Slate Magazine: Jamelle Bouie: Neocons Already Destroyed Iraq

Source:The New Democrat

There's an old American expression "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". Which basically translates if you are dumb enough to get fooled multiple times by the same person, you are a fool who deserves to be fooled. The Neoconservatives lost the argument over Iraq as early as early as 2006 when their Republican allies in Congress were kicked out of the House and Senate because of Iraq and how badly the Bush Administration botched that war and occupation. And for all of the Republican support and American tax dollars to pay for those failures.

And because of all of this and the trillions of dollars added to the national debt and the thousands of lives America has lost in Iraq and the millions of lives Iraq has lost in Iraq a country of twenty-five-million people. Not a large country America except for portions of the Far-Right has no interest in going back in and trying to save a country from itself. Iraq has been left up to Iraq which was an original goal of the Bush Administration that the Obama Administration followed through on. Because they wanted to get us the hell out of Iraq a situation they knew couldn't be fixed by Americans themselves.

Iraq now has a functioning federal government and military even as flawed as it is. But at least it represents Iraq and they have the responsibility to govern and defend themselves. And if they aren't willing to live up to their own responsibilities they can't expect Americans to do that for them and be left with the bill for those operations.

Slate Magazine: Reihan Salam: NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio's Welfare Mistake

SlateSource:

(via De Blasio and welfare: The New York City mayor’s terrible plan to reduce work requirements for recipients of public assistance.) 

I guess the Socialist has arrived in New York City to be their mayor in Bill De Blasio. In saying that people on Welfare there need not to go to work or be actively seeking work in order to receive their public assistance. I’m saying this half-jokingly and I agree with the Mayor that education and job training are important when it comes to people in Welfare who are low-skilled. But not as a replacement to working and looking for work. Because work experience especially people with paper-thin resumes even if they have a resume is a form of job training. 

The fact is we need all of these things when it comes to Welfare and moving people out of poverty which is what the 1996 Welfare to Work law is about. Moving people from Welfare to the fast food industry or working in other areas of the food service business and making minimum wage is not a success. Because they’ll still be on public assistance as it relates to public housing, food assistance and Medicaid. 

And saying to people on Welfare that they “can continue to collect their Welfare and not need to bother to even look for work let alone go to work. And maybe we’ll make educational and job training opportunities available to you. But that won’t be required either because we really just want to take care of people on Welfare. And less interested in moving people off of Welfare”. That doesn’t work either for obvious reasons and the key reason why Welfare was reformed in 1996. 

The goal of Welfare and public assistance in general is to move people off of public assistance and in to good jobs so they no longer need public assistance at all. That comes from a combination of education and work experience and this can be done at the same time as people on Welfare are improving their skills with a low-end job and improving their skills so they can get themselves a good job. 

Welfare to the middle class should be the goal of Welfare. Not Welfare to more Welfare. Or Welfare to independent poverty with no assistance for people to improve their lives.  

Brookings: Ron Haskins & Isabel V. Sawhill: 'Creating An Opportunity Society

Source:Brookings EDU- A book about the opportunity society, from Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. 

"Americans believe economic opportunity is as fundamental a right as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. More concerned about a level playing field for all, they worry less about the growing income and wealth disparity in our country. Creating an Opportunity Society examines economic opportunity in the United States and explores how to create more of it, particularly for those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder."

From Brookings EDU

"Opportunity Society

Source:Google- A Brookings event from 2009, about an opportunity society. 

The Opportunity Society that New Democrats started talking about in the late 1980s and early 1990s was also designed to counter the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s. That made government especially big centralized government look like the problem and what was holding back freedom for millions of Americans. What the Opportunity Society says that government shouldn’t be seen or be the problem or the solution for Americans who struggle, or for Americans in general. But as one tool that can help people in need get the tools that they need to live in freedom and be able to take care of themselves.

But also the Opportunity Society is something where that all Americans again regardless of income level and how they start out in life have a quality of opportunity to succeed in life. Where universal quality education is available to all. Especially for Americans who are growing up in low-income communities. Or trying to raise their kids in those communities. Or simply trying to survive on their own in those low-income communities. And where quality universal education includes K-12, but also college, vocational and job training as well for everyone.

Again government shouldn’t be the source or the problem when it comes to quality of life in America. It should be a tool one tool especially when it comes to financing that Americans regardless of how they start out in life can take advantage of to obtain freedom for themselves. So they are taking care of themselves and not needing public assistance for their economic survival.

Simon & Schuster: Hillary Clinton- On Writing Hard Choices

Source: Simon & Schuster-

Hillary Clinton did a book event last Friday with a local Washington book store Politics and Prose and was interviewed there by a woman who worked for her at the White House in the 1990s and when Hillary was Secretary of State during the first Obama Administration. In her speech she was talking about hard choices even though she really didn’t mention any that she made herself. And also talked about big ideas even though she really didn’t mention any of her own. 

This is the major weakness of Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate and why she’s not President of the United States right now. She doesn’t let people know what she is about politically and doesn’t want to take hard stances on key issues other than the traditional key Democratic issues as it relates to women’s issues and civil rights. But then doesn’t seem to want to be on the record on the 21st Century Liberal Democratic issues as it relates to the War on Drugs and marijuana. To go along with privacy especially at it relates to the War on Terrorism. 

Hillary wants to be where she believes is the safest place for her politically. But she sees and American political scene that is looking for a strong leadership and strong leaders. So she believes the way to capture those voters is to talk about those things and try to convince people without giving much evidence to support herself as a strong leader that she believes in strong leadership too. So she talks about the need for "big ideas" and writes a book called Hard Choices without laying out those things. 

If Hillary Clinton can’t communicate to the American voters Democrats and otherwise of why she should be the next President of the United States other than the need for electing a female President, she’ll lose another Democratic presidential contest where she was the heavy favorite going in. Because at the end of the day American voters want to know who they may vote for and what would come with electing that person and where they are on the key issues of the day.
Source:Simon & Schuster Books

Brookings Institution: Sr. Simone Campbell- 'Faith Has Political Consequences'

Source:Brookings Institution- Sr. Simone Campbell: speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, in 2014.

Source:The New Democrat

"Sr. Simone Campbell, NETWORK: Everyone has stories and we need to speak of those stories because it is wrong that our people cannot earn enough in their employment to live in dignity."

Watch Sr. Simone Campbell here Brookings Institution

The American Left, especially the Far-Left, gets stereotyped as being Atheist.  This is reinforced by MSNBC at any point when they are talking about religion.  Ditto,  Salon, The Nation, the AlterNet or  Bill Maher.  But, there's also a strong Religious Left in America and Sr. Simone Campbell is a perfect example of it.

The people of the Religious Left have very strong progressive and social democratic political tendencies.  They believe that their religion tells them to look after people and their communities and that government has a strong role to play in this. They believe in social justice and that all Americans should have equal access to freedom and true equality.

You could make a good case that the Religious Left came of age in the 1950s and 1960s with the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  It was pushing for civil rights and equality for African-Americans but, by the late 1960s, they had  won those battles and moved on to talking about and and pushing for social justice and giving the Federal Government a bigger role to see that more Americans have what they need to live well.

Not everyone on the Left is an atheist, as much as we get stereotyped that way. I come from an atheist family but I'm a liberal and an agnostic.  There are liberal catholics and progressive protestants and  even socialist christians. The problem with stereotypes is that even though they are all based on some truth, it's never the whole truth.  It's a biased characterization of a group that others want the public to see.  The popular religious characterization  of the left is a perfect example of that.

The Economist: Richard Davies Interviewing Zanny Minton-Beddoes: Time to Rethink Retirement

Source:The New Democrat

This emphasizes the great need for improving the skills of workers, especially in America which ranks  39th in the world in education.  That 1 in 5 Americans lives in poverty is already  unacceptable.

Our aging population means current and future workers are going to have to work longer and be more productive.  They need to put more money away for their own retirements and be less dependent on the public safety net to provide them needed income when they retire.

Private retirement accounts are an attractive policy option that encourages people to put money,  matched by their employers, away for savings and retirement.  This allows people to finance their own retirements bringing down government costs. 

The New Republic: Jeffrey Rosen: Schuette Decision: Supreme Court Supported Precedent

Source:The New Democrat

Jeff Rosen, as almost always, hit it on the mark today in his column in The New Republic.  He said that whether you agree with the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action at the University of Michigan  or not, you should at least agree with how they decided it.  Showing judicial restraint, they said that whether you have affirmative action in your state or not, should be decided by democratic processes, through the legislature and the voters.  It should be not be left to some unelected board or institution.

Today's Progressives are always talking about the need for more democracy in America, that too many important decisions are being left to a handful of people who represent powerful interests.  Yet they take the undemocratic position that an institution, in this case the University of Michigan, knows better than the voters themselves whether or not there should be affirmative action at this public university.  They believe in affirmative action and will seek to preserve it by any means necessary.