SEPT QUOTES

WHY REPUBLICANS OBSESS ABOUT FOOD STAMPS: Food stamps are the most visible, tangible manifestation of a broad range of government actions they despise. Its conservative’s perfect storm: people they feel are undeserving gaming the system, and you have to stand in line (everyday in the grocery) and watch them do it.

STIGMA OF UNEARNED WEALTH: Instead of stigmatizing poverty, criminalizing and punishing it, we ought to stigmatize unearned wealth. Why do we think badly of people who need food stamps even though they are working hard? Why not stigmatize the Walton family members? They earn their billions off the labor of minimum wage employees, then they instruct them to apply for government assistance to feed their families. That kind of behavior takes more gall, more ugly nerve than applying for food stamps after a long day’s work in a warehouse.

Maybe we should stigmatize the corporate CEOs who accept large government subsidies and pay little or no taxes, who then give themselves million dollar bonuses. Maybe we should stigmatize the Republican congressmen who vote against hurricane relief aid for the East Coast but demand flood aid for their districts. Maybe we should stigmatize the Republicans who have voted 42 times to defund the Affordable Care Act (calling it socialist when it isn’t), while accepting socialist healthcare from the US government in the form of Medicare and Medicaid.

MCCONNELL ON TED CRUZ

“We’d be hard-pressed to explain why we were opposed to a bill we’re in favor of,” – Senator Mitch McConnell, in response to Senator Ted Cruz’s long journey into night.

SCHNEIER: Apple is trying to balance security with convenience. This is a cell phone, not a ICBM launcher or even a bank account withdrawal device. Apple is offering an option to replace a four-digit PIN -- something that a lot of iPhone users don't even bother with -- with a fingerprint. Despite its drawbacks, I think it's a good trade-off for a lot of people.

Jonathan Gruber, the mastermind behind Romneycare, provides his perspective:

The number of people covered by employer-based health-care plans is dropping by a percentage point a year. The system is falling apart. So you put in a new safety net. That means a few more people are going to come in. If you’re not willing to risk making some things worse, you’re never going to make anything better. My estimate is that 80 percent of the people are not going to feel any change at all, and that 17 percent or so are going to find that things are better, and that about two or three percent will be worse off, and those are the people who benefit from the discriminatory nature of health-insurance at the present time. If health-insurance companies can’t discriminate any more, those people will have to pay a little more. When we decided that people couldn’t discriminate in what they paid black people or women any more, people had to pay more because employers couldn’t discriminate in what they paid black people and women. Was that a bad thing?

THE BALANCE THE BUDGET T-PARTY:
 Jenny Beth Martin of T Party Patriots took bankruptcy rather than pay $71,000 to Ford Motor Credit and over $500,000 to the IRS.  She lost her home in the process.   I don't think the country should follow in her footsteps. Judson Phillips of T Party Nation took bankruptcy and has had 3 federal tax liens filed against him in recent years.  He is now being sued by a Vegas hotel for not paying his bill.  I don't think the country should follow in his footsteps.