Behavioral Insights Team to Analyze Proletarian Thought

And once again, Life imitates The Cube.

thepeoplescube has;

Behavioral Insights Team to Analyze Proletarian Thought
Nomenklatura-climber 

7/31/2013, 10:58 am

Dear Comrades, 

The White Fortress has announced a new plan for the Progress of Socialism in the USSA: Operation Governmental Obedience, Admiration, & Deference (GOAD). Operation GOAD is intended to agitate American peasants and workers towards healthier lifestyle and political decisions in conformity with the Party’s leadership. 

Commissars from the USSA Department of Mandatory Health and Human Services and the Department of Collectivized Agriculture are among those who will receive orders from Operation GOAD’s Behavioral Insights Team, whose officers are tasked with analyzing the thinking of the Proletariat and finding new ways to attain universal voluntary compliance with Collectivism and Progressivism as it is being implemented by the State. 

The plan to ‘nudge’ the Masses was first conceived by noted Communist scholar Comrade Cass Sunstein, who has foreseen the need to improve worker output in order to ensure the equal distribution of wealth. Comrade Sunstein in turn received this inspiration from Comrade Party Chairman and Future President Barack Barackovich Obama’s call for a more equitable society. 

By gaining more voluntary compliance with mandatory State regulations and directives, the State will expend fewer resources on enforcement and involuntary compliance programs, such as fines, asset seizures, imprisonment, and intensive re-education activities. The State can then focus more on security issues, such as political indoctrination and information management. 

Some citizens have difficulties maintaining their conformism and properly participating in the Party’s work towards social harmony, and Operation GOAD will assist them in their political education and formation. By improving indoctrination programs with subliminal messages compliance-inducing elements, even the most intransigent Kulak will be moved to tears… and to obedience! 

Operation GOAD is now setting up test facilities in several undisclosed locations, and will be selecting new candidates for experimentation using data collected by the PRISM program rather than relying on traditional questionnaires. The Workers’ Paradise of the USSA is becoming a reality! 

The Behavioral Insights Team will help us preserve social order and achieve greater compliance! Workers and Peasants of the USSA, open your minds to their assistance for the good of the Motherland!

 

Faithfully submitted to the Collective of the People’s Cube,
Comrade Nomenklatura-climber
Dialectical Progressivism Translator 

Thank You Komrads Nomenklatura Climber, Anyer Marx, and The Cube.

pic creds to the cube.

New Book Instructs Teachers How To Work Leftist "Social Justice" Propaganda Into Math Lessons

weaselzippers;

New Book Instructs Teachers How To Work Leftist "Social Justice" Propaganda Into Math Lessons

Via EAGnews:

It’s said that misery loves company.
Perhaps that’s one reason a group of gloomy, radical teachers is trying so hard to poison the minds of the nation’s K-12 students with their anti-American, anti-free market ideas.
They’re miserable living in “the land of the free,” and want others to share their pain.
The educators are part of Rethinking Schools, an organization that’s been sneaking left-wing “social justice” lessons into America’s K-12 classrooms for nearly three decades.
The group’s latest effort to indoctrinate the nation’s youth is a 286-page book aimed at teachers, titled “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers.” The book is a mix of math lesson plans and essays from activist educators who explain how they’ve used their classrooms to advance a progressive political philosophy.
Two main themes emerge from the pages of “Rethinking Mathematics.”
The first is that the U.S. is a hopelessly racist country that routinely oppresses “people of color.”
This message is conveyed through lessons and essays about racial profiling, environmental racism, unfair mortgage lending practices of Big Banks, the “overabundance of liquor stores” in minority communities, and slave-owning U.S. presidents.
The book’s other major theme is that capitalism’s unequal distribution of wealth is the root cause of the world’s suffering. Students learn to despise free market economics in lessons about third-world sweatshops, “living wage” laws, the earnings of fast food workers and restaurant CEOs, and the “hidden” costs of meat production.
All of this sounds like material from a college sociology textbook. What could it possibly have to do with mathematics?
As the “Rethinking” teachers demonstrate, the math concepts of ratios, averages, percentages, bar graphs, density and geometric formulas are very useful when training kids to see the world in their preferred categories of “haves” and “have nots.”
Keep reading…

Detroit Plans To Get Itself Out of Bankruptcy By Forcing Its Retired Union Employees Into ObamaCare

via weaselzippers;

Detroit Plans To Get Itself Out of Bankruptcy By Forcing Its Retired Union Employees Into ObamaCare

Shockingly, Detroit’s retirees aren’t happy with this (even though their union spent countless millions telling us how awesome Obamacare will be).

Via NY Times:

As Detroit enters the federal bankruptcy process, the city is proposing a controversial plan for paring some of the $5.7 billion it owes in retiree health costs: pushing many of those too young to qualify for Medicare out of city-run coverage and into the new insurance markets that will soon be operating under the Obama health care law.
Officials say the plan would be part of a broader effort to save Detroit tens of millions of dollars in health costs each year, a major element in a restructuring package that must be approved by a bankruptcy judge. It is being watched closely by municipal leaders around the nation, many of whom complain of mounting, unsustainable prices for the health care promised to retired city workers.
Similar proposals that could shift public sector retirees into the new insurance markets, called exchanges, are already being planned or contemplated in places like Chicago; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and Stockton, Calif. While large employers that eliminate health benefits for full-time workers can be penalized under the health care law, retirees are a different matter.
“There’s fear and panic about what this means,” said Michael Underwood, 62, who retired from the Chicago Police Department after 30 years and has diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Underwood, who says he began working for the city when employees did not pay into future Medicare coverage, is part of a group suing Chicago over its plan to phase many retirees out of city coverage during the next three and a half years. “I was promised health care for myself and my wife for life,” he said.
Keep reading…

Thank You NYT and Zip

“There’s fear and panic about what this means,” said Michael Underwood, 62, who retired from the Chicago Police Department after 30 years and has diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Underwood, who says he began working for the city when employees did not pay into future Medicare coverage, is part of a group suing Chicago over its plan to phase many retirees out of city coverage during the next three and a half years. “I was promised health care for myself and my wife for life,” he said."

And doesn't That just break your heart.

Feds Seeking Your Internet Passwords

When we heard of this story, we knew that Only the peoplescube could give it the un-equaled equalizing it deserved.

Therefore, thepeoplescube has;
May We See Your Passwords Please
R.O.C.K. in the USSA 

7/25/2013, 8:43 pm

In its ongoing progress toward making the internet - and all of the USSA - safer and more secure for all Americans, the Obama administration and the Department of Justice today announced that the feral government will henceforth require all internet passwords to be handed over immediately.

"As you would expect," said Comrade Attorney General Eric Holder, "We will keep your passwords private and secure, in fact more secure than they are today."

President B. Husseinovich Obama added, "Let me be clear: we do these things - all these things - for the good of the American people. I will not allow partisan members of the other party to prevent all Americans from being safe and secure, both in their homes and on the internet, as long as they remember their common sense duty to retreat to safety if threatened."

Comrade FLATUS Mooochelle Obama said that she is currently designing a pallet of web-safe colors to be used in all websites and applications, based on healthy vegetables: "For the first time in my life, I'm proud of the internet," stated the First Wookie, "And we will continue to move forward to ensure that no website or web application uses bloated code or non-organic colors."

Thank You Komrad R.O.C.K. and thepeoplescube

And since Komrad Chairman and the Party are going to end up with your passwords anyway, how about we all just use the Same password, since it will make us All more equal, and then Everyone will be equally able to equally report Fishy Rumors they find Anyone spreading.

Any suggestions for a common, and universally equal password, Komrad readers, so that we can all Share and Share alike?

From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs? 

Perhaps we could use this opportunity to send Dear Leader a message, an Equal and Equally Shared for the Greater Good, Password, since he's obviously not listening to the proles as it is, though this latest improvement on our outdated Constitution clearly signals Komrad Chairman Barackovich's unquenchable desire to hear what we're saying.

Thank You Komrad R.O.C.K. and thepeoplescube.

pic creds to The Cube.

IRS Employee Union: We Don't Want ObamaCare, . . .

Perfect example of a Government 'Jobs' Program. 

ObamaCare doesn't provide for a single additional Doctor, but it Does create jobs for a slather of additional IRS Agents, who Don't want to be penalized/negatively impacted by the rules of the Govt. Job/largesse they benefit from while enforcing it against everyone else.

And they're Unionized. Consider that carefully. Unions ostensibly protect their members from being treated unfairly by the Employers of those Union members.

IRS workers are employed BY the American people but IRS workers need a Union to protect Themselves from the American people, . . . while they're selectively, illegally, punitively auditing the American people based upon the audit targets attempts to lawfully engage in Political Discourse.

weaselzippers;
IRS Employee Union: We Don't Want ObamaCare, . . .

And these are the people who are going to enforce portions of the law.
Via Washington Examiner:

IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law.
National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law.
The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”
The NTEU represents 150,000 federal employees overall, including most of the nearly 100,000 IRS workers.
Keep reading…

Thank You Wash Examiner and Zip.

Govt. Jobs Programs will jump start the economy, huh?

We, Are, Doomed.

Obama Ties Vietnamese Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh To America's Founding Fathers

weaselzippers;

Obama Ties Vietnamese Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh To America's Founding Fathers

Never mind the fact that Ho Chi Minh led North Vietnam’s war effort that ultimately killed almost 60,000 Americans.

Via PJ Tatler:

President Obama hailed hard-core communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh today as a pretty open guy who was actually inspired by the Founders.
Obama took a break from his jobs-pivot speeches to meet Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang at the White House. The pair held joint remarks in the Oval Office afterward.
Obama said their first bilateral meeting “represents the steady progression and strengthening of the relationship between our two countries.” [...]
Obama said Sang concluded the meeting by sharing “a copy of a letter sent by Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman.”
“And we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson. Ho Chi Minh talks about his interest in cooperation with the United States. And President Sang indicated that even if it’s 67 years later, it’s good that we’re still making progress.”
Sang said the pair “had a very candid, open, useful and constructive discussion.”
Keep reading…

Thank You PJ Tattler and Zip.

Had enough? No? 

Have some more.

Change Agents (17)

Is anyone yet unclear as to what the term 'Progressive' in American politics means?

Yes, by All means, keep reading:

“In a candid, open and constructive spirit, we have come to agree on many issues.  We will strengthen high-level exchanges between the two countries. We will consider in order to continue our — to upgrade the mechanism of cooperation at the high level, as well as take the best use of the existing mechanism of cooperation.  Particularly, we will continue regular dialogue at the highest level as possible,” the Vietnamese leader continued. “I believe that this is the way in order to build a political trust for further development of our cooperation in all areas.”

Sang invited Obama to come pay a visit. “And President Obama has accepted our invitation and will try his best to pay a visit to Vietnam during his term,” he said.

From a 1968 Reader’s Digest piece on the rule of Ho Chi Minh:

The terror had its real beginning when Red dictator Ho Chi Minh consolidated his power in the North. More than a year before his 1954 victory over the French, he launched a savage campaign against his own people. In virtually every North Vietnamese village, strong-arm squads assembled the populace to witness the “confessions” of landowners. As time went on, businessmen, intellectuals, school teachers, civic leaders — all who represented a potential source of future opposition — were also rounded up and forced to “confess” to “errors of thought.” There followed public “trials,” conviction and, in many cases, execution. People were shot, beheaded, beaten to death; some were tied up, thrown into open graves and covered with stones until they were crushed to death, Ho has renewed his terror in North Vietnam periodically. Between 50,000 and 100,000 are believed to have died in these blood-baths — in a coldly calculated effort to discipline the party and the masses. To be sure, few who escape Ho’s terror now seem likely to tempt his wrath. During the 1950s, however, he had to quell some sizeable uprisings in North Vietnam — most notably one that occurred in early November 1956, in the An province, which included Ho’s birthplace village of Nam Dan. So heavily had he taxed the region that the inhabitants finally banded together and refused to meet his price. Ho sent troops to collect, and then sent in an army division, shooting. About 6,000 unarmed villagers were killed. The survivors scattered, some escaping to the South. The slaughter went largely unnoticed by a world then preoccupied with the Soviet Union’s rape of Hungary.

And Thank You Very Much, Ms Bridget Johnson.

Scandal Watch: Senior DHS Official and Top Obama Nominee Under Investigation

Townhall has;

Scandal Watch: Senior DHS Official and Top Obama Nominee Under Investigation
Guy Benson | Jul 24, 2013

The US government's Inspectors General have been mighty busy lately.  Whereas the IRS, DOJ and Benghazi scandals can all be succinctly summarized in a sentence or two, this latest emerging story cannot -- which is why it may lack the legs to really blow up.  Nevertheless, a newly-revealed investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General may cause some heartburn for the Obama administration, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia.  I discussed the controversy on Fox News this afternoon:

As I indicated in the clip, there are a lot of moving parts to this story: President Obama's pick to become the second-highest official at DHS -- and who would run the department until Janet Napolitano's replacement arrives -- is named Alejandro Mayorkas.  He is the target of an Inspector General investigation prompted by allegations from whistleblowers that he improperly intervened to help foreign nationals obtain investor or "EB-5" visas.  The idea behind this visa program is to encourage and welcome wealthy foreigners who commit to investing in American companies with the promise of creating American jobs.  EB-5s entitle visa-holders to legal status, and an expedited path to permanent legal residence.  This makes good economic sense, so long as the visa recipients are properly vetted, deemed to be legitimate, and cleared as not detrimental to national security.  In this case, the applicant in question was a Chinese businessman whose request was initially denied by the US government, then blocked again on appeal.  In short, the vetting process worked, and a potentially problematic visa was withheld.

That's when Mayorkas stepped in, allegedly abusing his influence within DHS in an attempt to bypass the government's denial of entry to the Chinese investor.  His power-play reportedly benefited a conduit company called Gulf Coast Funds Management, which is run by Anthony Rodham, the youngest brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Gulf Coast is also the funding arm of a floundering car company called GreenTech Auto, which until recently was chaired by Terry McAuliffe --  a longtime Clinton confidante, and Virginia Democrats' nominee for governor.  Part of the knock on McAuliffe is that GreenTech put its roots down in Mississippi rather than Virginia.  The fact is that Virginia officials took a pass on McAuliffe's company because they were concerned that its business model relied too heavily on "a visa-for-sale scheme with potential national security implications."  GreenTech auto has since sputtered, failing to meet McAuliffe's promises to create jobs and build clean-energy cars.  There's another layer to potential DHS malfeasance -- an apparent cover-up:

According to the Inspector General's email, the investigation of the investor visa program also includes allegations that other [DHS] USCIS Office of General Counsel officials obstructed an audit of the visa program by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The email did not name any specific official from the general counsel's office.

This wouldn't be the first example of an Obama-era executive departmentworking to quash unhelpful independent investigations into the behavior of its personnel.  This isn't Mr. Mayorkas' first brush with political controversy.  In the 1990's he used his position as a US Attorney to lobby the Clinton White House to pardon a drug dealer, the father of whom was a major Democratic donor.  The Obama nominee has since apologized for that "mistake," but if the current IG's probe confirms DHS whistleblower allegations, it would appear that Mayorkas didn't learn his lesson about influence peddling.  It would also appear that President Obama has selected a tainted candidate for a critical national security position.  Was the White House vetting team ignorant of these allegations of impropriety, or did they not care?  One final note on this:  The team at WatchDog.org first reported factual information about Virginia's concerns over GreenTech's "visa-for-sale scheme."  In retaliation, McAuliffe's now-former company filed an intimidation lawsuit against Watchdog, seeking a ridiculous $85 million in damages.  The suit was bunk to begin with; recent revelations stack the deck even further against the failed auto company and its embattled money men at Gulf Coast Funds Management.

Thank You Mr Benson and Townhall.

The Top Presidential Candidate, the Front Runner for 2016.

Bachmann: Do House Republicans Have The 'Guts To Fight' ObamaCare?

CNSNews has;

Bachmann: Do House Republicans Have The 'Guts To Fight' ObamaCare? 

July 24, 2013 - 4:30 PM

---

By Elizabeth Harrington

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said a

 number of “high-profile” senators are willing to shut down the government over the funding of the president’s health care law, an effort being led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Bachmann told CNSNews.com that while she was encouraged by a meeting with the Tea Party caucus on Tuesday evening, she fears the GOP leadership in the House does not have the “guts” to block Obamacare from being implemented.

“This is the line in the sand that we have to draw,” Bachmann said following a “Conversations with Conservatives” event on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

“Republicans are the only possible salvation that we have, because Democrats have made their decision. They want socialized medicine. In other words, they want national bankruptcy, because that’s what we’ll get,” Bachmann said.

“And so it’s whether or not the Republicans in the House have the guts to fight, because it’s like [Winston] Churchill famously said – if you don’t fight now, it’s going to be a lot harder to fight later,” Bachmann added.

“And the question is: Are you going to be willing to fight when it’s hard or will you become slaves, because that’s your choice,” she said. “We are going to become economic slaves to this system we’re about to go in.”

Lee and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) are gathering support in both chambers to block funding for the Affordable Care Act in a must-pass bill, most likely the stop-gap spending bill to keep the government funded after Sept. 30, the continuing resolution.

“This is the last stop before Obamacare fully kicks in on Jan. 1 of next year for us to refuse to fund it,” Lee said on Monday.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas), Sen. John Thune (S.D.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) support blocking the law’s funding.

At the event on Wednesday, a group of House conservatives said they too are on board with Lee’s plan.

“We did have a meeting last night. A number of senators, including Senator Lee and many others, made it very clear on the Senate Republican side that is the priority that they will be considering during the CR,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said.

“And we are entirely with [them] on our ability to defund Obamacare through the CR.”

Huelskamp added that he and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) had attempted to vote on defunding the law months ago, but the House leadership “did not want to have that vote.”

“My fear is that if we don’t do something about it by October 1, we might be too late to actually stop it,” Huelskamp said, “which continues to be the Republican priority. It was good to hear the Speaker say that again this week.”

Bachmann told CNSNews.com the time to defund the health care law was after the 2010 midterm elections when Republicans picked up more than 60 seats in the House.

When asked how conservative members can get House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican leadership on board, Bachmann said, “It’s very difficult.”

“This is something that I have advocated for in December of 2010,” she said. “The Tea Party had won the election decisively in November of 2010, and the Tea Party had won decisively the election, and it was clearly over Obamacare, and there hadn’t been a penny spent on implementation.

“The right time to have done it was back in December,” Bachmann said. “That was an issue that I had brought up squarely in front of the conference. This is when we needed to do it, and that’s when we should have. That’s when we’ve had our leverage.

“Every month and day we have waited since then has made it more and more difficult,” she said.

Boehner has repeatedly said that Republicans are not going to shut down the government over the health care law or the debt ceiling.

Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said the blame would be placed on the Democrats if the government is forced to close because of an impasse over the law or government spending.

“There is no Republican that wants to shut down the government,” he said. “What we want to do is we want to have responsible government spending. That’s what we were sent here to Washington, D.C., to make sure that we cut spending, that we do things that are necessary to bring fiscal sanity to Washington, D.C.

“If the government is shut down it will be because the other side does not want to cut government spending,” Labrador said. “The other side is unwilling to do the things that are necessary to actually bring our nation back from the brink of fiscal ruin, so I don’t think anybody on this panel wants to shut down the government.

“And when you guys write the story that it’s Republicans who want to shut down the government, I think you’ll give the other side a pass, because they have a gun to our heads, and they say unless you bring government spending higher, raise government spending, we’re going to shut down the government,” he said. “But it’s always, according to your story, it’s the Republicans who are at fault.”

Though 64 House Republicans have signed on to a letter sent by Meadows urging Boehner not to bring any legislation that funds Obamacare to the floor, Bachmann said she is not hopeful the leadership will sign on.

“I don’t have high confidence from the signals that I have seen,” she said. “However, I was very encouraged yesterday at the Tea Party caucus that was held over in the Senate side of the chamber. There were a number of House members and a number of Senate members, and a number of high-profile Senate members who said they would be willing to go forward with a government shut down.

“I think that you have a critical mass in the House and a critical mass in the Senate, and the question is I don’t believe that it has met the threshold yet, of the right numbers, but it’s like a wave,” Bachmann said. “If you have movement in the wave, you might get there.

“I think people are so fed up right now with what they’re seeing in Washington, D.C., fed up with the White House, fed up with Congress, that I think we’ve got to see a bold move,” she added.

“This is it,” Bachmann said. “This is our last big effort, and it’s really less than about five months.

“Can we do it? Yeah, it’s possible, but I think the signals I’m reading out of the Republican leadership to me aren’t encouraging,” she said.

Thank You Rep Bachmann, Ms Harrington, and CNS.

pic cred to Carolyn Kaster.