can't be seen doing that, else the rest of the country decides to follow suit. Of course the ones that actually would cost money to close down aren't closing down yet.

I'd rather they'd include more businesses in this bill, but its still a very good win for labor rights.
There are better ways to reduce unemployment and increase jobs in DC. This seems really vindictive and not for the best. Why not like yglesias points too have a more modest universal wage increase?

Not that I'm on Walmarts side. They should pay they're people better, but targeting certain businesses rather than business practices isn't something I like. And I don't think other retailers will just fill up Walmarts absence. More people will be unemployed.
 
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