What does this mean?

Carly Fiorina recently said this about Hilary Clinton:

“Hillary Clinton must not be President of the United States because she does not have a track record of accomplishment, because she lacks the candor and transparency that the are so necessary to leadership, and because she will pursue a set of policies that crushed possibilities and the potential of this great nation.”

I am not particulary fond of Hilary Clinton but I wanted to focus on the last clause of her statement: “…policies that crushed possibilities and the potential of this great nation.”

‘Possibilities’ and ‘potential’ are common political speak buzzwords so what I really want to ask is what they mean to Carly Fiorina.

What is your position on the DREAM Act? Deporting undocumented children eliminates all ‘possibility’ of achieving ‘potential.’

Do you think it is time to increase the minimum wage? Or is it wrong for businesses to not provide their workers any ‘possibility’ of achieving their or their families’ ‘potential’?

And what about social programs like SNAP? The ‘possibility’ and fear of hunger would stunt anyone’s ability to achieve their ‘potential.’

Do you support Obamacare? After all, for many diseases, access to the only ‘potential’ treatments is through health insurance covered care.

Do you believe in subsidized or free higher education? And public school privatization? And school testing? The loss of educational 'possibilities' has long term consequences for societal 'potential.'

I could go on... and on... and on... but this getting depressing…

Faith in the Bush family

How sincere are the religious beliefs in the Bush family? George W. Bush and Jeb Bush were raised Episcopalian but converted as adults to other denominations; the former to United Methodist, the latter to Roman Catholicism. My impression has been that they both converted at the request of their wives and not for political advancement. But that still leaves open the question of how sincere their religiosity is... especially in light of their party affiliation and its strict adherence to blantantly expressed Christian religiosity.

How do you get around that...

It would appear Ted Cruz wants to president of the United States... the problem is he was born in Canada, which, as it happens, is not part of the United States. So how will he work around the pesky little problem of Article 2, Section 5 of the Constitution which states:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

He is by definition not a natural born citizen at the tender age of 44, not "...a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution..." It doesn't take a fancy law degree to wig out that little nugget.

Update: According to a report at NPR, Ted Cruz is a 'natural born citizen'. His mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth. 'Natural born Citizen' has never been define by the Supreme Court but there seems to include (1) birth on U.S. soil and (2) born to U.S. citizen parent(s) - essentially citizen conferred in utero.

Link between default and Social Security…

Fact: The Social Security Trust Funds do not hold any ‘funds’; rather, they hold ‘special U.S. government securities’ which the Social Security administration can redeem at their discretion to cover benefit payouts.

Fact: Republicans claim that the Social Security Trust fund is broke.

Fact: Current Social Security payments have been sufficient to meet the payouts of Social Security programs and are projected to ‘run an overall surplus that adds to the fund through the end of 2021’.

Fact (needs confirmation of role of ‘general funds’ attribution of monies borrowed from the Social Security Trusts): A significant portion of non-Social Security tax receipts and monies borrowed from the Social Security Trust Funds are used to cover other government expenditures: defense and intelligence (heavily dependent on private contractors), education (moderately dependent on private contractors), welfare/social programs, and other spending which includes subsidies (agriculture and energy) and research.

Fact: The richest Americans own the majority of stocks.

Extrapolation: Government functions (thus where government monies are spent) which are dependent on private contractors provide the most financial benefit to those contractors and their stockholders. Government spending on research also benefits stockholders of high technology companies. Therefore, the rich benefit greatly from government spending.

Question: If the Social Security Trust Fund did not exist, would the government have curtailed spending which mostly benefits rich Americans?

Extrapolation: Republican want to avoid raising taxes on the rich which will be necessary to redeem government securities held by the Social Security Trust Funds. [Alternate interpretation: the government, having given the rich the opportunity to profit from government spending, now expects them to pay taxes on their profit(s).] Republicans are doing this through campaigns to convince Americans that the Social Security Trust fund is broke (see above) and suggesting that a freeze in the debt ceiling does not inevitable result in a government default. Their claim that a default can be avoided through selective payment of government obligations (see here and here) smells of an attempt to void the securities held by the Social Security Trust Funds. If voided, the Social Security Administration would not be able to redeem them, no additional taxes would be called from and Social Security payments would not be possible.

This is a government version of corporate pension fund raiding. It is illegal and immoral and should be called out as such.