Patterico's Pontifications

4/29/2013

Tsarneavs Received Over $100K in Government Handouts

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:33 pm



Whee!

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

Your tax dollars, hard at work.

133 Responses to “Tsarneavs Received Over $100K in Government Handouts”

  1. Welfare recipients.

    Terrorists.

    Coincidence?

    I think not.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  2. So much for “be nice to them and they will love us once they live here” idea.

    They “loved” us as much as Sayidd Qtub did. After his college stay here, he helped found The Muslim Brotherhood.

    Patricia (be0117)

  3. Extraordinarily nice!/
    She’s a Killer [welfare] Queen/
    Gunpowder, guillotine/
    Dynamite with a laser beam/
    Guaranteed to blow your [city]
    Anytime

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  4. Raise your hand if you are making the point that welfare recipients are equivalent to terrorists.

    JD (b63a52)

  5. Coincidence?

    It’s certainly not a coincidence that an attitude of self-entitlement and a growing sense that the US is one big pushover — full of enablers at the highest levels (hey, Eric Holder, keep your heart bleeding profusely over the meanness and cruelty of traditional national borders and non-permissive immigration policies!!) — are pervasive during a period of dippy liberalism run amok.

    Mark (f474e0)

  6. Well I mean… we’re all just trying to get a reaction, right?

    Maybe I misunderstood.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  7. A family income of $100,000 spread over 12 years is not exactly hitting the lottery. That would be abject poverty nearly anywhere in the USA.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  8. The larger issue for me is whether they were allowed here under asylum because their lives were in danger in Russia. This has been reported several places. Relocated asylum seekers do usually receive a stipend and assistance to help the family get settled. OK. But that then does not track that mom, dad and Tamerlan apparently all were able to travel back and forth quite freely. That seems odd if they were in fact living in America only because they were in fear for their lives “back home”.

    elissa (718c61)

  9. Kevin M (#7): You are correct. Nevertheless, spread out over time or considered in the aggregate, it’s a great deal more than the one red cent they should never have been given.

    pa (4f643b)

  10. Leviticus, you are too clever by half.

    Ag80 (19f299)

  11. Teh folly of yute…

    Colonel Haiku (a1b619)

  12. Het racists, don’t you dare try to use this to slow up the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform, right as the train is leaving the station. Just trust Chuck Schumer and Janet Napolianto to take care of our security, ‘k?

    Racists.

    JVW (4826a9)

  13. It really isn’t much of a coincidence that the terrorists were living off the taxpayer dime. At least one Islamic Preacher in the West calls it the “jihad seeker’s allowance.”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/anjem-choudary-muslim-preacher-explains-government-assistance-to-fund-jihad-holy-war-2013-2

    Choudray goes on in a separate videos to mock English workers performing 9 to 5 jobs, and tells followers that some of the most famous Islamic figures worked only one or two days a week.

    “The rest of the year they were busy with jihad [holy war] and things like that,” he says, according to The Telegraph. “People will say, ‘Ah, but you are not working.’”

    “But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar [non-believers].”

    “So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance. You need to get support.”

    He the tells a crowd of about 30 followers: “We are going to take England — the Muslims are coming.”

    “These people are like a tsunami going across Europe. And over here we’re just relaxing, taking over Bradford brother. The reality is changing.”

    Choudray isn’t the only cleric in Islam who considers welfare a form of the jizya. The mandatory tax owed to the Muslims by the kuffar.

    Just like Egypt’s Khaled Said isn’t the only Muslim cleric who considers US foreign aid a form of the jizya.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/28/egyptian-cleric-says-american-aid-mandatory-tax/?page=all

    A prominent Egyptian cleric said U.S. aid to Egypt is a mandatory tribute that America must pay to honor the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian revolution.

    This taxpayer aid constitutes a “poll tax” that America must pay to placate the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Khaled Said, a cleric who serves as the official spokesman for the country’s Salafi Front, an extremist political party that has called for Islamic law in Egypt.

    “They pay so that we will let them be,” Said stated in a recent interview on Egyptian television.

    …“If the revolution declares a framework for dealing with the West and America — they will accept it, kiss our hands, and double the aid they give us,” Said said during his television appearance, according to a translation of his remarks by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “We consider this aid to be jizya [poll tax], not regular aid.”

    …“The aid the Americans give us is the jizya tax they have to pay?” an interviewer asked.

    “Yes, it is,” Said replied. “They pay it for the right of passage through our airspace and territorial waters.”

    “Is this the rhetoric of the revolution?” the interviewer asked

    “It certainly is,” Said responded.

    …“We must strive to realize the goals of the revolution, and to establish a sovereign, Arab Islamic state in Egypt,” he said. “Then this state will impose payment of aid upon America as jizya, in exchange for allowing it to realize its interests—the ones that we approve, get it?

    …“It’s significant that this sheik is willing to say this publicly,” said David Reaboi, vice president for strategic communications at the Center for Security Policy. “Maybe he’s savvy enough to know US media, for the most part, is allergic to understanding or even presenting what’s said in Islamic societies in their shariah or Muslim contexts.”

    The comments are important “because it’s incomprehensible divorced of its meaning in Islamic law,” Reaboi said. “In covering it at all, the media is forced to try to explain what he’s saying in Islamic legal terms—something they’ve gone through great pains to both avoid and obfuscate. The sheik, communicating this to both his followers and the wider Islamic world, is heard very clearly.”

    Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/28/egyptian-cleric-says-american-aid-mandatory-tax/#ixzz2RukSY9rd
    Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

    It isn’t just the media that’s gone to great pains to obfuscate and avoid discussing what’s actually going on in Islamic terms. So has the American left. Why do you think Obama had ship stain treated as a normal criminal defendant and mirandized so quickly?

    No Islam to see here, folks. Move along.

    But yes, Leviticus, in your attempt to be ironic you actually hit on something very close to the truth.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  14. Whoops, that should be “hey racists.” Didn’t mean to restrict the racist population to heterosexuals only.

    JVW (4826a9)

  15. Americans are the biggest suckers on the planet thanks to liberal largesse with other people’s money.

    Colonel Haiku (0750a3)

  16. I need to point out two things. Anjem Choudray isn’t the only Muslim cleric to believe what he does about living on the dole as a right for jihadists.

    And Khaled Said isn’t the only cleric to consider US aid a form of tribute payment that it owes to the Muslims.

    “Yes, it is,” Said replied. “They pay it for the right of passage through our airspace and territorial waters.”

    This was exactly the position the Barbary Coast pirates took, the one that precipitated the first foreign war the United States ever fought.

    Choudray’s and Said’s attitude is nothing new. As a matter of Islamic law their points are well founded. It’s been consistent since before this nation was a nation.

    President Tiger Beat can’t shut up about how Thomas Jefferson had a Koran in the White House. He wants you to believe that indicates the religion of Islam was somehow important here in the US. When in fact Jefferson had it as a “know your enemy” guide.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  17. If this doesn’t stop immigration “reform,” nothing will.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  18. Sadly, DRJ, I think that indeed nothing will. I do think this should allow the House GOP to insist on tying amnesty to security, so I hope they can do it in a meaningful way.

    JVW (4826a9)

  19. By the way, as an ex-Bostonian let me just say thank God for the Herald. There is no way the Globe would have ever investigated this story, let alone published it.

    JVW (4826a9)

  20. Just as I believe Holder and Obama need to be impeached when ship stain inevitably trades information to make a plea deal, any GOP Senator who votes for amnesty needs to get thrown out on their fat a**es.

    Fortunately the way representatives Cotton and Goodlatte have been talking I doubt comprehensive immigration reform has a chance in the House.

    While they’re debating that, as the stupidity of mirandizing the Boston Marathon bomber and trying him in the civilian court system grows clearer every day they need to hold parallel hearings on the DoJ’s betrayal of the American people and national security as a sacrifice to their traitorous leftist worldview.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  21. mama terrorist scares me cause of how freaky she is

    plus she’s doing on chechnya what borat did on kazakhstan times like a thousand

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  22. Idle hands are the devil’s tools, Leviticus. That’s why it’s no coincidence.

    Dustin (2da3a2)

  23. Sandra Fluke says that $100,000 only represents like three years of contraception coverage for the family you right wing nutbagz.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  24. There’s a good video by Steve Coughlin, a former intelligence analyst for the Joint Chiefs, on the Boston Marathon bombing, the concept of individual jihad, and why the FBI could not find any derogatory information even if it was sitting right in front of them.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0l_4udm-A4&feature=player_embedded

    It’s 50 minutes long, but people really need to watch it to learn just how derelict our government has been and continues to be. And, again, it provides all the information you need to know why the Obama administration didn’t declare ship stain an enemy combatant but instead mirandized him and in effect told him to shut up. For the same reason we use drone strikes to assassinate jihadis rather than capture them. They don’t want the intelligence, and they certainly don’t want it made public.

    When Rep. Louie Gohmert says Obama has Muslim Brotherhood advisers I don’t think you know just how right he is. Hopefully he knows how right he is.

    Dustin @22, in the case of Muslim terrorists the hands aren’t exactly idle but they are already the devil’s tools. Certainly you can’t really be idle when you have to build or test your pressure pot bombs in the case of the Tsarnaev brothers, or assemble a 1,600 pound truck bomb in the case of Ramzi Yousef. But you also can’t hold down a job. Which is why, as Anjem Choudray advises, they need to live on public support.

    As both the Tsarnaevs were. In ship stain’s case on a scholarship.

    You know, ship stain was an outstanding student in high school. He was flunking out of U. Mass.

    I wonder what he was doing instead of working.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  25. *I wonder what he was doing instead of working studying.*

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  26. My Lady Wife is (legitimately, I add) on Social Security Disability. We CERTAINLY get more than that $100,000 in 10 years. I’m sorry; I don’t want government assistance programs to be tied to ideology. If they qualified for assistance, then it isn’t a bug that they got it.

    OK, they were evil bastards. I think that a LOT of government departments failed miserably in not detecting this BEFORE the bombs went off. But that wasn’t the job of the departments that dole out assistance, and I don’t want it to be.

    This is a “So the F*ck What?” issue.

    If the amount they got is an outrage, then it would still be an outrage if a family of saints got it. Make an argument against the level of assistance available on that basis. Leave these rat-bastards out of it.

    C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd)

  27. Sandra Fluke says that $100,000 only represents like three years of contraception coverage for the family you right wing nutbagz.

    Or 6 months of gigolos.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  28. Dustin @22, in the case of Muslim terrorists the hands aren’t exactly idle but they are already the devil’s tools. Certainly you can’t really be idle when you have to build or test your pressure pot bombs in the case of the Tsarnaev brothers, or assemble a 1,600 pound truck bomb in the case of Ramzi Yousef. But you also can’t hold down a job. Which is why, as Anjem Choudray advises, they need to live on public support.

    That’s my point. You don’t have as much time to screw around with extremist nutjobs and bombs if you need to get a job to feed and house yourself. We have far too much of this idleness, and it’s fundamentally unnatural, undignified, and leads to many sad outcomes.

    I don’t want government assistance programs to be tied to ideology. If they qualified for assistance, then it isn’t a bug that they got it.

    With all due respect, I think there’s something wrong with able bodied men qualifying for any welfare of any kind. I am sure your wide is a completely different matter, and please don’t interpret this as directed that way, but I do believe there are people on disability who should not be.

    I also believe that we should deport many who are on any kind of welfare (to include any kind of welfare for dependents).

    Make an argument against the level of assistance available on that basis.

    Here’s the basis: we don’t have enough money for this crap.

    Dustin (2da3a2)

  29. Hopefully, none of our tax dollars are going towards funding law schools in New Mexico.

    Icy (410242)

  30. 26. If the amount they got is an outrage, then it would still be an outrage if a family of saints got it. Make an argument against the level of assistance available on that basis. Leave these rat-bastards out of it.

    Comment by C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd) — 4/29/2013 @ 11:44 pm

    You are missing the entire point. The issue is why did these people qualify for asylum and attain refugee status at all? And how did they retain it after making trips back to the very place that was supposedly so dangerous that they qualified as refugees.

    Which wasn’t Chechnya. It was Russia. Neither of the boys were born in Chechnya, and as far as I can tell neither were their parents because the region of Russia that the family was from had a large population of ethnic Chechens.

    There were plenty of places in Russia that they could have gone far away from Chechnya if they were worried about the conflict there. Or indeed other places in the Commonwealth of Independent States, as demonstrated by this very family when they lived in distant Kyryzstan on the border with China.

    Of course they received public assistance. Refugees always do. The question is how did they qualify for that status.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  31. Voters suck.
    We the people are afraid to respond with action.
    Chicken shits finish dead last.

    mg (31009b)

  32. I think this will turn out to be a thing. Via the Sydney Morning Herald:

    http://www.smh.com.au/world/canadian-boxer-had-links-to-boston-bomber-20130429-2io3k.html

    MOSCOW: A Canadian boxer killed fighting with jihadists in Russia has emerged as a key contact who might have set the elder Boston bomber on his path to violent extremism.

    …On several occasions during his visit to Dagestan last year, Tsarnaev met a terrorist of mixed Dagestani and Palestinian parentage, who was being watched by the Russian security services.

    That man, Makhmud Mansur Nidal, had been under surveillance for six months as a suspected recruiter for Islamist insurgents fighting Moscow’s rule in the region.

    …According to the report in Novaya Gazeta, Tsarnaev came to the attention of Dagestan’s anti-extremism unit when he was seen “more than once” with Nidal, 19. A month later, Nidal was killed. He had been accused of being part of a group that organised a bomb attack in Makhachkala that killed 13 people.

    Russian security agents found Tsarnaev had been linked to Plotnikov, an ethnic Russian citizen of Canada, whom they had interrogated in 2010 after he arrived in Dagestan, ostensibly to study Islam. Plotnikov gave a list of people in Europe and the US with roots in Russia’s North Caucasus, with whom he had communicated via social networking sites. Among the names Plotnikov volunteered was that of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

    …Tsarnaev also visited his aunt in Toronto, where Plotnikov lived with his parents.

    …Two days after Plotnikov’s death, Tsarnaev flew to Moscow, and the next day to the US.

    “It seems that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to Dagestan with the aim of joining the insurgents,” said the source. “It didn’t work out. First you need to contact an intermediary, then there is a period of ‘quarantine’ before they take someone. The insurgents check him out over several months.

    “After Nidal and Plotnikov were destroyed and he lost his contacts, Tsarnaev got frightened and fled.”

    …Novaya Gazeta’s source said the FSB sent a request to the CIA last summer after Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Dagestan visit, asking the US agency to track him, but got no response.

    Yeah! The system works; thanks big sister.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  33. As an un-enrolled voter, my choices today.

    Democrat
    Ed Markey
    Steve Lynch
    Republican
    A Hispanic who sends love letters to obama.
    A Irishman who has no chance
    And someone else who has no chance.

    I’m thinking Lynch because Markey has never had a job!!!

    mg (31009b)

  34. Hopefully, none of our tax dollars are going towards funding law schools in New Mexico.

    I don’t want the arguments to be personal.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  35. No wonder the Patrick administration was fighting so valiantly to protect the dead terrorist’s right to privacy.

    Bud Norton (29550d)

  36. The USSR and the PRC “worked” because neighbor spied on neighbor and children snitched on their parents and vice versa.

    Otherwise, the ‘authorities’ are outnumbered hundreds to one and hobbled by their command and control inadequacies.

    One wonders how the Collective thinks they’re going to pull off a quiet revolution without sufficient palm grease.

    Transition to a command economy isn’t going well.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  37. Steve 57; As I said; there are LOTS of departments that look like right fools, but none of them pass out money. The post is about the islamogerbils receiving over $100,000 in government handouts. OK, annoying. But the departments that pass out the cash depend on the findings of the departments that were SUPPOSED to keep bombers from getting in in the first place.

    C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd)

  38. JD wrote:

    Raise your hand if you are making the point that welfare recipients are equivalent to terrorists.

    They’re certainly terrorizing my wallet!

    The Dana raising his hand (3e4784)

  39. #29 was cold, Icy!

    Colonel Haiku (291aa2)

  40. “But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar [non-believers].”

    “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

    BTW, I just happened to catch a few minutes of the ABC World News program on Sunday, which had a segment on the one liners done by Obama at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The news show (and, yea, it’s a show) had snippet after snippet after snippet, after snippet, of his routine. That portion of ABC’s “news” was such a ridiculously drawn-out bit, that even a dyed-in-the-wool liberal would have to cringe and admit the segment entered the realm of the absurd. But the media isn’t biased to the left! How can they be?! They’re all owned by big capitalists! (We’re gonna need a lot more rope, folks.)

    Mark (c5d4eb)

  41. Mr Schofield wrote:

    My Lady Wife is (legitimately, I add) on Social Security Disability. We CERTAINLY get more than that $100,000 in 10 years. I’m sorry; I don’t want government assistance programs to be tied to ideology. If they qualified for assistance, then it isn’t a bug that they got it. . . .

    If the amount they got is an outrage, then it would still be an outrage if a family of saints got it. Make an argument against the level of assistance available on that basis. Leave these rat-bastards out of it.

    I will be the guy who is an [insert slang term for the sphincter here] enough to ask why my tax dollars should pay for your wife’s disability, regardless of whether she is legitimately qualified for it or not. Why should I have to pay for your family’s misfortunes? Why should your family have your hands in my wallet? Why shouldn’t you be the one who has to support your wife?

    If we want to end illegal immigration, the solution is simple: end welfare. If we want to stop Islamists from living on the public dole, the solution is simple: end welfare.

    The solution to every problem we have is to require families to support themselves, to require everyone to either work or starve. It is our good-hearted generosity which has gotten us into the problems our society has: absent fathers, high-school dropouts, malingerers who believe that someone else owes them a living, virtually everything. We wouldn’t have illegal immigration if Americans didn’t have the option of not doing the jobs that the Mexicans will take.

    You see, Mr Schofield, the question isn’t the level of assistance available, but the availability of assistance in the first place. Am I willing to see people go hungry rather than to pay for welfare? Yes, I absolutely am.

    The Dana who is willing to tell the truth (3e4784)

  42. Idle hands are the devil’s tools, Leviticus.

    That’s why Islam denigrates hard work and glorifies slavery, “jizya” and banditry.

    But the departments that pass out the cash depend on the findings of the departments that were SUPPOSED to keep bombers from getting in in the first place.

    Really? They don’t check to see if people are actually incapable of work?

    Rob Crawford (c55962)

  43. Am I willing to see people go hungry rather than to pay for welfare? Yes, I absolutely am.

    How dare you object to being enslaved!

    Rob Crawford (c55962)

  44. Bread and the Games!

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  45. Mr Crawford wrote, with tongue firmly planted in cheek:

    Really? They don’t check to see if people are actually incapable of work?

    [scoffs]

    The Dana answering a rhetorcal question (3e4784)

  46. The federal government — helping the foreign-born to build a better bomb life here in America.

    Icy (410242)

  47. Discretion and valor, Mr. Colonel. Moving along …

    Icy (410242)

  48. The solution to every problem we have is to require families to support themselves, to require everyone to either work or starve.

    Good luck with that.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  49. Mr M wrote:

    Good luck with that.

    Oh, I know, I know: it will never happen, because we are just to good and kind-hearted to do what needs to be done. But that we won’t do it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to be done.

    The sadly realistic Dana (3e4784)

  50. Help someone one time, you get gratitude.

    Help them all the time, you get an ingrate.

    ras (9960c3)

  51. Prez Obama says out-of-closet NBA player can “still bang with Shaq” and “deliver a hard foul”.

    TMI

    Colonel Haiku (ec1f48)

  52. 41, Dana (etc); No offense taken. If tomorrow the citizens of this country voted to end future disability payments, I would take it philosophically ( I would also scramble around quite a bit; it would leave a big hole in our budget). But we paid a lot of SS taxes when she was working. In theory (we weren’t real fiscally responsible when young) we would have had a heck of a lot more money if we hadn’t been required to pay into the system. Then, when she crashed, we took the money that our society offered us. If we could get food stamps, we would. I wouldn’t apologize for it, and I wouldn’t pout if they got stopped by over action.

    I agree that putting an end to welfare would probably be a good thing, though I think that in an ideal world we would do something about the quality of inner city schools (like give control back to the locals) about 20 years before. But I’m not going to waste the energy to be angry at anyone who is on welfare; they didn’t hold the government or me up at gunpoint. They took what was offered them. And much good has it done them.

    C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd)

  53. 49. Once upon a time, head of household would appear before the County Board, hat in hand, to request assistance.

    Self-esteem suffered and the Feds stepped in.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  54. Here are the people who deserve no help:

    http://www.bob-owens.com/2013/04/obama-admin-threatening-benghazi-whistleblowers/

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  55. Stunning? Really?

    I’m sure they were legally entitled to every dime.

    Amphipolis (d3e04f)

  56. Dana #41 – I suspect that, like many of us conservatives and genuinely compassionate folk, you are willing to see someone go hungry, yet you would voluntarily share your food with someone who is starving who is also doing his or her best to work for food …

    I am at the point where, when the current administration talks about the obesity epidemic (and wants to impose more central control) and about the hunger epidemic (and wants to impose more central control), my response is to recommend that the obese get together with the hungry and solve each other’s problem …

    Irritatingly enough (cuz I enjoy both cooking *and* eating), there are studies to show that being hungry is good for us … whereas starving is not good for us …

    Alasdair (a28b33)

  57. Alasdair wrote:

    I suspect that, like many of us conservatives and genuinely compassionate folk, you are willing to see someone go hungry, yet you would voluntarily share your food with someone who is starving who is also doing his or her best to work for food …

    More than you might ever imagine. And my charitable contributions — all to the Church, which runs plenty of programs for the poor — are substantial.

    But as an entitlement, with no discretion other than eligibility standards, we have institutionalized poverty in a sick way: we have made the Faustian bargain that if a person is willing to agree to live in poverty, we will agree to give him enough to keep a (shabby) roof over his head and (poor) food on his table, and he will not have to work.

    The good-hearted, highly educated and hard working people who devised our welfare system never really thought of it as a bargain like that; that someone would agree to live in squalor, as long as he didn’t have to either work or starve, was something simply so far outside their egocentric conceptual framework that it just wasn’t considered to be a serious problem. Societal shame would keep people from doing that, if nothing else.

    But as welfare incrementally grew, as a few more and a few more people got on the dole, the shame factor withered. “Well, I know Bobby down the street, and his parents are OK, and they’re on welfare!” The government even got rid of printed Food Stamps, that everybody could see when used, and now it’s just a debit card, no different from the one I use for groceries, no muss, no fuss, no ostentatious display, and they get their food and they’re on their way.

    I’d be very much for welfare, if welfare actually worked the way it was intended, a temporary hand up for people suffering a misfortune. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works anymore; it is the support for a permanent leeching class, and it is destroying our very society.

    The Catholic Dana (3e4784)

  58. 37. The post is about the islamogerbils receiving over $100,000 in government handouts.

    Comment by C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd) — 4/30/2013 @ 6:25 am

    You will note there are two components to this post. The islamogerbils, and the $100k. I am focusing primarily on the former, not the latter, thank you very much.

    Although I see both components as two sides of the same coin. The fact that bureaucracies tend to see the asylum seekers and the welfare recipients as their clients. They are not stewards of the public interest.

    Bureaucrats like to grow their bureaucracies. The larger the bureaucracy the greater the prestige, and the better they do in budget battles in competition with other bureaucracies, and the better their salaries. So they tend not to look to closely at their clients as they really don’t want to disqualify people.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  59. C. S. P. Schofield,

    You seem to view welfare as an either/or proposition — either we have it as it is now, or we don’t have it at all. If so, I disagree.

    I want people who need help to have assistance and I think most Americans feel this way, but I have a problem with: (1) people who can work but don’t, for any reason; (1) people whose disabilities don’t prevent them from working; and (3) families who rely on welfare to support them for generations. Instead of a helping hand, welfare becomes a lifestyle choice and we can’t afford that as a nation. In addition, it sends the wrong message about the value of work and providing for oneself.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  60. I think this post doesn’t stand alone, but relates to Patterico’s earlier observation that a lot of criminals are on welfare.

    what I’m taking from that is that if we reduce welfare, we’re going to be cutting off support for a lot of lifestyles that are bad for society even beyond wasting our children’s money.

    And the money isn’t there for welfare anyway. We really need to cut almost all state assistance off and leave a small amount for homeless shelters… in blue states preferably.

    Being on the dole should be seen as shameful: because it is.

    Dustin (2da3a2)

  61. It still blows me away that you can arrive here on a tourist visa from Russia and then get refugee status. Apparently the father, Anzor, arrived on a tourist visa with his two sons. Then applied for asylum (you can’t go directly to “refugee” if you’re already in the country, refugees apply for the status from their home or third country). Perhaps defensively. If a tourist overstays their visa then applying for asylum means they can’t be deported while their application is being processed.

    The 9/11 hijackers didn’t quit follow that route. They didn’t apply for asylum when they overstayed their tourist or business visas. They just stayed illegally.

    Despite all the “security theater” at airports and elsewhere I bet there are still holes in our immigration system big enough to drive a truck bomb through. And I don’t see “comprehensive immigration reform” addressing any of them.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  62. I want people who need help to have assistance

    DRJ’s entire comment is well articulated, and I don’t disagree with what I’ve quoted. It’s just that we don’t have the money to help those who need help. We need to redefine ‘need help’ way down, unfortunately.

    And I place the blame for this directly on the moochers and those politicians (in both parties) who have tried to buy their votes.

    Dustin (2da3a2)

  63. 60. I think this post doesn’t stand alone, but relates to Patterico’s earlier observation that a lot of criminals are on welfare.

    Comment by Dustin (2da3a2) — 4/30/2013 @ 10:00 am

    That observation is spot on for this topic as well. The mother still has an outstanding warrant for felony shoplifting. Dzhokhar sold pot, but wasn’t caught. Similarly the dad also shoplifted, was caught, but wasn’t prosecuted.

    I don’t know what Tamerlan was up to, but he drove a Benz and according to a friend of a girl he dated they’d all go out in his big nice car and he would pay for everything.

    Where did all that disposable income come from?

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  64. #41, #57

    I agree with you, completely, Dana.

    felipe (70ff7e)

  65. Where did all that disposable income come from?

    Comment by Steve57 (da9e0e)

    Apparently it was given by MA and federal politicians to a criminal, and will be paid for by the next generation. After all, a young thug can vote, but an innocent kid cannot, so the political call is a no-brainer.

    Reason five billion why we should have balanced budgets at every level of government.

    Dustin (2da3a2)

  66. All and sundry;

    I don’t insist that welfare (or defense, or drug prohibition, etc. etc.) be all or nothing, those were just the two cases I brought up. Whatever. But if it is legal for someone to get welfare, or social security, or aid for mothers with dependent wombats, then I decline to get mad if they take it.

    Similarly; I get some money from society, and will try really really hard not to whine if society decides to stop giving it to me.

    And I still say that until it could be shown that they had broken the law, a government that would withhold some assistance that they would other wise be qualified for on ideological grounds is a government that scares me a hell of a lot more than these two squirrels.

    In short; it ain’t a scandal unless it would be a scandal if a similar family that HADN’T blown up people got the same.

    C. S. P. Schofield (adb9dd)

  67. I do get mad at people who apparently have no disability and no reason why they can’t work, but they still take welfare.

    These young men worked hard at bombing the Boston Marathon, so they obviously had an ability to get something done. They could have applied themselves to jobs instead of the evil they chose. If nothing else, it might have kept them busy enough that they wouldn’t have time to do evil acts. The least we can do as a society is not make it easier for them to act.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  68. The government’s default position seems to be that people won’t ask for help unless they really need it. That may have been true at one time but it isn’t now.

    The current Administration doesn’t want any limitations on welfare (i.e., its abolition of work requirement for welfare) so the only remedy society has is to blame the Tsarnaevs who did these evil acts and blame the government that helped enable them.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  69. In short; it ain’t a scandal unless it would be a scandal if a similar family that HADN’T blown up people got the same.

    I do blame able-bodied men for taking welfare. Even Democrats have been known to blame them.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  70. DRJ wrote:

    I want people who need help to have assistance and I think most Americans feel this way,

    The problem is one we’ve never managed to solve: how do you separate the people who really need assistance from the people who want to leech off the system. I have come to the conclusion that such cannot be done in any efficient and practical manner, and that leaves us with two options:

    1 – Provide welfare, so that no truly needy person goes without, and accept that there will be a significant number of welfare malingerers; or
    2 – Do not provide welfare, to force the malingerers to get off their dead asses and work, and accept the fact that a large number of truly needy people will go hungry.

    If those are my only two options, and I believe that is the case, I select option #2.

    The practical and cold-hearted Dana (3e4784)

  71. DRJ wrote that she had a problem with:

    people whose disabilities don’t prevent them from working

    My doctor’s office has not one but two women working there who have disabilities: one with a badly deformed right hand and the other who lost her left arm just below her elbow. They seemed efficient enough at doing their jobs, and that means that they shouldn’t be on welfare.

    That they are employed there means that the doctors gave them a chance, when they didn’t have to; a lot of employers wouldn’t. And that means that these slightly handicapped women, who are able to work around their disabilities, are both more likely to appreciate their current employer for giving them a chance, and have less of a chance to get hired elsewhere; that is a retention win for their employer, and smart business sense all the way around.

    The Dana proud of his doctor (3e4784)

  72. Obama has created or saved 150,000,000,000,000 jobs. No one could possibly need welfare or foodstamps or free cell phones any more.

    Gus (694db4)

  73. Steve Sailor, referring to a WaPo article that mentions the Tsarnaevs’ sisters Bella and Ailina, who “moved to New Jersey, where Bella was arrested in December, along with a man named Ahmad Khalil, and charged with possession of and intent to distribute marijuana. …”

    The whole family are a bunch of grifters. The government aid is a base to which they add via various sporadic illegal means. It also provides a certain amount of cover should anyone question how they manage to live without working.

    Basta (e24e79)

  74. Comment by Steve57 (da9e0e) — 4/30/2013 @ 12:24 am

    Which wasn’t Chechnya. It was Russia. Neither of the boys were born in Chechnya, and as far as I can tell neither were their parents because the region of Russia that the family was from had a large population of ethnic Chechens.

    It is very hard to get the story straight. The older brother wass actulally born in Kalmykia we hear now – then the fanmily was in Kirgystan. that’s where Tamerlan’s passport was from. It was expiring. The father claimed taht his son was with him in Russia but he arroved after his son. He’s telling stories about being ill. I thinmk the Russian government doesn’t want him to talk too much or go to the US. There’s probably a lot wrong with the asylum poetition.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  75. “1 – Provide welfare, so that no truly needy person goes without, and accept that there will be a significant number of welfare malingerers; or 2 – Do not provide welfare, to force the malingerers to get off their dead asses and work, and accept the fact that a large number of truly needy people will go hungry.”

    – The practical and cold-hearted Dana

    I feel like that would be a hard thing to explain to God.

    Leviticus (1aca67)

  76. “I feel that would be a hard thing to explain to God”

    – teh pro bono Leviticus

    Colonel Haiku (ec1f48)

  77. 70. 1 – Provide welfare, so that no truly needy person goes without, and accept that there will be a significant number of welfare malingerers; or
    2 – Do not provide welfare, to force the malingerers to get off their dead asses and work, and accept the fact that a large number of truly needy people will go hungry.

    If those are my only two options, and I believe that is the case, I select option #2.

    Comment by The practical and cold-hearted Dana (3e4784) — 4/30/2013 @ 11:54 am

    But of course we both know those aren’t the only two options. Private charities existed long before welfare. One problem with private charity, in the eyes of the libfascists, is that private charities actually require people to modify their behavior to receive assistance. As we are seeing with the Tsarnaev family, public assistance does not. People receive public assistance even though the continue the destructive behaviors that make people poor in the first place.

    You see the same thing in trust fund babies, as well. They never developed the kind of habits that generally speaking their grandparents who made the money had. So the money slips through their fingers like sand. Like welfare recipients they take the money for granted.

    Remember the London riots a couple of years back? Those broke out when the government cut back on public benefits. So the rioters decided that since they were no longer receiving the money that was theirs by right they would steal their swag. Private charity doesn’t put up with that.

    The second thing the libfascists hate about private charity is that it competes with the state as a source of authority. That’s why the Obama administration has declared religious hospitals, hospices, schools, soup kitchens, etc., have been declared non-religious and are required to violate their beliefs to continue operating.

    Catholic hospitals must become non-Catholic or close.

    This has nothing to do with making sure Sandra Fluke is kept well stocked-on birth control. It is pure hostility toward religion and its charitable mission. The kind you saw in the USSR, and China and the DPRK today.

    But, no, if we eliminated welfare in all it’s forms no one who’s truly needy would go unclothed or unfed in this country.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  78. I feel like that would be a hard thing to explain to God.

    He spoke nothing of what he might do as an individual, only to the proper role of our government.

    JD (32eeec)

  79. leviticus, i am happy to explain to god that i did not steal from future generations and saddle them with great debt just so i could pat myself on the back for helping the poor.

    instead i just go out and help the poor in person. most churches make doing this very easy, but you have to be willing to put in time… instead of mandating the “rich” pay for enormous dependency.

    work is dignity and we shouldnt discourage dignity.

    dustin (86a5d6)

  80. Work is what greedy people do ! You didn’t build that, anyhow !

    Elephant Stone (65a34b)

  81. “i just go out and help the poor in person. most churches make doing this very easy, but you have to be willing to put in time… instead of mandating the “rich” pay for enormous dependency.”

    – dustin

    If we want to talk about things that aren’t mutually exclusive – and Steve does, apparently – then let’s start there: personal charity and government welfare are not mutually exclusive. If the [state-run] social safety net evaporated tomorrow, do you think the need would be met by private charity? I don’t – particularly insofar as a lot of Americans are extremely eager to jump to the conclusion that anyone in need of assistance is a leech on society. Not a particularly strong indicator of “charity” there, to my mind.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  82. JD is right, of course, that Dana spoke only of the role of government. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  83. I still meant what I said, though.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  84. #79… Right on, Dustin!

    Colonel Haiku (cf3199)

  85. #81… It is tough not to think the worst when one sees it all around every day of the week. There is no justification for an able-bodied person to be on government assistance. None whatsoever.

    Colonel Haiku (da54d9)

  86. 81. If we want to talk about things that aren’t mutually exclusive – and Steve does, apparently – then let’s start there: personal charity and government welfare are not mutually exclusive. If the [state-run] social safety net evaporated tomorrow, do you think the need would be met by private charity? I don’t – particularly insofar as a lot of Americans are extremely eager to jump to the conclusion that anyone in need of assistance is a leech on society. Not a particularly strong indicator of “charity” there, to my mind.

    Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 4/30/2013 @ 3:57 pm

    Oh, they are mutually exclusive. I’ve learned that from the left. A dollar given to charity is a dollar “stolen” from the US Treasury.

    And you don’t know the meaning of the word charity. Charity is voluntary. Having party A vote to take from party B to give to party C is not charity. It’s extortion.

    Do you really want to explain to God why you felt like ignoring the 10th Commandment?

    Exodus 20:17 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s.”

    To include his bank account and income.

    Especially while it make you feel virtuous to tax the wealthy more, public assistance is more destructive than charity (which is why the word “private” is not necessary; all charity is private).

    I realize you’ll insist that voting for more public assistance, but consider this. The left has come up with a definition of “charity” or “generosity” that is interchangeable with “voting in your own self interest.”

    If you really want to sum up the phrase “voting in your own self interest” in one word, that word would be “greed.”

    Isaiah 5:20
    Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  87. “I’ve learned that from the left. A dollar given to charity is a dollar “stolen” from the US Treasury.”

    – Steve57

    Bullsh*t. Support that or prepare to be ridiculed.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  88. Not that you’ll care, understandably, but still. I call shenanigans.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  89. To be protected from those stronger than yourself, you agree to help protect those weaker than yourself. It’s like a contract. A… social contract.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  90. I love it how leftists who talk about programs like Obamacare as if we’re speaking of “charity” or as Obama himself put it “a more generous America” can’t hide their real goal; wealth redistribution. Which if you’re going to keep all the commandments, you can’t approve of since you’re not supposed to look at your neighbor’s ox or donkey and say “we ought to redistribute that.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4Qbv7gPbo

    Sen. Max Baucus, discussing how Obamacare is an “income shift,” a way to address the “maldistribution of income.” The rich are getting far too rich, and the left thought it was time to do a little “leveling” to use Baucus’ word.

    This is supposed to be charitable? Explain that to God, Leviticus.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  91. I should copyright that “social contract” thing. It’s catchy.

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  92. Hey. When did leftists say that “A dollar given to charity is a dollar “stolen” from the US Treasury”, again?

    Leviticus (17b7a5)

  93. Being on the dole should be seen as shameful: because it is

    yeah *sigh* unfortunately most see it as a right – In Orleans Parish during many intake interviews – when we asked people for employment they felt that working the welfare system was actually a job.

    Not just a random ancedote either

    E.PWJ (1ea63e)

  94. To be protected from those stronger than yourself, you agree to help protect those weaker than yourself. It’s like a contract. A… social contract.

    Comment by Leviticus

    I call bullsh*t. Typical, self-serving liberal bullsh*t.

    Colonel Haiku (4de8c2)

  95. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-04-07/news/0904060080_1_charity-dollars-charitable-donations-part-of-charity

    President Obama wants to take money away from charities. Which is awesome. Only he doesn’t go far enough.

    Joel Stein, Apr 7 2009 explaining how it’s a zero sum game.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  96. The money we’d save with Mr. Obama’s change would help pay for health care. If we got rid of the deduction entirely, we could even use the money to save another large, poorly run industry. Like newspapers.

    Joel Stein at the end of the article, demonstrating the concept of voting in one’s own self interest being synonymous with his definition of generosity.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  97. 91. I should copyright that “social contract” thing. It’s catchy.

    Comment by Leviticus (17b7a5) — 4/30/2013 @ 5:09 pm

    I take it you haven’t studied contracts yet? It’s not a valid contract if you haven’t voluntarily agreed to it. It’s certainly not part of any valid contract to fork over cash with the threat of an IRS agent with a gun and prison hanging over your head.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  98. Well here’s a small codicil, we let you into this country, settle you, give you 100K, don’t blow up
    eight year old boys okay,

    narciso (c62917)

  99. If the [state-run] social safety net evaporated tomorrow, do you think the need would be met by private charity? I don’t – particularly insofar as a lot of Americans are extremely eager to jump to the conclusion that anyone in need of assistance is a leech on society.

    I wanted to address this, Leviticus. I know you don’t believe that private charities could meet the need.

    That’s what you’ve been indoctrinated to believe.

    There was a time when all hospitals were charitable institutions. And that time isn’t too long ago. Those who could afford to pay had the doctor come to them.

    As far as those in need being a leech on society, they are as long as they continue to behave in ways that led them to be unable to function in responsible society.

    Private charities like the Salvation Army will help you if you’re an alcoholic or an addict. But not if you’re still drinking or using.

    On the other hand you can qualify for food stamps or TAMP quite easily while continuing your bad habits. You can use your EBT card in a casino or strip club still in many states.

    Do you think you can explain to God why you thought the second option qualified as “charity?”

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  100. The natural progression of the welfare state continues apace:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/california-homeless-bill-of-rights_n_3147926.html

    Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, framed Assembly Bill 5 as an attempt to create a statewide base line of homeless civil rights, citing a proliferation of municipal ordinances cracking down on behavior such as sleeping on the sidewalk as an example of the “criminalization of poor people.”

    “Today numerous laws infringe on poor peoples’ ability to exist in public space, to acquire housing, employment and basic services and to equal protection under the laws,” Ammiano said.

    This is the thinking behind the welfare state. The state must do more and more for people. Destroying their ability to do for themselves. In Britain “council workers” will even clean the houses of people on the dole and cook for them.

    So like the old Lords of the Manor, why should the cook and clean for themselves.

    You know what prevents these people from finding jobs and housing? Thinking like this:

    A widely derided provision establishing “the right to engage in life sustaining activities” including “urinating” was deleted. Another amendment jettisoned language prohibiting discrimination by business establishments.

    …The bill also would bar local law enforcement from applying laws governing such things as eating, sitting or panhandling in public places unless the county has satisfied a set of requirements that include a relatively low unemployment rate, a short wait for public housing and readily available public assistance.

    Concerns also remain about the cost of the bill, which requires the state Department of Public Health to fund health and hygiene centers.

    …Even should that provision be stripped from the bill, it would leave the core of the legislation intact — what Jennifer Friedenbach of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness described as “making sure homeless people have a fundamental right to rest” without facing harassment.

    I used to step over several homeless people exercising their “fundamental right to rest” when I lived in a liberal college town on the coast and had to go from my apartment to my car.

    Whoever came up with that idea, but they weren’t helping anyone least of all the homeless. But I bet they felt really, really good about themselves for being so generous with my apartment complex.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  101. Ammiano, is aggressively wrong on every subject, I figure he’ll eventually be in the House.

    narciso (c62917)

  102. “Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”

    X (5f9d7f)

  103. so these meetings serve no useful purpose, as even the Saudi GID warned Obama, according to the Mail

    narciso (c62917)

  104. http://news.yahoo.com/boston-police-3-more-suspects-custody-bombings-153012083.html

    BOSTON (AP) — Three more suspects have been taken into custody in the marathon bombings, city police said Wednesday.

    The police department made the announcement in a tweet Wednesday morning, saying more details would follow. Police spokeswoman Cheryl Fiandaca confirmed the tweet but referred all other questions to the FBI.

    The decision not to treat ship stain as an enemy combatant may bite the Obama administration in the a**.

    I really don’t get the stubborn insistence of the Obama administration to declare matters closed, to advance narratives, etc., while everyone knows the facts aren’t in.

    I hate to look at the political ramifications of an atrocity like the Boston Marathon bombing, but the fact is people are going to care about that. It isn’t thousands of miles away like Benghazi. And if the “no Islam to see here, folks, move along” administration tries to bury the facts on this one to impose it’s twin preferred narratives (regarding the innocuous nature of Islam and that terrorism is really a criminal matter) on the nation that will not turn out well for them.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  105. Via Ace.

    http://ace.mu.nu/

    I wonder if someone at the FBI is going to be reprimanded for this.

    http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/@@wanted-group-listing

    30 of the 31 most wanted terrorists on this list are Muslim. The 31st is an animal rights terrorist who’s blown up a biotech company and a nutritional products company.

    Didn’t they get the memo that the main threat comes from right wing Christofascists? Ooh, Holder and big sis are going to be ticked off when they see this.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  106. The Third Book of Moses wrote:

    I feel like that would be a hard thing to explain to God.

    And that’s an argument I’ve heard frequently from liberals, most frequently from those liberals who do not believe in God in the first place. Perhaps if they had read 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

    Our Lord actually gave us the example, as documented many times in the New Testament. When he came upon a crippled man, he healed the man’s affliction, so that the man could get up and leave, presumably to find work now that he was able to work. Had Jesus been a liberal Democrat, he’d have left them crippled, but provided them with a magic, every-refilling begging bowl.

    The needy deserve our compassion; the welfare malingerers are nothing but thieves. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 tells us what portion of the Kingdom of God that thieves will inherit.

    The Dana who has actually read the Bible (3e4784)

  107. The Third Book of Moses wrote:

    “I’ve learned that from the left. A dollar given to charity is a dollar “stolen” from the US Treasury.” – Steve57

    Bullsh*t. Support that or prepare to be ridiculed.

    I’m at work, and don’t have the time to search for the appropriate citations, but it has been well documented that the states with the highest charitable contributions tend to be the same states with lower tax rates, while places like Connecticut and Massachusetts, where the government spends more on welfare and the like, have lower charitable contribution rates.

    This is my story on it, from 2005. I’d bet that newer data will confirm the pattern.

    The charitable Dana (3e4784)

  108. That is an apt analogy, Dana. When you see multiple generations of people whose way of life has been to depend on the feds for a handout and in some ways they’ve been reduced to the life of rats in a cage, they live in housing provided for them, eat food provided for them, and don’t know what to do with their spare time. That is not said in derision of the people in that situation, it is said in derision of those who made the cage and maintain it.

    Like so much of what the left does, the intent on one level is to be nice and relieve suffering, but they try to solve things with short term cheap attempts of their own making instead of with respect to the truth of the human situation.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  109. I’m not sure why you disagree with that notion, Leviticus. I’ve argued that Dana’s well proved onservation makes perfect sense, to a degree. If Joe Biden or some other person of the left gives little to private charity that makes sense to me becaused they think the govt has the responsiblity to care for the needy, even to support the humanities, so why give to private charity?
    BUT, I also have thought that if those people were that concerned about the poor, they would give extra to the government above and beyond their tax bill, they should at least give “their fair share”, as they say.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  110. The Philadelphia physician wrote:

    I also have thought that if those people were that concerned about the poor, they would give extra to the government above and beyond their tax bill, they should at least give “their fair share”, as they say.

    For those who believe that they ought to pay more in taxes, the Treasury Department provides a helpful link where they can do just that.

    The helpful Dana (3e4784)

  111. The Variously Named Dana,

    My point was that it would be hard to explain to God a policy of harming the innocent to make sure you harmed the guilty. I do believe in God, and I have read the Bible. My understanding is that God doesn’t take kindly to a view of the helpless as candidates for collateral damage.

    Leviticus (1aca67)

  112. Yes, it would be hard to explain to God a policy of harming the innocent,
    but the welfare society is condemning children to poverty all of the time.

    Back in the old ‘hood my wife had an interesting and tragic discussion with a few neighbor girls hanging out on our front steps.
    First, they were amazed that she actually had a husband
    Second, they were amazed he was not home because he had a job.

    For those questions to reflect the “normal life” of a group of elementary age girls is deplorable. Something in the 30+ years (at the time) of the war on poverty was not working.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  113. but it has been well documented that the states with the highest charitable contributions tend to be the same states with lower tax rates

    But it’s not just the human nature on display on a large level, but the human nature revealed on a personal basis. Studies indicate that a higher percentage of liberals — regardless of their income level — give less to charity than conservatives. That has played out among even the most visible people in society, referring to politicians running for the White House over the past few decades.

    With a few exceptions, the tax returns of folks like Gore, Clinton, Obama and Kerry have shown they contribute less to charity than what is given by Republicans like Bush Jr and Sr, Reagan, etc. This snippet from 15 years ago is fairly typical, and was mirrored in 2008 in observations of the tax returns of our current beautiful, generous, humane president, at least before his run for the White House (and before he knew he would be entering a more intense public spotlight).

    latimes.com, April 1998: A single line in Vice President Al Gore’s highly detailed, 34-page federal tax return, which was released publicly Monday, is transforming a yawner of a story into something awkward for a political leader who wants to be the next president.

    It is the $353 Gore and his wife, Tipper, reported as gifts to charity last year on a return that shows adjusted gross income of $197,729. The donations reported by Gore, who has often lauded the value of social responsibility, add up to less than one-tenth the typical contribution amount for his income level, according to Internal Revenue Service records.

    The $353 is also causing some bewilderment in philanthropic circles, where Gore has a “good guy” image as an advocate for public services and social causes.

    [The] IRS figures rank the Gores’ 1997 level far below the average for households in their income bracket.

    Gore is not the first vice president to report vast disparities in charitable giving from year to year. When Dan Quayle became vice president in 1989, his reported contributions slipped to $2,934 from $17,304 the previous year, reflecting a loss of income from speaking fees when he served in the Senate.

    George Bush, in his last year as vice president, reported charitable contributions of $12,225. In his first year as president, when he enjoyed a higher salary and greater investment earnings, the total soared to $37,272.

    I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Liberal biases apparently tend to make people two-faced and disingenuous.

    Mark (28b929)

  114. The decision not to treat ship stain as an enemy combatant may bite the Obama administration in the a**.

    ? What choice is there? The military pretty much sucks at bringing terrorists to trial and imposing punishment. There have only been two verdicts out of Gitmo, in twelve years, and they have both been reversed on appeal.

    The military is not good at this kind of thing — it’s not what its job is. The US district attorneys are, it’s what they do.

    (And that’s without going into the unholy clusterf***k of a tribunal system Alberto Gonzalez fried up.)

    nk (875f57)

  115. Not wanting to fund programs that have demonstrably not helped innocents is somehow making innocents collateral damage?

    JD (b63a52)

  116. 112. The Variously Named Dana,

    My point was that it would be hard to explain to God a policy of harming the innocent to make sure you harmed the guilty. I do believe in God, and I have read the Bible. My understanding is that God doesn’t take kindly to a view of the helpless as candidates for collateral damage.

    Comment by Leviticus (1aca67) — 5/2/2013 @ 6:37 am

    Leviticus, you are making a category error if you think that support for government welfare programs equates to concern for the poor.

    The name under which these government programs go by sums up the very problem. Entitlements. Really? You’re entitled?

    This is a destructive thing to teach people. I really don’t have a problem going to my grave knowing I’ll have to explain my position to God on this one.

    It’s an old argument:

    http://www.historycarper.com/1766/11/29/on-the-price-of-corn-and-management-of-the-poor/

    For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. — I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? — On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.

    (Benjamin Franklin, London, 1766)

    But even though the argument is old and still rages, I think the evidence is clear. Private charity, which is provided on a conditional basis, can help. Public benefits, which the beneficiary is told he or she is entitled to, can easily be destructive. As has often, if not usually, proven to be the case.

    I fail to see why I should have a problem explaining to God why I didn’t want to destroy people’s lives.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  117. Comment by nk (875f57) — 5/2/2013 @ 8:08 am

    Your reference to the evidence does show there apparently is something lacking in military tribunals, unless it is that military tribunals can rarely make final determinations while hostilities are continuing.
    My understanding, which could be wrong, is that Andy McCarthy, who knows about as much as or more than anyone on prosecuting terrorists, thinks that much is lost in a civilian trial, as often secret methods must be revealed which then makes them useless in further investigation and prevention of terror acts.
    So, is you want to prosecute an individual criminal, a civilian trial may be the way to go; but if you want to maximize the opportunity to prevent attacks rather then scrape up the pieces afterwards, then a military tribunal that can keep some things confidential is a better bet.

    I may be wrong or very wrong about that, but it is my understanding of the issue, FWIW, non-lawyer as I am.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  118. No, you’re right, MD. Information obtained by waterboarding and/or hanging somebody off the floor by his arms handcuffed behind his back would never be admissible in either a civilian criminal trial or a courts martial under the UCMJ. But it can be used to prevent future terrorist acts.

    Also, indefinite detention, when the evidence is thin, for whatever reason (whether desire for secrecy or because the prosecution cannot put its case together), permissible in GITMO but not in America, serves just as good to incapacitate the terrorist as final verdict and sentence.

    nk (875f57)

  119. Comment by Steve57 (da9e0e) — 5/2/2013 @ 8:30 am

    As one limited example, the Old Testament prescribed the practice of gleaning. In one way it meant the capitalist landowners were not allowed to be greedy in hoarding their rightfully obtained harvest, and the poor were provided the means on which to sustain themselves while looking for a better life. There was no mandate for equality, nor was the focus on the right of the poor (as I see it). Rather, the responsibility was on the “rich” to be generous while enjoying the fruits of their labor, and the poor were sustained while retaining the role of individuals with a degree of self-determination.

    In an analogy that may break down under scrutiny, there is a difference between a collective and a cooperative.

    The law (or the Law) cannot make people good, it can only point out and try to limit the bad. If a society is based in making laws to point out the bad of every little incident while ignoring the major issues, you get something that doesn’t work well. Caring for others, “being your brother’s keeper”, is a good that cannot be legislated.
    Yes, depending on the generosity of private citizens is very imperfect. But attempts to do better in the hubris of a Lenin or Marx or LBJ has been shown to be worse in the long run, causing more human misery.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  120. nk, if you’re a combatant indefinite detention is an industrial hazard. Aricle III of the Code of Conduct states:

    If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

    You’re not even supposed to let them get you off their hands.

    Of course escaping is another thing entirely.

    But still, being imprisoned as a combatant is not a judicial proceeding.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  121. MD in Philly, Leviticus 19:

    9 “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  122. Mark wrote:

    But it’s not just the human nature on display on a large level, but the human nature revealed on a personal basis. Studies indicate that a higher percentage of liberals — regardless of their income level — give less to charity than conservatives. That has played out among even the most visible people in society, referring to politicians running for the White House over the past few decades.

    And there’s an obvious reason for this, why people in Mississippi, the poorest state in the union, and Utah, give so much more to charity: it’s because fewer liberals go to church. The money you put in the collection basket is a deductible charitable contribution.

    When it was noted that Al Gore and his lovely, now ex-wife Tipper gave $353 to charity one year, many people pointed out that just $20 a week on the collection basket would have been over a grand . . . if the former (failed) divinity student had actually gone to church.

    The Catholic Dana (3e4784)

  123. As long as we’re being Biblical and all on the subject of charity:

    1 Timothy 5:

    9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband,[a] 10 and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. 11 But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry 12 and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. 13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. 14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. 15 For some have already strayed after Satan. 16 If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.

    St. Paul placed conditions on charity.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  124. Not wanting to fund programs that have demonstrably not helped innocents is somehow making innocents collateral damage?
    Comment by JD (b63a52) — 5/2/2013 @ 8:08 am

    — Bingo!

    Well, because … you know, if you fund the programs then they at least stay alive while they’re doing absolutely nothing to take care of themselves or stand on their own two feet.

    Icy (83d5c8)

  125. In an analogy that may break down under scrutiny, there is a difference between a collective and a cooperative.

    Not at all, Doc. As Milton Friedman demonstrated, a free market is how you get cooperation without coercion. A willing seller, and a willing buyer. A cooperative.

    A collective requires coercion.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  126. For crying out loud. This was not a failure of the f***ing welfare system, it was a failure of the f***ing immigration system which let these gypsies in on refugee visas based on lies about persecution. Refugees, real refugees, receive and should receive subsistence assistance. Other immigrants cannot get a visa, from F-1 to immigrant, without an affidavit of financial responsibility and proof of assets and financial support. Also health insurance. Look for immigration policies still aimed at giving Russia a black eye on human rights issues. Maybe. (Where’s Milhouse?)

    nk (875f57)

  127. nk, to be fair it was a failure of both. I’ve harped primarily on the failure of the immigration system. But I still have to wonder why a guy like Tamerlan is driving a Mercedes Benz and is getting welfare.

    If the report about the Saudis denying Tamerlan a visa to go on the Hajj is true, wouldn’t you wonder why someone on welfare can afford to make the pilgrimage to Mecca?

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  128. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/19/article-2311686-19643995000005DC-572_634x415.jpg

    That’s Tamerlan second from the right in the back row with his boxing team mates in 2010.

    As stated in the post at the top of this thread, the Tsarnaev family received $100K from 2002 to 2012. nk, can you tell me why we’re supporting golden glove boxers at public expense?

    http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2013/apr/19/coed-remembers-tamerlan-tsarnaev/

    A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing who was shot dead after a police standoff on Friday had an “air of power” and an intensity that could frighten, his former friend told WNYC.

    Ashley Stackowitz was a freshman at Suffolk University when she met Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers suspected of being involved in the deadly marathon bombing. He and her roommate began dating.

    At first, she said, Stackowitz would hang out with them too, going drinking at bars like the Underbar in Boston. He’d give them rides in his nice car and he would pay for things.

    Seriously? This guy’s on welfare?

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  129. Was it Pamela who explained it? The cars are in somebody else’s name, the plane tickets are paid on the wife’s credit card. No red flags on the computers even if DMV does talk to public aid which it probably does not.

    nk (875f57)

  130. Our Greek lawyer wrote:

    For crying out loud. This was not a failure of the f***ing welfare system, it was a failure of the f***ing immigration system which let these gypsies in on refugee visas based on lies about persecution. Refugees, real refugees, receive and should receive subsistence assistance.

    Why? And if you believe that “real refugees” should receive subsistence assistance, for how long should that be the case?

    Our welfare system is exactly that: a system of subsistence assistance, and the problem with that is that we allow people to subsist thereon for decades, for lifetimes, for generations, because we are too kind-hearted to allow people to starve to death.

    If we could find a way to provide such assistance for only those who really, really cannot work, you’d find no opposition from me. But we have been completely unable to write regulations which are fraud proof, or even very fraud resistant, and we have, out of our good intentions, created a whole welfare class of malingerers.

    Sometimes, when the structure is so badly compromised, with rust and rot and mold, the building can’t be saved, and it’s time to tear it down.

    The inquiring Dana (3e4784)

  131. 115. …? What choice is there? The military pretty much sucks at bringing terrorists to trial and imposing punishment. There have only been two verdicts out of Gitmo, in twelve years, and they have both been reversed on appeal.

    The military is not good at this kind of thing — it’s not what its job is. The US district attorneys are, it’s what they do.

    (And that’s without going into the unholy clusterf***k of a tribunal system Alberto Gonzalez fried up.)

    Comment by nk (875f57) — 5/2/2013 @ 8:08 am

    The military used to be very good at this sort of thing. In WWII Germans in American uniforms misdirecting traffic went before a tribunal and then a firing before the day was out.

    But then the legal monastary didn’t intervene on behalf of Nazis.

    Steve57 (da9e0e)

  132. They scrubbed the tribunals, of anyone with any familiarity with the anti terrorist effort, this is how you end up with these weak plea bargains.

    narciso (3fec35)


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