Are you a Moocher or a Maker?

It’s incorrect to say Obama undermined welfare reform. Temporary Aid to Needy Families, as it’s formally known, is a $16.5 billion block grant to the states, only 40 percent of which goes toward benefits. In July, Obama invited states to apply for waivers that would give them greater flexibility to design programs that promote employment, while relieving them from some paperwork requirements. If granted, states would still have to move adults into jobs within two years and cap lifetime benefits (usually five years). Anyway, don’t Republicans normally applaud block grants that come with fewer federal strings?

Instead of worrying about the rise of a moocher class, Republicans would be better off thinking up ways to improve the standard of living for the next generation, and making sure the benefits of economic growth are more widely shared. That means vastly improving education and transportation, on which the private sector depends. It involves figuring out how to control health-care costs and means testing Social Security and Medicare so the wealthy receive less and pay more. It means reconfiguring our system of national defense.

It also means a change in mindset. The Republican's can’t cling to the one solution -- tax cuts -- that has been its cure-all for decades. Yes, we all love tax cuts, but they benefit mostly the rich. Besides, federal income taxes are at the lowest level since the 1950s. Source

"Entire central Illinois region behind Sara Palin 100%"

Even though Palin quit the governor of Alaska gig in 2008, last night Mayor of Washington, Illinois, Gary Manier introduced Palin to the over one thousand giddy people who attended the dinner at Washington Five Points as the Governor.

Although the event was held up to be a fundraiser for the Washington Area Community Center and for youth scholarships, the comments that Mayor Manier made when giving Palin the key to the City, indicates that he is a true fan and supporter of the ideals the "Governor" is spewing.

I suppose bringing Palin to town under the guise of a fundraiser and having people think they are so desperate for funding for their schools, they would do anything, even stoop so low as to bring in Palin, is better than admitting he would bring the hatemonger to town just because he and his constituents are fans.

Either way, the fact that he felt so comfortable openly swooning over her is a sad commentary on the region in which we live. A thriving tea party and now this. Ugh.

Have you seen my lipstick?

A rather astute observation from Adam Hanft via Huffington Post:

So let's play a thought game. Imagine if a folksy, inexperienced black woman was nominated to be vice president on the Democratic ticket. And imagine that instead of coming from Alaska she came from Alabama, and instead of dropping white aw-shucksisms like "Doggone" and "You betcha" into her conversation, she used the equivalent black vernacular.

Imagine, as well, if her sentences didn't come close to parsing, if they were wickedly ungrammatical -- no, anti-grammatical -- clouds of disconnected thoughts and sound bites. The right would rise up in indignation and disgust, and the most vitriolic, the Rush Limbaughs, the Michael Savages, would decry the presence of Ebonics on the national stage.

Were she black, Sarah Palin's performance would have been skewered by the right as undignified and demeaning to the office she seeks. But because she is a culture warrior in heels, she is hailed by the right as a breath of populist fresh air, and her use of what conservatives once sniffed at as "substandard English" is celebrated as a signifier of her glorious everydayness.

Funny, I was jus talkn to Momma-an-nem bout dis da otha day, also they concur.