Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Editorial: Eight myths to chill an old-school Republican soul

Editorial: Eight myths to chill an old-school Republican soul

click link above for full article

from article: "Consider the mythology that makes up GOP orthodoxy today. Imagine the contortions that cramp the brains and souls of men and women of intelligence and compassion who seek state and national office under the Republican banner.
• They must believe, despite the evidence of the 2008 financial collapse, that unregulated — or at most, lightly regulated — financial markets are good for America and the world.
• They must believe in the brilliantly cast conceit known as the "pro-growth agenda," in which economic growth can be attained only by reducing corporate and individual tax rates, especially among the investor class, and by freeing business from environmental rules that have cleaned up America's air and water and labor regulations that helped create America's middle class.
• Though rising health care costs are pillaging the economy, and even though health care in America is now a matter of what you can afford, Republican candidates for office must deny that health care is a basic right and resist a real attempt to change and improve the system.
• GOP candidates must scoff at scientific consensus about global warming. Blame it on human activity? Bad. Cite Noah's Ark as evidence? Good. They must express at least some doubt about the science of evolution.
• They must insist, statistics and evidence to the contrary, that most of the nation's energy needs can be met safely with more domestic oil drilling, "clean-coal" technology and greater reliance on perfectly safe nuclear power plants.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_b477e0fb-aab4-5d8e-90fe-c42826da31dd.html#ixzz1QiVggyrq

Countdown with Keith Olbermann 1a - Debt Ceiling

Cost of US wars since 9/11? At least $3.7 trillion - World news - South and Central Asia - Afghanistan - msnbc.com

Cost of US wars since 9/11? At least $3.7 trillion - World news - South and Central Asia - Afghanistan - msnbc.com

click link above

one must ask: Did the terrorists win?

With TSA patting down children and 90 year old cancer survivors with diaper, this is the good old USA?

with talk of admending social security and doing away with medicare because we cannot afford it because we have no money, did bin Laden win?

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Default not an option under U.S. Constitution | Reuters Breakingviews

Default not an option under U.S. Constitution | Reuters Breakingviews

click link

yes, the government must pay its bills by law. Dems, if you give in to teabaggers; you are fools and deserve defeat in upcoming election.

You have the ammo, use it. by the way, cutting social security and medicare is not the way to go. Let the Bush tax cuts expire and start collecting.

Bullish on Honeywell: Cramer

Bullish on Honeywell: Cramer

click link

of course, breaking the steelworkers in Metropolitis is part of that plan

Dear Mr. President



where are the democrats on this issue? do the dems think they will get reelected if they support cuts in education, medicare, social security or clean air/water?

Glitch Exposed in Obama Health Care Plan - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Glitch Exposed in Obama Health Care Plan - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

click link for interesting story:

glitch? As a supporter of universal healthcare, I see this as a step; not a glitch. most likely mind you unintentional

from story:
"Glitch Exposed in Obama Health Care Plan

ADAM CLARK ESTES JUN 21, 2011

An anomaly in the complex Obama health care plan may mean that 3 million additional people could qualify for Medicare benefits when the law takes effect in 2014. According to number crunchers gauging the new system's cost for the Health and Human Services department, the glitch means that early retirees with a household income of up to $64,000 would qualify for the nearly free government health care program intended for those below the poverty line. "I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense," Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster told the Associated Press, which equates the situation with "allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps."

Monday, June 27, 2011

Why should writers work for no pay?

Why should writers work for no pay?

click link

one of the speakers at the Metropolitis rally last week mentioned that the Huffington folks not too friendly towards a unionization effort at the Huffington enterprize.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Senator Roy on Medicare


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not a radical idea? perhaps not for social darwinists who wish to toss fellow citizens to the dogs

a real hard sell for folks losing in 401ks and more to wall street. Perhaps all the older folks should incorporate and maybe a bailout like Wall street?

Company Across the Street

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Saturday, June 18, 2011

'AARP' Budging on Social Security? | Video - ABC News

'AARP' Budging on Social Security? | Video - ABC News

msnbc video: AARPs Social Security Shocker

msnbc video: AARPs Social Security Shocker

click link for vid


Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy







sell outs yet again

AARP suggests deal on cuts to Social Security





nice going AARP. sucking up to republicans is bound to make friends and influence people.

did the teabaggers take over you folks as well? you already sold out seniors on medicare with siding with Bush on scrips. keeping up the good work I see

AARP sounds alarm: Social Security must change burn aarp cards burn - CBS News

AARP sounds alarm: Social Security must change - CBS News


click link.

Yes, leadership in AARP supporting changes in Social Security. Will talk more at next meeting on this issue.

suggestion: burn AARP cards and tell others.
------
snip from article



(CBS News)
Washington woke up to a new political reality.

The nation's most powerful senior's group telling the Wall Street Journal it was ready to deal on cutting Social Security benefits. The AARP's policy chief John Rother admitting "some of our members will no doubt be upset."

So upset that within hours the AARP was insisting this was always their position, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

"We can make changes that are modest and we can make changes with a great deal of lead time so we don't need to affect anyone who is currently retired today or near retirement," said said David Certner, AARP's legislative policy director.

But the group has long opposed such cuts.

As one of their ads says: "AARP has been working to preserve social security for more than 50 years."



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/17/eveningnews/main20072092.shtml#ixzz1PdUrUrjQ

Empty Chairs



sounds like can company last contract.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Rewriting agricultural socialism [NBC: 6-13-2011]



yes, Missouri politicos makes it on national television

He's Barack Obama

First TV Ad: "Julie"--medicare



much truth to this medicare ad

Paul Kurgman:--Krugman June 14. 11

Paul Kurgman:

note Paul's name mispelled by Post Dispatch in early write. It is Krugman not Kurgman

click link

snip from article:

Paul Krugman | Posted: Tuesday, June 14, 2011


"Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that's so bad, so wrongheaded, that you're almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.

And so it was with Sen. Joseph Lieberman's proposal, released last week, to raise the age for Medicare eligibility to 67 from 65.

Like Republicans who want to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with (grossly inadequate) insurance vouchers, Lieberman describes his proposal as a way to save Medicare. It wouldn't actually do that. But more to the point, our goal shouldn't be to 'save Medicare," whatever that means. It should be to ensure that Americans get the health care they need, at a cost the nation can afford.

And here's what you need to know: Medicare actually saves money — a lot of money — compared with relying on private insurance companies. And this in turn means that pushing people out of Medicare, in addition to depriving many Americans of needed care, would almost surely end up increasing total health care costs.

The idea of Medicare as a money-saving program may seem hard to grasp. After all, hasn't Medicare spending risen dramatically over time? Yes, it has: Adjusting for overall inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose more than 400 percent from 1969 to 2009"
more

Michele Bachmann: I'm Running for President



Perhaps she and Palin will be on same ticket

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Papered Over



I was safetychair for union over a decade at American Can/American National Can in St. Louis in the 90's. Sad, so little progress

Paul Krugman: Medicare is more than a name

Paul Krugman: Medicare is more than a name

CLICK LINK for interesting article

from article:


"What's in a name? A lot, the National Republican Congressional Committee obviously believes. Last week, the committee sent a letter demanding that a TV station stop running an ad declaring that the House Republican budget plan would "end Medicare." This, the letter insisted, was a false claim: the plan would simply install a "new, sustainable version of Medicare."

But Comcast, the station's owner, rejected the demand — and rightly so. For Republicans are indeed seeking to dismantle Medicare as we know it, replacing it with a much worse program.

I'm seeing many attempts to shout down anyone making this obvious point, and not just from Republican politicians. For some reason, many commentators seem to believe that accurately describing what the GOP is actually proposing amounts to demagoguery. But there's nothing demagogic about telling the truth.

Start with the claim that the GOP plan simply reforms Medicare rather than ending it. I'll just quote the blogger Duncan Black, who summarizes this as saying that "when we replace the Marines with a pizza, we'll call the pizza the Marines." The point is that you can name the new program Medicare, but it's an entirely different program — call it Vouchercare — that would offer nothing like the coverage that the elderly now receive. (Republicans get huffy when you call their plan a voucher scheme, but that's exactly what it is.)

Medicare is a government-run insurance system that directly pays health-care providers. Vouchercare would cut checks to insurance companies instead. Specifically, the program would pay a fixed amount toward private health insurance — higher for the poor, lower for the rich, but not varying at all with the actual level of premiums. If you couldn't afford a policy adequate for your needs, even with the voucher, that would be your problem.

And most seniors wouldn't be able to afford adequate coverage. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that to get coverage equivalent to what they have now, older Americans would have to pay vastly more out of pocket under the Paul Ryan plan than they would if Medicare as we know it was preserved. Based on the budget office estimates, the typical senior would end up paying around $6,000 more out of pocket in the plan's first year of operation.

By the way, defenders of the GOP plan often assert that it resembles other, less unpopular programs. For a while they claimed, falsely, that Vouchercare would be just like the coverage federal employees get. More recently, I've been seeing claims that Vouchercare would be just like the system created for Americans under 65 by last year's health care reform — a fairly remarkable defense from a party that has denounced that reform as evil incarnate.

So let me make two points. First, Obamacare was very much a second-best plan, conditioned by perceived political realities. Most of the health care reformers I know would have greatly preferred simply expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. Second, the Affordable Care Act is all about making health care, well, affordable, offering subsidies whose size is determined by the need to limit the share of their income that families spend on medical costs. Vouchercare, by contrast, would simply hand out vouchers of a fixed size, regardless of the actual cost of insurance. And these vouchers would be grossly inadequate.

But what about the claim that none of this matters, because Medicare as we know it is unsustainable? Nonsense."

more

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Saturday, June 4, 2011

GOP to Joplin MO tornado victims...Sorry, Suckers!



thanks from Missouri for your kindness. wonder if this had happened in your district you would feel this way

Hope folks remember on election day the gop and their kindness

BLOG WOES

Not been able to post last few days will be back