Sometimes I get so frustrated and/or disheartened and/or annoyed by some of the news stories of the day that I can’t bring myself to write about them. Here are a few recent reports that made my blood pressure hit the roof. I am avoiding delving into them at length out of concern for my physical and mental health.
“Help the rich get richer. Soak the middle class and seniors.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is launching online ads that slam 17 GOP lawmakers for supporting and voting for Paul Ryan’s insane budget. How insane? Via the wonderful Heather at C and L:
“Republicans say this budget is the best way to communicate their ‘governing philosophy,’ so we’re telling the people what that means: more for millionaires and corporate special interests, less for the middle class and seniors,” DCCC spokesperson Emily Bittner said in a statement. “That might be the Republican Congress’ governing philosophy – but it certainly isn’t the right philosophy for America’s middle class.”
Catering to their wealthy corporate buddies and trying to kill Medicare are what sank the GOP previously, so of course, they’re repeating the effort, and then some. All those claims of an Extreme Makeover (extremist makeover?) and showing how much they “care” about us are just words on paper that they have been ordered to read. They say ‘em but they sure don’t believe ‘em. They need votes.
Maybe it was all one big April Fools joke, like the party itself.
“This to us is something that we’re not going to give up on, because we’re not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people.”
This video has been out there for a day or so, and I’ve been meaning to post it but never got around to it. Until now, and it is so worth another look. It’s priceless.
Amazing how the truth slips out inadvertently, isn’t it? What’s that definition of a political gaffe again? Oh yeah: A remark that reveals some truth that a politician didn’t intend to admit.
There is an L.A. Times op-ed today by Nelson Lichtenstein about “Obamacare’s other plus.” It’s a good read, so please link over.
If it is done right, the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) may well promise uninsured Americans a lot more than cheap, reliable medical care. It can also open the door to the democratic empowerment of millions of poor people, who are often alienated from much of the nation’s civic life, by strengthening the organizations that give them a voice. [...]
But confusion, fear and ignorance among millions of potential beneficiaries can still doom the reform… Obamacare’s success depends on maximum possible participation.
Lichtenstein then warns of an Affordable Care Act implosion if that doesn’t happen.
And here comes the part where it becomes obvious why those on the right resent Obamacare so much. I mean other than their hatred of President Obama, not-rich people, and not-white people:
And here is where Obamacare’s peril turns into a promise of enormous social and political benefit. As the poor, alienated and fearful realize that tangible benefits can be won through their neighborhood clinic, civic group or local trade union, and are drawn into civic life and grass-roots action, these organizations that are essential to the health reform’s implementation will be strengthened as agents ofcivic engagement and citizen mobilization.
This is not a case of creating more voters who will support Obama because of Obamacare. This is a 21st century example of Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19th century observation that the health of American democracy depends on the vibrancy of numerous voluntary organizations.
With all due respect to Ezra, you’re hearing Paul Ryan, who is cruel and clueless, and this is LaLaLand fantasy budget proposal, being treated seriously by someone like Ezra Klein, who is treated seriously inside the Beltway. For too long… inside the Beltway has had a a fixation, an obsession, with the deficit. We now see the deficits dwindling…
The danger is that Paul Ryan, bringing this out, is gonna shift the playing field so it moves even further to the right.
Ezra Klein then says Ryan deserves to be taken seriously because he’s the House Budget Chairman. Well, newsflash, Ezra, per my November 2012 post “Global warming skeptic set to chair House Science Committee“(the following was true as of then):
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress.
Should we take those people seriously too?
Here is the entire segment, all of it worth watching:
Yes, Paul Ryan is proposing that Congress make the very same cuts to Medicare that he previously ranted and raved about during the 2012 elections. No hypocrite, he!
Ezra Klein:
Keep two numbers in mind… 59 and zero. 59% of Paul Ryan’s cuts, 59%, so almost 6 out of 10 dollars that he cuts… come from health care mostly for the poor [Medicaid, Obamacare, some Medicare cuts affecting the working class and the poor].
The “zero” is taxes. He doesn’t raise a dollar in taxes.
The experts I’ve spoken to don’t think that is mathematically possible.
Joy Ann Reid:
He doesn’t mind spending federal money, as long as it’s on the rich.
Ari Melber:
Just ’cause it has numbers in it doesn’t make it a budget. Right? My lottery ticket is not a budget just ’cause it’s a bunch of numbers on the page.
He’s not a deficit hawk, he’s a health care hawk.
This was a terrific segment. Please watch it all the way through.
NOTE: Apologies for the mistake on Katrina vandenHeuvel’s name, which I clearly do know. I’m, literally half asleep and let my fingers do the walking for me. It’s been corrected.
Daniel Webster, the Director Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, did his homework, and the results confirm what our common sense would also tell us: If you repeal background checks, then criminals have an easier time acquiring guns… and have an easier time using them to kill people.
Normally it’s very hard to ascribe changes in homicide rates to any one particular factor, but Webster and his co-workers found strong evidence to support the idea that the repeal of the permit-to-purchase law was the cause. [...]
90 percent of states allow private sales to take place without background checks, suggesting that if Webster’s research is right, it’s possible that we might be able to reduce national homicides by nearly 25 percent if there were universal, federally mandated background checks. That would translate, given the 11,000 annual gun homicides in the United States, to 2,750 lives saved per year.
Why is this so difficult for people like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre to grasp? Oh wait. It isn’t. They just don’t care because profits and (rapidly diminishing) power are their priority, not saving lives.
Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below: Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
You can read the complete story here or on Wikipedia.
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