The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Ryan, Romney, Santorum:"We're here to sell some blood"

    By jollyroger on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 8:35pm |

    After announcing themselves pleased beyond all human power to describe by the outcome of the Clinton Welfare Massacre, the three amigos declared their intention to show how empowering it could be to live the life of a timed-out single mother of four.

    Romney  ("I'm running for office, for pete's sake!")  volunteered to  add the extra burden of undocumented worker status, because he has the most experience of the three in this regard.

    Santorum could scarcely be recognized, hidden behind a teetering pile of scavenged cans and bottles that he was hoping to turn into cash for an Easter offering at his church.

    Meanwhile, Ryan was dickering in a bodega over how much vigorish he had to give up from his remaining safety net, his food stamps, in order to have cash to buy toilet paper.

    Even Repugnants have some standards.

     

     

    Comments

     Distraught at losing her only steady source of cash, she asked the children if they would be ashamed to help her collect discarded cans.

    “I told her I would be embarrassed to steal from someone — not to pick up cans,” her teenage daughter said.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 8:49pm

    What would cult hero Ron Paul say about the plight of the poor besides relaxing drug laws so that they can drug themselves out of misery?


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 9:20pm

    Well, of course, Ron was the fourth fabulous Freak Brother, and was it not Freewheelin' Frank who said, Dope will get you through times of no money, better than money will get you through times of no dope..."

     

    And in a burst of empowerment intervention, Paul announced that henceforth, profits from the sale of his newsletter "Word toWhitey", will be plowed into second hand shopping carts, (from supermarkets flooded out by Katrina).  They will be leased (not given, mind you) to the homeless for a percentage of the resulting can/recycling revenue.

    The exact percentage has not been revealed, and will be negotiated on a case by case basis, to provide maximum humiliation to the lesee.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 9:29pm

    How can anyone be wistful about Ron Paul and then express concern about the poor?


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 9:34pm

    I have been driven smooth mad by the impact of the insane prohibition regime.

    I will do anything to give cover to even the slightest glint of sanity amidst the bat-shit crazy that is Ron Paul writ large...

    And, I really, really, want to stop killing people because they live near someone who talks shit about us.

    And, fuck the banks.

    Other then that, the man is odious.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 9:37pm

    Quick question - any idea how Bush changed Clinton welfare reform?

    Seeing as this recession came 8 years into Bush's presidency, 12 years after Clinton passed his, it's a shame we can't even get basic facts straight.

    Try these:

    http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/0120metropolitanpolicy_waller.aspx

    http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/u/working_paper07-18.pdf

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/06/AR200608...

    The new rules, written by Congress and the Bush administration, require states to focus intensely on making more poor people work, while discouraging other activities that might help untangle their lives.

    .....

    This second generation of change reverses a central idea behind the 1996 law that ended six decades of welfare as an unlimited federal entitlement to cash assistance. The law decentralized welfare, handing states a lump sum of money and the freedom to design their own programs of temporary help for poor families. Ten years later, the government is tightening the federal reins.

    Many state officials and advocates are furious. "You had fixed block grants in exchange for state flexibility," said Elaine M. Ryan, deputy executive director of the American Public Human Services Association, which represents welfare directors around the country. "Now you have fixed block grants in exchange for federal micromanagement. . . . That was not the deal."

    In fact, the nation's welfare rolls have been slashed sharply — from about 4.5 million to 2.1 million families — during the past six years. Roughly a third of these welfare recipients currently have jobs that require them to work a minimum of 30 hours a week. Bush wants at least 70% of welfare recipients to be employed in 40-hour-a-week jobs by 2007. This is something he thinks can be accomplished without giving states more money to cover the increased costs of child care for the welfare recipients.

    But go ahead, blame Clinton if you must.

    [for more, Google "Bush changes welfare reform"]

     

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/09/2012 - 4:14am

    No one harbors deeper contempt for Bush than I, but the fact is that without a dem president signature on the unraveling of AFDC, it would not have passed

    Peter Edelman tossed his career in protest, and not on a humbug.

    Like the Rolling to Re-election over the corpses of the wrongly executed (the gut habeas corpus act) fat Bill was the linchpin for a stealth Reagan Republican take over of the pro choice wing of the repugnants, aka, the democrats.


    by jollyroger on Mon, 04/09/2012 - 1:31pm

     welfare as an unlimited federal entitlement to cash assistance

     

    That's what a civilized people do to help those in need


    by jollyroger on Mon, 04/09/2012 - 1:44pm