The New Republic: Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig: 'House GOP, White House Budget Overuse The Word Taxpayers'

Source:The New Republic- if TNR had their way, Tax Day would be a national holiday that they and other Socialists would celebrate.

Source:The New Democrat

"Earlier this week, House Republicans released their budget for the 2016 fiscal year, “A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America.” There is much to criticize in it, including deep cuts to social spending, questionable accounting, increasingly quixotic Obamacare repeal procedures, and disturbing gestures toward more military spending. But the plan is also an ideological document meant to advance a particular set of beliefs about how government should function, and toward what end. Its composition and slick rollout (including an upbeat YouTube presentation, a BuzzFeed-esque gif set, and a highly navigable website complete with rolling documentation of news coverage) are meant not only to advance certain policy measures, but persuade voters to adopt its ideological point of view.

Which is why its use of the term “taxpayer”—though hardly atypical of political documents—is notable. In the 43-page budget, the word “taxpayer” and its permutations appear 24 times, as often as the word “people.” It’s worthwhile to compare these usages, because the terms are, in a sense, rival ideas. While “people” designates the broadest possible public as the subject of a political project, “taxpayer” advances a considerably narrower vision—and that's why we should eliminate it from political rhetoric and punditry.

Though addressing people as “taxpayers” is common enough to appear politically neutral, it tends to carry more argumentative weight than it’s typically credited with. The House budget is full of examples of seemingly straightforward deployments of the term which are, upon closer inspection, clearly furthering a particular ideology. “There are too many scenarios these days in which Washington forgets that its power is derived from the ‘consent of the governed,’” the plan reads in one instance of the term’s use. “It forgets that its financial resources come from hard-working American taxpayers who wake up every day, go to work, actively grow our economy and create real opportunity.” In other words, Americans’ taxes are parallel with taxpayers' consent, suggesting that expenditures that do not correspond to an individual’s will are some kind of affront. The report goes on to argue that  

food stamps, public housing assistance, and development grants are judged not on whether they achieve improved health and economic outcomes for the recipients or build a stronger community, but on the size of their budgets. It is time these programs focus on core functions and responsibilities, not just on financial resources. In so doing this budget respects hard-working taxpayers who want to ensure their tax dollars are spent wisely.

Put simply, taxpayers should get what they pay for when it comes to welfare programs, and not be overcharged. But, as the Republican authors of this budget know well, the beneficiaries of welfare programs tend to receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, because they are in most cases low-income. The “taxpayers” this passage has in mind, therefore, don’t seem to be the recipients of these welfare programs, but rather those who imagine that they personally fund them. By this logic, the public is divided neatly into makers and takers, to borrow the parlance of last election’s Republicans.

Democrats often refer to "taxpayers," too. At 150 pages, the White House budget proposal for 2016 uses the term 26 times, predictably invoking it when referring to cuts and reductions in services. "The Budget includes initiatives to improve the service we provide to the American public; to leverage the Federal Government’s buying power to bring more value and efficiency to how we use taxpayer dollars...," President Barack Obama writes in his introductory message. "The Budget includes proposals to consolidate and reorganize Government agencies to make them leaner and more efficient, and it increases the use of evidence and evaluation to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely on programs that work."

There are countless examples of this reading of “taxpayer” bleeding out of official rheotric and into mainstream political commentary. Consider Megan McArdle’s recent meditation on prison reform in Bloomberg View, in which she points out that “prison is … very expensive,” and therefore, “while we're punishing the criminal, we're also heavily punishing the taxpayer.” Imagining tax payment as a kind of punishment is the upshot to the general use of the term, however innocuously the majority of its speakers may intend it. If money owed in taxes is imagined, as in the budget plan and McArdle’s usage, to belong to the taxpayer, then programs operating off of public revenue do seem to have some obligation to correspond to their funders’ consent, and serving the interests of others does seem unfair. But these are all obfuscations brought on by the term.

The same laws that determine that money deposited into a person’s bank account belongs to that person also determine that taxes owed on that deposit do not. Public revenue is just that: a pool of public money to be used for the good of the public, not 300 million pools of private money each to be used to serve private individuals’ interests. What is in the interest of the public may involve expenditures that can’t be filed in a pay-in-cash-out formula, as the “taxpayer” terminology would suggest. Kids, for example, usually don’t pay taxes whatsoever, but spending on children is a necessary social function. Our roads and public utilities, too, are available to anyone inside our borders, not because they have been purchased, but because strong infrastructure provides for the common good.

Along with wrongly dividing the public into various private interest sets, taxpayer terminology also seems to subtly promote the idea that a person’s share in our democratic governance should depend upon their contribution in taxes. If government should respond to the will of taxpayers because programs are incorrectly supposed to be financed on their dime, then those contributing larger shares would seem to be due greater consideration, like shareholders in a company. (It would also mean that the countless undocumented immigrants who contribute more than $10 billion a year in taxes ought to become voting citizens.) But this view is precisely contrary to the democratic vision invoked in historical verbiage like “consent of the governed,” as it mistakes the source of a person’s rights. Our share in democracy arises not from what we can pay into it, but from the fact that we are persons and personhood confers certain obligations and dues.

Whereas "taxpayers" is strewn throughout political documents, “people” is associated with populist and revolutionary movements, and not for nothing. Power to the people, the evergreen revolutionary slogan trumpeted by popular fronts around the world, has a ring that power to the taxpayers does not precisely because it demands an inclusive view of public goods. The same could be said about the first line of the U.S. Constitution: "We the Taxpayers" would have been an odd construction for a nation born from a revolt against British taxation. So let's leave "taxpayer" to the IRS and remove it from everyday speech. With every thoughtless repetition of the word, we’re carrying political water." 

From The New Republic

This article from Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig in The New Republic is just another example that TNR is gone and finished and has now become a different current affairs magazine. Another version of the New-Left The Nation or Salon. (To put it nicely) 

To suggest that using the term taxpayer is somehow insulting to people who don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes, is ridiculous. The term taxpayer is generally used for Americans who pay federal income taxes. Most of those Americans tend to be middle-class Americans and even the wealthy, even after all of their tax breaks. It is not used as an insult for people who collect public assistance because they don’t make enough money to support themselves. And in some cases don’t work at all.

Americans who do collect public assistance especially if they are working, do pay taxes. They pay payroll taxes to pay for Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance. If they drive and own a car even a cheap one, they pay gas taxes to pay for roads and other infrastructure. And they may even pay state and local income taxes even if they are low-income. And if they aren’t working and are on Welfare or Unemployment Insurance, they pay sales taxes and perhaps even gas taxes if they have a car. So even low-income Americans are taxpayers. And even income taxpayers when it comes to payroll taxes. So really except for being a political correctness warrior or something, I don’t see what Elizabeth Bruenig is complaining about here.

From Cult Till Camp: Jayne Mansfield Interview by Wim Sonneveld

Source:The New Democrat

Holland has a lot of English speakers, at least today and perhaps back then as well. Something like 9-10 Dutch speak English at least as their second language. And can travel to Britain Scandinavia, Canada and America just speaking English, because of how well they speak it and understand it. And most of this interview was done in English with Wim Sonneveld speaking it very well. And then he would do a little translation for Holland. And I guess Jayne Mansfield was over in Holland promoting Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. A movie that she did with the great comedic actor Tony Randall in 1956.

In Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, Jayne Mansfield essentially plays herself. A very young and hot starlet named Rita Marlowe who has very similar characteristics as the real life Jayne Mansfield. A hot baby-face goddess who is somewhat immature and looks and acts a lot younger than she actually is. Who portrays herself in real-life as a dumb blond or blonde bimbo, but behind the scenes is a lot sharper than that. And knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. Which is to be taken seriously as an entertainer. And not just someone who looks great and needs those looks to be successful in life.

And that is how Rita Marlowe played by Jayne and Rock Hunter played by Tony Randall connect. Because Rock Hunter is an up-incoming advertiser whose looking that one big client that can move him up in his company. And he meets Rita Marlowe whose in New York looking for that person to give her the positive publicity and image that she’s looking for. This is a pretty funny and entertaining movie. But hardly a stretch or hard role for Jayne to play in this movie. Because the Rita Marlowe character is very similar to the real-life Jayne Mansfield.

Jayne Mansfield: 'Sex Symbol, Playmate, Actress- Interview'

Source:Jayne Mansfield- Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield: the sex symbol and playmate.

Source:The New Democrat

"Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 -- June 29, 1967) was an American actress in film, theatre, and television, a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates."

From Jayne Mansfield

This photo is from The Girl Can't Help It from 1956, starring Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield and actor Tom Ewell. They had excellent comedic timing and chemistry in it. Baby Jayne was born to do comedy and to make people laugh and feel good. She was an excellent comedian who should've stuck with comedy. 

Source:The New Democrat- Jayne Mansfield strawberry shortcake.

I think part of Jayne Mansfield's dumb blonde image had to do with the fact, one because of the roles she got. But two she never really grew up personally and was basically a big teenage girl with the baby-face her whole adult life with the personality to match. And if you look at a lot of her movies and a lot of those movies are either very funny, or she's very funny in them and she was a very funny actress with a great personality, you see her playing women that are a lot like her. I've blogged before that I don't see Jayne as dumb, but as immature and simply too cute personally for someone of her years.

Jayne Mansfield was always a big little girl who never grew up. When she turned 16 or 17 and perhaps even 18 that is about as far as she ever got emotionally. And when her career went south in the early 1960s, she handled that like a teenage girl who doesn't know how to manage disappointment like a mature grown woman would be able to. And as a result her life goes south as well and she stops taking care of herself. Not that she ever did a good job of that to begin with. But she starts drinking way too much and using drugs. And was never happy again in her life.

The interviewer questioned Jayne about her dumb blonde image. And she intelligently answered that had to do with a lot of the parts that she got in Hollywood. Hollywood saw her as this hot baby-face adorable goddess with the great body and they ran with that as long as she was useful to them.

In the movies Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and The Girl Can't Help It, she essentially plays herself in those two movies. But that was just part of why she was portrayed the way that she was. The other part had to do with how she presented herself in public as this baby-face adorable little girl with the great body. And how she lived her life.

Foreign Affairs: Graham K. Brown & Arnim Langer: Lessons From Affirmative Action Around The World

Source:Foreign Affairs-

Source:The New Democrat 

Imagine fifty-years ago when the U.S. Government under the Johnson Administration had a federal policy designed to empower racial and ethnic minorities in this country who were stuck in poverty that was built around infrastructure, education and job training. That all of that money, or at least some of it that went into the Great Society was put into low-income communities. Things like roads, bridges, schools, health care centers, job training centers, incentives for economic development. Are we still looking at an African-American poverty rate of thirty-percent today and a Latino-American poverty rate of twenty-five percent today?

Fifty-years later after affirmative action, who’s benefited from it the most part. Caucasian-American women who were already doing well. And Asian-Americans who were already doing well. Latinos are doing better, but a lot of them have come to America and started their own business’s. And some of them have benefited from affirmative action. Like the kids of immigrants and others. And yes African-Americans no longer have a poverty level of fifty-percent and that is a good thing. But at thirty-percent it is still twice that of the national average. About the level they were fifty-years ago. Twice that of the national average.

So what we’ve done as a country with affirmative action is to tell Caucasian men and women as well, as well some Asian-Americans, that they are already doing very well in this country. And because of that they are going to be denied access in some cases like at college and federal contracts, so people who aren’t doing as well and in many cases aren’t as qualified for those opportunities to have that new access so they can do better as well. And a lot of African and Latino-Americans have taken advantage of that access that they wouldn’t of gotten except for affirmative action. But at the expense of Caucasians and Asians who were more qualified going in.

I’m all for empowering people of poverty regardless of race and ethnicity to do well in America. That is something I believe as a Liberal, liberating people from poverty. But there’s a right way to do that and a wrong way. And the wrong way to empower people who are struggling at the expense of people who are doing well and have taken advantage of the opportunities they were given in life by working hard and being productive. What you do with people who are struggling is give them opportunities to get themselves out of poverty. You invest in their communities with new economic development. You give them education and job training opportunities so they can get themselves the skills that they need to get a good job. You modernize their schools, roads, bridges and everything else that communities have to have to be strong.

And when you invest ins struggling communities, you invest in inner cities and rural areas. And you don’t make those communities even poorer by building new public housing projects in those communities, so you have more poor people moving in there. And even few property owners and leaving the schools there without the resources that they need to give their students a good education. You instead put public housing projects in economically successful areas. So the residents there can immediately get the resources that they need to be able to live a good life. Where their kids can go to good schools. While you’re tearing down or renovating the public housing projects in poorer communities as part of a community rebuilding plan.

We could’ve been doing these things fifty-years ago when economic times were good and weren’t running up huge debts and deficits. Even with the Vietnam War, instead of affirmative action. Instead concentrating so many poorer Americans in one community where they are dealing with bad schools for their children. Where the parents of these kids haven’t finished school themselves in many cases. Where they are dealing with high crime and criminal gangs. Because when business’s leave communities crime tends to move in. Because the resources aren’t there to fight crime in an effective way. And with a better more proactive and even more liberal approach to economic inequality, we could be dealing with much lower poverty rates in this country.

The Washington Post: Christopher Ingraham: The Orwellian Deception of Chuck Grassley's Leniency Industrial Complex

Source:The New Democrat

Anyone who calls them self a Conservative and especially a fiscal Conservative, but who supports the American Prison Industrial Complex and our current criminal justice system, I at the very least would question how fiscally conservative are you. I would also question how conservative you are when you have Conservative Republicans in Congress like Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who oppose our Prison Industrial Complex and our criminal justice system as is. At least when it comes to sentencing non-violent offenders in America.

Seriously, what is fiscally conservative about locking non-violent drug offenders who aren’t dealers but users in prison for 3-5 years if not longer? Especially when a lot of these people are educated and productive already, or could be in college, or vocational school, or in a job training program getting the education they need to be successful and productive citizens in life. But no, the so-called Modern Conservative, Neoconservative really, says, “no, what we should do instead is have those offenders locked up in prison sitting in cells most of the time. And when they are out of their cells, they are sweeping floors or making license plates, or something.”

Is the so-called fiscal Conservative or Modern Conservative aware that locking up these productive young people who also happen to be non-violent drug users who are only guilty of possessing or using illegal drugs comes at the cost of taxpayers? That taxpayers get stuck paying for the cost of living of offenders who otherwise could support themselves on the outside? Money that government has to take from individuals through taxation to spend on people in prison who otherwise could be on the outside earning a living and paying taxes. Instead of sitting in prison and collecting taxes.

A true fiscal Conservative would say, “government should only spend what it needs to in order to perform the duties that we need to as a country. And should spend that money as fiscally responsible as possible.” And part of that is not locking people up in prison, which is the most expensive way to house people, that don’t need to be in prison. That could be in drug rehab or halfway houses at their expense by the way. Or in college, a vocational school, or a job training program, preparing for life as a productive adult.

The Smarter Sentencing Act, which is a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill in the U.S. Senate, supported by the Senators that I mentioned earlier, is not about being soft on crime. But being smart on crime and treating offenders based on the treat that they represent to society. You go hard on violent offenders and other serious offenders. But you’re more lenient on offenders who don’t represent a serious threat, if any threat to the country.

CNN Spotlight: Charles Manson (2014)

Source:Constantly Sporadic- CNN talking to Jeff Gunn.

Source:The New Democrat 

"CNN revisits the vicious, horrific killings by Charles Manson's followers, 45 years later. CNN Special Report - Face of Evil: The Charles Manson Murders. Tuesday, August 18, 2015." 

From Constantly Sporadic 

"Description:  "CNN Spotlight: Charles Manson" 8/9-10/2014.

Why people still pay attention to Charles Manson-

  By Ted Rowlands, CNN

 Sat. August 9, 2014" 

Source:Michaels Backporch- with a look at The Manson Family.

From Michaels Backporch

I’m not making the excuses for Charlie Manson, because he was and probably still is pure evil. But the fact he was born that way, seems odd to me at the very least. That would be like being born a racist or something. And also the idea that he had a loving childhood and everything else, because he had all of these relatives that took care of him, I mean the fact that he was moved around so much during his childhood says a lot right there. He didn’t have that one or two adult relatives who loved him enough to bring him up right. And he eventually ends up in reform and boys schools to take care of him.

Having said all of that, this man is personally responsible for countless murders. And not just the Tate murders on that horrible hot night in August of 1969, but other murders as well that haven’t been completely tied to him. He knew what he was doing when he put him crime family together and what he wanted these young adults to do for him. Which was to get revenge on society for treating Manson the way he was treated as a young person. And if the Manson Family wasn’t stopped when they were, they would’ve kept on killing into the 1970s.

Charlie Manson is not physically responsible for the murders that his crew committed in the sense that he physically murdered all of those people. But he’s responsible for ordering the murders that we’re committed and motivating his crew to commit the murders that he did. Which is called conspiracy to commit murder. The conspirator is just as responsible for the murders as the murderer who physically committed the murders. That is why Manson was sentenced to death in 1971, I believe along with his crew members who committed the murders. And when their sentences were commuted to life, he was given life as well.

The Film Archives: Seymour Hersh- 'The Truth Behind JFK'

Source:The Film Archives- President John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) 35th President of the United States (1961-63) 

Source:The New Democrat 

"Hersh's 1997 book about John F. Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president. About the book:Amazon... 

From The Film Archives 

"A monumental work of investigative journalism from one of the greatest reporters in American history, revealing the Kennedy White House as never before.

In this widely acclaimed and bestselling book, the award-winning investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh reveals a John F. Kennedy we have never seen before, a man insulated from the normal consequences of behavior long before he entered the White House. His father, Joe, set the pattern: Kennedys could do exactly what they wanted. There was no secret that money and charm could not hide. Kennedys wrote their own moral code.

By the end of Jack Kennedy's life, his private recklessness had begun to edge into his public life, putting him -- and his nation -- at risk. Now, for the first time, Seymour Hersh tells the real story of those risks, as he brilliantly re-creates the life and world of a crisis-driven president who maintained a facade of cool toughness while negotiating private compromises unknown to even his closest advisers." 

Source:Amazon- Seymour Hersh's 1998 book about John F. Kennedy.

From Amazon 

This photo is from the same book event at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, for left-wing author and journalist Seymour Hersh, talking about his 1998 book about President John F. Kennedy. But the video that this photo is from is not currently available online right now.

Source:Politics & Prose Bookstore- left-wing author and journalist Seymour Hersh, as Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, talking about his 1998 book about President John F. Kennedy

My like and respect for Jack Kennedy goes to his intelligence, his politics, his policies, what he wanted to do as President. I’m a Liberal Democrat because of JFK and when I learned about his politics and philosophy, I started basing my own politics around him. As well as his personality, especially his sense of humor. 

What I like about JFK might sound like a lot, but that is as far as I go with him as far as liking and respecting the man. He personal life wasn’t just reckless and irresponsible, but it was dangerous. The way he lived his life as President of the United States. Forget about how he treated his wife, which was bad and everything, but that’s their business. My problem with him is how his life effected his presidency.

Jack Kennedy as President of the United States dated mob ladies, girlfriends of Italian-American mob bosses, like Sam Giacana. Knowing full-well that the Italian Mafia is at least partly responsible for him being President of the United States and that his Justice Department led by his brother Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, was running a campaign to take down organized crime in America. Probably also knowing that his mob girlfriends could’ve at any point gone to their mob boyfriends and tell them about their relationships with President Kennedy. And perhaps also knowing that these mob bosses were putting tails on their girlfriends and getting evidence about their relationships with the President of the United States.

At any point during Jack Kennedy’s affairs with his mob girlfriends, the mob could’ve said: "You come down hard on us and we’ll let your secrets out and all of your personal affairs as President.” Which probably would’ve ruined JFK’s political career. And probably would’ve started all sorts of Congressional investigations into his personal life and his association with mob ladies and mobsters. And to see if there were any working relationships and everything else. This would’ve been JFK’s Watergate, if not worst. Because of all the potential blackmail that the Italian Mafia had on President Kennedy.

If there was anything that ever made Jack Kennedy unqualified to be President of the United States, it was his own personal life and personal affairs. Not that he cheated on his wife, but who he cheated on his wife with and the connections that his women had. And how all of that could’ve been used against the Kennedy Administration. Especially as it related to their campaign to take down organized crime in America, especially the Italian Mafia. Work that had to be done for the country to a safer place to live where crime is not such a big part of American life.