Doll Is Mine wrote:Andrew Sullivan ‏@sullydish
How amazing that marriage equality, once a key weapon for Rove to win '04, now threatens to kill GOP as nat'l brand

The report clarifies that the Ryan budget’s proposed conversion of SNAP to a block grant — which accounts for $125 billion of the budget’s $135 billion in SNAP cuts over the next decade — wouldn’t take effect until 2019. As a result, all $125 billion of those cuts would occur over just five years. The kinds of changes this would require are extraordinary.

To illustrate what this means:

If the cuts came solely from restricting eligibility, 12 to 13 million people would need to be cut from the program.
If the cuts came solely from across-the-board benefit cuts, benefits would have to be cut by more than $50 per person per month in 2019 (for a family of three, that’s $1,800 over the whole year). Put another way, the maximum SNAP benefit would be set at just 73 percent of the Thrifty Food Plan, the Agriculture Department’s estimate of the minimum amount a family needs to afford a bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet.

The overwhelming majority of SNAP households are poor families with children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Almost three-quarters of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter are in households that include senior citizens or people with disabilities.

Doll Is Mine wrote:It's ridiculous.

They're essentially forcing a transgendered woman, who was born a man, to enter the men's room wearing women's clothing, earrings, etc.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Andrew Sullivan ‏@sullydish
How amazing that marriage equality, once a key weapon for Rove to win '04, now threatens to kill GOP as nat'l brand

I think they were able to fool a lot of people with this kind of stuff for a while, but people have started to understand what the current GOP stand for. Their actions aren't about saving America or family values or helping the economy. They are about helping themselves make as much money as possible off average americans and turning us against each other to help that cause. The veil has been lifted and people are finally seeing them for what they are.

Monkeyboy wrote:Honestly, how insecure with yourself do you have to be to support stuff like this? What's going to happen if a former male walks into a women's room? Is it going to kill someone, or send them to the hospital with the vapors? At worst, the person feels uncomfortable, like the first time these same type of people were forced to ride in the front of the bus with a black person.

kimbatiste wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Andrew Sullivan ‏@sullydish
How amazing that marriage equality, once a key weapon for Rove to win '04, now threatens to kill GOP as nat'l brand

I think they were able to fool a lot of people with this kind of stuff for a while, but people have started to understand what the current GOP stand for. Their actions aren't about saving America or family values or helping the economy. They are about helping themselves make as much money as possible off average americans and turning us against each other to help that cause. The veil has been lifted and people are finally seeing them for what they are.

To be fair, I don't think the shift is due to a lifting of the veil but a reflection of the amazing change in American attitude towards gay marriage over the last decade. I think that's due to increasing comfort among older people and the increasing political participation of the younger generation. With respect to the older people, Bill Maher made a great point about how Republicans can't empathize with people, they can only understand/care when there is a personal involvement (said in the context of Portman's reversal). I think he's probably right about that but as more and more gay Americans live openly, it forces older Republicans to confront the issue and realize that their son/daughter/neighbor/friend/co-worker etc. are not bad people, not going to hell, and not using homosexuality as a launching pad for beastiality and/or polygamy.

I guess what I'm saying, is that I'm not so sure this is a reflection of people seeing through the Republican self-serving positions but just the changing opinion of Merica, while the Republicans have bene left behind.

Why are so many Republican politicians getting on board with immigration reform lately? If a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institute is any indication, it’s because their constituents are getting their back.

The poll talked to an unusually large number of people — 4,500 — in order to provide reliable statistics on individual demographics. What it found was majority support for reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the country, even in traditionally conservative communities.

According to the poll 53 percent of Republicans favor a path to citizenship versus 71 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of independents. Only a small minority is interested in granting undocumented immigrants legal status without eventual citizenship as a compromise — 13 percent of Democrats and Republicans alike and 14 percent of independents. This low number might help explain why Jeb Bush’s proposal to bar illegal immigrants from obtaining citizenship attracted so little support earlier this month. Still, 32 percent of Republicans favor mass deportation to address immigration instead.“There is a consensus for action on immigration, and it crosses partisan lines,” the report’s authors write.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the survey is its findings among religious Americans. Catholic and Mormon leaders are backing reform along with a broad coalition of leading evangelical organizations who are promoting immigration reform on Scriptural grounds, citing Biblical passages regarding the treatment of strangers. But it’s always been unclear how much pastors’ views on immigration align with their often conservative and white congregants.