War On The Poor: Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash
They're not just crazy, they're evil -- and un-Christian, should they have the audacity to claim otherwise. If only we could force them to live like this, they wouldn't last a week:
St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.
On March 15, Angel Buechner of the Welfare Rights Committee testified in front of the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee on House File 171. Buechner told committee members, “We would like to address the provision that makes it illegal for MFIP [one of Minnesota’s welfare programs] families to withdraw cash from the cash portion of the MFIP grant - and in fact, appears to make it illegal for MFIP families to have any type of money at all in their pockets. How do you expect people to take care of business like paying bills such as lights, gas, water, trash and phone?”
House File 171 would make it so that families on MFIP - and disabled single adults on General Assistance and Minnesota Supplemental Aid - could not have their cash grants in cash or put into a checking account. Rather, they could only use a state-issued debit card at special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card.
The bill also calls for unconstitutional residency requirements, not allowing the debit card to be used across state lines and other provisions that the Welfare Rights Committee and others consider unacceptable.
Buechner testified, “We’ll leave you with this. It is not right to punish a whole group because of the supposed actions of a few. You in this room could have a pretty rough time if that was the case. It is not right to stigmatize and dehumanize women living the hard life of trying to raise children while living 60% below the poverty level. It is not right to use racist, bumper-sticker hate to inflict human misery for political gain.”
It may not be right, Angel. But it sure as hell is effective, and that's why politicians without shame continue to use the poor as their own political punching bags.
Personally, if I lived in Minnesota, I'd be out looking for skeletons in the Republican closets. It seems to be the most effective way of purging these immoral creeps.
From Freakout Nation:
GOPers in Minnesota seem to be suffering from memory loss; an unemployed person has to utilize public transit to go out in the world and be proactive in seeking work. Instead, they present the poor with isolation, not letting them use their debit card, sit home and not seek employment. The poor can stay poor because they don’t give a damn.
Let’s mix that in with the embattled Planned Parenthood, ACORN, Health Care Reform, undoing child labor laws and the dubious promise to get work for America as a whole. Where are the jobs, John?
There is an obvious target on the poverty stricken in this country. Let’s not forget, just as many poor people are Republicans. This won’t fare well and they’re signing their own Get Out of the House certificate. As the classes divide even more with their assistance, this is further proof that their campaign against government spending was simply to gain power and now, they’ve gone power mad.
I don't even know what to say to this nonsense. Really? Because poor people have such an easy time getting bank accounts and debit cards. I agree. Make them live with those rules for a week. they'd lose their damn minds.
This goes right along with The War on Food Stamps here in Arizona. Its disgraceful.
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.phoenixjustice.com
We have our own homegrown Rethug variety. Destroy from within. They have already lost their minds to hate, greed and subversion. Take America back? To where?
Hopefully, their maniacal overreach will fully reveal them for what they are. Amoral lying hacks.
Just sayin'.
Last time I checked, you couldn't buy clothing or a haircut with food stamps.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
You not make this shit up.
just when I think they can't sink any lower, they make a liar out of me.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
on their foreheads?..........freakin' idiots!!!!!
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
.
It is. They are all lazy, immoral heathens who smoke the marijuana and get abortions. (This is what my sister used to say until she was laid off and foreclosed upon. She's lightened up a little bit since then... not much though).
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Abortions? I thought they were all welfare queens that try to have as many children as they can so they can increase their assistance? Which is it? Is your sister crazy or just crazy?
Crazy - with a martyr complex. No one works as hard as she does so they don't deserve what she has. The layoff and the foreclosure have been interesting to watch as the rationale for them has twisted and turned the more things get harder. Was also a big supporter of the war in Iraq of course, hates that Native Americans are buying up land from casino profits and has only been outside the country once for a few days (to Canada).
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Try calling her an immoral lazy heathen. See how she likes it. If she gets angry, explain you're simply using her definition.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
It is almost time to take to the streets with serious consequences. Unacceptable is not a strong enough word.
community organizer think about this?
It's beyond what he thinks. we have reached the critical stage. The shit is being shown to the fan. The fuel rods are heating up and the generators are running dangerously low on fuel.
if the man in the White House who wants to win the next election would tell us how he feels about such things? Because he sure doesn't seem to stand up for the poor or working class.
There comes a time where we decide to be the change no matter who sits in the White House. This had better damn well be one of those times.
my vote, but maybe he just doesn't care.
Is he supposed to make a statement about every batshit crazy STATE level proposal (that may or may not have a chance in hell of becoming law/policy) or is he supposed to focus on national and international issues?
I would rather see more non-Republican lawmakers IN MINNESOTA get some air time and headlines.
hopes on the man in the WH it would be nice to know what the former community organizer thinks - and if it differs with his corporate agenda. Because most assuredly he will be our only choice in 2012.
Excuse me if I would find it comforting to know if he actually gives a shit about us.
But to the other point of not making every thread about Obama. Point taken.
in or decide not to vote since you think the president wasn't doing it fast enough for you?
is a symptom of a nationwide, cultural sickness ... we need our president to speak out ... he finally admonished the country against demonizing public workers, and his comments were not only broadcast far and wide, they were repeated ... his voice is loud and his podium high, and even if he won't be able to single-handedly cure what ails this country, he can at least offer some comfort to those who are under attack
Is he supposed to make a statement about every batshit crazy STATE level proposal?
No. I'm waiting for his eloquent speech on the merits of a strong working class. He can wax on about how working people built this great nation
weyou call America and deserve to have a government that looks out for their well-being, that protects and serves the people who get their hands dirty and break their backs.... yada yada yada.I could write it for him, but... I'm not holding my breath. He's more likely to give a speech about the greatness of banks.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
I’m sick of Obama and his damn eloquent speeches. Yes, he is a good speaker, but words don’t mean a damn thing. He talked a great deal about the right to organize when running for office, name a single thing he has done in office for people trying to form unions since taking power. I don’t know if you could create an educational policy that is more anti union than Obama’s privatization schemes. I also don’t believe for a second that he really believes in anything strongly, other than neo-liberalism, at least he doesn’t believe in something enough to fight.
If someone really is passionate about an issue they don’t look at the bounds of debate amongst the elites and accept that, they don’t just try to do their best within that narrow range of opinion. Forget the fact that those in power have created horribly failed, self service, ideologically rigid policies. If he believed in something strongly enough he wouldn’t do his best given that range of opinion, he would push and get the public behind him. If people stood in his way he would make it a rallying point for the next election.
This man ran on change then has done nothing but try to be bi-partisan and accommodating to what amounts to reactionary right wingers. In what was is THAT, or what has emerged from that, change in any way? NAFTA was bipartisan, was that a good thing? There have been endless things that are partisan, that are a result of compromise, that have been horrible for working people, the majority of this country. If Obama were put aside his lovely words and was honest about his intentions leading into the 08 election, if would have told people that THIS would be his dominant strategy, he wouldn’t have had a chance in hell and everyone knows it.
To me, Obama is worse than Clinton in this regard. Clinton was a reactionary on economic issues too. Many of the policies he enacted were disastrous for working people, but at least at the time the economy was RELATIVELY in better shape. Obama came into office at a time when the policies he seems to favor have been causing misery for decades, at the time he took over it was causing the economy to implode. We had the benefit of hindsight and he came in on a popular wave that wanted real change. Given that, I think he is far worse than Clinton as far as economic issues because of this.
I am sick of words, I am sick of this many sitting back and doing nothing even when people are pushing, like in Wisc.
I hear ya. My response was to, "What do we expect Obama to do?" I had a touch of snark in my post. Obama could do something, anything, but he doesn't. A speech would be better than nothing. He is eerily silent on working class issues, just like Republicans .
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
when the voters in the state voted these fools in?
yes. The president shouldn't speak on state issues period. The people of those states voted these fools in or they didn't vote at all because they were so disappointed that they didn't get what they wanted fast enough. I'm glad to say that MD was not so disappointed with the president that we would vote in thugs. They didn't stand a chance in most districts.
What I care about is that we have a batshit-crazy plutocracy (or plutocrazy) out there making sure that poor folks are kept down and out. Libya's blowing up, Japan's melting down, the economy is at risk as a result of global issues, and you want Obama to do what, exactly? This is a state issue. What should he say that would actually have an effect? Bad, bad, bad Minnesotans?
Please. Don't vote for him. That way we can have all this just go national.
If things like this do start being debated on a national level I wouldn't find it difficult to fathom the guy who sets up a committee of fiscal conservatives to analyze our budget and is debating the merits of cutting Social Security, who cut out single payer advocates while gladly holding private meetings with Pharmaceuticals about healthcare reform, and has stacked his cabinet with bankers and CEOs would gladly go along with such proposals - or at the very least make concessions in that direction.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
I have no agenda, I just hope to keep my hard earned money, and i hope to have a president who doesn't bow down to communist leaders, who doesnt write down his basketball draft picks while japan is drowning,whose family is not skiing in aspen (stay at home vacay!!) lol, while all the time eating ribs, and scolding us at the same time about how we are so fat. Hiprocrasy?
Incoherent post is incoherent.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
"Bless me father for i have sinned. Those crimes that i committed, well, i did 'em again. Empty my soul to empower yours. Lead me blind down the path to salvation's doors."
well someone caught up on their talking points
We can accomplish unbelievable things if we all stand together and say "enough is enough".
Hold a pitchfork when you say that, partner. Gives a nice effect.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
voted these idiots in. Why should the pres say anything about. You get what you voted for.
they could only use a state-issued debit card at special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card
this is balls-hanging-out-of-your-zipper blatant corporatism championed by charlatans claiming to support the "free" market.... phhpt
I wonder who would be providing those cards and terminals and to whose campaign did they contribute?
and i believe it would be depressingly unsurprising
or higher prices on items, I'm sure...
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
A lack of fresh fruits and vegetables means more (expensive) prepared food.
Why Diebold, of course. To who's campaign would they contribute? Goes without saying.
then invoke a $30.00 minimum vagrancy law.......problem solved....after all there's still some room left in a prison or two and they can always build some more, they are very profitable and profits are the most important thing.
The first casualty of republicanism is the truth.
Party politics are not only undemocratic, they are antidemocratic.
Heck wid dat... Hup! Chain 'em up and OUT-SOURCE their asses in the open marketplace... Hup! "Takin' off boss!" Road gangs, cancer hospices, evicting deadbeats, repo men, bounty killers, collapsed bridges, blown-out wells, burning reactors... lots of good job-making to do, for enterprising foreign capital; what with all these lazy good-for-nothing UNION cops, teachers, EMTs and firefighters to run-off! HUP! "Peeing boss!" HUP!!! Or sell us all as hog feed in China? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zNsUTWsOc HUP!
I do believe that will be their next piece of legislation. Make it illegal to possess money, re-enact vagrancy laws, sentence the victims to 90 days on the road gang or the farm fields, then charge them for their meals. After they do their time, turn them loose, then rinse, lather and repeat. Free labor, all nice and legal.
I really hope this statement is right but my faith in the uneducated, gullible and/or ignorant masses leads me to believe the "fiscal conservatives" (i.e. Fascists) will find new and more elaborate scare tactics to shore up their base. Gays, abortions, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, teachers, environmentalists, unions, liberals, academics, smart people, kittens, sunlight, fresh cookies... or in Glenn Beck world a coalition of all these groups - will be framed as a dire threat to our security and enough people will fall for the lies once more.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Had a chalkboard I'm sure I could tie ALL these together
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
If anyone wants to see an amazingly insightful look into the lives and minds of those who vote against their own self interest - and the tactics used to make them do it - the episode of PBS's NOW from a while back is the best I've seen:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/415/index.html
Warning: It may make you a cynical about the mentality of the average voter as I am.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
not letting them use their debit card, sit home and not seek employment. The poor can stay poor because they don’t give a damn."
Why don't we just round up all the poor, stand them next to a big hole, and plug 'em.
That would solve the problem, and I'm sure all the Rethugs would be slap-happy with that solution.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
to sell the bullets
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
as slave labor.
.
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
that has brought the greatest wealth disparity this country has ever experienced, would the military industrial complex have had a large enough volunteer army to fight the illegal war in iraq that it orchestrated? no ... we would have needed a draft, and most likely, that war wouldn't have happened ... we wouldn't be talking about attacking iran ... and instead of blindly supporting israel's war-perpetrating treatment of the palestinians and the lebanese, we might actually be working toward peace in the middle east
this class war is about a steady supply of cannon fodder, you betcha!
"Don't hand a fresh magazine to an idiot with an empty weapon!"
Don't give these Neo-Neanderthals any ideas; as soon as you do, they'll heave upwards off of their grounded knuckles into a half-upright position and grunt out exactly that suggestion.
People forget that before the war and the Einzatsgruppen, it's a historical fact that the Nazis were killing off their 'undesirables', which started with the mentally infirm and those with 'lives not worth living'. Unfortunately, it's also a historical fact that they got the idea from American eugenicists; they just went from the American practice of sterilization to outright 'liquidation'.
You can't tell me that there aren't some people in power in this country right now who wouldn't welcome the chance to do that. here...
NH GOP State Congressman Says Disabled and Mentally Ill Are ‘Defective People’ And Should Be Shipped To Siberia
Hardy said, "nature has a way of getting rid of stupid people," and "now we're saving everyone that gets born"
No joke, a congressman saying out loud he'd like to get rid of, the decrepit, mentally ill, people with disabilities, and people with drug addictions because these are "defective people", and that "society would be better off without them."
Seeing how he's 91, I would think he'd be more careful about what he says, he could end up drooling in a wheelchair being spoon fed his mashed peas any day now....
Just some random chick out commenting.
.
people from helicopters to solve their illegal immigrant problem!
They haven't figured out a way to make money on it yet.
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." -- Robert E. Howard
PEOPLE!!!
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
their pool of cheap labor.
cleaning their houses, the rest of us are seen as uglying up the landscape.
If there were fewer unfortunates, they won't feel fortunate. they'd start looking around for someone in their group to push down so they'd feel better!
Talk about a psychological kick in the teeth. I remember being quite poor at one time (am only abjectly poor at this point) and the satisfaction of paying cash for something I needed (rather than using the credit card) and having change to spare. Its actually still a good feeling having some cash in the pocket. This proposed legislation is just mean-spirited to say the least.
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
no one can charge you a service fee for using it. forcing the poor to use these debit cards is like involuntarily implanting money-udders for the rapacious financial-asshole-sector to milk. too bad the poor don't have political representation.
It's sweeter than that. Not only can you collect service fees coming and going, but you can make it so the poor, dumb bastids can overdraw the thing, and you can collect fees on that. Throw in some free product purchase tracking data and it's clear this is in the best interests of the poor person, especially when they buy some prohibited products, and you can collect a fee on that too, or better still, toss 'em in jail.
No doubt confining shopping to company stores will also be a boon to the poor. What's not to like about this idea? Why haven't we thought of this before?
I always thought the punk rock guys and white dudes with dreadlocks who got tattoos of a barcode on their neck or wrist were just being melodramatic. Now, it looks like what will be mandated for the poor in our near future.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
is that you can't track the purchases. With a debit card everything is electronically recorded and ultimately trackable.
So of course these evil bastards want only a debit card that can only be used at specific places. These jerks keep trying more and more odious attempts to widen the gap between the wealthy and everyone else; to keep the poor down and even more poor, and to add more people to the ranks of the poor.
Man, these idiots will regret not learning from history. Remember the French Revolution, assholes?
Yes, nowadays these sick authoritarians have wealth, fundamentalist christianity, FOX propaganda, technology and ultra-security systems on their side now. But just as a water in the form of a tsunami can totally destroy huge swaths of land, so too can the people together, when organized and properly motivated, destroy huge swaths of wealthy people.
Rich fucks beware. Your time is limited.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
First, it limits the freedoms of people who receive certain types of entitlements (e.g. welfare), while not others who also receive entitlements (e.g. unemployment). Perhaps a case for unequal treatment under the law.
Second is the issue of privacy. It gives the government a view on how a welfare recipient spends their money without court order or court supervision. This could be remedied, however, by adequate privacy laws attached to the bank record with these debit card accounts.
And then there is the fact that unemployment insurance is NOT an entitlement. You would flunk out of law school the first semester. Try approaching this as a human being instead of trying to be something you're not. BTW, the phrase is "unequal protection," not "unequal treatment." Your homework assignment is this: Where is the concept of equal protection first mentioned in a US legal document? When and if you find it, read it.
...would mean treating each other with respect - something I have tried to do in my responses, although to be blunt I don't see that you have returned the favor to me.
I don't see where I have claim to be a lawyer, so the pop-quiz on law really does not interest me. I have not tried to express my ideas in a bunch of legaleeze (although I think the legal phrase you are looking for is "equal protection", not "unequal protection").
Now if you want to discuss ideas, as human beings, I would be happy to continue to treat you with respect and discuss your ideas as well as mine.
At this point in U.S. history, I believe that if I were a young man, I would seek a new county to live in. It has been a struggle in the U.S. through out my life time to push back against the Fascists but they keep pushing harder. The crazier they get the more people buy into the Idiocracy. When a new bit of stupid comes along I keep expecting some heavy push back by a vast majority of Americans. A push back that comes is more of a whimper than a roar. We as a people have been fooled into believing the most ridiculous talking points and it doesn't seem to matter that its completely and easily debunked Americans will buy into the garbage by the millions. I am tired of fighting with out much sucess.
it is overwhelming to be fighting, not just against unjust laws and criminal wars, but against the poisoning of our very culture ... i've always felt like an stranger in a strange land, having been born with a questioning and rebellious nature, but now i feel downright unwelcome
and I keep getting the feeling like somebody keeps poking me with a stick!
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
my Life Insurance to see if I had anything. It's my last resort as I have none in pocket.
and if I didn't have most of my assets tied up in the 'State, I'd already be back up in Canada.
At some point they'll either be worth selling or they won't be worth having. (Call me back in 2020.))
I still recall a cartoon by "Sylva™" about growing old in the 'States.
you obviously meant pushing back against the unreasoning authoritarians. (I had a father like that.)
You don’t seem to understand the concepts underlying the three forms of economic systems which deal with ownership and incentive:
• Free Enterprise, where capital goods are owned by private owners and controlled by private owners,
• Fascism, where capital goods are owned by private owners and controlled by the state,
• Socialism, where capital goods are owned by the state and controlled by the state.
These are separate construct from the four forms of government:
• Anarchy (rule by no one,)
• Dictatorship or Monarchy (rule by one person,)
• Oligarchy (rule by a few persons,)
• Democracy (rule by the majority.)
They are NOT mutually exclusive in the larger context of a political systems.
It is necessary to combine the three because there are features of each which complement and fill in the bid spots in each.
A successful country is one where the systems are successfully blended.
An unsuccesful country is one where there is an unnecessary bias towards one or another.
Obama is fascist, and there's nothing wrong with that.
He believes in letting the people who already own 80% of the country hang onto their 80%, (otherwise there would be an insurrection brewing paid for by the same people who are currently removing Qadaffi, after shelling out for the removal of Zine El Abedine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. [Don't think it can happen here? Look at who is bankrolling the Tea Party, and WHY.])
He just wants to call a halt to having to trip over our frozen corpses in the street or rotting corpses in back alleys.
Barak Obama is no saint but he does not want us to descend into a communal hell. (Why else did he pass a health care bill into law ahead of an energy bill. [The provision of energy is a commercial enterprise and it will sort itself out on its own. Healthcare is not a commercial enterprise, which explains why insurance companies never want to pay.])
at this point, I am willing to LEAVE this country. Why give my money to an overreaching govt? To a fake "stimulus" plan, which was only "pork". The Billions of dollars spent, the terrible deficit now, and we still have the terrible unemployment rate. Both me and my husband plan to leave the us when we retire....LOVE this country, just not the politics and how we are being treated right now
Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out. kthxbai.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
"Bless me father for i have sinned. Those crimes that i committed, well, i did 'em again. Empty my soul to empower yours. Lead me blind down the path to salvation's doors."
I have a teenage daughter and I keep encouraging her to see the world before she even considers settling down somewhere. She's taught herself a few languages and I'm hoping that will make it even easier for her. I don't want her to live some place where a lack of compassion is considered normal, ignorant, illogical ideas are now viable political platforms, and becoming educated is considered elitist.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
What would Jesus do? ...he would demonize the poor, of course! ...And line his own pockets with their money!
It's in story after story after story in the bible...Jesus yelling at poor people from the rolled-down window of his cheuffered limo, telling them to get off their lazy asses and pull themselves up by their bootstraps!
Remember, in Republican-land, GREED IS NO LONGER ONE OF THE 7 DEADLY SINS!
Actually, according to The Family/The K-Street Gang, Jesus WANTS Republicans to be greedy!!!
But I think Jesus would agree, instead, that these politicians are simply SCUM.
* Jesus Christ "became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)
* God has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant. (Psalm 35:27)
* "The blessing of the Lord makes one rich." (Proverbs 10:22)
* God is not selfish or stingy but "gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17)
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&...
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Sandalstraps. It was "Pull yourself up by your sandalstraps." Right?
Did you hear that all government checks for "entitlements," as the weasels like to call them, will be required to be electronically transferred to a bank account by 2014? You can also set up a Mastercard Debit Account that will charge you for every transaction, and could limit the amount of the transactions. The gov. is sending out notification of this looming push, and advertising for Mastercard at the same time. Who's paying for that? I don't want a bank account. Is that just too bad for me? Another freedom going down the drain.
He would scream bloody murder about what has been done in his name, thanks to what the Apostate (NOT a mispelling-look it up) Paul did to his teachings.
I'd like to see it.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bi...
Thanks!
as payment for fines and fees when a poor person is finally sentenced and released? I think we know the answer to that, don't we?
So collecting aluminum cans or selling your '78 Ford LTD so you can afford to upgrade from Top Ramen to Cup O' Noodles will be a crime? Talk about keeping people in a 'nanny state'. Way to go Teabaggers.
Un. Fucking. Believable.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
behind this to make the plight of the poor so miserable that they'll just move somewhere else?....
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
so they can shoot squirrels and rats for food? Or politicians, for their survival?
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
an old school republican, last night after dinner, predicted a revolution in this country. I NEVER thought I would hear that from him. He thinks the politicians, all of them, will be responsible for it. I think of him as a type of barometer.
My fear is that with a large percentage of Americans (at least 30%) being rabid Fox News/Hate Radio paranoid types - and being the most likely to be heavily armed - the revolution will not have a good outcome.
Sorta like that old videogame about the rapture where the player went around shooting non-believers in the name of Jesus.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
They may start it, but I'll bet we finish it.
I've always wondered why they think that, because we believe in reasonable gun laws, we must not believe in protecting ourselves.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
shooting themselves and each other, cleaning up after them will be a cinch.
Stupid Git-
That may be true but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that they are the first to run and hide when they see me coming for them. I'm smarter than they are. And so are you.
Yeah, but I'm a terrible shot. You don't want me covering for you. :)
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
men,12 ga.,woman,20 or .410 ga. with no.1 shot....you'll do just fine.
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
My grandfather grew up so poor that he and his brothers used to have to hunt for snakes to kill and bring back for the family to cook, just so that they would have something to eat that day. They taught us all about what's edible and what isn't and we ALL know how to hunt and defend ourselves.
I have cancer. I have lupus. And I have asthma. That experience has taught me that I can survive all kinds of crap that others might find unbearable. When these rich a$$holes that have never suffered a day in their life are wishing that they were dead, me and my folks will still be here laughing and eating and watching them as they get their just deserts for their lack of compassion.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
My dad, who is a conservative but not a Republican, was saying almost the exact same thing last week. I told my mom that I wouldn't be surprised if poor people decided that, since the politicians don't even want them to be able to afford food, they would simply eat the rich. I meant it as a bit of an exaggeration, but then my mom looked at me very soberly and reminded me of a verse in the Bible where people really did get so desperate that they started eating their neighbor's children. She said that maybe these religious crazies should have actually read the Bibles before they started claiming that it makes their actions justified.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
ALL of the topics Republicans and Tea Partiers and Libertarians have claimed to be 'worried' about are summed up in this ridiculous piece of police state legislation.
People on the street will be accosted and searched to ensure they don't have more than $20.00 in their pockets?
After all the signs that Obama=Hitler, that taxes are too high, that the Democrats want to kill you with healthcare kindness: who is acting like Hitler?
Hitler in 1933 called for smashing the unions.
Hitler permitted his Gestapo to stop, question, beat up, harass and even kill anyone in the streets OR in their own homes.
Hitler was fiercely FOR large masses of gold and wealth and AGAINST abortion.
Find the differences.
MyMy
either a shiny thing to distract from something worse that we don't know about yet, or total stupidity and hubris. Or both. Are they trying to guarantee that they will fall out of power?
in all its hubris and hypocrisy.
via Walmart where you are forced to shop if on Welfare. I can see it now Sam's Welfare Club.
Where Chase issues the debit card making a profit-and Walmart gets the proceeds.
I see people all the time using self check out at Safeway because there's an element of privacy when using EBT cards. These are the newly poor feeling embarrassed.
Oh Hell who am I kidding-I am one of the newly poor and do it myself because people spy on what you are buying stuff-and yeah it hurts like freaking hell- every time I use it.
and whenever using your card makes you feel embarrassed, remind yourself that at least you are not one of those heartless, republican pigs who ought to be too ashamed to even breath the same air as decent folk, much less show their faces before that god they are always talking about
business. They should be called out on their ignorance and bad manners. Don't stop staring at them until they look away. It may be hard at first, but I promise you, it's fun.
When I was a little kid and we were poor, my mom (who was single, because my wealthy father left her with the 4 kids and no child support when he decided he wanted to leave the marriage) would occasionally buy us a little candy bar or a package of cookies from the store and I remember that being the most wonderful thing in the world. For that moment in time, it made all of the depressing things about our situation melt away, just a little bit. That experience makes me hope, if you can at all afford it, you are sometimes able to buy yourself a little something beyond what some might call "necessities". Some things are a necessity, because they keep you from going insane. Hang in there and keep your head up. Let every rude stare make you more determined that, when you get back on your feet (and you will), you will stand up for poor people and not join those nosy jerks minding other people's business.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
... all those "special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card" will be owned by republican campaign contributors and none of them will be located in wealthy neighborhoods, so that the rich won't have to stand in checkout lines with icky poor people
Will you be using your ATM card or your state welfare card, ma'am?
Because you know, we should just stomp on poor people harder or something.
I'll use the Teabagger Christianist imagery against them for this.... forcing the 'regular' citizenry to carry a Card that links to a Government Assistance account, so as to keep track of their expenditures, and keep cash out of their pockets, will also be used to identify the person and report on their location and movement patterns...
This sounds suspiciously like the 'Mark of the Beast' from Revelations.... teh multi-headed Dragon in the House of Representatives trying to mark us?
"Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely". Luke 3:14
that comes out as: "i got mine, you get yours"
so fuck you."
the special teabagger edition of the republican universal translator
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274...
1) Punish and stigmatize the poor for being poor.
2) Make sure no millionaire is ever even moderately inconvenienced.
That just about covers it. You may add 3) Punish women for having sex.
4) Disabled people should either recover enough to work or die.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
Rich people have money because they've earned it. Poor people don't have money because they don't work hard enough. The unemployed lost their jobs and haven't gotten new jobs because they don't want to work. All wealth is expressly intended for personal use only and should never be used to benefit society. There is no gray area here at all.
If this is your world view then it's easy to see why the largest income inequality in the world doesn't bother you. It also explains why you don't see the farcical hypocrisy in calling liberals "elites."
because they stole it from the poor people.
idi0t! nuf said.
What are the sane and intelligent people in Minn. doing to stop these ignorant Reslug morons?? Is anybody standing up to these assholes??
...for their misinformation, when you post one that's this bad.
From the actual legislation it's clear that all they're doing is making it illegal to give more than $20 cash change in any debit card transaction. That's a far cry from not allowing you to carry more than $20 on your person.
Also, you're attacking the wrong people by showing photos of MN federal legislators when this is clearly a state issue that the feds almost certainly had nothing to do with.
Limiting change from a transaction to no more than $20 cash amounts to the same thing. In other words, you won't be able to click the cashback button for more than $20 during your debit transaction. You are being dishonest if you don't see what the real agenda is in the state of Minnesota on this.
To the authors of this bill, cash is bad. You can't track it.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
It is very clear that the "agenda" behind this bill (if you bother to actually read it and not just rely on the spin in this article) is to ensure that money provided through this fund is spent on necessities. You can argue whether that goal is reasonable as well as the misguided tactics by which they try to accomplish it, but to assume their intent is evil is just as ignorant as you think they are.
with any knowledge of how the underground economy works knows that what this bill proposes won't and can't make sure that "money provided through this fund is spent on necessities", you are either ignorant or evil. These same arguments were made when the states switched over to these EBT cards. They were supposed to prevent people from using the funds on unapproved items. People pointed out how ineffective this would be and, what do you know? They were right! Now, politicians can't claim that they don't know that this law wouldn't fix any of the "flaws" that EBT cards make possible. They already know that almost any independent convenience store is more than happy to convert EBT funds that are supposed to be used on a limited list of items to cash that can be used for anything.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
Read between the lines. It is not just illegal to give more than $20 cash. Look deeper. Look at the implications. Look at the rest of the welfare regulations and laws.
This will be with 2 Minnesota Sate Troopers stationed at every registration office, for your protection of course.
Andy Mills
What the hell is wrong with these Christians?
The core message of Jesus Christ was HELP THE POOR, FEED THE HUNGRY and AID THE SICK. (sorry for yelling)
In the 1950s/60s many Christians got this- people from multiple (and non) religious united to fight for civil rights, peace in Vietnam and women's rights.
Dr Martin Luther King was driven by his faith to fight for civil rights, human rights, workers rights- He knew that was what he was supposed to do as a Christian- fight for social justice
It seems most modern Christians couldn't give a shit about the poor, and are offended at the idea of people having health coverage.
There are progressive Christians out there like Dr King- but where are they???
Why do the right wingers even bother to worship Jesus? They oppose eveything he preached.
Hey, don't let Glenn Becky hear you say that. Or 'fair and balanced' Bully O'Reilly.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
I don't think when Jesus healed or helped the poor, fed the poor -- he didn't do it telling them they were awful lazy stupid bums that didn't deserve help. I believe every time he helped someone, they felt uplifted. Your neighbor is whoever needs you. Not someone that you judge.
There is sheer cruelty in this measure and profit, too. Today's RWGOP follows the Ayn Rand Gospel of fun & profit through cruelty. Someone has to issue and manage those debit cards, for a fee of course, that comes right out of the recipients' scarce funds.Big Retail chains are also more likely to qualify for the gravy train than the local Mom & Pops. For these GOP bums, other people are mere dehumanized things to feed their egos and their greed.
In today's GOP the only priority is unearned windfalls for one's donors and other cronies. If the actions cause bitter suffering to people the GOP cares nothing about, that's just extra fun.
transaction. I'm speechless about this amount.
HuffPo had an article about banks charging a $5 fee for using an ATM. Here it is:
Chase Tests $5 ATM Fee
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/17/chas...
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
with twenty one dollars in their pocket is there?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
noted, i wasn't sure if i over the top w/this.
some sort of metabolic neural activity for which I see no evidence. Bachmann's brain is more like Cheney's heart. Vestigial and largely non-functional.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
This whole attempt to legislate poverty sound to me like a violation of my civil rights - and I don't even live in Minnesota!
Talk about declaring war on poverty!
First, it effectively criminalizes a class of people (can't do that under the constitution), and it criminalizes them by issuing a de facto bill or writ of attainder against them (can't do that either). I should think that it would be fairly easy to get it stricken.
These sociopaths' gleeful authorship of, and participation in, acts of evil is astonishing. Just astonishing. So is their cognitive dissonance, given that they all consider thiemselves to be committed Christians.
Oh I'm going to catch hell for this I know. This post got me way upset. So I went and dug up HF 171 and read it. It's like 2 pages long. Here, I'll link to it since lots of people haven't read it:
HF 171
So let's list the inaccuracies here.
1. It simply states that your benefits come as an EBT debit card. This card is issued to the person drawing benefits, and on the card it states that the card can't be used to purchase tobacco or alcohol.
2. You're only allowed to draw 20 dollars a month cash off of the card. Otherwise, you can only make direct purchases with the card.
3. You can't use the card outside the state.
4. A burden is placed on vendors to put an EBT filter on the card if they don't qualify
5. You might have to show photo ID to use the debit card.
Aside from point 3, it's not exactly a draconian bill. It's main thrust seems to be to prevent people from buying alcohol and tobacco with public assistance.
But the idea that carrying more than 20 dollars is illegal is just plain false. I can't find anywhere in the bill where it says carrying, say, 40 dollars on your person is illegal.
I'd appreciate an update to this post listing the the link to the actual bill if nothing else. I love this blog, but if I keep finding sloppy reporting, I'll probably stop reading it.
It is draconian and even worse, it's just plain retaliation for having the gall to be poor enough to qualify for assistance.
You must jump through our hoops for the sin of being poor.
You, have never used assistance or you'd know how ridiculous this is.
to me, too. Anyone who has used assistance, been in a family that used it, or just lived in a severely economically-underprivileged area knows that the underground economy makes these proposed measures completely ineffective (at best). In the neighborhood where my partner grew up, there were no real grocery stores. Poor people have to do much of their shopping at the local convenience store and, like many independent stores of this type, they were more than happy to exchange food stamps for cash (minus twenty cents on the dollar, of course). It's really quite easy to do. They simply use the EBT card to ring up a "purchase" equal to the amount they are exchanging and then give the person the cash which can then be used for all of the myriad items that poor people sometimes need money for (e.g. gas to get to their job, baby-sitting fees, school supplies).
This proposed law would only put more people in a situation where they wind up having to be criminals just to survive.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
limit people to twenty dollars in cash a month? Unbelievable.
I never said that I'm okay with limiting people with 20 dollars in cash a month.
This article says, via quoting another blog, that it's implied that it's illegal to carry any amount of cash over twenty dollars. So if the person withdrew 20 dollars and found a dollar on the street, they'd be breaking the law. Which is BS.
I may have problems with the bill, but saying that it's illegal to carry more than 20 bucks of cash in a month is misleading, especially when it takes 30 seconds to look up the bill. It's at best sloppy blogging to not even provide the readers with the actual law, and at worst it's an intentional misdirection. My personal money is on sloppy blogging.
There's lots of stuff we can flay the Republicans over. Ginning up stuff only hurts the argument.
comprehension.
Unless they have access to cash through a paycheck or other means how else are they to get cash? Pawn their clothes? It may not make it illegal to have more than $20 dollars in their pocket, but it does make it incredibly difficult.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
See my posts above.
isn't illegal.
No, but since you can only get $20 IN A GIVEN MONTH, it makes it impossible.
So it doesn't criminalize having more than $20 in your pocket. But it demoralizes the already downtrodden.
Besides that, the bill essentially is a statement that all people on welfare are nothing but drunks and drug and tobacco addicts. Yes, there is probably a percentage of people on welfare who have no intention of working and often use the money for things other than food or bills. But not all people on welfare.
It's a draconian law that only benefits MasterCard, et al, and the big mega-store food chains like Walmart.
Help these people get skills to get productive jobs. I suspect that a very high percentage of people on welfare hate it and wish to be able to work at a decent paying job so they can have some semblance of a normal life. Not a career as a counter person at McDonalds.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
I completely agree that it's infinitely better to help people get back on their feet than to give them public assistance hoops to jump through.
I also agree that limiting withdrawls to 20 dollars a month can be severely problematic.
But they didn't make it illegal to "have any type of money at all in their pockets". And we weren't given the bill to educate ourselves. We have to take the word of a blogger, who is cut & pasting another blogger's argument, who doesn't provide sources there either.
This kind of "reporting" *hurts* us. The only way we can really win in a drop-dead political argument is if we have the truth on our side consistently. As soon as we start making assertions that are demonstrably false, we lose credibility and we lose the fight.
must win, we'll reconsider. Those of us who don't take things at face value, well....let';s just say we don't agree with your shallow reading of the bill, and your erroneous conclusion. Show me one thing that is demonstrably false about this post. Another damn preacher. Where are these types coming from today? Nuclear physics experts and preachers.
Comments are closed on this entry