This may be my favorite conspiracy theory ever
Also too, open thread.
by DougJ| 119 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
This may be my favorite conspiracy theory ever
Also too, open thread.
by Zandar| 124 Comments
This post is in: Austerity Bombing, Fuck The Poor, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
America, where pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is a bit difficult due to all the sharp bootstrap-cutting objects lying in your path.
A Tupelo woman hired earlier this month by a KFC was fired Monday after the franchise owner discovered she’s homeless.
Eunice Jasica has been staying at the Salvation Army lodge since early December after losing her job, her car and her home.
The nonprofit organization requires its residents to seek employment daily and, upon finding it, to pay for lodging and start saving for a place of their own. Jasica said she had been job hunting for months and was relieved to find work on March 11 at the KFC on North Gloster Street.
A document signed by that location’s general manager on March 12 confirms Jasica had been hired to perform “prep work” and would receive a paycheck every two weeks.
But when Jasica reported for duty Monday, franchise owner Chesley Ruff withdrew the job offer upon learning she lived at the Salvation Army.
“He told me to come back when I had an address and transportation,” Jasica recalled. “But how am I supposed to get all that without a job?”
Firing someone you hired because they don’t have a place to live when the entire reason they took the job was to be able to afford a place to live, and you don’t pay enough to afford a place to live? I’m betting Chesley Ruff is a lifelong Republican.
Luckily, this story now has a better ending.
A woman fired from a KFC in Tupelo for being homeless has found a new job and an outpouring of support.
Eunice Jasica was tentatively hired Tuesday by On Time Transportation to shuttle Medicaid and Medicare patients to and from doctors’ appointments. She still must complete the final stages of her application process but should be on the job by early April, said the company’s office manager, Yolanda Baskin.
The much larger problem is America is largely designed to keep poor people poor, and ridiculously rich people ridiculously rich.
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Pet Rescue
Via commentor Jebediah, who adds “I rent and we are at our pet limit, otherwise I would grab her”:
The dog we have come to know and love, Duchess, is at the WLA Animal Shelter Impound #1379706 (holding period of 7 days ended 3/28) needs to be rescued ASAP before she is euthanized, possibly as soon as 2-3 days from today. She is 45 lbs, spayed female and over 5 years old. (Note: we found out later her name is not Duchess and the Animal Shelter named her Lucy.)
The shelter may be willing to give this dog only those few days due to a sore on her buttocks which needs to be treated. Eldad Hagar, of Hope for Paws org, has pledged to do any necessary surgery for the dog once she is pulled from the shelter. In addition, he will pay $1000 to that agency (as long as it is 501C-3).
The dog came to our notice on 3/20 that she was in the flood control channel, when we heard her howl at night, looking for her owners and a way out. She relentlessly ran back and forth in the channels for 3-4 days without a whimper. We were unable to leash her to safety, but during two attempts, although she seemed scared for her life, never growled or showed any aggression. The Mar Vista community pulled together. Two brothers in the area went down in the channel and finally blanketed and saved the dog. Once being placed gently in the trap the animal shelter had provided, the consoled dog ate from the rescuer’s hand and allowed him to touch her teeth. The rescuer had saved another dog in the past and recognizes the trick the channels’ acoustics play on animals – it is a very threatening place to be in and very understandable that the dog was fearing for her life. She is a survivor.
Through these 3-4 days before being taken into the shelter, she was a dignified, graceful and very loving dog (went directly up to the high school students next door). I had a couple of fences between me and her, so unable to get up that close when I fed her for those days. I have grown to love this dog for her grace and intelligence.
Now that she has been at the shelter for 7 days, she looks as if she has lost her spirit. She needs to be saved and be placed in a loving home.
This is urgent. She only has a few days.Can anyone help?
Best I can establish, with my primitive Google skillz, the West LA Shelter is at 11361 West Pico Blvd, phone #(888) 4LA-PET1 or (888) 452- 7381. If I’m wrong, or if you’ve got a lead, send me an email at AnneLaurie (at) verizon.net — click on my name in the right-hand column — and I’ll put you in touch with Jebadiah.
This post is in: Local Races 2018 and earlier, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
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As Dave Weigel points out, “at the time, everybody thought” Steve Lynch voted against the Affordable Care Act because his personal base is urban blue-collar religious Democrats, and he didn’t want to give future opponents the chance to paint him as a baby-killer. But now Lynch, running for national office at a severe name&fame deficit to Ed Markey, has taken the chance (I think this is what sports fans call ‘a hail mary pass’) to race out towards the ‘progressive’ end of the Democratic spectrum and deplore the ACA’s “giveawy” to big insurance companies. This does not change my opinion that Ed Markey would be a far better choice to replace Scott ‘Cosmo Boy’ Brown, but if you’ve been wondering about donating/ phonebaking/voting for Markey, Lynch’s newfound firebagger credential may influence your choices.
For those of you who can’t watch the video, here’s a summary by the Boston Globe:
US Representatives Edward J. Markey and Stephen F. Lynch tangled over Lynch’s vote against President Obama’s health care law in a televised debate [Wednesday] between the two contenders for the Democratic nomination in the special election race for US Senate.
Lynch said he didn’t vote for the bill because “it was a very flawed bill and we missed a real opportunity to create real health care reform.”
Markey described his own vote for the Affordable Care Act as “the proudest vote of my career” and said, “Steve, when that vote came up, you were wrong.”
Lynch responded, “What we did there was wrong,” describing what he said were several flaws in the law and calling it a giveaway to health insurance companies…
Of course, Steve Lynch would still be preferable by a wide margin to any of the three Repub candidates:
Open Thread: Massachusetts Senate Race UpdatePost + Comments (28)
by $8 blue check mistermix| 41 Comments
This post is in: Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor
This slip inserted into a college financial aid office offer letter is the first evidence I’ve seen of the dreaded sequester. I know that many of you have already been affected, but as the common middle-class suburb dweller who doesn’t rely on federal contracts and hasn’t wanted to visit the White House, this warning that loan fees, work study and grants might be reduced is the first real clue that something’s going on that might actually affect my life. I would expect that this is fairly typical–the press in DC acted as if the world would end on March 1 but what’s really happening is a slow, steady, grinding, ugly process as federal agencies start to re-budget and warn their constituents.
I worked in a financial aid office in a red state university for a while, and many of the work study students I knew were not products of grinding poverty. Like a lot of lower-middle-class families, their parents didn’t exactly live paycheck-to-paycheck, but they had little savings and lots of bills, so their kids were eligible for a fair bit of financial aid, including work study. I’m sure many of those parents voted straight Republican tickets, and I’ll bet they see work study as the perfect financial aid program: kids work for their school in return for an education. The name “Federal Work Study”, and the subsidy it implies, probably never penetrated their consciousness, until now. I wonder how long their Republican representatives think they can hide out in DC and avoid angry town hall meetings with those parents.
This post is in: Open Threads, Clown Shoes, Our Awesome Meritocracy
My parents were not the world’s best parents; I’ve sometimes said that their greatest gift to us kids was their steadfast honesty that they weren’t very good at the whole ‘parenting’ thing. But whatever their flaws, at least I will never be forced to admit a genetic relationship to Susan A. Patton, President of the Princeton University Class of 1977. Caity Weaver reports for Gawker on the current fooferaw at the Last Redoubt of the Gentleman’s C:
Attention: Women of Princeton.
If you are seeking your ideal life partner—and you are—you now know where to find him. He is the boy stretched out on the cool linoleum of a dusty back aisle in the library, quietly having a panic attack because his mother wrote a letter addressed to every girl he knows, trying to goad them into marrying him.
Susan A. Patton, President of the Princeton University Class of 1977 and proud Tiger Mom, is ready for you to be her daughter-in-law. Move fast, before some other lucky, lusty Tigress beats you to the prize.
On Friday, Princeton University’s student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, published a page-and-a-half letter to the editor that might, in polite circles, be called “intriguing.” Everywhere else: batshit crazy and extremely offensive. Also, embarrassing!
Addressed to “the daughters I never had,” or, implicitly, the daughters she never ruined, the letter was penned by Susan A. Patton, proud Princeton alumna and mother of Princeton students…
What advice should Susan A. Patton, a successful businessperson and a member of the fifth class of women to graduate from what is undeniably the fanciest collection of buildings in New Jersey, pass down to the smart, driven young women who are her legacy? Should she advise them on selecting a career path? On the virtues of sisterhood? On the importance knowing and respecting yourself?…
Perhaps she should apprise them of the importance of spending the rest of their lives fucking one of her sons.
I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless. Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again – you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.…
Perhaps it will surprise you that Susan A. Patton, President of the Princeton University Class of 1977, is no longer married. But only, she insists, because her ex “went to a school of almost no name recognition… A school that nobody has respect for, including him, really.”
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Apart from being grateful, once again, that our embarrassment-rich post-adolescent years were mostly pre-internet, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Sis Boom Bah, Tiger MomPost + Comments (78)
by John Cole| 53 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Cole (the godson’s) father Ryan is up for the weekend, and he fixed all my computers and we are now watching God Bless America, which I really think may be the greatest movie ever. I’ve watched it four times the past four days and I love it more every time