["Policy makers should view the problem from the starting point of today, and resolve to take action on every front. America must restore the norm of gainful employment for all who are mentally and physically able and are not working in the home. The private and public sectors must share responsibility for equipping every American, college-bound or not, with marketable 21st-century skills. Congress and state legislatures should restructure public benefit programs to encourage work and ensure that workers earn a living wage. Finally, the nation must enact public policies that sustain the labor market through downturns, making it possible for every able worker to find a job." From the dreams of disconnected policy pundits. (more here) ]
ARCHIVES
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
OUR LINKS
YubaNet
White House Blog
Watts Up With That?
The Union
Sierra Thread
RL “Bob” Crabb
Barry Pruett Blog
RR FUNDAMENTALS
RECENT POSTS
- Father forgive them for they know not …
- Democrats Ascendant
- Scattershots – 4jan26 (updated 8jan26)
- Sandbox – 4jan26
- Venezuela on path to freedom and prosperity
RECENT COMMENTS
CATEGORIES
- Agenda 21 (490)
- All Things Trump (32)
- Books & Media (34)
- Budget (2)
- California (385)
- Comment Sandbox (488)
- Critical Thinking & Numeracy (1,312)
- Culture Comments (750)
- Current Affairs (1,858)
- Film (7)
- Food and Drink (9)
- Games (5)
- General (215)
- Glossary & Semantics (25)
- Great Divide (208)
- Growth (1)
- Happenings (679)
- Investing (43)
- Music (2)
- My Story (62)
- Nevada County (733)
- Our Country (2,430)
- Our World (629)
- Rebane Doctrine (130)
- Religion (38)
- sandbox (2)
- Science (33)
- Science Snippets (165)
- Singularity Signposts (144)
- Sports (3)
- The Liberal Mind (644)
- The Rear View (74)
- Travel (8)
- Trump (3)
- Uncategorized (45)
- We the iSheeple (620)
- Web/Tech (176)
rebanesruminations.com 
264 responses to “Sandbox – 23nov18”
The war in Afghanistan – we now make a big deal when now and then a few of our troops get killed in that 15+ year war which has claimed a bit over 2,300 lives in toto, less than the numbers we lost in the first twelve hours of an assault in our Civil War, WW1, and WW2. What today we call a ‘war’ has changed significantly. And in those days the surviving loved ones just hunkered down, grieved, and then went on with their lives knowing that their sons, husbands, and brothers had died gloriously for their country. Today I’m waiting for relatives with the ACLU to file a lawsuit against the government (and Trump personally) for a ‘wrongful death’.
LikeLike
GeorgeR@5:02PM
You can argue that aversion to risk (along with xenophilia) is the largest underlying source of changes in modern society. You can see it in 100 ways.
LikeLike
,,,fishbrain,,,at least get the title right,,,it’s Full Metal Diaper!!!
LikeLike
,,,sorry trumpski,,,no to Trump News Network,,,and kicking reporters out whom you don’t like. Nixon then sounds just like trumpski today.
The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential roll in our democracy.
The press was to serve the governed not the governors.
Justice Black Supreme Court decision on publishing the Pentagon Papers
LikeLike
Posted by: M | 27 November 2018 at 05:32 PM
I give you a lot of……wait for it……shit! But that’s a pretty good line! Kudos!
LikeLike
Posted by: M | 27 November 2018 at 05:40 PM
A no talent hack like Jim Acosta……please…..Trump should have stood his ground and made CNN send a different no talent hack! It’s not like they don’t have plenty to send.
No threat to a free press by banning lil Jimmy Attention Whore!
LikeLike
Tell em brother –
This is how old I am. … Old enough to remember being told that by now…
We would be living through a new Ice Age by the year 2000.
We would all die when the ozone layer disappeared.
The oceans would be dead.
Global Cooling would destroy the world.
Acid rain would destroy our forests.
Overpopulation would result in worldwide famine.
We would deplete our natural resources.
We would run out of oil.
The polar ice caps would melt.
Manhattan would be underwater.
People who live in cities will have to wear gas masks.
Nitrogen buildup will make the land unusable.
“Decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate.”
And that is just the Big Stuff, the world-shaking predictions the oh-so holy scientific consensus got horribly wrong during my lifetime. Yes, that science was also declared settled.
Now… Imagine if we had declared the science settled on all the little stuff, on the small pleasures of life that the Holy Scientific Consensus tried to strip away from our lives, wonderful things like coffee, salt, fat, and eggs over easy — all of which were labeled poison within my lifetime, but now (thank heaven) no longer are.
You see, I am also old enough to remember when Climate Change was called Global Warming and then had to be re-branded because God made it snow every time Al Gore gave a speech.
Those 13 items listed above are not a joke, are not sarcasm, are not an exaggeration on my part. Each and every one of those now-debunked doomsday prophecies were not only taken seriously by scientists and the media, but by left-wing authoritarians at home and abroad as a means to control people through the horrors of central planning.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/11/27/nolte-only-anti-science-suckers-believe-climate-change-hysteria/
😉
LikeLike
Amdinistrivia – please post your appropriate comments under the next Scattershots.
LikeLike
George 5:02: One of the largest problems in communicating on message boards, blogs, etc. is that there (emojis aside) are none of the other aspects like tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, etc. that provide additional information when trying to attach meaning to words. So it becomes difficult to separate, for example, sarcasm from sincerity. If your statements were meant in sarcasm, they aren’t very funny. If they were sincere, they are frightening.
“we now make a big deal when now and then a few of our troops get killed”. It is a big deal when one of those few killed was your husband, wife, son, daughter, friend, or any other human being killed in a war, especially when the reasons for such a war are a matters of politics and economics rather than survival. No war since WWII has been worth a single life or tax dollar. To make light of any soldiers death by characterizing it as “no big deal” as your statement implies, is simply wrong, and to try and butter it by couching it in terms of the glory of war is even more wrong.
“died gloriously for their country.” There is no glory in war.. only death and destruction and to glorify such a horrible endeavor is to trivialize those deaths by cloaking them in some patriotic mystic that only perpetuates the myth that somehow war is acceptable. I find it odd that since the very beginning of this country no butcher, baker, or candlestick maker ever started a war. Wars were/are started by politicians who are urged to war by those who would profit the most from regime change. One only need to review the media hysteria and drum beating prior to Bush’s wars that still go on. Seldom do those who blow the horns of war actually participate in the blood and guts and devastation that is war. Never is death in war glorious. Sometimes it is necessary as was the case in WWII, but never glorious. War is only glorious in a John Wayne movie or to chicken hawk politicos.
LikeLike
How many flags from fallen hero’s caskets have you folded troll? You know nothing of the professional military. @ 724
😉
LikeLike
The California Democratic Party announced Monday that chairman Eric Bauman will take a leave of absence until an outside investigation concludes examining allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-california-democrat-takes-leave-of-absence-amid-inquiry-into-sexual-misconduct-allegations
LikeLike
Putin cuddling?
America’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo, had assured him in a phone call that his country, had the “full support, full assistance, including military assistance, full coordination, what we [need] to do to protect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity”, Mr Poroshenko said.
Addressing a suggestion that Donald Trump had been slow to back Ukraine over the stand-off, the Ukrainian leader told CNN host Christiane Amanpour, that the president “in his speech, also supported Ukrainian territorial integrity and [has] been on our side”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mike-pompeo-offered-apos-military-231501861.html
😉
LikeLike
Quotes from this moment in time.
Flashback: “A group of about 100 [migrants] trying to illegally cross the border Sunday near the San Ysidro port of entry threw rocks and bottles at U.S. Border Patrol agents, who responded by using pepper spray and other means to force the crowd back into Mexico.” —San Diego Union Tribune, Nov. 25, 2013 — during the Obama administration, so no Democrat objections
Non Compos Mentis: “Why tear gas? Is this consistent with the Conventions on Chemical Weapons?” —Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI)
Bad predictions: “Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on, but they’re not going to be doing that.” —CNN’s Jim Acosta to Donald Trump on Nov. 7
Hyper hypocrisy: “This is wrong.” —Hillary Clinton on a pic of a mother running from tear gas on the border (When the same thing happened under Obama, Clinton said, “____.”)
Braying Jenny: “This administration has jailed children and violated human rights. Perhaps we should stop pretending that authoritarianism + violence is a historical event instead of a growing force.” —Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The Clinton Perjury Machine: “[Attorney] Frank Carter explained to me if I’d signed an affidavit denying having had an intimate relationship with the president it might mean I wouldn’t have to be deposed in the Paula Jones case. I did feel uncomfortable about it but I felt it was the right thing to do. … So, the right thing to do, to break the law.” —Monica Lewinsky
Village Idiots: “A lot of women vote the way their husbands vote; they don’t believe enough in their own thoughts. Maybe that woman who’s so articulate, so experienced and so fit for the presidency was too intimidating.” —Barbra Streisand (Actually, they refused to be captives of the Democrats’ dupe-women-voters operation.)
The BIG Lie: “Iran has never threatened to attack Israel, but has vowed to retaliate if it is attacked.” —Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi
And last… “If I tried to run past a Chinese border patrol agent and got myself pepper sprayed in the process (or worse), would anyone in the world feel sorry for me? Or would they all blame me for being so dumb and reckless as to attempt to bum-rush the Chinese border?” —Matt Walsh
And finally, if I may boast. A relative has finally been put on a meme. On my Mom’s side, her sister. Still waiting to post Walt’s relative Lizzy B on a meme. With a whack whack here and a whack whack there…..🤠
https://m.facebook.com/PatriotPost/photos/a.82108390913/10156036379655914/?type=3&source=48
LikeLike
Mmmmm…….who’s hungry!?!?
https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/28/poo-found-on-every-mcdonalds-touchscreen-tested-8178486/
LikeLike
Satire…..?! Mmmmmm? To paraphrase our Punchy….. the Babylon Bee reports you decide!
https://babylonbee.com/news/aides-force-ocasio-cortez-to-watch-entire-run-of-schoolhouse-rock
LikeLike
Posted by: fish | 28 November 2018 at 06:32 AM
Re: School House Rock
Hmm, good idea. Too bad trumpski never watched it!!!
LikeLike
Who knew that Canadians were such vile male supremacists…..?!
Just another example of BLATANT Canadian sexism!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6436001/Bill-Hillary-kick-13-city-Evening-Clintons-paid-speaking-tour-CANADA.html
LikeLike
Well that’s a start –
https://www.thedailybeast.com/migrants-in-tijuana-regret-the-caravan-im-done-with-the-united-states?yptr=yahoo
😉
LikeLike
,,,Migrants are done with the US,,,Think how far the One Trillion and counting dollars that have been wasted in far away raghead countries could have gone to improve the lives and economies in Central American countries possibly negating the need for a Great Wall in the first place.
,,,What would happen if the US just went into business with the coca producers and regulated it? Cocaine use is still rampant and not just in the ghettos. Narco violence would probably be greatly reduced.
The drug war has already been lost.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/bff37f44-3ada-32ef-93bc-1eaaf0d7ddc0/migrants-in-tijuana-regret.html
LikeLike
M 1152am – kudos Mr M! While one can argue with the specifics of your proposal, you at least have put forward a proto-libertarian alternative and approach. However, I trust that your “negating the need for a Great Wall” still recognizes that the US will need secure borders of minimal porosity.
LikeLike
HA HA –
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/418630-trump-shares-image-calling-for-his-opponents-to-face-trials-for
😉
LikeLike
,,,yes George,,,because we are a sovereign nation we will always have borders. Once we have a workable solution to cross-border employment, immigration, amnesty, etc. the drama over border security should decrease.
LikeLike
M – define ‘workable solution’.
LikeLike
Posted by: M | 28 November 2018 at 11:52 AM
Think how far the One Trillion and counting dollars that have been wasted in far away raghead countries could have gone to improve the lives and economies in Central American countries possibly negating the need for a Great Wall in the first place.
Why do we need to send a trillion in tax dollars to improve the lives of Central Americans?
Posted by: M | 28 November 2018 at 12:10 PM
Once we have a workable solution to cross-border employment, immigration, amnesty, etc. the drama over border security should decrease.
Once we have a workable solution to cross-border employment, immigration, etc. why do we need amnesty?
LikeLike
M 1210pm – Now you’re hoisting true colors again. ‘Having borders’ and having non-porous borders are two distinct concepts. One is an ineffective line on the map that does not enclose a sovereign nation-state, the other one is infrastructure on the ground that does.
LikeLike
“Once we have a workable solution to cross-border employment, immigration, amnesty, etc. the drama over border security should decrease.”
I take it that ‘workable’ means ‘unlimited immigration’.
The thing is, when you have that much of a wealth gradient, the pressure to join the party will always exist. I expect the Third World to keep on falling behind technically and financially.
Add in differentials in birth rates (especially in Europe v. Africa) and stand back.
It’s a shame that the USA stole the part of North America that has all the roads.
Look at it this way. Let’s say we are sharing a house and you want all the homeless people to move in and share the wealth but I don’t want them. Why should you be able to unilaterally open the doors?
LikeLike
Hey……meet the “New Boss”, same as the “Old Boss”!
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/418653-democrats-overwhelmingly-nominate-pelosi-as-speaker
LikeLike
Anyone surprised?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/stormy-daniels-michael-avenatti-filed-defamation-case-against-trump-against-my-wishes/
😉
LikeLike
One unhinged LIB!!
He goes on-air wearing a skirt?
https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/28/philippe-reines-fox-news-harlan-hill-pants/
Philippe Reines, a former top adviser to Hillary Clinton, allegedly went on a pants-less, unhinged rant against a Trump campaign adviser at Fox News’ D.C. bureau on Tuesday night.
LikeLike
,,,George, Scotto, fishbrain,,,it is not up to me to define ‘workable solution’. If the border bureaucracy worked correctly and drugs were normalized and regulated border porosity would not be an issue except for random evildoers. Tech solutions, radar, video, audio, motion sensors, drones should be able to watch the border.
You need to allow the flow of laborers, asylum seekers, wannabe immigrants to work within the existing system. Yes, it would take money. But Trump just threw away $200 mil on barb wire. and wants billions to build walls to nowhere. That money could be used to modernize USCIS, et al.
LikeLike
George writes ” the other one is infrastructure on the ground that does.”
I assume you are referring to Trumps Wall.
Of course we don’t need to pay for the Great Wall George, Mexico will pick up the tab. Trump promised that as you recall. Done deal right?
LikeLike
PaulE 205pm – You insist on portraying yourself as a victim of early onset dementia. I have described in quantitative detail what to me an adequately non-porous border looks like. If you want an ongoing conversation, then you’ve got to remember what the other party has said.
LikeLike
Posted by: Paul Emery | 28 November 2018 at 02:05 PM
Of course we don’t need to pay for the Great Wall George, Mexico will pick up the tab. Trump promised that as you recall. Done deal right?
I don’t remember that! You’ve obviously taken too many blows to the head!
LikeLike
George
I am not talking about the attributes of a wall. I was referring to who was going to pay for it. Trump said several times Mexico was going to foot the bill so it’s a done deal right? by the way, that was two years ago and guess what, no wall. Hmmm. Is Trump expecting the working taxpayers to pick up the tab? Do you or anyone else on this blog have any insights into this situation?
LikeLike
Fish
Direct quote from Trump. Need I say more?
Sept. 1, 2016 — Mexico will pay for the wall – 100%! #MakeAmericaGreatAgain #ImWithYou
LikeLike
We all know as a candidate and then early on in his admin he stated Mexico will pay for the wall. And all of us have answered you numerous times. What is it about your brain?
Again from moi. Transfer payments can be attached and or taxed that go to Mexico. That is just one way. There are many ways. So move on and go self-flagellate yourself for being dense.
LikeLike
Thanks for verifying my contention Todd. I appreciate it.
Todd writes:
“in his admin he stated Mexico will pay for the wall.”
LikeLike
I see you cut some words in your phony paste. That is why we call you a fake news man.
LikeLike
Sorry Todd
I’ll include the whole sentence if it will make you feel better.
“We all know as a candidate and then early on in his admin he stated Mexico will pay for the wall.”
28 November 2018 at 03:52 PM
LikeLike
Posted by: Paul Emery | 28 November 2018 at 03:20 PM
C’mon Punch…….just rhetorical feint…….like in the boxing ring.
LikeLike
Nah Fish. I call it an outright lie from Trump since he said it over and over but hey, that’s old news. Happens everyday with Trump.
LikeLike
Shut the border down and Mexico screams “Uncle” or “TIA” in 5 hours or less, lol. No matter what, they can’t let that happen again, it must not happen again” cried every Mexican government official from Tijuana to Mexico City. Desperation was in their voices and not just some mayor. . All of them. Do you know how much money they lose and chaos is created in Mexico when we shut down that border crossing for 5 hours. We already let 100,000 people a day cross legally there, each and every day.
“ Take those hundred who charged at the border and deport them from Mexico!”,says the brown people about those other brown people. They wore out their welcome out in just 2 days. “Screw that, deport 500 of them now, like today!” sez the Mexican Government. “You are out of here, knuckleheads.” Adios.
Let’s see. In 2006, Congress passed the funding bill and the President signed it for 700 miles of strategic placed double fencing along the sections of the border in AZ, TX, NM, and CA. Cool. But, in 2007, the Dems took over the House and quashed the release of the money and just sat on it. Bill or no bill, funded or not, the Approriations Committee put that where the sun don’t shine. The Left don’t want no Wall, no way, no how.
Obliviously, taking in 1-1.5 million legal immigrants a year, 400,000 for chain migration, having another 600,000 a year overstay their visa is not enough. Not nearly enough for those who don’t want no stinking Wall. What, now it’s 20 million illegals here? Bet it’s closer to 50 than 20….after the Left coped to the fact that their 8-11 million number was caca.
The Wall will probably cost 20 billion. The savings will more than pay for itself in under 5 years just in the costs to our social safety nets and incarceration costs. 3 years most likely. Probably pay for iteself in 18 months if CA does that universal medicaid for all, especially for the poor illegals.
300-400 El Salvadorans left that shithole every single day, 7 days a week, to the American Dream. And that is but one little country out of many in the region of 600 million. And south of that is a whole other continent called South America. Carvans forming on social media in Brazil and Venezuela.
Oh yes, Mexico will pay for it, one way or another. Now Mexico is sending its Federales to their southern pourous border to put out another hotspot.
https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1488185761315456/?type=3&source=48
Now that the Dems will take over the House, there will be no border security wall funding. Oh, what, 1.8 billion for Chucky the Clown and increase chain migration and keep the lottery? No thanks.
Trump must shut down 1/6 of the Government very the budget. Shut it down, or the uneccary parts. It’s the only tool he has and it’s a good one. He is on the winning side with this one. Yes he is. Reagen shut down the government and got his border funding through. But, them dishonest Dems sat on the release of the money in the Appropirations Committee. Somethings never change. A Go Fund Me Page will Fund the Wall in no time.
LikeLike
Posted by: Paul Emery | 28 November 2018 at 04:05 PM
Sometimes I like to do that so you’ll swing and miss on your counterpunch …..err..…Punch. C’mon we need a little levity here once and a while!
LikeLike
“Oh, they will pay for it. Believe me, Mexico will pay for it.” ——— Donald J. Trump, many a time. That is still in the works.
LikeLike
Till then who pays for it Bill? Do you actually believe that will happen?
LikeLike
Thanks for the yucks Fish.
LikeLike
Bill writes at 4:22…
“The Wall will probably cost 20 billion. The savings will more than pay for itself in under 5 years just in the costs to our social safety nets and incarceration costs. 3 years most likely. ”
Can you document that bill? Interesting and optomistic numbers for sure.
LikeLike
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 28 November 2018 at 04:22 PM
Yeah Bill……..is it your assertion, contention, or declaration that Mexico will pay for the wall, barricade, obstruction, blockage, clot, stoppage, obstacle, hinderance, annoyance, barrier, moat, traffic jam, impediment, fence, hurdle, or non ADA compliant sidewalk?
Really Bill…..is it…..is it……yes or no?!?!
LikeLike
Yet the buzzard of Broad St. remains silent on “O”‘s promise of “free health care”. Where is it Paul? Your boy said prices will go WAY down.
Maybe Trump should do what “O” did. Sign PLENTY of executive orders. Trump has the same phone, and plenty of pens!(you know,, since Congress just won’t act.) Maybe Trump should become the dictator you say he is.
Yup,, just one E.O. stripping 40% of every dollar sent to Mexico by anyone should do it. Mexicans would be paying for it.
LikeLike
Oh.. Then this. The LIBS claim “We are for strong border security,”.
My ass they are.
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2018/11/28/chuck-schumer-retreats-border-wall-deal-progressive-backlash/
Lets see how Proggys will react when Trump shuts down gov. The Gov. runs out of money in a few weeks.
It’s going to be fun to see the Left try and strong arm Trump.(good luck with that)
LikeLike