Legislators vs people in the real world

The Post-Star has editorialized against New York legislators seeking a pay raise. (I won't link to it due to their pay wall).

NYS lawmakers are paid a bare minimum of $79,500 for their part-time jobs; committee chairmen and those in leadership positions earn quite a bit more. Incidentally, 'part-time' is the description they themselves use so as to weasel out of transparency laws that might reveal their corruption and conflicts of interest.

In addition, they are given a $171 per diem for every day the legislature’s in session. 

The legislature opposes a raise in the minimum wage. Gov. Cuomo pretends to be in favor of the minimum wage but won't push for it, for fearer of alienating his corporate backers.

A minimum wage earner would have to work SIXTY hours a week every week for THREE AND A HALF YEARS to earn what the poorest of these bozos in Albany get for five months of *part-time* 'work.'

This calculation does not count their per diem. In order to earn $171, a minimum wage worker would have to clock in 23.5 hours.

Pay no attention to the main behind the curtain

New York public radio reports that hours after speaking out in favor of campaign finance reform, NY Gov. Cuomo attended a $20,000 a plate fundraiser. It's well-known that he is joined at the hip with the big business lobbying group The Committee to Save New York. This might why Cuomo is doing a lot of talking on campaign finance reform, but zero acting... sorta like his fellow Wizard of Oz Pres. Obama and Citizens United. The pair is counting on liberals paying more attention to their words than their actions, which is usually a good bet.

Far right think tanks pushed individual mandate

I read an interesting column today about the Affordable Care Act (referred to by critics as Obamacare). It pointed out that the individual mandate, the heart of Obamacare, was once endorsed by the right-wing think tanks [sic] The American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation as a way of pre-empting Medicare for All (single payer).

This inconvenient fact illustrates several truths:

1) If far right think tanks endorsed it, then it's a pretty safe bet that the individual mandate is NOT a bridge toward single payer, as Obamacare apologists claim;

2) Democrats are now as far to the right as conservatives used to be;

3) Republicans are now further to the right than Attila the Hun;

4) Serious progressives should have nothing to do with either of them.

But given that ACA apologists seem intent upon 'forgetting' that Obamacare is virtually identical to the plan implemented by his Republican rival, I suspect rationalization and self-deceit will prevent them from realizing #4.

The cost of a 'part-time' legislature

New York legislators have to be among the most well-paid 'part-time' workers in the world. 

(They insist they are 'part-time' as an excuse to avoid conflict-of-interest disclosure laws that might reveal their leve of corruption). 

Legislators receive a base salary of $79,500 for 62 scheduled work days in Albany, plus more if they chair committees or serve in leadership posts. 

Yes, I know they do some work in their districts but this base salary works out to nearly $1300 a day of the legislative session. Plus, they get a $165 per diem for every day of the legislative session they are in Albany (or, apparently, even if they’re not).

If the state is only run by three people -- the Assembly speaker, the Senate majority leader and governor -- as many rank-and-file legislators complain, then why do we need the other 210 legislators at $1465 a day per member?

But apparently $1465 a day isn't enough. These part-timers want a pay raise.

Obamacare: like solving hunger by mandating everyone eat three meals a day

Today, the US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often called by critics ‘Obamacare.’

The simplistic dichotomy peddled by the mainstream media is that if you oppose Republicans/The Tea Party, you support Obamacare. If you oppose Democrats/Pres. Obama, you oppose Obamacare. Everything’s neat, simple and tidy. Anything that varies from that easy narrative is pretty much ignored. Frankly, MSM journalists should have read some of the discussions my friends and I participated in today. A progressive hating on the ACA, a libertarian praising it... the nuance would make their heads explode.

So here I am a progressive who is disappointed that the ACA is still the law of the land.

Obamacare is akin to solving the problem of hunger by mandating everyone eat three meals a day.

In its decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that health insurance (ACA has nothing to do with health care) is the only private commodity that all Americans are required by law to purchase as a condition of citizenship, as a condition of being.

The health insurance industry is surely sending a huge thank you to the corporate Supreme Court, for this greatly expanded and government-mandated (under penalty of fines) pool of buyers for their racket.

This is a huge step backwards for real health care reform. Liberals, who know in their brains that Medicare for All (single payer) is the real solution to the problem of access to affordable health care, will be neutered for at least the next 20 years. They think Obamacare is just fine. People who think the situation is just fine don’t agitate for something better, especially when it’s completely different.

The ACA also pre-empts further efforts real reform because it gives the private health insurance industry even more of an incentive to preserve the status quo at any cost.

This is what passes for ‘choice’ in America. Mitt Romney and the Republicans are running against a health insurance scheme he inspired. Obama and Democrats are defending a health insurance scheme their hated opponent inspired. This pathetic state of affairs illustrates so perfectly why America needs real multipartyism.

Evolution of language

The evolution of language, even in a relatively short period of time, is interesting. I'm presently reading the late Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism. The prologue, written in mid-1992, makes several references to "Lebanonization," referring to the fracturing of societies. If written today, he surely would've used "Balkanization."

Organic food turns people into jerks, and other deceitful headlines

Recently, a news story made the rounds about a study that concluded that organic food turns people into jerks. NBC News' Today show was one of many mainstream media that ran virtually identical headlines on this topic.

This instance of media bias may have been merely sloppy headline writing or some overworked copy editor in search of a good headline, but the effect was to mislead readers. It's a perfect example of how merely consuming the news media, even generally respected sites, can make you LESS informed, not more, if you do so uncritically.

The headline implies that eating organic food turns people into jerks, according to the study. But when you actually read the articles and use those critical thinking skills, you find out that the subjects don't actually EAT any organic food. They are merely SHOWN PICTURES of organic food.

So an intellectually honest headline would read, "Does *seeing pictures* of organic food turn you into a jerk?"

What's worse is that none of these news outlets bothered to raise questions about the credibility of research on the effects of organic food where none of the subjects actually ate organic food as part of the study. How such a flimsy study got such wide and uncritical media play perhaps creates a greater suspicion of media bias.

How to really thank a GI

Rather than (or if you prefer, in addition to) merely intoning some cutesy catchphrase, Farenell Photography blog has some good suggestions on how you can show appreciation to a member of the military in a substantive way.