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

Bill Clinton

"11 Things The GOP Doesn't Want You To Know About The Deficit"

[The national debt surpassed a record $16 trillion on Friday: a massive figure thatRepublican politicians are using to slam the Obama administration....

But while Republican politicians claim that an Obama spending binge is responsible for the ballooning deficit, the truth is not so simple.

1.  The deficit has ballooned not because of specific spending measures, but because of the recession....]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/republican-party-deficit_n_1858295.html?ref=topbar

"Country of shared opportunities"

[Clinton only mentioned Republican Mitt Romney a handful times, but laid out a framework that he said defines this election. “If you want a winner-take-all, you’re-on-your-own society, you should support the Republican ticket,” Clinton said. “But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility -– a we're-all-in-this-together society -- you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/bill-clinton-speech_n_1850526.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=090612&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeaturePhoto&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Top ten old Irish phrases

[May the road rise to meet you -

From the Gaelic, "Go N-eiri an bothar leat", which means may success be with you.

Top of the morning -

Hollywood invention, never used in Ireland.

And the rest of the day to yourself -

Also Hollywood.

Slainte -

Meaing good health. Slainte is the Gaelic word for health.

Slan -

Meaning farewell. Slan is the Gaelic word for safe so it means keep safe.

Erin go Bragh -

Meaning "Ireland forever" in Gaelic.

A hundred thousand welcomes -

From the Gaelic “Cead Mile Failte” which means literally that.

Dia is Muire Dhuit -

Meaning hello in Gaelic. The phrase literally means "God and Mary with you."

Dia is Mhuire Duit agus Padraig -

How the person responds,"God and Mary and St. Patrick with you."

Pog Mo Thoin -

Yes it means what you think it does, Gaelic for kiss my a**.]http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/Top-ten-old-Irish-phrases-and-their-meanings---Eirinn-Go-Brach-168601386.html

"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

Broken Hearted Saviour - Big Head Todd and the Monsters

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/saviour

Harold & Kumar Go to Charlotte

[Actor Kal Penn stumped for President Barack Obama Tuesday night here at the Democratic National Convention, and not surprisingly, the "Harold & Kumar" star steered clear of discussing the incumbent's record on drug policy.

Before his speech, however, the Obama campaign released a video to promote the convention featuring Penn's stoner character from "Harold & Kumar." The video opens with Obama talking on the phone to Penn, who's munching on chips and pizza while watching cartoons with co-star Jon Cho.

Yahoo News caught up with Penn inside the Time Warner Cable Arena after his convention speech and asked about his thoughts on Obama's marijuana policy record. Of course, Penn is an actor and not a marijuana policy activist. But after his appearance in the campaign video, we had to ask.

"I feel like I get this question because of the nature of the movies I'm in, and I know that you wouldn't ask Anthony Hopkins whether he eats people in real life after 'Silence of the Lambs,'" Penn said. "So I'm just going to call you out on that."

Fair enough (although appearing in an Obama video as a stoner makes it fair game.)

"But," he went on to say, "I think that the president's been pretty consistent with that. He's not in favor of legalization, we should be open about something like that. But what the president has done is take a really smart look at the Department of Justice and said, given the fact that the federal government has limited resources, we should be allocating them toward violent criminals and not towards nonviolent criminals. We can see that not just in things like marijuana but in things like immigration reform where he's going after and deporting violent criminals and making sure that if you're a DREAM Act eligible student that you know that you can apply for your deferred status. Wherever the federal government has an appropriate role, I think the president's been very consistent in that. That's something that I think folks should know."]
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/kal-penn-president-obama-consistent-marijuana-policy-165129487--election.html?_esi=1

Elizabeth Warren

Tammy Duckworth, Hero

Slut Shame, Victim blame, and history of rape

Fundamentalists in many cultures deem women who "have relations" outside of marriage as sluts, worthless & unprotected by custom or law.  As a nascent male feminist, blogs help me realize how a myriad of ways patriarchal history & societal rules today perpetuate themselves; males oft perceive females as available for the taking as property or chattel.

Porn can ratchet this view up exponentially for those without way to see differences between reality & fantasy.

Swear to goddess all should carry warning from Gordon Solie: "Kids, don't try this at home; these people are athletes."  Plus yoga devotees to boot.

Plus, in my day--roughly the 70's--you had to turn 18 or have fake id and search out stores in seedy neighborhoods to procure porn, making it rare & special while now all of all ages can find it with click of a mouse & high speed connection, great for adolescent males, like giving a loaded AK-47 with safety off to a toddler.  

This goes further than "adult" media, what with gymnastic outfits cut higher than ever before & nonsense broadcasting company focusing on posteriors of female beach volleyball players. People criticized Olympian Gabby Douglas' hair, for Echidne's sake.  Even comic books come with art exaggerating female physical traits.

Sure, sex sells but how will media shape my nieces?  Will they become themselves or try to become what they perceive some other wants?

Sure, all healthy relationships carry compromise which carries change.  When dating my future wife, told her upfront Sunday afternoons reserved for Miami Dolphins games.  Raised in Miami, she sometimes would say hey, it's halftime, let's do it.  After marriage when I suggested the same, she got mad: "Oh, THAT'S ALL YOU EVER THInK AbOUT IS FOObTALL.  WHERE'S THE ROMAnCE?  ( note: Sorry, "n" & "b" keyboard keys cashed & have to cut & paste 'em.)

So sex lasts for a while, but friends stay forever, like friends  b & b still make each other laugh like sharing an eternal inside joke.

Me, I just seek a lunch date with a genetic female & will pay if we go to beefy king.

"How many times exactly does someone have to be insulted, harassed, or terrorized before the conversation can be about the person who accosted them & not about what else they could have done? Should have done? How many incidents (all with different people, different settings, different responses) does it take before the discussion is about ways to stop the harassers & not ways to respond to them so that they maybe, possibly, if you’re lucky won’t escalate?"

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2012/09/04/on-street-harassment-victim-blaming-life-in-my-skin/

[Men have been in the business of deciding when it is okay and when it is not okay to rape women for thousands of years. If Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's claim that women's bodies magically fend off rapist sperm or the GOP's meditation on what's really rape sound medieval to you, that's because they are. Check out our timeline of the male notions and common-law statutes that have defined rape over time, and see for yourself which eras the GOP's views on rape line up with:

Property theft: The Code of Hammurabi, one of the first sets of written laws, which dates to about 1780 BC (and contains the old "eye for an eye"), defines rape of a virgin as property damage against her father. If you were married, sorry lady: You were an adulteress. Punishment? You get thrown in the river.]
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/men-defining-rape-history

"Cynthia “Thea” Rodgers drew this one. Her website is here."

http://margotmagowan.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/what-if-the-male-avengers-posed-like-the-female-one/

"Nick Perks is the artist for this one. Here is his website. This is the first of two pieces from Nick this week!"

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/03/01/the-line-it-is-drawn-79-male-superheroes-see-how-the-other-side-lives/

"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

Robert Reich on Romney/Ryan

September is Hunger Action Month

"September is Hunger Action Month. Nearly 49 million people in America face hunger. That is 1 in 6 of the U.S. population – including more than 1 in 5 children."

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.

[The Flimflam Man
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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=3

Guns Don't Kill People; Karaoke Kills People

[As surprising as it may seem, karaoke has lead to tragedy more often than one might think.

In 2010, the New York Times reported that there have been at least six killings in the last decade stemming from people singing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" in the Philippines. The crimes have become so prevalent that they've been dubbed the "My Way" killings by authorities.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/toddler-karaoke-death-killing-china_n_1852528.html?utm_hp_ref=crime

Meet the new boss, same as the old

[So on August 30th, 2012, with unemployment at 8.3 percent and with a serious long-term unemployment problem, Mitt Romney gives the RNC acceptance speech. He outlines a plan to create 12 million jobs in the next four years. As Jared Bernstein pointed out, that’s what Moody’s says will be created anyway. But forget that. How will Mitt Romney do this? He has a five point plan (numbers in [brackets] here and in the rest of the post are added by me)....

So his plan focuses on domestic energy production, school choice, trade agreements, cutting spending, and reducing taxes and regulations. This must be a set of priorities reflecting our terrifying moment of mass unemployment, right?

Let’s flash back to September 4th, 2008, at the RNC where John McCain is giving his speech accepting the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Unemployment is 6.1 percent, though the Great Moderation is coming to an end; within a year it’ll be close to 10 percent. Two weeks later, as Lehman Brothers was collapsing, McCain would say ”the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” What were his recommendations for the economy in that nomination speech?...

It’s the same exact agenda. Specifically, the Romney agenda for job creation in 2012 is stuff that John McCain wanted to do anyway in 2008.]
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/02/new_gop_plan_same_as_old_gop_plan/

Florida's high-risk pool for health coverage

[The Affordable Care Act, which takes full effect in 2014, was supposed to save people like Elder (with pre-existing conditions and no medical coverage) in the interim by way of high-risk pools, also known as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan or PCIP.

The pools are supposed to be a safety net, but many, like Elder, are falling through the cracks.

Elder's family spent her final months fighting for Medicaid, with no clue that they qualified for Florida's high-risk pool. They are not alone: Of the estimated 200,000-375,000 people expected to enroll in PCIP in the first year, less than one-third have done it, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.]
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/01/health/elder-insurance/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Ouch!

Me too.

[aldron on Sep 4, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Football isn’t our most beautiful game, but it is our most pure. It combines speed, grace, and unadulterated brutality in a way that no other sport does, and there is something uniquely attractive about that. But I’m starting to question whether I should find that attractive, or whether I should even watch at all.

I’ve already made the decision that my hypothetical future son, should I have one, won’t be allowed on a football field. The proven dangers are too risky, the unproven dangers riskier still. I don’t want my child damaged beyond repair by a brutal hit; even more, I don’t want him cognitively mangled by repeated, constant bodily abuse.

And yet, for some reason, I spend hours watching other people’s children do exactly that.

At what point does it become too much?]
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/09/04/788901/my-personal-struggle-with-the-future-of-football/

Green Day - Kill The DJ [Official Video]