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bleatmop
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18 comments
March 10, 2014 at 7:24 am
john zande
B’wahahaha!
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March 10, 2014 at 4:13 pm
bleatmop
Lol! Too true. As an aside, has anyone figured out how to stop your mother/mother in law from sending you the batshite crazy in email form yet? Because I would really like to know how to get them to stop.
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March 10, 2014 at 4:17 pm
The Intransigent One
Ooh, actual mother/MIL no. I have reply-all with snopes link a few cousins which has brought needed peace. But moms and MILs are a bit too close for that. (I’m lucky though, I don’t think my mom or my MIL knows how to forward email.)
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March 10, 2014 at 9:31 pm
bleatmop
TOO – You lucky duck you :) I guess encouraging my MIL to get a laptop wasn’t all bad. The Skype session that she gets with my daughter makes it worthwhile.
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March 11, 2014 at 7:39 pm
VR Kaine
Super funny, even if not really true. ;)
Bleat – how I got mine to stop was to tell her they were all viruses. Anything, from anyone unfamiliar to her or simply not a person at all (ex: banks, companies, etc.) was a virus and she should delete immediately.
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March 11, 2014 at 10:35 pm
bleatmop
Vern – Excellent advice. I shall ponder telling them this. Thank you good sir :)
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March 12, 2014 at 8:30 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
As usual, I beg to differ.
The clip where the cap was generated – here.
–Source
Okay. Now tell me how this “isn’t really true”.
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March 12, 2014 at 5:38 pm
VR Kaine
Hi Arb,
For one, the statement “Apparently poor people shouldn’t be able to purchase seafood” is disingenuous. We’re not talking a $1.29 can of tuna for a starving poor person here, we’re talking freeloaders buying sushi, king crab legs, and lobster with their SNAP cards. I’ve seen the exposes and I live in an area in the US where I’ve seen it first hand as well.
The operative word is “Supplemental” – it’s not meant to replace an entire food budget and it’s certainly shouldn’t be wasted on luxury food items which sushi, king crab legs, and lobster actually are. Stewart’s humor, and your post, miss the point that these items shouldn’t be available to those who are saying that they’re poor and can’t afford to eat.
Second, Stewart’s humor dodges the main issue that Fox News takes on when commentating on this issue, which largely (although I concede not completely) has to do with government waste.
I agree with Stewart in this way: FNC will position a few sensational examples such as Surfer Dude buying lobster, or the million lottery winner staying on food stamps “because she needs help” as an epidemic of government waste and why cuts to SNAP are not only justifed, but long overdue. Fox News will not report that SNAP fraud has gone way down, nor will they offer legitimate solutions for poor people to eat in a down economy when they don’t have jobs. Using these slackers as ammo, they help Republicans push for legislation that hurts the people who really need SNAP. I get it.
That said, however, the Liberal play is to scoff at Fox and simply give government and these freeloaders a free pass, not to mention acting like they know all about a network that I’m pretty sure they’ve never actually watched except for the cherry-picked clips that Stewart uses above.
Through scoffing at any and all opposition, Liberals essentially give a free pass to virtually everyone on the left regarding pretty much everything, where so long as a government isn’t wasting on military then pretty much every other lie, every other dodge, and every other excuse coming out of a Democrat or Liberal’s mouth is perfectly OK. Fox News, however, does in fact put these peoples’ feet to the fire at times and call out the current administration, Democrats, and Liberals on what are lies clearly meant to capitalize on public ignorance, and I find that they do it when no one else does. Not necessarily commentators like O’Reilly or Hannity who are populists, but commentators like Hume, Cavuto, and Kelly.
An example can be seen here which calls out the total b.s. of “if you like your plan you can keep it” that no Liberal will admit was a flat-out lie by the President.
Look for any other network NOT giving Dems a free pass on this lie (for instance) and you’ll find that they don’t exist. If there’s no one else to call these things out, then I think FOX News serves a legitimate role. No other network I’ve watched has the guts to pin their guests down when they try to dodge. Kelly above makes this point: “They’ll play the one sound bite, but not the other.” I happen to agree.
So in closing and back to the food stamps point, why I say it isn’t really true is because I don’t consider lobster to be seafood for the poor, and I don’t think the fraud issue on anything is simply some grandmother-targeted chain mail just because liberals are chicken and afraid of losing what’s already there.
And while I don’t agree with FOX News saying that voter fraud, or food stamp fraud, or ObamaCare fraud is at the epidemic level they like to say it is, waste in ANY government program shouldn’t be overlooked or ignored. We need at least SOMEBODY in the media keeping a light on government waste and as far as this Administration is concerned, no other network is.
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March 13, 2014 at 7:55 am
VR Kaine
@Bleatmop,
You’re welcome! Hope it helps!!
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March 15, 2014 at 9:17 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
Really, so now we get to dictate how people make their decisions? So the poor are only allowed to buy “poor” food? What if they had been scrimping and saving so maybe they can have a special occasion like the rest of us. But no – let’s jump on the freeloaders when they dare to have a nice thing whether it be a meal, or a new pair of shoes or whatever the fox talking points happens to be for the day.
Fantastic. I see glorious greed and exploitation *every* day as well, “first-hand” as it were and I rail against it…I just tend to look upward on the socioeconomic scale to those (the rich) who are have arranged the system for their ease of plunder and who continue to do so, rather than those who being ground asunder at the bottom of the ladder.
It’s easy to take a large dump on the poor because they have no voice in society and Fox news does this on a fairly regular basis.
Fox news anchors insinuated this:
“After showing a montage of Fox News talking heads claiming that “you hear stories” of food stamp recipients using their benefits to “buy iPads or cigarettes,” Or gambling or going to LV?
This is more of the Regan “Welfare Queen” Mythology explicitly meant to demonize the poor. Hyperbole is not news, neither are “stories you hear”. That is the point of this post.
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March 15, 2014 at 11:10 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
Jon Stewart’s rebuttal to the furour raised by his accurate elucidation of Fox News reporting.
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March 15, 2014 at 5:50 pm
bleatmop
Holy fuck. J.S. knocked it out of the fucking park right there. He’s right, it is always easier to attack those without a voice rather than the vulture leach corporations that spend untold fortunes to keep the poor down.
Just imagine what could happen if all the money being spend attacking the poor because they get free sub-subsistence were to be actually spent on … the poor, job creations, supporting a middle class. It would be a wonder to see.
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March 15, 2014 at 9:37 pm
The Arbourist
@Bleatmop
I would have missed the rebuttal if it wasn’t for the damnable Rawstory feed that I cannot dismiss from the WP viewer. :> I guess forced viewing has benefits every once and awhile. I do agree JS did indeed go to town :)
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March 17, 2014 at 8:58 am
VR Kaine
“Really, so now we get to dictate how people make their decisions? So the poor are only allowed to buy “poor” food? What if they had been scrimping and saving so maybe they can have a special occasion like the rest of us.
Haha. OK, Let’s add alcohol to what they can buy on their SNAP cards, too, because hey, what’s the harm in having a bottle of wine for that special occasion too, right? Oops – they can’t. Why not? BECAUSE SNAP ALREADY DICTATES WHAT FOOD THEY CAN BUY.
And another ridiculous thing about what you said – what’s “poor food”? Cans of tuna? I have those, I’m not poor. Farmer’s market vegetables? You can get those on a SNAP card. “Rich” food has nothing to do with money – there’s tons of food items rich in nutrients that are not only tasty, but affordable (more on this later).
We’re not talking a voucher they can use one time every x weeks, we’re talking the ability to abuse it every single day like an idiot because of a loophole in the system that can easily be fixed. It’s easy for Liberals to pretend to be moral when the money isn’t coming out of their pocket.
Is it coming out of MY pocket? Yes it is. I support three individuals in Nevada on SNAP assistance, one of which (and their group of friends) continues to abuse it and I’m left filling up a fridge after $600 in SNAP benefits didn’t seem to buy shit except mountains of Doritos and Cherry Pepsi.
I can’t think of anyone here that if they had a 40-year old son sponging off them trying to drink booze and eat lobster off the money with the money they had just demanded that they needed to eat, but in Liberal world, this seems to be just fine and why, because I’m “rich”?
“This is more of the Regan “Welfare Queen” Mythology explicitly meant to demonize the poor. Hyperbole is not news, neither are “stories you hear”. That is the point of this post.
It’s a matter of opinion which side that falls on. I already made my points there. My point is, this isn’t a “story that I hear” – it’s a story that I live with the three people I support. You, it seems, don’t support any in this situation so you can easily sit back and say, “Let them eat Lobster” seemingly because it’s not your $.
For people’s lives to change for the better they need to understand the concepts of sacrifice and delayed gratification. If in your world all SNAP users understand these two concepts then I’d say you’re nowhere near any population of users of them because even the users themselves will tell you of all the abuses.
“Hyperbole is not news, neither are “stories you hear”
No, this is my point, Arb – these aren’t “stories I hear” – I live them and am amongst these people on a regular basis whereas you seem to just view these sorts of things through nothing but a soundbyte or a computer screen. I can go up the street where my relative lives – where I’ve lived – and give you 20 real-life examples of the abuse that at least FOX points out and you guys are too chicken to. It’s real, it exists, and it’s important. You can sit back and play all benevolent-moral and say people should be able to eat whatever they want because it’s not your $ – well it’s mine and I don’t think you get to make that call. I, too, want to help these people – the abusers you ignore – I want to help them stop abusing and get off their ass and stop sponging off people. Exposing the gaps in yet another ham-fisted government program with at least one ridiculous loophole in it does that. If the exposure gets that loophole closed, then mission accomplished.
This is more of the Regan “Welfare Queen” Mythology explicitly meant to demonize the poor. Hyperbole is not news, neither are “stories you hear”. That is the point of this post.
I don’t believe it’s as absolute as you say it is, but I do agree to an extent. As for the welfare queen mythology, it isn’t a myth. It exists and is alive and well both at the top and the bottom. Wasn’t there just some hunger strike where a band of natives wasted tens of millions of dollars that could have went to food and shelter? Think of all the mouths those “consulting fees” could have fed, but nah – let’s keep it in the philosophical and believe that any abuse by the poor is simply a “myth”. :)
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March 17, 2014 at 9:12 am
VR Kaine
@ Arb & Bleatmop,
Just finished watching Stewart’s rebuttal. Cracking up at first, then shaking my head with a WTF on my face – I don’t watch Sir Ericness or Varney. so I have never seen the “99.6% of the poor have refrigerators” b.s. but man oh man – that’s just flat-out bat$hit nuts. Back to cracking up.
I think my issue still stands, but clearly I took it beyond the realm of the post (again!) My apologies. :)
Fox deserves to be fully tarred, feathered, ridiculed and skewered on this one. and I agree – Stewart knocked it out of the park. I’ll let the bums in my care get a free lobster to celebrate this month just out of spite for the ridiculous coverage. Keep in mind, however, that I may be starting to pull Rev. Al Sharpton quotes from the beloved MSNBC if I find myself conceding too much! :)
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March 18, 2014 at 12:06 am
bleatmop
Vern – You can go ahead and pull Al Sharpton quotes all you want. I don’t have much respect for the guy, especially after his debate with Hitchens. Now if you start ripping on Rachel Maddow then we might have to have some words ;)
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March 18, 2014 at 7:52 am
VR Kaine
Bleatmop – no problems there. I watch Maddow a fair bit and quite like her. In fact, the only shortcomings I think she has as a commentator likely stem from the fact that she has to follow guidelines under MSNBC, such as spending a ridiculous amount of time talking about Christie and Bridgegate vs other issues.
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March 18, 2014 at 8:27 am
Why I Love John Stewart (And Occasionally Liberals) | The Rantings of Vern Rigg Kaine
[…] a debate over at a friend’s blog, I commented that Fox News occasionally brings up issues that the liberal networks refuse to report […]
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