A baker prohibits people from buying her pies with food stamps. Once again the right wing says Let Them Eat Cake #P2 #connecttheleft


Applause from the Tea Party spontaneously erupts!


Baker feels heat for denying EBT users from buying her sweets
By Chris Cassidy  |
Photo

A Walpole baker — appalled that welfare abuse now seems almost as American as apple pie — is putting her whoopie pies where her mouth is in a dispute with the Braintree Farmers Market, refusing to take EBT cards for her baked treats.

“I don’t think American taxpayers should be footing the bill for people’s pie purchases,” said Andrea Taber, proprietor of the Ever So Humble Pie Co. in Walpole, who peddles her wares at the Braintree market on Fridays and now finds herself in the middle of the state’s raging fight over welfare benefits.

“To me it’s no different than nail salons and Lottery tickets,” Taber said. “It’s pastry, it’s dessert. My pies are great, but come on.”

Organizers of the farmers market insist that they just want poor people to have access to the market’s healthy, fresh foods.

“We just thought that people that were on food stamps a lot of times don’t have healthy choices,” said Braintree Farmers Market chairwoman Donna Ingemanson. “What better chance to buy healthy foods than at a farmers market?”

It all started in May, when Ingemanson wrote the market’s vendors to “encourage everyone who sells eligible products to participate” in a program in which the market will sell tokens to EBT cardholders to use at market stalls.

Taber told the Herald she has no problem with customers using their taxpayer-funded welfare benefits to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. But she draws a line when it comes to her own sweet, fatty goods.

“They looked at me like I had six heads,” said Taber, who fired off an email on July 20 stating her objections.

“I know it’s been a struggle for you to accept this program but we really need to work something out,” Ingemanson emailed back the same day. “Other markets make it mandatory to sign on to these programs and my guess is that it will be for us soon. ... In fact, you’re the only one who is resistant to the idea.”

Ingemanson told the Herald that in light of Taber’s resistance, the farmers market management will consider during the winter whether to require all vendors to accept EBT payment next year.

“If that’s the case, I’ll take my leave,” Taber told the Herald. “I’m not going to sacrifice my principles and standards for the sake of a few more sales.”

Ingemanson said she’s hopeful they can work something out, but that Taber is launching a one-woman protest.

“We haven’t had a problem with any of the other vendors,” Ingemanson said. “We had a conversation earlier, and I was disappointed she didn’t do it.”

Taber has taken the issue to state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton), a welfare reformer who provided the email exchange to the Herald, and stands with Taber: “She should not be penalized for standing up for her principles — she should be applauded.”

Businesses must apply and be approved to accept EBT cards, and normally are not obliged to do so. Department of Transitional Assistance Commissioner Daniel Curley said the state wants welfare recipients to “access healthy food,” but he declined to weigh in on whether farmers markets that choose to accept EBT cards can compel their vendors to take part.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061153267

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Krugman calls the Romney/Ryan team Gekko/Galt. It is a shame that that would be a dream GOP ticket

Galt / Gekko 2012

Paul Ryan for VP — or, as Romney said in the press conference, “the next president of the United States”. I did say Galt/Gekko, not Gekko/Galt.

There is, I gather, lots of horse-race speculation: It’s a disaster! No, it changes the conversation away from Bain and those missing tax returns! I have no idea who’s right.

What I do know is that anyone who believes in Ryan’s carefully cultivated image as a brave, honest policy wonk has been snookered. Mark Thoma reviews selected pieces I’ve written about Ryan; he is, in fact, a big fraud, who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility, and whose policy proposals are sloppy as well as dishonest. Of course, this means that he’ll fit in to the Romney campaign just fine.

As I said, I have no idea how this will play politically. But it does look like a move from weakness, rather than strength; Romney obviously felt he needed a VP who will get people to stop talking about him.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/galt-gekko-2012/

The truth is the GOP intentionally thwarted any recovery effort just so they could blame Obama (for what they did to him)

Here is the key quote

In early January, the House Republican leadership team held a retreat at an Annapolis inn. Pete Sessions, the new campaign chair, opened his presentation with the political equivalent of an existential question:

“If the purpose of the Majority is to Govern…What is Our Purpose?” […]

“The Purpose of the Minority is to become the Majority.”

The team’s goal would not be promoting Republican policies, or stopping Democratic policies, or even making Democratic bills less offensive to Republicans. Its goal would be taking the gavel back from Speaker Pelosi.

“That is the entire Conference’s Mission,” Sessions wrote.



http://prospect.org/article/crocodile-tears-koch-brothers

Oh my God, what a hack John Sununu is

Good on Soledad O'Brien for not letting this right wing bully her into spreading their propaganda. Not all outlets are complicit with Republicans like Fox News is, thank goodness...

via Crooks and Liars by David on 8/14/12

Soledad O'Brien Fact Checks Sununu: 'You Can't Just Repeat It and Make It true, Sir'

Click here to view this media

The chairman of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s national steering committee on Tuesday angrily shouted for a CNN anchor to "put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead" after she tried to fact check Republican claims about Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan to overhaul Medicare.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien pointed out to Romney surrogate John Sununu that the candidate's plan would turn Medicare into a voucher system much like the budget proposal offered by his vice presidential pick, Paul Ryan.

"It's sounds awfully like the Paul Ryan Medicare plan," O'Brien noted after reading details from Romney's website.

"But it's very different," Sununu insisted. "For example when [President Barack] Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package, the Romney plan does not. That's a big difference."

"I understand that this is a Republican talking point because I've heard it repeated over and over again," O'Brien observed. "These numbers have been debunked, as you know, by the Congressional Budget Office. ... I can tell you what it says. [Obama's plan] cuts a reduction in the expect rate of growth, which you know, not cutting budgets to the elderly. Benefits will be improved."

"Soledad, stop this!" Sununu shouted. "All you're doing is mimicking the stuff that comes out of the White House and gets repeated on the Democratic blog boards out there."

"I'm telling you what Factcheck.com tells you, I'm telling you what the CBO tells you, I'm telling you what CNN's independent analysis says," the CNN host explained.

"Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this!" the frustrated surrogate shot back.

"You know, let me tell you something," O'Brien said. "There is independent analysis that details what this is about. ... And name calling to me and somehow by you repeating a number of $716 billion, that you can make that stick when [you say] that figure is being 'stolen' from Medicare, that's not true. You can't just repeat it and make it true, sir."

After Romney on Saturday announced that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, a campaign memo sought to distance the presidential candidate's plan from Ryan’s budget proposal, insisting that "as president he will be putting together his own plan."

But on Monday, Romney refused to say where his plan differed from Ryan's vision of turning Medicare into a voucher system.

"My plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan for Medicare," the former Massachusetts governor told reporters in Miami. "My plan, like his, really expands Medicare Advantage. It says, let's give people more opportunity to take advantage of not just the standard Medicare, but also the [private insurance] policies that are available in the market place."

(h/t: Mediaite)

David Barton the history hack wants a do-over

This is one of many blatant historical falsehoods this goof has been caught at. If his cause is so noble, and of God, why the need to lie?

via Crooks and Liars by Leah Nelson on 8/14/12

Right-Wing Historian David Barton Claims the Smithsonian is Lying About Jefferson

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Video: David Barton tells Glenn Beck that the Smithsonian is lying about Jefferson’s beliefs

David Barton wants a do-over.

The imaginative pseudo-historian, whose aptly-titled book The Jefferson Lies was pulled last week after publisher Thomas Nelson “lost confidence in the book’s details,” told Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” that he wants to revise his book, fixing some errors and adding evidence to “disprove” the claims of his critics:

Barton seemed anything but shaken by the controversy when he spoke via telephone with The Blaze. He freely answered questions about the controversy and explained that he’s prepared to respond to some of the critiques, while dismissing what he believes is an “elevated level of hostility that’s not really rational in many ways.”

While he stands by his central arguments about Jefferson, Barton isn’t pretending to be immune from error. The historian said that the book has already gone through three or four printings and that there have been word and text changes based on spelling or grammar errors along the way. Also, he addressed a willingness to amend historical items, should they be pointed out and proven wrong by other academics.

“Our policy from day one on every book we’ve done [is] that if someone shows us valid things to change, we’ll change them,” Barton said.

Well, here are a couple of “valid things” he may wish to look into. The Jefferson Lies, which a May poll by the History News Network was voted the “least credible book in history”, characterizes Jefferson – a slave-owner and deist who famously questioned the divinity of Jesus Christ – as an ultra-Christian champion of civil rights.

Oops!

And WWJ[efferson]D about Barton’s continued efforts to recast him as a Christian hardliner?

Let’s take a gander at some of the man’s own words on the subject of lies and the lying liars who tell them. In an 1800 letter responding to a friend’s warning that Philadelphia clergy were attacking Jefferson for his unorthodox beliefs, Jefferson wrote,

The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . .

‘Nuff said.

Why Paul Ryan’s Constitution Has A Lot More In Common With Ayn Rand Than Wit...

This is an important point. To the Randian, the constitution protects the rights of businesses, as people, to conduct business, but not the rights of people to be protected from business. Welcome to 1890

via ThinkProgress by Ian Millhiser on 8/15/12

Paul Ryan Can't Tell The Difference Between This Document And The Constitution

Last September, GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke at the Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center, a Washington, D.C. arm of the conservative institution that was founded under the leadership of Supreme Court spouse Virginia Thomas. The speech was delivered in commemoration of Constitution Day, and it provides a fairly substantial window into how he understands America’s most important document. Unfortunately, the speech also raises very real doubts about whether Mr. Ryan can distinguish the founders’ vision from his own. Ryan’s speech does not simply defend his laissez faire vision for the country, it suggests that this austere vision is mandated by the Constitution itself:

We can strengthen our defense of liberty if we remember to keep in mind those who are struggling to make ends meet. What makes our Constitution such an extraordinary document is that, in making the United States the freest civilization in history, the Founders guaranteed that it would become the most prosperous as well. The American system of limited government, low taxes, sound money, and the rule of law has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.

Watch it:

There’s great deal of radicalism tucked away in this seemingly high-minded speech. “Sound money” is often a code word for abandoning modern monetary policy and returning to the gold standard, but Ryan later makes clear that he really means that the Federal Reserve should abandon all efforts to reduce unemployment. Currently, the Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to control inflation and ensure unemployment does not spiral out of control. Ryan, however, concludes we must “refocus the Federal Reserve on price stability,” eliminating its obligation to assist the unemployed. He does not cite a single word of the Constitution to explain why he thinks the Founders mandated this result.

Similarly, the Constitution says absolutely nothing about “low taxes,” despite Ryan’s suggestion that his preferred tax policy is blessed by the Founders. The original Constitution placed no limits on the amount of federal taxes, although it did require “direct taxes” to be “apportioned among the several states.” The Sixteenth Amendment expanded this power even further, providing that the United States “shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes.” America can have a high income tax or a low income tax, and it can tax the people most able to afford it at a higher rate than the poor and the middle class. This choice is made by the American people’s representatives, not by the Constitution.

The most disturbing aspect of Ryan’s speech, however, is a seemingly innocuous claim that the “the enforcement of contracts” is protected by the “constitutional cornerstone of our free society.” The Constitution actually has very little to say about the subject of contracts. Although it provides fairly robust limits against state governments rescinding contracts between the government and a private party, the Constitution is mute on laws that impair contracts between private parties.

The reason for this should be obvious. Worker protection laws limit the kind of contractual arrangements employers can force upon their workers — a minimum wage law forbids contracts that pay workers less than a certain amount. Consumer protection laws limit the kind of contracts merchants and manufacturers can enter into with their customers — a product safety law might forbid companies from selling dangerous products. If the Constitution actually did shield contracts in the way Ryan suggests, nearly all laws protecting workers and consumers would be unconstitutional.

None of this is to say that contracts aren’t important to a vibrant economy. They obviously are, which is why every state’s common law ensures that most contracts will be enforced. But the price of economic progress is not leaving workers and consumers powerless against rapacious corporations. For much of its history, America has tried to strike an appropriate balance between enforcing ordinary contracts and forbidding exploitative ones.

But, of course, there was a very dark period in American history when the Supreme Court did embrace an entirely fabricated “right to contract” of the sort that Ryan seems to embrace. During this long-discredited era, laws protecting the rights of workers were treated as constitutionally suspect and frequently struck down. Ryan’s suggestions that the Constitution embodies his favorite economic theory raises very real concerns that he would return America to this unfortunate era — an era that culminated in the Great Depression — if given the opportunity to do so.

[HT: Josh Blackman]

I am not the only one that has noticed the fake Romney laugh....


15 Aug 2012 12:38 PM

The Romney "Laugh" Ctd

by Gwynn Guilford

Paul Waldman thinks Romney's laugh will come to personify him:

Some public figures get defined by a single image, or a single statement ("Ask not what your country can do for you"; "I am not a crook"). Others have a characteristic linguistic tic or hand gesture that through repetition come to embody them....

For Mitt Romney, it's the laugh. I'm sure that at times Romney laughs with genuine mirth, but you know the laugh I'm talking about. It's the one he delivers when he gets asked a question he doesn't want to answer, or is confronted with a demand to explain a flip-flop or a lie. It's the phoniest laugh in the world, the one New York Times reporter Ashley Parker wrote "sounds like someone stating the sounds of laughter, a staccato 'Ha. Ha. Ha.'"

Andrew gave his thoughts on Romney's pinched cackle here. Money quote: "[He] talks as if he's learned the English language from some tribe of extremely cheerful, mainstream, extremely white Americans from around 1958"

I Pledge Allegiance To...Pledges.

Chris here in front of Any Grocery Store, USA pledging to buy more Girl Scout cookies but only if they make sure the ones I crave are included next time I come back. I'm sorry, Trixie. I know you are only 8 and the Do-Si-Dos are a tasty cookie, but they are no substitute for the Samoas.

Well, those wacky conservatives are at it again with their pledges, as Laurens County in South Carolina wanted anyone running for a GOP position to sign a pledge that included not watching porn and not having sex outside of marriage. Fortunately, this was said to be illegal, as even the higher ups in the GOP said "No Way" to this. The cooler heads of the Republican party who saw through the absurdity of this will now probably be called the worse name a conservative can call a conservative. No, not a liberal. A moderate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/sc-county-gop-wants-candidates-to-sign...

 But honestly, what is it with Republicans and pledges? We remember the Ban All Pornography pledge made famous by Michelle Bachmann (the one where she said African-American children were better off under slavery. How do you go from "Porn" to "Slavery" is anyone's guess, but Bachmann moved into Crazy Town many years ago).

 There is also the Grover Norquist "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" to never raise taxes. Ever. (He and Rush Limbaugh are pretty much the Vito and Michael Corleone of the GOP. They run it and Heaven Forbid you piss those two off as a member of the Republican Party or you will wake up with a horse's head on your pillow. A gay horse's head too, so they can really stick it to you.)  Women In Combat? There's a pledge. Cap And Trade? Pledge.

I haven't seen this much Pledge since walking down the cleaning supply aisle at Target. I'd give the Republicans mad props if one of them had the balls to stand up and say "How about we sign a pledge not to sign any more f'n pledges?" But until that day comes, maybe the GOP should stop running for office and start sponsoring Walk-A Thons full time.