Every day in America people die because they lack health insurance and live in a society which evinces no compassion for the less fortunate among us: those who live without shelter, serve your food, market products over the phone to make minimal wages while getting cursed, and maybe even those who work at greeters at big box retail stores.
This happens because alleged humans hold to an idea that everyone has to take care of everything that happens to them, even medical conditions easily treated in other countries with health cares systems based on human decency rather than wringing every dollar possible out of people.
These people, who loudly proclaim themselves Christians, live by ideology unmoored from any bit of reality or any knowledge of how humans with marginal incomes actually live and die ignoring the very words my Jesus said while mouthing their mealy mouthed platitudes.
Fie on thee, ye who proclaim your righteousness.
I sin and sin greatly but at least admit of my mistakes, and when I see you in Hell, Willard, I will laugh.
[Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care.
Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney — echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush — in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured.
These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself.
Even the idea that everyone gets urgent care when needed from emergency rooms is false. Yes, hospitals are required by law to treat people in dire need, whether or not they can pay. But that care isn’t free — on the contrary, if you go to an emergency room you will be billed, and the size of that bill can be shockingly high. Some people can’t or won’t pay, but fear of huge bills can deter the uninsured from visiting the emergency room even when they should. And sometimes they die as a result.
More important, going to the emergency room when you’re very sick is no substitute for regular care, especially if you have chronic health problems. When such problems are left untreated — as they often are among uninsured Americans — a trip to the emergency room can all too easily come too late to save a life.
So the reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don’t have health insurance.] emphasis added for the clueless and because I want to punch Willard in the nose, ok, strike humourosly with rubber chicken 'cause don't need Secret Service hassle and Jesus abhors violence but did do civil disobedience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/opinion/krugman-death-by-ideology.html?hp&_r=0
Showing posts with label Romney/Ryan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romney/Ryan. Show all posts
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Mitt the Mendacious
Can hardly wait for the Vice Presidential debate tonight.
OH screw it, who am I kidding? Debates themselves don't matter; only the following media narrative matters, at least according to the media itself.
Let's see if we can predict headlines for Friday: Biden Combative but Fails to Land Knockout Blow, Ryan Cool under Fire, Ryan Defends Romney Economic plan.
No where in the mainstream media will you read that paul Ryan lied his freakin' ass off, avoided the truth as if it were a leper, and used to smirking grin to conceal the death head visage of the grim reaper lurking in his plans to cut medicaid budgets and give block grants to states to wholly manage the program. That might work in states where legislators have an actual conscience but not in FL where Republican't ideologues put their cut taxes for the rich first and health of citizens last, especially those folks of lower economic class.
Note here lower economic class includes grandparents retired and now working part time (35 hours a week) at Wal Mart which will not provide health insurance for workers even though 6 of the combined Walton progeny make more than the bottom 30% of the US population.
So don't expect any so-called liberal major media (What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
0 to point out that plans of plucky P90x paul Ryan fail basic arithmetic.
They just don't add up.
You can't drive from New York City to Los Angeles without breaking the speed limit.
You just can't, but otherwise reliable if shallow legitimate news organizations either cannot bring themselves to believe this Republican't presidential ticket has adopted the strategy of the Big Lie: lie often, lie no matter how ridiculous, lie with a straight face, and ridicule those who point out 1 + 1 equals 2 and call them liars.
The campaign employs the Gish Gambit strategy, spewing so many lies in a short time so that no reasonable person can respond to them in a short attention span debate.
[One reason that I criticized Romney's debate performance – though many other Americans, including many Democrats, disagreed with my assessment – was that I felt his lying and his squirrely behavior were more important than Obama's sluggishness. Telling lies while waving your arms shouldn't trump telling the truth in a moderate tone.
Indeed, as a journalist, I simply cannot abide politicians who lie systematically, who don't just trim the truth once in a while but make falsehoods a strategic part of their politics and policies....
Thus, minor threats, like peasant uprisings in Central America, were portrayed as part of a grand Soviet strategy to invade the United States through Texas. The strength of the Soviet Union was itself exaggerated to justify a massive U.S. military build-up. Today's neocons cut their teeth of such distortions and lies.
Post 9/11, with George W. Bush in the White House, this neocon strategy of fear-mongering led the United States into the debacle of the Iraq War (in pursuit of imaginary weapons of mass destruction).
Now, less than a year after U.S. military forces left Iraq - and with a withdrawal from Afghanistan finally underway - the latest polls suggest that the American voters are shifting toward the election of another neocon President who promises more soaring rhetoric about U.S. "exceptionalism" and more interventionism abroad.
It's almost as if many Americans like being lied to.] emphasis added
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13887-mitt-romney-lies-to-the-world
[One of the problems striking workers cite is the lack of access to full-time working hours, which prevents them from obtaining even the meager health benefits the company offers. The National Consumer’s League (NCL) told Raw Story that Walmart’s refusal to provide those benefits by exploiting part-time labor leads to a number of spillover costs that taxpayers ultimately pick up.
“Many Walmart workers are dependent on public assistance programs due to their low wages and not having access to full time jobs and being denied benefits because they’re not working the number of hours required to get access to those benefits, or the benefits are just so expensive that on their low wages they just can’t afford them,” NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg said in an exclusive interview. “Walmart has a record of even working with employees to sign them up for public assistance programs, which we think is really atrocious.”
She added that Walmart’s position of keeping wages low in order to pass the savings along to consumers doesn’t wash either: “Companies that pay a decent wage and provide benefits to their workers help create a middle class that is able to buy the kinds of products that Walmart sells,” Greenberg explained. “It is actually a plus for companies if they provide fair compensation to workers. It’s also better for consumers when they’re able to actually afford housing, healthcare and have access to benefits of the kind we think Walmart, with all its success and profits, ought to be able to pay workers.”
The famously anti-union retailer, which says it employs more than 2.1 million people, raked in $114.3 billion in revenues during just the second fiscal quarter of 2012, earning a profit of $4.02 billion. Berkeley labor economist Sylvia Allegretto found last year that just six of the Walton family’s richest members have a combined wealth greater than the bottom 30 percent of American earners put together.] emphasis added
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/10/walmart-worker-strikes-go-viral-hitting-28-stores-in-12-states/
OH screw it, who am I kidding? Debates themselves don't matter; only the following media narrative matters, at least according to the media itself.
Let's see if we can predict headlines for Friday: Biden Combative but Fails to Land Knockout Blow, Ryan Cool under Fire, Ryan Defends Romney Economic plan.
No where in the mainstream media will you read that paul Ryan lied his freakin' ass off, avoided the truth as if it were a leper, and used to smirking grin to conceal the death head visage of the grim reaper lurking in his plans to cut medicaid budgets and give block grants to states to wholly manage the program. That might work in states where legislators have an actual conscience but not in FL where Republican't ideologues put their cut taxes for the rich first and health of citizens last, especially those folks of lower economic class.
Note here lower economic class includes grandparents retired and now working part time (35 hours a week) at Wal Mart which will not provide health insurance for workers even though 6 of the combined Walton progeny make more than the bottom 30% of the US population.
So don't expect any so-called liberal major media (What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News
0 to point out that plans of plucky P90x paul Ryan fail basic arithmetic.They just don't add up.
You can't drive from New York City to Los Angeles without breaking the speed limit.
You just can't, but otherwise reliable if shallow legitimate news organizations either cannot bring themselves to believe this Republican't presidential ticket has adopted the strategy of the Big Lie: lie often, lie no matter how ridiculous, lie with a straight face, and ridicule those who point out 1 + 1 equals 2 and call them liars.
The campaign employs the Gish Gambit strategy, spewing so many lies in a short time so that no reasonable person can respond to them in a short attention span debate.
[One reason that I criticized Romney's debate performance – though many other Americans, including many Democrats, disagreed with my assessment – was that I felt his lying and his squirrely behavior were more important than Obama's sluggishness. Telling lies while waving your arms shouldn't trump telling the truth in a moderate tone.
Indeed, as a journalist, I simply cannot abide politicians who lie systematically, who don't just trim the truth once in a while but make falsehoods a strategic part of their politics and policies....
Thus, minor threats, like peasant uprisings in Central America, were portrayed as part of a grand Soviet strategy to invade the United States through Texas. The strength of the Soviet Union was itself exaggerated to justify a massive U.S. military build-up. Today's neocons cut their teeth of such distortions and lies.
Post 9/11, with George W. Bush in the White House, this neocon strategy of fear-mongering led the United States into the debacle of the Iraq War (in pursuit of imaginary weapons of mass destruction).
Now, less than a year after U.S. military forces left Iraq - and with a withdrawal from Afghanistan finally underway - the latest polls suggest that the American voters are shifting toward the election of another neocon President who promises more soaring rhetoric about U.S. "exceptionalism" and more interventionism abroad.
It's almost as if many Americans like being lied to.] emphasis added
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13887-mitt-romney-lies-to-the-world
[One of the problems striking workers cite is the lack of access to full-time working hours, which prevents them from obtaining even the meager health benefits the company offers. The National Consumer’s League (NCL) told Raw Story that Walmart’s refusal to provide those benefits by exploiting part-time labor leads to a number of spillover costs that taxpayers ultimately pick up.
“Many Walmart workers are dependent on public assistance programs due to their low wages and not having access to full time jobs and being denied benefits because they’re not working the number of hours required to get access to those benefits, or the benefits are just so expensive that on their low wages they just can’t afford them,” NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg said in an exclusive interview. “Walmart has a record of even working with employees to sign them up for public assistance programs, which we think is really atrocious.”
She added that Walmart’s position of keeping wages low in order to pass the savings along to consumers doesn’t wash either: “Companies that pay a decent wage and provide benefits to their workers help create a middle class that is able to buy the kinds of products that Walmart sells,” Greenberg explained. “It is actually a plus for companies if they provide fair compensation to workers. It’s also better for consumers when they’re able to actually afford housing, healthcare and have access to benefits of the kind we think Walmart, with all its success and profits, ought to be able to pay workers.”
The famously anti-union retailer, which says it employs more than 2.1 million people, raked in $114.3 billion in revenues during just the second fiscal quarter of 2012, earning a profit of $4.02 billion. Berkeley labor economist Sylvia Allegretto found last year that just six of the Walton family’s richest members have a combined wealth greater than the bottom 30 percent of American earners put together.] emphasis added
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/10/walmart-worker-strikes-go-viral-hitting-28-stores-in-12-states/
Monday, October 8, 2012
Obama Wins First Debate
That may come as a jarring, even fantastical headline, in this 24 hour news society of instant reaction, analysis, and news "memes" which simply amount to talking points repeated incessantly.
If you read the debate transcript and analyze it for facts--you know, those inconvenient things which taken together amount to truth--Romney lied his ass off. The man wouldn't know the truth if it walked up, sapped him in the face, stole his woman and burned down the house. He finds himself of uttering words which might impede his rise to power, like even admitting a tax cut for rich folks marks the exact thing he has run on for last 8 years, for Athena's sake.
Odd but not entirely surprising it takes a columnist from a foreign paper to realize and write this; the British perhaps treat politics with trifle more skepticism since they have awareness they keep around and pay for an outmoded vestige of the feudal era, the "royal" family.
We in the colonies, the good old US of Irony, have no such awareness of the illusion of moral superiority with which we endow ourselves and our leaders.
[Barack Obama won last night’s debate. Or to be more precise, Mitt Romney lost it.
That’s obviously not the conventional view of the commentators or pollsters, who gave the GOP candidate a clear win. But that doesn’t matter. He still lost.
There are three reasons why Romney experienced a soft implosion of his already tenuous electoral chances. First, there was no “gotcha moment”. Before the debate every political analyst, be they from the Left or Right, agreed that Romney had to land a knockout blow, which he didn’t.
There was no major presidential gaffe. No glancing at watches, sighing or claiming there has never been any soviet domination of eastern Europe....
The second problem for Romney was that while he failed to land a knockout blow, he kept piling into him. He was aggressive, too aggressive.
This is Romney’s greatest weakness as a candidate. He lacks compassion. He comes across as one of those big businessman in old Westerns who turns up at the farm and explains to the widow that he needs to buy her land to make way for his new railroad, and if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll take him up on his kind offer. CNN’s post election poll found that two thirds of those who watched thought Romney put in the most effective performance. But only 46 per cent said they found him more likeable than Obama. Not only did Romney not land the knockout blow, he failed to close the empathy gap.
Finally, Romney has fatally shifted the expectation game. In advance of this debate, he was able to talk down his chances of success. This morning, his supporters are ecstatic – just look at my friend and colleague Tim Stanley’s take on the debate – and working themselves up into a frenzy at yet another ‘game-changing’ moment.
Romney will probably enjoy a small boost in the polls. And then the race will settle back down to where it was, which is a relatively tight national poll margin, but an insurmountable lead for Obama in the battleground states.] emphasis added http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100183875/last-night-mitt-romney-lost-yes-you-read-that-right/
Dang, I gotta start watching Saturday Night Live again. They really highlight Msnbc hyperbole on first debate. They too get caught in the moment and forget even Republican voters have come to find they like or at least benefit financially and personally from portions of the Affordable Care Act.
You see in the abstract, people find it easy to rail against big government and the encroaching socialist state.
Nevertheless when it gives insurance to their children by allowing them to stay on parent's health insurance and also saves lives of those in their family by allowing people with pre-existing medical conditions to even get health insurance coverage.
And Mitt the mendacious flat out lied on this point during the debate.
If you read the debate transcript and analyze it for facts--you know, those inconvenient things which taken together amount to truth--Romney lied his ass off. The man wouldn't know the truth if it walked up, sapped him in the face, stole his woman and burned down the house. He finds himself of uttering words which might impede his rise to power, like even admitting a tax cut for rich folks marks the exact thing he has run on for last 8 years, for Athena's sake.
Odd but not entirely surprising it takes a columnist from a foreign paper to realize and write this; the British perhaps treat politics with trifle more skepticism since they have awareness they keep around and pay for an outmoded vestige of the feudal era, the "royal" family.
We in the colonies, the good old US of Irony, have no such awareness of the illusion of moral superiority with which we endow ourselves and our leaders.
[Barack Obama won last night’s debate. Or to be more precise, Mitt Romney lost it.
That’s obviously not the conventional view of the commentators or pollsters, who gave the GOP candidate a clear win. But that doesn’t matter. He still lost.
There are three reasons why Romney experienced a soft implosion of his already tenuous electoral chances. First, there was no “gotcha moment”. Before the debate every political analyst, be they from the Left or Right, agreed that Romney had to land a knockout blow, which he didn’t.
There was no major presidential gaffe. No glancing at watches, sighing or claiming there has never been any soviet domination of eastern Europe....
The second problem for Romney was that while he failed to land a knockout blow, he kept piling into him. He was aggressive, too aggressive.
This is Romney’s greatest weakness as a candidate. He lacks compassion. He comes across as one of those big businessman in old Westerns who turns up at the farm and explains to the widow that he needs to buy her land to make way for his new railroad, and if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll take him up on his kind offer. CNN’s post election poll found that two thirds of those who watched thought Romney put in the most effective performance. But only 46 per cent said they found him more likeable than Obama. Not only did Romney not land the knockout blow, he failed to close the empathy gap.
Finally, Romney has fatally shifted the expectation game. In advance of this debate, he was able to talk down his chances of success. This morning, his supporters are ecstatic – just look at my friend and colleague Tim Stanley’s take on the debate – and working themselves up into a frenzy at yet another ‘game-changing’ moment.
Romney will probably enjoy a small boost in the polls. And then the race will settle back down to where it was, which is a relatively tight national poll margin, but an insurmountable lead for Obama in the battleground states.] emphasis added http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100183875/last-night-mitt-romney-lost-yes-you-read-that-right/
Dang, I gotta start watching Saturday Night Live again. They really highlight Msnbc hyperbole on first debate. They too get caught in the moment and forget even Republican voters have come to find they like or at least benefit financially and personally from portions of the Affordable Care Act.
You see in the abstract, people find it easy to rail against big government and the encroaching socialist state.
Nevertheless when it gives insurance to their children by allowing them to stay on parent's health insurance and also saves lives of those in their family by allowing people with pre-existing medical conditions to even get health insurance coverage.
And Mitt the mendacious flat out lied on this point during the debate.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Paid Medicare and Social Security Taxes Since Age 15
Started work as a busboy 39 years ago and paid Social Security and Medicare taxes for every paycheck made since.
Now on disability for second time in my life after 25 years of work sandwiched in between stints, Paul Ryan calls me a moocher.
Hey, Paul, instead of my taxes going into a lockbox to secure future Social Security benefits, your party spent the money on tax breaks for rich, 2 expensive foreign wars--the 1 in Afghanistan now the longest ever involvement of the United States--and spent ungodly sums on a bloated defense budget and tax breaks for wealthy corporations like Exxon.
Y'all robbed me and now call me a moocher.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/karoli/paul-ryan-wants-moochers-know-hes-got-your-
Now on disability for second time in my life after 25 years of work sandwiched in between stints, Paul Ryan calls me a moocher.
Hey, Paul, instead of my taxes going into a lockbox to secure future Social Security benefits, your party spent the money on tax breaks for rich, 2 expensive foreign wars--the 1 in Afghanistan now the longest ever involvement of the United States--and spent ungodly sums on a bloated defense budget and tax breaks for wealthy corporations like Exxon.
Y'all robbed me and now call me a moocher.
Well, go do something anatomically impossible to yourself, asshat!
[Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan sincerely believe that people who pay into social insurance for their entire lives and expect to receive the benefit of that compact when eligible are "takers." I wonder if he includes all the zillionaires out there who receive Social Security benefits as "takers," since there is no distinction between those who pay in as rich people and those who pay in as middle class or poor people, after all. Are they takers?]http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/karoli/paul-ryan-wants-moochers-know-hes-got-your-
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Paul Ryan Lies
Paul Ryan lies. He lies all the time, about all issues. He may believe crap he spouts like Old Unfaithful but failure to use logic to consider facts his ideology disapproves of makes him a liar.
A HUGE FAT LIAR!
[And Ryan’s Tampa speech, while pretty dishonest, was not especially so by Ryan’s standards. Here you can see why Ryan must view the sudden attack of the truth squad so bewilderingly. Ryan has been saying things like this, and worse, all along. The bit where he sadly shakes his head and blames President Obama for the failure of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission that Ryan killed himself has been a staple of the Ryan shtick for two years. Reporters usually bat their eyes and coo sympathetically. Now it has become evidence of his duplicity .
Ryan seems to have fallen victim to circumstances he didn’t quite foresee. The Romney campaign has spent the last several weeks practically daring the national press corps to call out its lies. Well beyond the usual exaggerations of a national campaign, Romney has built its entire message around two accusations — “you didn’t build that” and “just send them a check” — that are obviously false. A day before Ryan’s speech, a Romney adviser told reporters, “We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” The media that had spent the last two and a half years nuzzling gently in Ryan’s lap had been prodded with sharp sticks and reacted in the predictable fashion, though probably not predictable to Ryan himself.
The thing about Ryan is that he has always resided in a counter-factual universe. He is a product of the hermetically sealed right-wing subculture. Many of the facts taken for granted by mainstream economists have never penetrated his brain. Ryan burst onto the national scene with a dense, fact-laden attack on the financing of Obama’s health-care bill that was essentially a series of hallucinations, pseudo-facts cooked up and recirculated by conservative apparatchiks who didn’t know what they were talking about ordidn’t care. His big-think speeches reflect the influence of fact-free conservatives and collapse under scrutiny.] EMPHASIS ADDED
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/since-when-did-paul-ryan-become-a-liar.html
A HUGE FAT LIAR!
[And Ryan’s Tampa speech, while pretty dishonest, was not especially so by Ryan’s standards. Here you can see why Ryan must view the sudden attack of the truth squad so bewilderingly. Ryan has been saying things like this, and worse, all along. The bit where he sadly shakes his head and blames President Obama for the failure of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission that Ryan killed himself has been a staple of the Ryan shtick for two years. Reporters usually bat their eyes and coo sympathetically. Now it has become evidence of his duplicity .
Ryan seems to have fallen victim to circumstances he didn’t quite foresee. The Romney campaign has spent the last several weeks practically daring the national press corps to call out its lies. Well beyond the usual exaggerations of a national campaign, Romney has built its entire message around two accusations — “you didn’t build that” and “just send them a check” — that are obviously false. A day before Ryan’s speech, a Romney adviser told reporters, “We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” The media that had spent the last two and a half years nuzzling gently in Ryan’s lap had been prodded with sharp sticks and reacted in the predictable fashion, though probably not predictable to Ryan himself.
The thing about Ryan is that he has always resided in a counter-factual universe. He is a product of the hermetically sealed right-wing subculture. Many of the facts taken for granted by mainstream economists have never penetrated his brain. Ryan burst onto the national scene with a dense, fact-laden attack on the financing of Obama’s health-care bill that was essentially a series of hallucinations, pseudo-facts cooked up and recirculated by conservative apparatchiks who didn’t know what they were talking about ordidn’t care. His big-think speeches reflect the influence of fact-free conservatives and collapse under scrutiny.] EMPHASIS ADDED
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/since-when-did-paul-ryan-become-a-liar.html
What Republican't Plan
[Call it Mitt's Mantra. As soon as he moves into the White House, Mitt Romney promises, he will demand that Congress repeal the health care reform law that is President Barack Obama's signature achievement. Far less clear is how Romney and Republicans in Congress would replace the Affordable Care Act. That is a critical question for Florida, which has nearly 4 million uninsured residents and has failed to develop its own solution.
Florida's hospitals were on the hook last year for $2.8 billion in uncompensated care. Tampa General Hospital spent more than $60 million on uncompensated care, while St. Petersburg's Bayfront Medical Center spent $34.7 million. Whatever one thinks of the Affordable Care Act, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will bring health coverage to 30 million people while reducing the federal deficit by $109 billion over 10 years. That's true even if some states like Florida decline to expand Medicaid to cover all adults under 133 percent of the federal poverty line....
The thrust of Romney's proposal is to hand the regulation of health insurance to the states. He would cut Medicaid costs by sending block grants to the states and "limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage." States such as Florida could be counted on to cut Medicaid rolls and eliminate coverage requirements for private insurers.
The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it will bring health care coverage to millions of Americans. Without more specifics, it is difficult to see how Romney's plan would address the endemic problems of the uninsured and spiraling medical costs. Floridians seeking accessible, affordable health care need help from Washington, and Romney should be clearer about how he would provide it.] emphasis added
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1248446.ece
Florida's hospitals were on the hook last year for $2.8 billion in uncompensated care. Tampa General Hospital spent more than $60 million on uncompensated care, while St. Petersburg's Bayfront Medical Center spent $34.7 million. Whatever one thinks of the Affordable Care Act, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will bring health coverage to 30 million people while reducing the federal deficit by $109 billion over 10 years. That's true even if some states like Florida decline to expand Medicaid to cover all adults under 133 percent of the federal poverty line....
The thrust of Romney's proposal is to hand the regulation of health insurance to the states. He would cut Medicaid costs by sending block grants to the states and "limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage." States such as Florida could be counted on to cut Medicaid rolls and eliminate coverage requirements for private insurers.
The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it will bring health care coverage to millions of Americans. Without more specifics, it is difficult to see how Romney's plan would address the endemic problems of the uninsured and spiraling medical costs. Floridians seeking accessible, affordable health care need help from Washington, and Romney should be clearer about how he would provide it.] emphasis added
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1248446.ece
Thursday, September 6, 2012
"Making money without a moral compass"
[CHARLOTTE — Employees at three companies that went bankrupt after being taken over by Bain Capital spoke at the Democratic convention on Wednesday, accusing Romney’s firm of exploiting workers for profit....
The most dramatic tale came from Randy Johnson, a former worker at Bain-owned Ampad in the 1990s, who described how the private equity group took over the company, fired its workers, then invited them to reapply for jobs with lower benefits.
“What affected me most was having guys the age I am now come to my desk, and cry; guys who had nothing to fall back on,” Johnson said.
Ampad eventually went bankrupt. But Bain made about $100 million off the deal through management fees and the sale of its stock.
“I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad man,” Johnson, a longtime Romney critic across multiple campaigns, told the audience. “I don’t fault him for the fact that some companies win and some companies lose. That’s a fact of life. What I fault him for is making money without a moral compass. I fault him for putting profits before people like me.”
“But that’s just Romney economics,” he said.] emphasis added
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/laid-off-workers-at-bain-owned-companies-slam-romney.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
The most dramatic tale came from Randy Johnson, a former worker at Bain-owned Ampad in the 1990s, who described how the private equity group took over the company, fired its workers, then invited them to reapply for jobs with lower benefits.
“What affected me most was having guys the age I am now come to my desk, and cry; guys who had nothing to fall back on,” Johnson said.
Ampad eventually went bankrupt. But Bain made about $100 million off the deal through management fees and the sale of its stock.
“I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad man,” Johnson, a longtime Romney critic across multiple campaigns, told the audience. “I don’t fault him for the fact that some companies win and some companies lose. That’s a fact of life. What I fault him for is making money without a moral compass. I fault him for putting profits before people like me.”
“But that’s just Romney economics,” he said.] emphasis added
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/laid-off-workers-at-bain-owned-companies-slam-romney.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
"Even his money needs a passport"
[CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Mitt Romney's Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island investments were hot topics on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, with several leading Democrats hammering the Republican presidential candidate about them in their speeches.
"Mitt Romney has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport," charged former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland in his fiery speech Tuesday night. "It summers on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and winters on the slopes of the Swiss Alps. In Matthew, chapter 6, verse 21, the scriptures teach us that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. My friends, any man who aspires to be our president should keep both his treasure and his heart in the United States of America. And it's well past time for Mitt Romney to come clean with the American people."
Romney previously had a Swiss bank account and has millions invested in funds based in the Cayman Islands.] emphasis & link added
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/mitt-romney-swiss-bank-account_n_1856353.html
"Mitt Romney has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport," charged former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland in his fiery speech Tuesday night. "It summers on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and winters on the slopes of the Swiss Alps. In Matthew, chapter 6, verse 21, the scriptures teach us that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. My friends, any man who aspires to be our president should keep both his treasure and his heart in the United States of America. And it's well past time for Mitt Romney to come clean with the American people."
Romney previously had a Swiss bank account and has millions invested in funds based in the Cayman Islands.] emphasis & link added
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/mitt-romney-swiss-bank-account_n_1856353.html
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
We must sow some confusion said the Liar to the Thief
Willard the Liar as he has no truth in him while Paul Thief Ryan will steal the Social Security and Medicare workers have paid taxes for for their entire work lives.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 5, 2010
One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans. You might have thought, given past experience, that D.C. insiders would be on their guard against conservatives with grandiose plans. But no: as long as someone on the right claims to have bold new proposals, he’s hailed as an innovative thinker. And nobody checks his arithmetic.
Which brings me to the innovative thinker du jour: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.
Mr. Ryan’s plan calls for steep cuts in both spending and taxes. He’d have you believe that the combined effect would be much lower budget deficits, and, according to that Washington Post report, he speaks about deficits “in apocalyptic terms.” And The Post also tells us that his plan would, indeed, sharply reduce the flow of red ink: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.”
But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan’s request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.] emphasis added for emphasis
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labour Day Thought:"It's the Rich Wots Gets the Gravy."
"And the poor wots gets the blame./Ain't it all a bloody shame."
[The real question is whether the working and middle classes of the United States will go on allowing themselves to be taken advantage of by our super-rich, who are gathering to themselves more and more of the national income. The top 1% owned 25% of the privately held national wealth in the United States in the 1950s, but have 38% of it today.
In contrast, real wages per hour for the average worker in the United States, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1970. We’re now down from that, with a generation and a half blocked from meaningful economic advancement.
But, you will say, the US is a much wealthier society now than it was in 1970 or 1990. Where has all the extra money generated by American labor and investment gone?
It has gone to the rich. Yes, folks, the rich are taking home a fifth of everything we make as a country each year, up from ten percent in 1970. We are 310 million people. About 3 million get a fifth of the annual income. Those 3 million people are 3 million Mitt Romneys. They want low taxes and they want to get rid of social security, medicare and Obamacare.] emphasis added to make you mad
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/labor-day-question-are-you-better-off-than-you-were-in-1970.html
"It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame It's the rich what gets the pleasure Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?"
[The real question is whether the working and middle classes of the United States will go on allowing themselves to be taken advantage of by our super-rich, who are gathering to themselves more and more of the national income. The top 1% owned 25% of the privately held national wealth in the United States in the 1950s, but have 38% of it today.
In contrast, real wages per hour for the average worker in the United States, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1970. We’re now down from that, with a generation and a half blocked from meaningful economic advancement.
But, you will say, the US is a much wealthier society now than it was in 1970 or 1990. Where has all the extra money generated by American labor and investment gone?
It has gone to the rich. Yes, folks, the rich are taking home a fifth of everything we make as a country each year, up from ten percent in 1970. We are 310 million people. About 3 million get a fifth of the annual income. Those 3 million people are 3 million Mitt Romneys. They want low taxes and they want to get rid of social security, medicare and Obamacare.] emphasis added to make you mad
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/labor-day-question-are-you-better-off-than-you-were-in-1970.html
"It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame It's the rich what gets the pleasure Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?"
Paul Ryan's Big Lie: He Will Kill Medicare and Seniors
Accidentally watched approximately 7.5 seconds of the Republican't convention trying to switch to local news at 11 pm and Paul Ryan lying on my TV, saying the test of any society remains how it treats the less fortunate.
How on Earth can savage cuts to Medicaid protect the poor?
They can't, meaning Ryan a hypocritical heartless bastard who probably sacrifices babies to Moloch as well as worshiping Mammon bestowed upon him by billionaire backers.
[Others were infuriating, like his sanctimonious declaration that “the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” This from a man proposing savage cuts in Medicaid, which would cause tens of millions of vulnerable Americans to lose health coverage.
And Mr. Ryan — who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts — is still posing as a deficit hawk.
But Mr. Ryan’s big lie — and, yes, it deserves that designation — was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program....
But back to the big lie. The Republican Party is now firmly committed to replacing Medicare with what we might call Vouchercare. The government would no longer pay your major medical bills; instead, it would give you a voucher that could be applied to the purchase of private insurance. And, if the voucher proved insufficient to buy decent coverage, hey, that would be your problem.
Moreover, the vouchers almost certainly would be inadequate; their value would be set by a formula taking no account of likely increases in health care costs.] emphasis added to highlight cruelty
[Others were infuriating, like his sanctimonious declaration that “the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” This from a man proposing savage cuts in Medicaid, which would cause tens of millions of vulnerable Americans to lose health coverage.
And Mr. Ryan — who has proposed $4.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, versus only about $1.7 trillion in specific spending cuts — is still posing as a deficit hawk.
But Mr. Ryan’s big lie — and, yes, it deserves that designation — was his claim that “a Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare.” Actually, it would kill the program....
But back to the big lie. The Republican Party is now firmly committed to replacing Medicare with what we might call Vouchercare. The government would no longer pay your major medical bills; instead, it would give you a voucher that could be applied to the purchase of private insurance. And, if the voucher proved insufficient to buy decent coverage, hey, that would be your problem.
Moreover, the vouchers almost certainly would be inadequate; their value would be set by a formula taking no account of likely increases in health care costs.] emphasis added to highlight cruelty
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Romneyhood, Taking from the Poor to Give to the Rich!
Romney’s plan is to give record tax breaks to the rich, lowering their tax rate down to 28 percent. Ryan is a little different. His plan is to give the rich even bigger tax breaks, lowering their tax rate down to 25 percent. No wonder billionaires are bank rolling them.
Both of these men understand exactly how to advocate for their own class. If elected it'll be just like the George W. Bush years again, except this time, along with launching exciting new wars overseas, they’ll finally be able get rid of the remaining tax breaks that benefit low-income Americans.
Comforting the comfortable while punishing the American mainstream is now open Republican practice, so the far right have finally stepped out from behind the curtain to watch their candidate Ryan take on the mantel of power in full public view.
The timing is fortuitous because it's become apparent to most observers that the truth about Romney would probably end his presidential campaign.
He cannot sell himself on Romneycare, his signature achievement, because it would be too damaging. He cannot disclose his own income tax returns -- apparently they would be too damaging too.
Enter Ryan and his big toothy grin. But who is Paul Ryan, that’s the question?
Well, tremble now American seniors, because Ryan is the man who genuinely believes in turning Medicare into a voucher program.
Under his budget plan senior citizens would no longer be entitled to comprehensive medical benefits designed to protect them from financial ruin. No more guarantee of benefits, just take a voucher instead, and you know what a voucher's good for, don’t you?
Ryan also believes in ending Medicaid, turning it into a “block grant” instead. It’s estimated between 14 and 27 million low-income Americans would lose their health insurance over it.
Ryan also wants to privatize Social Security. In fact his plan to take a wrecking ball to the New Deal is so radical that even the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Bush rejected it out of hand.
So why do very rich people like Romney and Ryan hate government programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?
Well, the nation’s top earners don’t want the financial burden of the welfare state, since they don’t benefit from it, so their plan is to hand the entire cost of it over to the middle class, who do.
America’s rich no longer feel the need or the responsibility to contribute one thin dime to the upkeep of this nation. Instead they open Swiss bank accounts to hide their earnings from the IRS; they ship jobs overseas while closing companies here; they play Wall Street like a private casino and hand you the bill for their excesses.
I don't know how they can make this fact any plainer. They don’t actually care what happens to America.
Under Romney/Ryan it’ll be tax breaks for the rich and social Darwinism for the poor. These would be the deepest, most biting cuts ever attempted by a sitting government.
Have you noticed all of that crumbling infrastructure from sea to shining sea? Under Ryan’s budget the government would be so starved of resources that by 2050 it wouldn’t have enough money for basic functioning, never mind overdue road works or highway repairs.
Ryan’s massive and historic cuts to government funding would mean debilitating cuts to law enforcement, education, highway repair and even basic even food inspection.
Ryan does want to increase defense spending, however, so while you're watching all the bombs drop on new wars overseas you can try to console yourself that your money's being well spent.
But predictably, Ryan’s most characteristic ambition of all is Robin Hood in reverse. He wants to preside over the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class over to the rich in American history.
According to Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the new Ryan budget “would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history).”
So that's who Paul Ryan is. Another partisan plutocrat with faraway eyes comes to squeeze the last few drops out of the American century.
A man who has never once in his life had to ask himself, which bill can I afford to pay this week? A man who once used Social Security checks to pay for his education, but who now wants to see Social Security scrapped.
And some of you will even vote for him. Just don’t ever get sick or lose your job, all right?] my emphasis throughout
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/vote-for-paul-ryan-thats-rich-romney-vp-pick-most-extreme-candidate-ever-to-run--166390186.html
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Don't You Dare Ask and Romney Won't Tell
[Denver TV reporter Shaun Boyd wanted to ask Mitt Romney about Todd Akin and the abortion controversy roiling the GOP Thursday. But the Romney campaign refused.
In a broadcast on Thursday, Boyd revealed the Romney campaign’s demand that she not ask about Akin. The Obama campaign quickly posted the video online and sent it to reporters:
Boyd told TPM that the Romney campaign offered her station an interview with Romney, one of several local news hits in swing states that Romney conducted via satellite Thursday. A campaign staffer whose name she didn’t divulge told her what questions she wasn’t allowed to ask.
“They said, you know, ‘the only stipulation is we don’t want you talking about the Akin issue,’” Boyd recalled. She also said the Romney staffer told her the campaign didn’t want questions for Romney about ‘the whole abortion controversy.’”]
In a broadcast on Thursday, Boyd revealed the Romney campaign’s demand that she not ask about Akin. The Obama campaign quickly posted the video online and sent it to reporters:
Boyd told TPM that the Romney campaign offered her station an interview with Romney, one of several local news hits in swing states that Romney conducted via satellite Thursday. A campaign staffer whose name she didn’t divulge told her what questions she wasn’t allowed to ask.
“They said, you know, ‘the only stipulation is we don’t want you talking about the Akin issue,’” Boyd recalled. She also said the Romney staffer told her the campaign didn’t want questions for Romney about ‘the whole abortion controversy.’”]
"The whole abortion controversy," like forcing women to carry their rapists' babies to term?
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Paul Ryan, Suckled on the Teat of Big Govenment
Well golly gee whiz, Paul Ryan, Hypocrite, WI, preaches the Ayn Rand philosophy of social Darwinism ,that the poor need to suck it up, work through hunger, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Great thought except he states--and maybe even believes--government and laws played no part in creating his wealth, only his own rugged individualism made that possible.
Great story, except for the absolute falsehood.
Paul Ryan made his money the old fashioned way; he inherited it.
Hs grandfather stated company which built things like roads and highways, things paid for by the federal government which benefited all the citizens of the United States, things which treasonous Republicants refuse to spend money on now because creating jobs might actually benefit the current administration politically.
These selfsame Republicants now weeping and wailing about federal deficits voted for stimulus bills during the Cheney administration. Paul P90X Ryan even requested money for WI businesses from the Obama administration stimulus programs, rankest hypocrisy of the sublime order.
For Keyne's sake it ain't rocket science; when an economy disastrously slows the federal government ought to step in to provide jobs doing things we all need: fixing bridges, filling potholes, and even putting together solar panels. People cash their paychecks to buy food and other essentials and enough buying results in an expanding economy.
[...Paul Ryan’s great-grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways. According to the Web site of Ryan Incorporated Central, the company was “founded in 1884 with a single team of mules building railroad embankments in Southern Wisconsin.” And in the 1800s, railroad construction was subsidized by the federal government. Mid-century, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act into law, providing taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of a transcontinental railway. All railroads thereafter connected to, and benefited from, that public investment....
With a net worth of up to $3.2 million and ranking as the 124th richest member of Congress, Paul Ryan very directly and very significantly benefited from the federal spending he now rails against.
Or does he? What’s funny is that Mr. Anti-Spending secured millions in earmarks for his home state of Wisconsin, including, among other things, $3.3 million for highway projects. And Ryan voted to preserve $40 billion in special subsidies for big oil, an industry in which, it so happens, Ryan and his wife hold ownership stakes. Yet Ryan wants to gut financial aid for college students, food stamps for hungry families, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security — the very things that have, historically, helped poor families climb the ladder of opportunity in America.
And this is precisely the problem with the Romney-Ryan vision for America: It takes the ladder of opportunity and public infrastructure that helped the previous generation and yanks it up for the next generation.....
Great thought except he states--and maybe even believes--government and laws played no part in creating his wealth, only his own rugged individualism made that possible.
Great story, except for the absolute falsehood.
Paul Ryan made his money the old fashioned way; he inherited it.
Hs grandfather stated company which built things like roads and highways, things paid for by the federal government which benefited all the citizens of the United States, things which treasonous Republicants refuse to spend money on now because creating jobs might actually benefit the current administration politically.
These selfsame Republicants now weeping and wailing about federal deficits voted for stimulus bills during the Cheney administration. Paul P90X Ryan even requested money for WI businesses from the Obama administration stimulus programs, rankest hypocrisy of the sublime order.
For Keyne's sake it ain't rocket science; when an economy disastrously slows the federal government ought to step in to provide jobs doing things we all need: fixing bridges, filling potholes, and even putting together solar panels. People cash their paychecks to buy food and other essentials and enough buying results in an expanding economy.
[...Paul Ryan’s great-grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways. According to the Web site of Ryan Incorporated Central, the company was “founded in 1884 with a single team of mules building railroad embankments in Southern Wisconsin.” And in the 1800s, railroad construction was subsidized by the federal government. Mid-century, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act into law, providing taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of a transcontinental railway. All railroads thereafter connected to, and benefited from, that public investment....
Or does he? What’s funny is that Mr. Anti-Spending secured millions in earmarks for his home state of Wisconsin, including, among other things, $3.3 million for highway projects. And Ryan voted to preserve $40 billion in special subsidies for big oil, an industry in which, it so happens, Ryan and his wife hold ownership stakes. Yet Ryan wants to gut financial aid for college students, food stamps for hungry families, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security — the very things that have, historically, helped poor families climb the ladder of opportunity in America.
And this is precisely the problem with the Romney-Ryan vision for America: It takes the ladder of opportunity and public infrastructure that helped the previous generation and yanks it up for the next generation.....
It’s “I Got Mine, Now Screw You!” economics.] Emphasis added to emphasize truth.
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/14/paul_ryan_didnt_build_that/
These pictures googled come not from epic disaster film du jour but from collapse of Interstate bridge in MN.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em That's what the Statue of Bigotry says "
Quote from the inestimable Lou Reed, song "Dirty Boulevard," from the New York album.
Part of any civilization that shows ethical advancement comes from how that society treats those unable to contribute much to the general welfare: the elderly, infirm and disabled, the sick, poor, and even children deemed weak. So although we may still celebrate the heroic sacrifice of the Spartan 300, no one would call them civilized for they threw weak babies to the wolves.
So also the Medicaid cuts proposed by Paul Ryan, Republican, state of plutocratic advantage, would harm the least available to help themselves: humans in Assisted Living Facilities, poor children, and the destitute.
In the great but penurious state of Florida, a family of 3 making less than $11,000 a year-below the federal poverty level--does not qualify for health care under Medicaid.
What do they do when their children get sick?
Hope, pray, wait for the malady to pass, and go to an Emergency Room if the sickness worsens.
The hospitals who accept poor patients--and make no mistake, some do not, which means people die every day in the US of un-Affordable health care because they lack insurance--bear the costs of treatment and pass those costs onto paying customers and insurance companies, which the Affodable Care Act will help prevent by getting people, human freakin' beings for God's sake, care before their conditions become acute.
Paul Ryan's budget, an immoral document if ever there were one, cuts $800 from Medicaid, cloaking this draconian dicing of the safety net by claiming it will give state governments more flexibility while knowing fool well--yes, I meant fool because if you believe these right wing Republican lies, you are a fool--and result in the states further cutting eligibility for Medicaid:
[By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
There's another Paul Ryan plan for health care, a fundamental change in caring for the poor and disabled that would affect many more people than the Medicare overhaul the GOP vice presidential candidate is best known for.
Under the Wisconsin congressman's Medicaid plan, states would take over the program. At the same time, Ryan's budget would reduce projected federal spending on Medicaid by about $800 billion over 10 years, dramatically shrinking it as a share of the national economy.
Medicaid serves about 60 million people, roughly 10 million more than Medicare. It's a diverse population brought together by need. Most Medicaid recipients are low-income children and their mothers, but the costliest cases are severely disabled people, many of them seniors in nursing homes.
Ryan would also repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, expected to add at least 11 million more people to Medicaid.
Ryan's Medicaid plan is in sync with his new boss, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/the-other-paul-ryan-plan-800b-in-medicaid-cuts/nRBst/
Will this pass the test of helping those least able to help themselves?
Hell NO it won't!!!
Personal note #1: Happened to work at hotel Lou stayed at when he came through the City Mean on his tour supporting this album. Found it interesting contract called for in room refrigerator cleared of alcohol and to have no alcohol delivered to the room.
"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard"
Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/49609/#jO30k2XiwmjF3qUj.99
Part of any civilization that shows ethical advancement comes from how that society treats those unable to contribute much to the general welfare: the elderly, infirm and disabled, the sick, poor, and even children deemed weak. So although we may still celebrate the heroic sacrifice of the Spartan 300, no one would call them civilized for they threw weak babies to the wolves.
So also the Medicaid cuts proposed by Paul Ryan, Republican, state of plutocratic advantage, would harm the least available to help themselves: humans in Assisted Living Facilities, poor children, and the destitute.
In the great but penurious state of Florida, a family of 3 making less than $11,000 a year-below the federal poverty level--does not qualify for health care under Medicaid.
What do they do when their children get sick?
Hope, pray, wait for the malady to pass, and go to an Emergency Room if the sickness worsens.
The hospitals who accept poor patients--and make no mistake, some do not, which means people die every day in the US of un-Affordable health care because they lack insurance--bear the costs of treatment and pass those costs onto paying customers and insurance companies, which the Affodable Care Act will help prevent by getting people, human freakin' beings for God's sake, care before their conditions become acute.
Paul Ryan's budget, an immoral document if ever there were one, cuts $800 from Medicaid, cloaking this draconian dicing of the safety net by claiming it will give state governments more flexibility while knowing fool well--yes, I meant fool because if you believe these right wing Republican lies, you are a fool--and result in the states further cutting eligibility for Medicaid:
[By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
There's another Paul Ryan plan for health care, a fundamental change in caring for the poor and disabled that would affect many more people than the Medicare overhaul the GOP vice presidential candidate is best known for.
Under the Wisconsin congressman's Medicaid plan, states would take over the program. At the same time, Ryan's budget would reduce projected federal spending on Medicaid by about $800 billion over 10 years, dramatically shrinking it as a share of the national economy.
Medicaid serves about 60 million people, roughly 10 million more than Medicare. It's a diverse population brought together by need. Most Medicaid recipients are low-income children and their mothers, but the costliest cases are severely disabled people, many of them seniors in nursing homes.
Ryan would also repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, expected to add at least 11 million more people to Medicaid.
Ryan's Medicaid plan is in sync with his new boss, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/the-other-paul-ryan-plan-800b-in-medicaid-cuts/nRBst/
Will this pass the test of helping those least able to help themselves?
Hell NO it won't!!!
Personal note #1: Happened to work at hotel Lou stayed at when he came through the City Mean on his tour supporting this album. Found it interesting contract called for in room refrigerator cleared of alcohol and to have no alcohol delivered to the room.
"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard"
Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/49609/#jO30k2XiwmjF3qUj.99
Personal note 2: As a walking ex-quadrapeligic surviving for 32 years and oddly proud of eking out an existence on disability for the second time in my life (20 years working between stints), I have entered that range of middle age where one plays wheel of monthly medical specialist visits at $40 a copay pop even with medicare Advantage: gastroenterologist, urologist, neurologist, orthopedic surgeon, nephrologist, etc. How the hell can I see more than 1 a month making the princely sum of $968 a month?
Personal note 3: to all the bastards who judge me and assume and dare to say, "you should get some help," judging me because they assume some magical, faerie dust social safety net exists to help but I fall into odd category of not quite old enough at age 54 nor quite disabled enough to get social services help.
Sit on it, JJ.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Romney/Ryan: The Liar Picks the Fraud
The Romney/Ryan ticket already bores me; not even the fodder they provide for satire compensates for the absolute bankruptcy in their souls and paucity of ideas, their only real one the inbred desire to cut taxes for rich people and screw the rest.
Even having reached the august and ever more cynical age of 54, it just seems to me a political race for elected office should involve some degree of facts, some sort of telling truth to gain support of voters.
Even in 1969 in a campaign to sell Richard Nixon chronicled in the book The Selling of the President
, Nixon proposed a War on Crime and marketed his secret plan to end the Viet Nam War.
Now, politics has entered a fact free age without the need for the so called "liberal media" (The Selling of the President) to call a lie a lie and a spade a spade.
Great Mencken's ghost, Willard Romney couldn't even tell the truth if it walked up, slapped him in the face, and signed his tax returns for him.
How could anyone with even a functioining brain cell left even think about voting for this feckless fool? Even Fox "News" watching zombies should feel shame if they vote for this ticket.
Lies of Willard Romney part 29, literally, twenty-freakin'-nine: [Joe Klein reflected briefly on Mitt Romney this week, noting, "I can't remember a candidate so brazenly allergic to facts. What a travesty." Kevin Drum offered some related thoughts....
Of course, if months of distortions and lies causes irreparable harm to a presidential candidate, Romney might as well pack up and go to one of his mansions now. To consider this problem in more detail, consider the 29th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.
1. In a radio interview yesterday, Romney said of the president, "His campaign and the people working with him have focused almost exclusively on personal attacks."
That's both ironic and untrue.
2. In an attack ad launched this week, Romney said Obama "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements."
This is as obvious a lie as any presidential candidate has ever told.]
Even having reached the august and ever more cynical age of 54, it just seems to me a political race for elected office should involve some degree of facts, some sort of telling truth to gain support of voters.
Even in 1969 in a campaign to sell Richard Nixon chronicled in the book The Selling of the President
, Nixon proposed a War on Crime and marketed his secret plan to end the Viet Nam War.Now, politics has entered a fact free age without the need for the so called "liberal media" (The Selling of the President
) to call a lie a lie and a spade a spade.Great Mencken's ghost, Willard Romney couldn't even tell the truth if it walked up, slapped him in the face, and signed his tax returns for him.
How could anyone with even a functioining brain cell left even think about voting for this feckless fool? Even Fox "News" watching zombies should feel shame if they vote for this ticket.
Lies of Willard Romney part 29, literally, twenty-freakin'-nine: [Joe Klein reflected briefly on Mitt Romney this week, noting, "I can't remember a candidate so brazenly allergic to facts. What a travesty." Kevin Drum offered some related thoughts....
Of course, if months of distortions and lies causes irreparable harm to a presidential candidate, Romney might as well pack up and go to one of his mansions now. To consider this problem in more detail, consider the 29th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.
1. In a radio interview yesterday, Romney said of the president, "His campaign and the people working with him have focused almost exclusively on personal attacks."
That's both ironic and untrue.
2. In an attack ad launched this week, Romney said Obama "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements."
This is as obvious a lie as any presidential candidate has ever told.]
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/10/13221172-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xxix?lite
[This morning on “This Week,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed budget plan a “fraud” as Romney campaign senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom confirmed his candidate’s support for the plan that would trim trillions in federal spending over the next decade.
“The Ryan plan — and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack — but it isn’t. It’s not an attack on the person; it’s an attack on the plan. The plan’s a fraud,” said Krugman. “And so to say that — just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That’s not — if that’s — if that’s being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship. ”
Krugman, who has been critical of the Ryan, R-Wis., plan in the past, was responding to the Fehrnstrom, who confirmed Romney’s support for the plan after ABC News’ George Will asked Fehrnstrom to clarify his candidate’s stance on the Ryan proposal.
“He’s for the Ryan plan."]
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/paul-krugman-paul-ryan-budget-that-romney-supports-is-a-fraud/
[This morning on “This Week,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed budget plan a “fraud” as Romney campaign senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom confirmed his candidate’s support for the plan that would trim trillions in federal spending over the next decade.
“The Ryan plan — and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack — but it isn’t. It’s not an attack on the person; it’s an attack on the plan. The plan’s a fraud,” said Krugman. “And so to say that — just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That’s not — if that’s — if that’s being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship. ”
Krugman, who has been critical of the Ryan, R-Wis., plan in the past, was responding to the Fehrnstrom, who confirmed Romney’s support for the plan after ABC News’ George Will asked Fehrnstrom to clarify his candidate’s stance on the Ryan proposal.
“He’s for the Ryan plan."]
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/paul-krugman-paul-ryan-budget-that-romney-supports-is-a-fraud/
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