The Concord Between the Orders

Ignorance is de Blissio
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has characterized New York’s inequities as a “Tale of Two Cities,” and his administration have taken steps to get more food into the hands of the poor. The Human Resources Administration announced in May that it would seek to increase enrollment for food stamps — about 1.8 million residents currently receive them — by reaching out to older Medicare recipients and expanding online services, among other measures.

In a significant change, human resources officials also received a waiver last month of a federal work rule that cut off food stamps to thousands of New Yorkers a year. Under that rule, more than 46,000 so-called able-bodied adults — ages 18 to 49 with no dependents — had to work at least 20 hours a week or participate in job training to continue receiving an average of $35 a week in food stamps after three months, according to city officials. (New York Times, 6/28/2014)

We have been meaning to mention this months ago after Sub-Commander de Blasio started this "Tale of Two Cities" nonsense. Obviously de Blasio has never read the Dickens tale. It is not a story about the "haves" and the "have-nots" as he apparently believes. The two cities in Dickens' book are Paris and London, the former in the grips of the anarchy following the French revolution and the latter a place of refuge for the story's protagonists. New York City resembles Paris only in the sense that it is now being run by closed-minded reactionaries as Paris was after the revolution. de Blasio is another ill-informed Liberal.

Of course, it is also sad to note that the Sub-Commander eliminates the welfare work requirement, thereby consigning another generation to perpetual poverty. How compassionate! 


Lengthy
On Friday Mr. Obama denounced at length the GOP's "obstruction," which his Minneapolis audience no doubt agreed was an appropriate topic for an event billed as a lakeside family picnic. "They don't do anything except block me and call me names," he said, shortly after he had observed that Republicans "think we should let big banks, and credit card companies, and polluters, and insurers do only whatever is best for their bottom line without any responsibility to anybody else." (Wall Street Journal, 6/27/2014)

Has there EVER been a president who whined more?


Stoned
When an interviewer compared her (Hillary Clinton) to Mitt Romney in terms of wealth, she got a stony look. That is a "false equivalency," she said. You could see she feels she should not be compared to a wealthy Republican because she's liberal and therefore stands for the little guy. So she can be rich and should not be criticized, while rich people who have the wrong policies—that would be Republicans—are "the rich" and can be scorned and shamed. (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 6/27/2014)

Probably the best analysis we have read on the subject of Liberal hypocrisy when it comes to wealth. 


Attention Deficit
When Mr. Obama handed Mr. Biden the Iraq portfolio in June 2009, it was hardly a prize. The president had run for office on his opposition to the war, and he wanted a high-level official other than him to pay attention to it so he could focus on Afghanistan. (New York Times, 6/29/2014)

So to be clear: it is really Biden who screwed up Iraq and Obama who screwed up Afghanistan. Got it. 


Trailer
One year after bursting onto the national scene with a marathon filibuster against abortion restrictions, Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator and Democratic nominee for governor, has been doing everything she can to mark the anniversary of that speech last June, even donning the same pink Mizuno sneakers.

The problem: A year after her filibuster pumped her up into the kind of galvanizing candidate Texas Democrats have not had for decades, she seems very much dragged down to earth, dwarfed by the perception that Democrats’ chances of ending the Republican domination of Texas remain slim. Recent polls have shown her trailing her Republican opponent — the state attorney general, Greg Abbott — by up to 12 percentage points. (New York Times, 6/29/2014)

Amazingly - in Texas at least - a political identity tied to free and unfettered access to abortion, including partial birth abortion, may NOT be a winning ticket.


Lapsed
An examination by The New York Times of the sprawling United States military hospital system — entirely separate from the scandal-plagued veterans system — has found persistent lapses in patient care that have led to severe injuries and deaths. (New York Times, 6/28/2014)

When the government runs health care.