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| Payne, Erica Payne |
Remember the calls for 'Civility'?
Yeah, me too.
Apparently Civility is just too hard. What we really nice is a substantive debate of the real issues facing America today.
What we need is a new National Agenda. Or perhaps, an Agenda P'roject'?
Ah, that's the ticket.
Allow me to introduce you to the founder of the Agenda Project: Erica Payne (yes, she's a 'Payne' from a long line of 'Paynes'). She has an Agenda. You could say that it's a Project of hers.
Let's take a moment to equate ourselves with this nice lady.
The following comes from the Agenda Project site: Prior to founding the Agenda Project and the Tesseract Group, Payne co-founded the Democracy Alliance, a donor collaborative whose partners have invested over $100 million in progressive organizations.
Her early career included serving as Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 presidential re-election campaign and as a consultant to a number of campaigns and political organizations. In addition to her public sector work, Payne has held senior marketing positions in the private sector.
Payne is the author of The Practical Progressive: How to Build a 21st Century Political Movement, which Jonathan Alter of Newsweek called “a blueprint for a progressive conspiracy to help save the country.” [Moos Note: a blueprint for a progressive conspiracy to help save the country? Doesn't the word 'conspiracy' typically have negative connotations associated with it? Just wondering.]
She is on the Board of Advisors of the Public Diplomacy Collaborative at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She is also on the Board of Advisors of Health Care for America Now.
Payne has a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2000) and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1991).
Well, isn't that special? She seems to have a fine pedigree as it pertains to educational background AND she worked under Bill Clinton in 1996 as the National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee.
Oops, sorry, did I say she worked under Bill Clinton? Ah, yes, I see that I did. Sorry. Please do not infer something I never meant to imply.
So what's the agenda of the Agenda Project? Let's re-visit the website to see if we can get a crystal-clear picture of what their mission is. Again, pulling from Erica's website www.agendaproject.org:
The Agenda Project’s goal is to build a powerful, intelligent, well-connected political movement capable of identifying and advancing rational, effective ideas in the public debate and in so doing ensure our country’s enduring success.
Between out-dated political parties, self-interested multi-national corporations, and ineffectual elected officials, good values and common sense have lost their power in the public debate.
Between out-dated political parties, self-interested multi-national corporations, and ineffectual elected officials, good values and common sense have lost their power in the public debate.
Our goal is to return normal Americans to the center of the policy debate by cultivating an understanding of public policy, facilitating common action, and connecting the best ideas and the strongest leaders with engaged citizens, elected officials, the media, political insiders [but I thought she said in the prior paragraph that they were 'ineffectual elected officials'?], and experts through a variety of in-person and on-line platforms [Oh good, now she's talking about me!].
Holy Business-Speak MoosRoom Readers! Instead of building a Mission Statement, Erica builds 'Mission Control'.
How about we boil the above objectives down to no more than a few lines?
The Agenda Project - where the Elite meet to tell you what to think, to do, to eat...
You can't do it on your own. You're not equipped to understand the BIG thoughts we're thinking. Now run along and we'll tell you what you need to know [later].
So Erica's been around for a while, looking to provide a Progressive Conspiracy blueprint for the nation. Super. Excellent. Thanks for being there hot chick with the thick-framed glasses! Okay, so I began this talking about civility and making nice-nice, and all I do is pick on the poor woman.
What's the cause of my un-called for personal attack of Erica? No, nothing personal, but take about a minute and a half and check out our new friend, Erica's, video production. You might want to make sure there are no kid's in the room when you hit PLAY. Unless they hate Grandma, of course. If they do hate Grandma, they'll like this one a lot...
If the video doesn't open properly above, you can access it by clicking HERE
There you go, a NEW tone for civility in America! When you can win the agrument - just make stuff up!
It's the Progressive Way...
Oh, and just in case Erica here ever reads this post? She got it wrong. A Republican wouldn't have tossed a single elderly woman off the cliff. A REAL Republican would have built a highly-efficient automated conveyor system to drop seniors into the abyss.
These Progressive folks do not understand the benefits associated with streamlining operations. To them it's one man pushing one woman in a wheelchair at a time. They're cursed with Union-Member thinking. Sheesh. How very inefficient.
Even when they're making stuff up - they get it wrong.
Well, at least they're consistent...
Speaking of consistent, here's a BONUS video from the Agenda Project. You WILL want to clear the kids from the room for this one...
If you want to check this one out - click this link: F*CK YOU
I don't want it in my post.
The hot chick is proof not all demons have horns coming growing out of their heads and long pointed tails..
ReplyDeleteA hot chick & a red rubber ball. . .oops wrong site.
ReplyDeleteNotice the F.You song was sung by a chick with a British accent. They are still haunting the Tea Party 240 years later.
I wonder how many takes they had in that film!!! LOL
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP were to agree to restoring the pre-Bush tax on the wealthy and agree to eliminating Big Oil subsidies, (and 0 tax for GE), the impact on medicare would be less severe, and the American public might accept it. We ask our servicemen to sacrifice for our country and sometime demand it, ie draft. I don't think it would hurt the wealthy who are in a position to help the country, to be asked to do their part.
Bud, right now the government is paying almost 149 Billion to the trust funds in interest,,, excprt they are't paying it. They're giving the funds worthless bonds they don't plan on ever redeming..
ReplyDeleteWonfer how much of the medicare problem that would ease?
You're right grumpy. Too bad nobody thought about that for the last 30 years.
ReplyDeleteBud, goes back even farther than that... In 1964 LBJ had a War and his Great Society to pay for... and all that beautiful cash, more the Social Secuity would ever need was sitting there for the taking
ReplyDeleteWrong this time Grumpy. Johnson pretty much paid for the war and great society. I'll email by the CBO yearly US Budget Deficit or Surplus 1961-67, projected to 68. It also shows the huge deficits caused by Reagan's big cuts, then a recovery after he raised taxes. GHWB deficit also tanked, but after he also raised taxes, started the rise that Clinton rode on up. GWB really tanked. But note the Clinton surpluses were not enough to bring down the national debt.
ReplyDeleteTo the Editor:
ReplyDeleteJoseph A. Califano Jr., in his Dec. 31 Op-Ed piece "Balancing the Budget, L.B.J. Style," doesn't tell us the chief reason for the $3.2 billion surplus in the 1969 budget. For 1969, President Johnson adopted a recommendation to sweep all the independent trust funds into a "unified" budget. This brought in the huge surpluses carried on the books by Social Security and the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, among others. This action served to mask the overwhelming costs of the Vietnam War and surely "delivered" the $3.2 billion surplus.
This practice of hiding the true deficit by including trust fund surpluses continues to this day, even though Social Security has since been declared "off-budget."
Social Security funds should be acknowledged as being independent of the budget. In addition, the retirement and disability fund should be restored to its original independent status, as has been proposed by Representative Michael Bilirakis, Republican of Florida. Let us have, at long last, truth in budgeting.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/opinion/l-lbj-s-balanced-budget-hid-deficits-044113.html
President Johnson created the ‘unified budget’ in the late 1960s to disguise the real cost of the Vietnam War. [He] did not want to ask for income tax increases to pay for several ambitious government programs of that era (the Vietnam War, the Great Society War on Poverty, the NASA Space Race). Putting surpluses from Social Security overwithholding “on budget” (adding them to the general operating budget of the United States Government) so the overwithholding could be used to pay for other government programs would make the federal budget appear balanced. The resulting debt to Trust Funds would be presented “off budget.”
In 1967 President Johnson appointed a Commission on Federal Budget Concepts which in its October 1967 report proposed a unified budget to do this. Johnson submitted the first unified budget to a Democratic Congress for Fiscal Year 1969 scheduled to begin on July 1, 1968. Thus was born the practice of using Social Security Trust Fund surpluses – or “Intra-governmental Holdings of Debt” to hide the size of the overall federal deficit.
http://crockettlives.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/flim-flam-men/
He'd already starded the printing of Monopoly Money when the dicontinued Silver Certificate and and silver coins in 1964
ReplyDelete