Center for Medicare Advocacy Looks at the Affect of Pres. Economic Plan on Medicare

This is an important Alert by the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The Center has reviewed President Obama’s plan for economic growth and deficit reduction, which is structured to pay for the bold Jobs Act, sheds an impartial review of how this plan, if implemented, will affect current and future Medicare recipients.

The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction: A First Look at the Impact on Medicare

Last week, President Obama unveiled his recommendations to Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (“Super Committee”).[1] The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction seeks to pay for the President’s jobs bill and produce net savings of more than $3 trillion over the next decade.[2] The proposal includes $320 billion in savings from changes to federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid (including $248 billion in Medicare savings). In addition, the President has threatened to veto any bill that takes away Medicare benefits without an increase in contributions from “the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.”[3]

Mississippi & Texas GOP ignore jobs and wage war on birth control instead.

What will it take to get Republicans to focus on investing in our future as a nation; namely jobs and the economy and not radical ideology steeped in fear, hate and bigotry? Tonight, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow talked about how some Republican lawmakers’ at the state level are pushing through legislation that will ban birth control, family planning and vital research, citing a ballot initiative in Mississippi:

Mississippi voters will be allowed to decide on a ballot measure that defines “personhood” from the moment of fertilization, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled last week. The measure could potentially outlaw abortions, birth control, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research across the state.

Paul Ryan’s new health care voucher for those with employer-based insurance.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) | Photo/AP-J. Scott Applewhite

Once again, Congressman Paul Ryan comes up with an idea that would hurt American citizens instead of help us. On Tuesday, Rep. Ryan “proposed a plan … that could effectively dismantle the way most Americans get health insurance by reducing incentives to join employer-sponsored plans.” [....] He wants to replace the Affordable Care Act with another voucher scheme similar to what he proposed for Medicare. Ryan proposed a voucher rumored to be worth about $8,000 in place of Medicare despite the average cost of a hospital stay, or a year’s worth or medicine, is far greater. Equally ludicrous is Ryan’s plan that proposes 170 million Americans now covered through their employer give up that coverage for a Republican refundable tax credit to buy coverage on their own.

First of all, Americans are all too familiar with Republican tax credits, cuts, etc. The only people to benefit from them are people who are corporations and the ultra-rich. 

Worst Persons: Morris, Paul, Loesch

Worst Persons: Morris, Paul, Loesch, posted with vodpod

More questions for Rep. Stearns going after Planned Parenthood and not jobs.

Besides wasting value time and resources chasing ghosts by going after Planned Parenthood, again, Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) is standing firm with the rest of Republicans against the American Jobs Act. Florida’s unemployment rate is at 10.7 percent; and there are counties in Rep. Stearn’s District where the unemployment rate is at 12.9 percent. By not voting for the Jobs Act, Rep. Stearns is denying Floridians a chance to have:

1. Payroll tax cut in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level.
2. Immediate investments available to put workers back on the job NOW rebuilding and modernizing Florida’s infrastructure, schools, community colleges and more:
• $1,578,600,000 to create a minimum of 20,500 local jobs fixing and modernizing Florida’s highways, transit, rail and aviation, putting thousands of Florida’s construction workers back on the job now.

Troy Davis, Clarence Thomas … by Andrew Kreig.

Today’s must read |Troy Davis, Clarence Thomas — and Georgia on Our Minds | OpEdNews.com | by Andrew Kreig 9/27/2011

Georgia’s shameful execution of Troy Davis on Sept. 21 prompts me to share the research tools below.

Three decades ago, I researched a Georgia case involving Jerry Lee Banks, a young black man sentenced to death for a white couple’s murder after he reported finding their bodies in the woods.

Banks could afford to pay his defense lawyer only $10, plus a kettle of fish and collard greens. The lawyer never called independent witnesses who could have proven innocence. He created as an appeal for Banks a semi-religious poem never actually mailed to court. In sum, the facts of the Banks frame-up and prompt death sentence reversed my view on whether a completely innocent person could be convicted under our modern legal system.

Rep. Stearns goes after Planned Parenthood instead of jobs

Recently, only 12 percent of Americans approved of the way Congress is doing its job. With ratings like that, one would think Republicans in Congress would be frantic to do something constructive. Not so. Yesterday Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-FL) sent Planned Parenthood Federation of America a letter announcing that his committee has started an “investigation” of Planned Parenthood and demanding financial and other records for every Planned Parenthood health center.

We’ve been down this road before, several times. Despite a shrinking middle-class struggling to pay their bills, find a job or keep the one they have, Republicans continue to launch expensive “investigations” to nowhere. This is not about finding waste or wrongdoing. This is an expensive campaign to create an illusion of wrongdoing for political gain — and at the tax payers’ expense.

Ohio’s New Voting Law Faces Repeal Referendum

Ohioan’s are fighting back against a new voter law that is scheduled to go into effect this Friday. The law, if it takes effect, cuts deep (180 changes) into former voting laws for the state. One citizen wrote a letter to the editor highlighting inevitable problems that will arise in 2012 if this law takes effect:

By slashing into the time frames of absentee voting, mail-in voting and early voting, HB194 aims at making voting more difficult for the working class, urban poor, minorities, disabled and elderly. And that’s only three of its 180 alterations!

Rep. Favors (D-TN) Helps Organize Voter ID Assistance

I first saw this story on Daily Kos and, as they suggested, I’m reprinting it here. While the Department of Justice and the US Senate Judiciary does their review of new voter ID laws being promoted by Republicans in 34 states, some public figures aren’t waiting. Their making sure voters will be able to vote in 2012.

Cornell West, Tavis Smiley and Ralph Nader?

Cornell West and Tavis Smiley are teaming up with Ralph Nader to “strengthen the President by having a conversation with him through a primary.” Incomprehensible behavior, at best. I expect this from Nader who made a career out of running for president every four years between 1992 and 2008. As for Smiley and West getting caught up in the negative rhetoric against the President, especially since the groundwork for same has been deftly laid out by Republicans over the past couple of years, fortunately, they (including Nader) don’t matter.

Elizabeth Warren on fax taxes.

Enough said.

What do We Really Know About Tom Foley, NTC Inc. and the Bibb Mill?

UPDATE: Connecticut’s US senate race is drawing out a lot of what we saw before during the 2010 elections. Linda McMahon, who was handily trounced last time around, is announcing her candidacy as well as Rob Simmons and  Tom Foley is also stepping up to the plate. The updated message from Connecticut’s citizens, “we didn’t want you then and we certainly don’t want you now.” Here’s a refresher on Tom Foley, NTC Inc. and the Bibb Mill that was shared during Connecticut’s gubernatorial race in 2010:

Nader’s Presidential Run 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008. Senate Candidate 2010. Advisor 2012?

UPDATE: After two years, I’m updating this article. I believe its fitting since Ralph Nader updates his political upheaval every four years. My resurrection is to state once again what a spoiler he is. And once again, the stakes are too high.

Too many people are out of work. The gates of poverty are bursting open by a middle-class driven over the edge rushing in. Voting rights are being pushed back to a time akin to the Jim Crow laws of the old south. Women’s rights are being trounced on by a bunch of Dominionists. An entire political party is driving us to economic ruin and Ralph Nader wakes up and tries to and figure out a way to feel important one more time.

If only Troy Davis were a white hiker lost in Iran.

It’s a sad commentary about who we are when justice is skewed by race and color. That’s all this is. Officials in Georgia rejected all evidence that says Mr. Troy Davis is innocent and will not stop his execution tomorrow evening. When we execute an innocent man (not that I believe in the death penalty because I don’t) we kill a part of America’s heart. We destroy the family of the person wrongfully convicted and then executed. We also destroy the family of the victim leading them down a path of false closure and no justice. And we leave a stain on America’s heart so ugly it take centuries to wash away.