adaher, do you even know what the federal regulations are regarding construction? I’m guessing not. I work in cultural resource management, where we are hired to help developers follow the archaeological/cultural regulations of the state and federal governments. Most of the laypeople I’ve come across have no clue what the regulations are, assume they are much stricter than they actually are, and have no idea that they work to help them as well. I’ve had coworkers shot at by people thinking the government is coming to take their land away.
Keystone XL is, by the way, a great example of how the regulations are supposed to work. Part of the law is that the opinions of interested parties (everyone potentially affected by the project) have to be considered, or at least heard. Keystone is a huge project potentially affecting millions of people. You may not like that requirement right now, but, believe me, if the pipeline is approved and if for some reason it’s routed through your back yard, you’d want your say.
Following a speech he gave in London Monday that referenced the discredited claims of “no-go zones” for non-Muslims in Britain, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) continued to defend his point to a CNN reporter who pressed him for evidence.
In his remarks, Jindal said, “It is startling to think that any country would allow, even unofficially, for a so called ‘no-go zone.’ The idea that a free country would allow for specific areas of its country to operate in an autonomous way that is not free and is in direct opposition to its laws is hard to fathom.”
But later, he was confronted by CNN’s Max Foster to back up these claims. “Look, I’ve heard from folks here that there are neighborhoods where women don’t feel comfortable going in without veils,” Jindal said. “That’s wrong. We all know that there are neighborhoods where police are less likely to go into.”
“But you need to have proper, sort of, facts to back that up,” Foster replied, saying he, as a British man, has never heard of “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.
He’s also apparently forgotten that British* reporters have a reputation for aggressive questioning. He’s used to the softballs that the American press throws.
*This is probably also true of other countries, but I’m thinking British because that’s where he is, and that’s where George W. Bush was unhappy to find out that the reporter wanted him to provide some facts to back up his statements. (Unless that was Ireland, but the aggressiveness is the same.)
No, or at least, not just that. He really doesn’t understand what it’s like to be poor.
It’s like when Ann Romney talked about her breast cancer, and said something about how everybody’s equal in a situation like that.
Well no, they’re not. If you’re poor and don’t have health insurance, you likely won’t get it diagnosed early enough to do much good, and even if you do, you might have to choose between buying medicine and buying food each month.
To be fair, disability fraud is a real problem, unlike voter fraud.
But the difference between left and right wingers is that while both agree that a perfect system is impossible, left wingers would rather let some people defraud the system than have any truly needy people go without help, while the right wingers would rather have some needy people go without help than allow anyone to defraud the system.
I’ve a friend who died from breast cancer because she couldn’t afford health insurance and couldn’t afford health care without it. The only time she got treated was when things got so bad she had to go to the emergency room, when she’d be admitted and stabilized and then discharged. No follow-up care. They actually found it early enough that if she *could *have afforded the treatment, she might still be alive.
So yeah, fuck the Romneys. They know not what they say.
Your link says there were thousands of confirmed fraudulent disability claims in 2012, and gives no indication that it was an atypical year. Confirmed voter fraud cases, by contrast, are often not even in the double digits. And each fraudulent disability claim costs the taxpayers real money, while AFAIK there haven’t been any recent examples of voter fraud changing the outcome of an election. I’m well aware that “AFAIK” isn’t very far, though.
That said, I hadn’t read the link before my previous post, so I didn’t realize RP was talking only about SS. I thought he was talking about all kinds of civil service jobs, and I had in mind a fairly notorious case in my city a few years ago where cops who were drawing 100% disability were photographed tossing around cement bags in their construction business. I regret the error.
ETA: and I guess the post you were responding to didn’t make it clear that I’m a left-winger, although the post right before it should have. In other words, I vehemently disagree with Rand Paul.
ETAA: and if I were going to masturbate over a Fox News host, it would be Megyn Kelly.
It may surprise you to know that a lot of them are military retirees. I knew a lot of perfectly healthy guys who went out with 20-50% disability and laughed about it. I was told that I should claim disability for my back problems (which are minor). I don’t know how anybody can do that in good conscience.
And again, unless I’m mistaken, military disabilities would not show up in Social Security stats. So I will clarify the statement that generated a “fuck you” by saying that military, civil service, and SS disability fraud combined are a much, much larger problem than voter fraud. But I still don’t want to see any “reforms” that make it difficult for genuinely disabled people to get help.