The Young Turks: John Iadarola- 'Welfare Fraud in Maine? Investigation by Gov. Paul LePage (R)'

Source:Eagle Forum- Governor Paul LePage (Republican, Maine)

Source:The New Democrat 

"On Tuesday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) released data on purchases made with state welfare benefits that he claimed exposed abuse, but they only add up to less than a percent of all benefit transactions.

The data show that there were more than 3,000 transactions at bars, sports bars, and strip clubs made with EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards loaded with TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or welfare) and food stamp benefits between January 1, 2011 and November 15, 2013. The state doesn't track what was actually purchased, and some transactions can be withdrawals from ATMs at those locations. Given that there are about 50,000 of these transactions every month, or nearly 1.8 million in that time frame, as the state's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman told the Bangor Daily News, they only make up "about two-tenths of 1 percent of total purchases and ATM withdrawals," the paper calculates."  

Source:The Young Turks- Governor Paul LePage (Republican, Maine)

From The Young Turks

I have no problem with requiring anyone who receives public assistance to have to look for work, take jobs they’re qualified for and even finish and further their education while they’re receiving taxpayer assistance to pay their bills. 

America is not Sweden, obviously. We’re a much more diverse country: politically, culturally, ethnically, racially, national character. A much larger country and everything else. Sweden, does a lot of things well, but America is a country where you’re supposed to do as much for yourself as possible. And then government can help you out when and if you come up short.

But America is not a country where you can be expected to not only not work, but not even look for work. Even if you didn’t finish high school and decided to have kids before you were ready to raise them. Now, we’ll help you when you need it in order to get by and won’t force you to go without. 

But you can’t just take that assistance and sit at home and say:“I don’t have an education and I can’t get a good job. I have this public assistance coming in for me and my family. Plus private charity, so I don’t need to look for work.” Public assistance should instead be seen as a public investment in human capital.

Public assistance should used to help people who are down help themselves get themselves up and living in some type of freedom. Where they’re able to take care of themselves and their kids on their own. Which does several positive things and helps the economy in several ways. People in need get the assistance that they need and spend that money which goes right into the economy. But they’re also finishing their education, they’re getting themselves a good job, a good home and now have the freedom to take care of themselves and their families. Which means fewer people on public assistance and more Americans in the middle class and even doing better.

US News: Peter Roff: Bob Woodward: George W. Bush Didn’t Lie to Start Iraq War

Source:U.S. News.

Source:The New Democrat

Do I think President George W. Bush lied to get America to go to war with Iraq? No, but I’m not a mind-reader either. And besides, unlike the Far-Left, I don’t see George W. as a liar, or war criminal. But a good decent man who was way over his head. To go from being Governor of Texas, which is a weak job to begin with, where the State Legislature only meets every other year, to President of the United States, with no other public service position on your résumé and a fairly thin private sector record, is a gigantic leap. Sure, I rather have George W. as President, than Sarah Palin, but that is not really saying anything.

What I believe President Bush and his National Security Council did, was by the summer of 2002, they decided that they were going to go to war with Iraq. And take Saddam Hussein out of power if not kill him. And then try to make the case to the country and especially a divided Congress, with a Republican House and Democratic Senate, during an election year, that Saddam is still dangerous. And that he has weapons and they either need to be eliminated, or he needs to be eliminated. With all the so-called evidence of Saddam’s weapons programs and his ambition to have nuclear weapons. And as it turns out the Bush Administration had paper-thin evidence to go with.

What the Bush Administration did, was they decided to go to war. And then make the case for going to war afterwords. The original reason for going to war was to eliminate Iraq’s WMD and nuclear program. Well as it turns out, Saddam’s WMD were gone and he didn’t have a nuclear program. Probably because the United Nations weapons inspectors took out those weapons and programs in the late 1990s. So after we learned that there was no longer WMD in Iraq, the Bush Administration kept changing the justification for going to war in Iraq. Saddam was a bad guy, a potential link and supplier to other terrorists. Well, they were only right about one thing. Saddam, was an evil man and brutal dictator.

There people who are liars and people who are bad and even evil. And then there people who are simply just wrong about whatever policies they are pushing and trying to accomplish. George W. was simply wrong and didn’t have the information and knowledge needed to make the decisions that he did to make those decisions. Someone with better judgement, experience and knowledge and even a better national security team around him, doesn’t take America to war in Iraq. Especially without any real reason to do it other than Saddam is a an evil guy and brutal dictator. Which can be said about a lot of other countries in the world. Where America hasn’t threatened to even attack.

Alvin Rabushka: 'Whatever Happened to The Third Way of Bill Clinton & Tony Blair?'

Source:Thoughtful Ideas Blog- The Third Way.

Source:The New Democrat

"The Third Way is a position that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by synthesizing conservative economic and social welfare policies.  It was exemplified by a group of political leaders in the 1990s that included President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, and leaders of Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Israel." 

From the Hoover Institution

"The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies.[1][2] The Third Way was born from a re-evaluation of political policies within various centre to centre-left progressive movements in the 1980s in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the perceived overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.[3]

The Third Way has been promoted by social liberal[4] and social-democratic parties.[5] In the United States, a leading proponent of the Third Way was Bill Clinton, who served as the country's president from 1993 to 2001.[6] In the United Kingdom, Third Way social-democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from traditional conceptions of socialism and said: "My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice. ... Socialism as a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and rightly."[7] Blair referred to it as a "social-ism" involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent and advocated social justice, social cohesion, equal worth of each citizen and equal opportunity.[8]

Third Way social-democratic theorist Anthony Giddens has said that the Third Way rejects the state socialist conception of socialism and instead accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views social democratic governments as having achieved a viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and other policies and that contemporary socialism has outgrown the Marxist claim for the need of the abolition of capitalism as a mode of production.[9] In 2009, Blair publicly declared support for a "new capitalism".[10]

The Third Way supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities and productive endowments while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this.[11] It emphasises commitment to balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity which is combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, the decentralisation of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement and promotion of public–private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, preservation of social capital, and protection of the environment.[12]

Specific definitions of Third Way policies may differ between Europe and the United States. The Third Way has been criticised by other social democrats, as well as anarchists, communists, and in particular democratic socialists as a betrayal of left-wing values,[13][14][15] with some analysts characterising the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement.[16] It has also been criticised by certain conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians who advocate for laissez-faire capitalism." 

From Wikipedia

Alvin Rabushka, is essentially right about what the Third Way is. That it’s a new approach born in the mid 1980s or so. But you could go back to Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and Jack Kennedy in the early 1960s. That it’s a different approach and a center, between anti-government conservative libertarianism on the Right, that Barry Goldwater and Ron Reagan put on the national scene in the 1960s and 70s and New-Left democratic socialism on the left, that became dominate in the Democratic Party in the late 1960s and 1970s, that seek to create a superstate, a European welfare state in America. And make the central government responsible for looking after and taking care of the personal and economic welfare of the people.

The Third Way, is essentially a bridge between Barry Goldwater on the conservative libertarian-right and Bernie Sanders on the Socialist Far-Left. That says government has a role in seeing that everyone can succeed and do well and live in freedom. Just not try to do everything for them and run their economic and personal affairs for them.

Classical Liberals (meaning the real Liberals) believe that it's the job of government, not to try to run people's lives for them and take away personal responsibility, accountability, and freedom of choice away from them. But instead empower people, especially people who are struggling, to get the tools that they need to be successful and independent on their own. Classical Liberals also don't believe that government should just get out-of-way, and essentially let corporations and wealthy individuals run the country. But instead use government to empower people to take control of their own lives. As well as protect individuals from predators. 

People on the left (or far-left) would say this looks like neoliberalism or it looks centrist. People who are closeted Socialists especially say that. But the Third Way is between conservative libertarianism on the Right and democratic socialism on the left, but it's not centrist. Liberals believe in liberal democracy, not centrism and splitting the difference. Liberalism (or classical liberalism, if you prefer) is it's own political philosophy, not a combination of two other philosophies.

If you think about it, the Third Way has been the dominant political philosophy in the Democratic Party, really since the mid 1980s after they lost another presidential election in a landslide to President Ronald Reagan. Governor Michael Dukakis, even though he lost to George H.W. Bush in a landslide in 1988, is also a New Democrat, not a Social Democrat. 

The Democratic Party has always had a left-wing in it and probably will always have that, unless the Democratic Socialists move to the Green Party. But at best, they've been more than a 3rd of the Democratic Party. 

It's almost impossible to win a statewide election or win the presidential nomination, as a Democrat, as a left-wing Democratic Socialist. You have to be a Classical Liberal (meaning real Liberal) or a Progressive (meaning not Socialist) to win a statewide election, at least outside of Vermont and Massachusetts, to win the Democratic nomination. And unless that changes, I don't see classical liberalism (meaning the real liberalism) ever leaving the Democratic Party.

National Geographic: 'Lockdown Prison Oakville Maximum Security Prisons Documentary'

Source:National Geographic- a corrections officer at Oak Park Maximum Security Prison, in Minnesota. 

"Lockdown Prison Oakville Maximum Security Prisons Documentary" 

From Larry Long 

It's hard to feel hard for people who not just hurt innocent people, or hurt innocent people for a living, or just hurt innocent people for prison, but then hurt innocent people while they're in prison. At some point the Department of Corrections has to take a stand and not just say that they're not going to tolerate this horrible behavior, but then do whatever they can within the law and Constitution, to prevent that violent behavior from happening again. 

The whole point of maximum security and supermax prisons is to prevent further violence in prisons. It's said that maximum security and supermax's are designed to house the worst of the worst, but not from society, because once you enter prison, you leave the free society, at least, but these prisons are designed to house the worst of the worst in the Department of Corrections. Meaning the inmate population regardless of what state you're talking about.  

Having said all of this, it's called the Department of Corrections for a very good reason, when you're talking about Minnesota or any other state. So these institution are supposed to be designed to at least make the inmates better inmates and responsible people while they're in prison at least, if not prepare the inmates for life on the outside, if they're released from prison at some point. And even in a supermax or even in solitary confinement, the inmates need to be incentivized to get with the program and cooperate with the prison staff and not have to come back to solitary in the future.

National Constitution Center: Senator Mike Lee: 'Our Lost Constitution'

Source:The New Democrat

I agree with Senator Mike Lee that Congress has not lived up to their responsibilities as being an equal partner in the Federal Government with the Executive. Senator Lee, should know being a member of Congress himself. And how long this has been going on, I would go back to the War on Terror with President Bush, that has just continued with President Obama and even gone further. That a lot of our laws, unofficially written even, are written by Federal agencies. And done through executive orders. And of course Congress can overrule executive orders they do not like, or see as unconstitutional. But part of Congress not doing their jobs is not overriding executive orders that they see are wrong, or unconstitutional.

One of the core values of liberalism has to do with questioning authority. Especially centralized authority and big centralized authority. Not anti-authority, but saying that a lot of authority in the hands of one person or one group of people, even on the behalf of all the people, is dangerous and anti-freedom. And the U.S. Constitution with its Separation of Powers and our Federal Republic and our Federalist system and all of our individual and constitutional rights, best and most accurately describes and represents liberalism at its core and realist form. And that is what the Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) laid out with the U.S. Constitution.

You could blame this President, or that President for our so-called lost Constitution if you want to. But when Congress doesn’t live up to their oversight authority, both the House and Senate, to see that they are involved in all laws and regulations that the White House and its agencies writes and to see that the executive is enforcing the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President, who is to blame here? The President? The Executive is just doing what they believe they already have the authority to do. And again if Congress doesn’t like that, they, or a group of Representatives, or Senators can stand up and take action. Hold oversight hearings, pass laws limiting the Executive, hold the Executive accountable through the appropriations process.

The American Mind: The Fate of Modern Liberalism With Charles Krauthammer

Source:The New Democrat

It depends on what you mean by liberalism and this is a reason why I’m glad Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is running for president. Because he’ll represent the so-called modern liberal movement in America and the so-called modern liberals. Even though he’s a Democratic Socialist. And this is what I mean, because what is called modern liberalism, is democratic socialism. Its America’s version of Britain, France and Scandinavia, Canada, and Australia as well. And the Democratic Party has a sufficient Democratic Socialist wing in it, led by Senator Sanders and others.

The reason why liberalism, classical liberalism if you want to call it that, but not libertarianism, but the reason why liberalism is in good shape, is because of the country. Americans, including young Americans, tend to like both personal and economic freedom. We tend to like the ability to manage our own personal and economic affairs and not need or want government do that for us. We also believe there should be a safety net for people who get knocked off their feet. Or don’t have the skills to take care of themselves. To help them get on their feet. America is as Barry Goldwater put it. A country where we don’t want big government in our wallets or bedrooms.

America doesn’t want a big government trying to run our lives for us. But to do what we need it to do. Like protecting us from criminals and keeping the air clean and products that make it to market safe and so-forth. Which is very different from having a government so big that the people don’t have to do much for themselves and don’t have choices in how they can live their own lives. Without much money after taxes to take care of themselves, because government is doing that for them. Liberalism in is real sense, classical or otherwise, is about personal and economic freedom. With a limited government there to protect us from people who would harm us and help people who are down get on their feet. A liberal government is an insurance system with law enforcement and a military. Which is what Americans tend to want from government.

You Politics News: Mike Huckabee 2016 Announcement Speech

Source:The New Democrat

Well I give this to Mike Huckabee, here’s a Republican with true blue-collar appeal. Because that is how he grew up and was raised and where he’s from. Similar to Rick Santorum, but the problem that both the Governor and Senator Santorum have, is that their blue-collar support is only in the Republican Party. And within the Christian-Right of the Republican Party at that. I mean imagine Mike Huckabee as the 2016 GOP presidential nominee. And also imagine Alabama declaring Islam as their state religion, which has just as big of a chance, while you’re at it. What state north of Florida and south Virginia could Mike Huckabee win. What state east of the Great Plains and west of California could Governor High and All Mighty Jesus win?

There are still a enough sane and smart Republicans left to prevent someone from the Far-Right of their party from winning their presidential nomination. And without gerrymandering in the House of Representatives, the GOP wouldn’t be in the majority in the House right now. And yes a lot of the Far-Right is in the House, but that is thanks to gerrymandering. Not because they’re great politicians and public servants. You can say the 1960s and 1990s ruined America all you want and its time to return America back to the 1950s and party like its 1955 all you want to. With a lot of our personal cultural freedom being thrown out in the trash all you want. But the part of America that The Huckster represents is all but dead now.

Americans by in large are comfortable with women working and working well and being paid well. We’re comfortable as a country with romantic couples who are not married living together and even having kids. We’re comfortable in most cases regardless of race, ethnicity and religion living and being around Americans of other races, ethnicities and religion. We are no longer a predominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation, but a nation that represents the world and have the whole world living here. And we’re also by in large comfortable with not just homosexuality, but even gay marriage. Because most Americans are smart enough to know that what people do in their private lives is exactly that. And not the business of big government.

So yeah, Mike Huckabee will be a lot of fun for bloggers, comedians and reporters to talk and blog about. And the Governor is a bit of a comedian himself with a good sense of humor and maybe he’s running for the fun of it. But what’s the point of his campaign? How does he appeal to young Republicans who tend to come from the Rand Paul conservative libertarian wing of the party. And are not interested in how Americans live their own personal lives. And certainly don’t want big government involved in their lives. And how does he appeal to the business Republicans who are interested in economic and security issues and don’t concern themselves with social issues generally. Again The Huckster will be a lot of fun in 2015-16. But that won’t be enough for him to win the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.