Werthless wrote:California is giving some people IOUs and some people cash. Here'swho gets what?

People who get California IOUs
--Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons
--People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs
--People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services
--Persons with developmental disablities
--People in mental health treatment
--Small Business Vendors

California pays in cash
--University of California
--Public Employees’ Retirement System
--Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees
--Judges
--Department of Corrections
--Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers

So temporary relief recipients get IOUs, while all government workers get the cash. That doesn't seem like it's meeting the needs of the citizens, just meeting the needs of those with access to the political process. Carry on as you were.

I happened to see a friend of mine last night who works as a doctor at San Quentin. He mentioned that he's getting paid with an IOU. Since I'm pretty sure he's on a contract, I guess he falls into the "small business vendors" category.

His concern is that the banks won't honor California's IOUs, their credit right now being rather crappy.

That aside, I see and agree with your point that the cash should go to the most needy, but I can't imagine that contracts with corrections officers and other public employees have a lot of give in them, and testing the point in litigation probably would just entail more huge expenditures as well as opportunity cost for the state's lawyers and public officials.

There are certainly reasonable objections to Al Franken on policy issues, or even if you just can't stand his personality and think he's an unfunny jerk, but I love the buzzwords implying that he's a "failed comedian."

You might not think he's funny, but he's been incredibly successful. 99.99% of self-styled "comedians" would kill to have his career.

well werthless, PA is a wet dream of yours. State workers are currently not being paid, and now they'll be laid off.

pacino wrote:well werthless, PA is a wet dream of yours. State workers are currently not being paid, and now they'll be laid off.

My friend works in Forestry. He is not expecting to see any money anytime soon. At least that was the news he got last week.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT0AP3Nqvuo[/youtube]

I think it's pretty cool that Obama met with opposition leaders while in Russia.

WSJ op-ed-defier John Fund explains Palin's departure: it's those darn FOIA requests:

John Fund wrote:This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature. Most have centered on Ms. Palin's use of government resources, and to date have turned up little save for a few state trips that she agreed to reimburse the state for because her children had accompanied her. In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.

A bit of info on the financials of FOIA requests in AK (from something called Sunshine Review - apparently they have compiled info on FOIA statutes, regs, etc):

Sunshine Review wrote:The "fee for copying public records may not exceed the standard unit cost of duplication established by the public agency". However, if a single requester asks for documents that take more than five hours of staff time to compile per month, the governmental agency may require that personnel costs be paid by the requester. These personnel costs may not exceed the actual salary and benefit costs for the time used to compile the documents.

$500k in legal fees to respond to 150 requests?

Palin needs, & Alaskans should have demanded, a different legal team for the governor.

FOIA requests don't take that long to respond to. Most 'combing of records' is electronic now.

3k per request? How can I get a piece of that action?

Wow. Just wow.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzJhTfQiMA[/youtube]

Apparently this senator is on Arizona's Education Accountability and Reform Committee. You can't make this up.

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pure genes. ethnics. on FOX

jerseyhoya wrote:3k per request? How can I get a piece of that action?

the whole thing is emblematic of the WSJ op-ed "Big Lie" approach: if the contention seems too preposterous, stretch it further.

pacino wrote:(video)
pure genes. ethnics. on FOX

Well, he is part right... we shouldn't marry other species

pacino wrote:Wow. Just wow.

[youtube]Science-challenged senator[/youtube]

Apparently this senator is on Arizona's Education Accountability and Reform Committee. You can't make this up.

"Retirement and Rural Development Committee"? That's quite a charter

What the fuck is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) talking about?

Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they’re easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that’s where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they’re worried, because they see it happening here.

This might be the most profoundly ahistorical thing I've ever read, even from a Republican politician.

dajafi wrote:What the $#@! is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) talking about?

Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they’re easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that’s where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they’re worried, because they see it happening here.

This might be the most profoundly ahistorical thing I've ever read, even from a Republican politician.

I've seen worse on this page:

pacino wrote:Wow. Just wow.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch.v=PtzJhTfQiMA[/youtube]

Apparently this senator is on Arizona's Education Accountability and Reform Committee. You can't make this up.

dajafi wrote:What the $#@! is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) talking about?

Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they’re easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that’s where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they’re worried, because they see it happening here.

This might be the most profoundly ahistorical thing I've ever read, even from a Republican politician.

The overheatedness of American political discourse (and it's not like many on the left didn't believe that Bush was going to stage another terrorist attack and declare martial law) is perhaps the most disturbing political development of the last 15 years.

The real problem is that the personalities involved take away from the actual legitimate debate. The left really didn't mount much of a defense of civil liberties, they attacked Bush. The right isn't so much arguing against the increase in deficit spending, they're calling Obama a socialist.

Of course, one problem is that between 2002 and 2006, and now, one party pretty much has control, and they have the ability to more or less shut the other party out of the political conversation. However, at least in the health care debate, the Republicans have more or less failed to even try to participate in any meaningful way.

If I were a Republican, I would be talking on and on about how the real problem with US health care is cost, and if that piece can be addressed, the coverage issue might largely go away.

TenuredVulture wrote:If I were a Republican, I would be talking on and on about how the real problem with US health care is cost, and if that piece can be addressed, the coverage issue might largely go away.

Obama's effectively aced them out of that, b/c that's the ground he started from (tho he's wandered about since).

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:If I were a Republican, I would be talking on and on about how the real problem with US health care is cost, and if that piece can be addressed, the coverage issue might largely go away.

Obama's effectively aced them out of that, b/c that's the ground he started from (tho he's wandered about since).

Except that from what I can tell, it's not really the focus of what's happening in Congress.

And that's the other dumb thing about the Republican strategy and the whole personal attack based debate--Obama is not getting involved in the nitty gritty details of the plan--this isn't Obamacare in the same way the 93-94 effort was Hillarycare.

It strikes me there's a line of valid criticism that the Republicans could be exploiting there as well.