psst!

Seniors Lead Fight Against Health Care Repeal

2011-01-11T06:46:00.001-06:00

As Republicans Try to Repeal Health Care Law, New Benefits for Seniors Kick In

House Republicans are wasting no time trying to repeal health care reform. The new Congress convened last Wednesday, and the House Rules Committee met on Thursday to report a rule to repeal the health care law. The full House voted Friday, 236-181, largely along party lines, to move ahead to next week's final vote, which is scheduled for Wednesday, January 12. Due to the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, that vote has been moved to next week.

The plan to repeal the health care reform law would increase the deficit by $230 billion by 2021, according to a preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. Because of the law, many important, positive changes to Medicare - such as free preventive screenings - went into effect on January 1. Those benefits, as well as a 50% discount for brand name drugs and 7% off generics for beneficiaries in the Part D doughnut hole, would disappear if the repeal were to become law. The doughnut hole is set to close entirely by 2020, but a repeal would change that. In addition, subsidies for early retiree health care would disappear. The 2010 law also extends the solvency of Medicare by 12 years. To see the Alliance for Retired Americans fact sheet on 2011 Medicare changes, go HERE

It is expected that nearly all or all House Republicans will vote for the repeal legislation, H.R. 2, next week. However, Senate Democrats and grassroots organizations are pushing back. On Monday, the Senate Democratic Leadership – Sens. Harry Reid (NV), Dick Durbin (IL), Patty Murray (WA), Charles Schumer (NY) and Debbie Stabenow (MI) - wrote then soon-to-be Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and told him that repeal of health care reform will not occur in the Senate.

The five Senate Democratic leaders asked the Ohio Republican in the letter to preserve the health care law or risk leaving seniors without expanded insurance coverage for prescription drugs that the law provides. In addition, the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, a coalition of 65 senior organizations, including the Alliance, sent a letter to all members of the House on Wednesday night urging a vote against repeal; to view that, go HERE.

“Repeal would hurt retirees immediately,” said Barbara J. Easterling, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans. “It would be a giant step backwards given all of the problems that were addressed by the 2010 health reform law.”

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Gabrielle Giffords, Part of a Long List

2011-01-10T06:52:00.000-06:00

Back in September, HERE I wrote of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her "Sense of Congress" letter in defense of the preservation of Social Security as the right-wing re-energized its drive for privatization and reductions in benefits. This took courage on her part, as her district is largely Republican. Today she lies in a hospital fighting for her life after being gunned down by a crazy man said to be angry with her politics.

As with all such events of violence upon the innocent; people are slinging accusations, and blame, and grasping for answers. Liberals are blaming right-wing rhetoric and Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" website "targeting" liberals. At some point, I have no doubt that violent video games will be trotted out as a contributing factor. There might even be hearings.

But, the real problem, the underlying problem, will be, as always, ignored. We Americans exalt violence, and praise and highly reward those who practise violence as a profession. Doubt me? Watch the NFL playoffs, watch a hockey match, or boxing match and come here and try to dispute me. We tolerate and even venerate violence on on hand, and deplore and tsk-tsk its manifestations on the other.

H. Rap Brown said it very well back in the "Day's of Rage", when our inner cities burned, "Violence is as American as cherry pie!" No, he did not say apple, he said cherry.

Doubt him? Lincoln, McKinley, Garfield, Huey Long, George Wallace, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, Matthew Sheperd, Martin Luther King, the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church shooting, Oklahoma City, Harvey Milk, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, Allan Berg, George Tiller, Columbine...OK? Enough? Got it?

There's others if you demand it!

Our problem is multi-fold. One, we are very ambivalent about violence, and two, we have not yet decided, as a culture, that we want to develop a way, or programs, which will, early on, identify the deeply disturbed among us, intervene, and effectively treat them or else remove them from the general population so that they no longer present a risk. I believe the first contributes to our lack of will on the second.

And, three, how do we, as a free society, devise a means to monitor and identify violence prone people without relinquishing our freedom and individuality to some sort of totalitarian mental health overseer? Well, starters would be effective, universal, and standardized childhood education with professionals trained to recognize the warning signs and readily available resources and programs designed to intervene or segregate those who display the warnings signs. It really is that simple!

If course we won't. We'll burn candles, pray, weep, wring our hands, and hold vigils and marches for awhile, blame each other, then we'll forget about it until the next tragic event wrought by some maniac. I'm betting by Superbowl Sunday we'll have pretty much moved on.

Sunday Pot Roast = Thursday Hash

2011-01-06T08:53:00.001-06:00

Back in the day, as the current cliche goes, people were less cavalier about food and waste. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. At least once a month, when I was growing up, pot roast was the Sunday meal...Sundays we didn't call it lunch, dinner or supper..it was the "meal". Mom would load a huge roast into a roaster, load it with potatos, carrots, celery, and seasoning and spices known only to her, and let it cook at least half a day, occasionally adding a bit of water to keep things from drying out.

That roast and those vegetables along with gravy made from the roast's drippings and home made yeast rolls, green onions in a water glass, and radishes on a saucer, all washed down with sugar sweetened iced-tea were "the meal". But, as delicious as it was, that was mere prelude.

By Tuesday, that pot roast and vegetables would show up for supper as a meat pie; steaming, savory and rich, made from the pot roast and vegetables leftovers and freshly made-from-scratch pie dough. Oh, but that was not the end of the pot roast. Uh huh, not by a long shot. My mom must have bought a full haunch of steer for the Sunday meal, because come Thursday, it would make its curtain call as hash. And such hash it was: that left over roast would be ground up on a manual meat grinder, which was screwed down on the table edge, and transformed from a sweetly rich meat to a spicy and mouth watering mixture heated on the stove top with small chucks of diced portato and onion and served over freshly toasted bread.

See what I mean? We had no garbage disposal system and nary an iota of that roast and its trimmings ever found their way into a garbage pail...and I don't remember that we ever thought of them as leftovers.

Yep, a pot roast was always good for three meals and at least one school lunch sack with a thick cold roast beef sandwich slathered with tangy German mustard.

And, on roast beef Sundays, it was de riguer' that dessert be pineapple upside down cake. Now, most such cakes are heavy sodden lumps of dough and sweetness, but not my mom's. Somehow she managed that the cake it self be light and fluffy with the pinapple and topping complimenting rather than overpowering it. My older brother and I knew our mom was the best cook in the world and when he got married he belaboured his poor bride with imprecations that she get recipes and learn from his mom how to cook.

Shortly after their honeymoon, they came for Sunday pot roast and after dessert and coffee my brother began boasting of how his mom made everything from scratch and that was the only way he could stand pineapple upside down cake, and that today's may had been the best ever. Our mom just smiled and said nothing.

Shortly after clearing the table and putting things away, mom called the new bride over and with a wink and a smile led her on the back porch which the trash can was kept, lifted its cover, and showed her, without a word, where she had thrown the Duncan Hines cake mix box.

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The Republican Strategy - How YOU Can Fight Back

2011-01-05T11:00:00.000-06:00

Here is the Republican strategy at its simplest in less than a paragraph.

Drive up the deficit, spend off all surpluses and reserves, put the nation in a state of near bankruptcy and blame "entitlements" and a tax-and-spend philosophy of government for the problems and dismantle all social safety nets such as Social Security CHIPS, Medicare and Medicaid and hand them over to their deregulated, unregulated and never regulated,multi-national corporate masters to plunder, rape and pillage. They're doing it nationally, and from state-to-state.

Additionally they vilify and label with pejoratives any groups or organizations, such as unions, that stand between them and their goals.

The answer to this is very challenging; first there must emerge leadership which can unify labor, the middle class, academia/students and the working and perpetually poor.

Secondly; that leadership will have to concurrently educate, organize and mobilize around one to two key, core issues which transcend and affect those key constituencies.

Finally, I firmly believe it is a fight to the death, both figurative and literal. Unless we as individuals begin standing up to the arrogance and bullying of the right in our churches, neighborhoods, clubs, social gatherings, and street corners, we will surely lose. We may have to lose friends, jettison relatives, and walk alone down some lonely alleys, but, if we do not give in, we will prevail. We may have to lie down in front of the tanks. Moral imperative without action is meaningless!

Just don't back down, sass, argue, fight back, if pushed-shoved back, if slapped-slug back. Multiply yourself, join a progressive organization and help them.

Here's an anthem for you:

Obama Fails at Hold 'Em Poker

2011-01-04T06:30:00.000-06:00

Republicans (and some yahoos calling themselves Democrat) are hellbent on destroying our social safety net despite the contrary wishes of the vast majority of American people. Yesterday, we witnessed a weird convergence of these two indisputable facts as the Republican controlled congress voted to repeal health care reform and CBS Sixty-Minutes and Vanity Fair released a poll indicating that a combined 81% of Americans would either raise taxes on the wealthy (61%) or cut military spending (20%) in order to bring into line the nation's fiscal problems. A scant handful, almost no more than the margin for error percentage, would cut Social Security or Medicare.

However, late last year President Obama went "all in" and tried to fill an inside straight by giving Republicans an extension of the Bush era tax cuts in order to gain a few palliative concessions including an extension of unemployment benefits for workers displaced by the current depression which was triggered by corporate greed and banking and Wall Street shenanigans. Well, "the river" gave him no help at all! Not only did the GOP get an extension of the Bush administration's tax policies, they are poised to rake in all the chips under the guise of Social Security reform.

All of which is to say, even Obama is ignoring the will of the people and gambling away our future.

Obama will want to stay in the game, and in order to do so, he will have to hustle up the means to stay at the table. If past is prelude to present, we can expect him to capitulate on "entitlement" reform as he did on health care reform, Wall Street and banking regulation, and tax cuts for the wealthy. In short, he is going to pawn our social safety net in order to stay at the table.

Even before "the flop" of the next hand, we can expect him to ante up raising the retirement age (which hammers working women and physical labor intensive workers the hardest), and reducing future benefits, and never mind that most of America is opposed, he has allowed himself to be sandbagged and an already poor hand is made awful by his lack of courage in standing up to the Republicans.

Already arrogant and out-of-control, the Republicans, financed by multi-national corporate money and pulled even further to the right by tea-bags and tea-hags will check and call, or raise and call him by saddling him with "entitlement reform". Nowhere in this will you see anything approaching meaningful jobs creation measures..that card has been pulled from the deck. You see, with an eye on 2012, the Republicans do not want the economy or jobs picture to improve and will check, call and bluff to that end.

You see, the president believes that by posturing to independents he can win reelection. After all, democrats and progressives have nowhere else to turn, or so the thinking goes. He's dismally wrong, is underplaying his hand, and will lose the pot...unfortunately, you and I will lose our shirts in the process.

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Big Changes For Medicare Beneficiaries

2011-01-03T07:14:00.000-06:00

Medicare beneficiaries to benefit from changes implemented this year:

Drug makers will provide a 50% discount on brand-name drugs and the government will provide a 7% discount on generics for consumers in the gap (Donut Hole). Each year, the discounts will increase until the consumer's share of costs while in the gap is 25% for both name-brand and generic drugs.

The elimination of deductibles and coinsurance for preventative services, as recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Coverage of annual wellness visit and personalized prevention plan at no charge.

Provides 10 % bonuses payments to primary care doctors working in areas with physician shortages.

Creates a CMS Innovation Center that will explore effective ways to create efficient payment systems that are patient-centered, and that preserve and provide incentive for high-quality care.

Reduces market basket updates for providers, beginning this year. This stabilizes payments to the various Medicare providers, reducing changes and uncertainty regarding their payments for services from Medicare.

Prohibits private "Medicare Advantage" plans from charging enrollees more than Original Medicare for certain medical services, including chemotherapy administration and skilled nursing care.

Freezes "Medicare Advantage" plans payment rates to 2010 levels. The intent is to reduce government subsidies to insurance companies by phasing in annual reforms intended to better match coverage costs in the private Medicare insurance market to those in the Original Medicare program.

Allows Medicare Advantage enrollees to switch to Original Medicare during the first 45 days of the new year.

Freezes inflation indexing for Medicare-related Part-B premiums for people with high incomes.

Raises drug plan premiums for individuals earning over $85, 000 and couples earning over $170,000.

Creates a new voluntary national insurance program for long-term care services (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Program, financed through voluntary payroll deductions. After five years of contributions one would be invested in the plan with an average lifetime benefit of $50.00 a day, depending on the needs of the person.

Time Is On My Side - See You Next Year

2010-12-30T10:33:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year

Sure, we have a hell of a fight ahead, but remember these sage words from that emminent social commentator and Peer of the Realm, Sir Mick Jagger, "Time Is On Our Side"

Ten Things Right-Wingers Will Try to Destroy Economic Recovery

2010-12-29T06:24:00.000-06:00

Isaiah J. Poole, Executive Editor of TomPaine.com has compiled a list of the top ten things the right-wing has for its legislative agenda that will virtually insure the complete destruction of America's middle class. Here, in order, is a condensed and abridged list of the items on that agenda. A link to the full article appearing on AlterNet follows:

1. Repeal Health-Care Reform

Never mind that there are 50-million Americans now without coverage and repeal would cause an estimated $143-billion increase in the deficit from loss of projected savings and add 20-30 million more people to the uninsured.

2. Restrain the Federal Government's Ability to Support Job-Creation

If they have their way, you can say goodbye to: Community Development Block Grants, new Small Business Administration initiatives, and the requirement that the Federal Reserve take employment impact into account when it sets monetary policy.

3. Slash Federal Infrastructure Spending

Anyone remember a bridge collapse in Minnesota that killede rush hour commuters? While other countries, such as China, are investing heavily in infrastructure, American politicians are hailed as heroes for rejecting projects designed to move goods and people effectively. Think a moment about what that implies for our ability to compete in the global economy.

4. Dismantle Medicare (and Give Seniors "Vouchers")

Shifting increasing out-of-pocket costs onto seniors rather than restraining the growth of those costs by insurance companies would be one likely outcome of the so called "voucher" system.

5. Undo Financial Reform and Unleash The Predators

Imagine a crime wave in your city. Now imagine a city council that puts fewer cops on the beat, makes certain the cops are docile, and that harasses those who are not. Got it?

6. Support Big Oil and Kill Green Jobs

The conservatives would have the Environmental Protection Agency serve the polluters rather than the planet!

7. Don't Just Cut Government Waste; Cripple Government

George W. Bush said, "turning Clinton's surpluses into huge deficits was incredibly positive news" because it would put government in a "financial straitjacket." Plans to reduce spending to 2008 levels would deepen the recession and cause the loss of hundreds of thousands more jobs.

8. Amp up the Insecurity in Social Security

Cutting to the bone, Republicans want the $2.6 trillion trust fund to pay for tax breaks for the very wealthy and offset the costs of two wars.

9. Starve Public Education

Currently, one in four (*25%) of our nation's youths fail the Army Entrance Examination. That is a problem, and the conservatives want to dismantle the very agency tasked with addressing the problem, the Department of Education.

10. Rob the Poor and Middle Income Americans to Give to the Wealthy

Cutting taxes on the rich and two unfunded wars caused the deficit, now conservatives want to cut the things government does for the people in the name of reducing the deficit.

Full Article

Sergeant With a Death Wish

2010-12-28T14:25:00.001-06:00

When I served on active duty with the Marine Corps, I served with a medal-of-honor winning staff sergeant with an obvious death wish. The man was a killer, a stone-cold psychopath that one just did not provoke. {Provoke, hell--we stayed out of his line of sight, except when duty demanded}. Duty demnanded we attend his classes on hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting..sheer terror, punctuated by relief when it was over for that week.

He got his medal in Korea for wiping out a machine gun nest of Chinese soldiers and then turning the machine gun on their company position enabling his pinned down platoon to break through and join the rest of the company and regiment on its march to the sea in sub-zero weather while under constant attack. He had been riding on a tank directing its fire when it was hit by an anti-tank round and he was thrown into an enemy machine gun nest. Without rifle or sidearm, although already seriously wounded himself, he attacked the five man crew with only his KA-Bar knife. He killed all five.

At Camp Pendleton, he spent his liberty hours down at the base ranch riding bareback broncos and bulls. As I said, a pronounced death wish.

I often wonder what his reactions to today's G.I.'s might be. He didn't seem to be the sort of man who would welcome women or openly gay people into the military. Look, even back then, he despised enlisted men who were married--"if my Marine Corps wanted you to have a goddamn wife, we'd of given her to you with your friggin' web gear", he'd hiss at any unfortunate asking for liberty to attend to family affairs.

I first met him when I was serving chow during boot camp and he was the Senior Drill Instructor of the motivation platoon. Now, the motivational platoons, back then, were made up the recruits who couldn't cut it in a regular platoon because they were either wise-asses or bad-asses, or feigning psychosis to get out of their enlistments. These weren't the overweight or mentally slow ones, they were for a different platoon. These guys were the incorrigibles, the ones other services would have cashiered or never enlisted in the first place. The Marine's response was just up crank up the "boot-camp" experience to the power of ten under the supervision of someone, tougher, meaner and crazier than any of his charges for as long as it took to make Marines of them. Some spent months in boot camp, until they "got with the program". And, you didn't graduate from the motivation plattoon, when it was determined you were squared away there, you would be assigned to a regular platoon that was just starting on their rotation through the 12-weeks.

So, while serving chow, about my second week in, he marched in the motivational platoon, and at the end of the line began holding out his tray for us to serve--this is different, because all other drill instructors would eat in an area set off for them with a recruit serving them at the table. But, for whatever reason, he was eating with his platoon and the kid next to me splashed gravy on his blouse. A tattooed hand shot out across the line, grabbed the kid, lifted him and slammed him on the ground...the kid shrieked and wet himself as one hand, tattooed with LOVE on the fingers, held him down by pressing on his chest just over the heart, and the other, tattooed with HATE, grabbed his Adam's apple, shutting off the squealing as the staff sergeant knelt over the kid whispering, "You clumsy shit-bird, you do that again and I'll rip out your goddamn heart and eat it!"

That was it. Over in a flash. But it was my first intimation of how thin is the line between life and death and how quickly that line can be crossed. I did some very serious growing up in that instant.

The thing of it was, after boot camp, he was assigned to my company as a platoon sergeant. Thankfully, not my platoon...sometimes he'd look at me, and say, "I know you from somewhere." I never reminded him of where.

The other thing of it is, I made it a point to learn from him everything he taught about hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting. I've been in a few tights in my life, and only have been beaten down once...but then, I've always been very damned careful not to splash gravy on anyone.

Christians, Do You Help Shoulder the Cross?

2010-12-27T10:09:00.000-06:00

One wonders about Christians, not all of them--but, certainly most of them.

Over the past several weeks I've watched bemusedly (Okay, you got me there. Sometimes with annoyance and hostility) as people calling themselves Christian have demanded that others recognize and accept their right to claim the year-ending, winter-solstice, holiday season as theirs in recognition of the birth of little baby Jesus. They bleat and blather about Jesus as the "Reason for the Season", one even got holidays confused and tossed in the cross (Easter) as "The True Reason for the Season". Where I live, in occupied territory in the deepest red zone of East Texas, there are numerous yahoos displaying yard signs reading, "Happy Birthday Jesus".

Sure its sounds snarky to harp on it, but do these people really think their Jesus is driving by taking notes on who is celebrating his birthday (it's not, most biblical scholars think it's probably in September...just when football season is getting under way, and here In Texas, not even Jesus is going to trump that) and who is not--in a minute I'm going to reflect a bit on what he, if there really is such a he might be taking notes on.

You can't imagine the fury I ginned up by challenging, rather gently for me, these arrogant demands that people must shift from what is a pretty much fun, secular-humanist holiday and knuckle under to a puritanical religious ritual. "Go to hell", I was told by a sitting judge and one of her supporters. My brief dissertation on the historic background of Christmas, and why I, and so many others, resent being told that we must cast aside our secular beliefs and adopt the Christian viewpoint, was margenalized as a "rant".

And so it goes. But, here is what really perplexes me about these folks, and it really has nothing to do with the holiday season and much more to do with, where in the name of hell is the christian outrage at what is happening to so many our brothers and sisters. Christians, especially the more evangelical fundamentalists, love parables and allegories, so let's give them one.

Jesus is said to have fallen (not really spelled out in their bible--but, one of those, well, everybody knows it kind of things) under the weight of the cross three times. Only one person helped shoulder it, Simon of Cyrene. And, here's the thing about that. He didn't rush out and say, "Let me help you with that old boy". Hell no, a Roman soldier drafted him to the task! Which, in my mind, makes him the very first Christian...yeah he did it, but it wasn't out of love or generosity or grace or blessedness or whatever the current catch phrase of the religious right holds sway today. He was compelled to do so under pressure of authority!

Okay, here's my allegory. How many of you people calling yourself Christian will pick up and help carry the cross? Here's some of what it is loaded down with: drug and alcohol addiction and abuse stemming from a desire to deaden the pain of ignorance, unemployment, and institutionalized generational poverty, or men and women selling their bodies in order to obtain that soma against the cruelty of existence in a system which places no value on human spirit, or older and elderly people merely existing, not living, at the edge of starvation in the midst of aloneness. Oh, I could go on, but you surely get the picture.

When you shoulder those pieces of the cross, then I might believe there is some honesty in your sanctimonious posturings. I'm not talking about tithing, or a few bucks in the collection plate, or a blanket or coat in cold weather, and then back to your life, fading like Simon back to the obscurity of the crowd.

Got it?

An Interactive, Secular-Humanist X-Mas Card

2010-12-21T07:02:00.000-06:00

We are celebrating the Holiday Season in the best mithraic tradition in high anticipation of the approaching climax of the saturnalia, and will resume our writings on Monday, December 27th.

Meanwhile, click on the link below for your very own interactive, secular-humanist X-mas card!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS & SEASON'S GREETINGS

Did you know that the puritans banned christmas celebrations for several decades? And, that the bible makes absolutely no reference to christmas? And were you aware that biblical scholars agree that Jesus, according to biblical writings, could not have been born in December---and most likely was born in March, September, or perhaps early November. You should also know that what we now call "christmas" was essentially a pagan celebration up until Pope Gregory the First, sometime around 600 AD, commanded his bishops to merge local practices into church rituals in order to expand the church's influence.

Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Dorothy Parker::The Wisdom of Women

2010-12-20T06:49:00.003-06:00

Dorothy Parker

“Razors pain you;

rivers are damp;

acids stain you;

and drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

nooses give;

gas smells awful;

you might as well live.”

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

Molly Ivins

"If you think his daddy had trouble with 'the vision thing,' wait'll you meet this one," On George W. Bush

"If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili," On Bill Clinton

Ann Richards

I'm really glad that your young people missed the Depression and missed the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.”

"Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics."

"Power is what calls the shots, and power is a white male game."

I wish they were here today! Instead, we have Sarah Palin and what a disaster she is. Which, brings us to a final quote, "You can put lipstick on a pig and call her Monique. But, she' still a pig!"

Alcohol, Drugs, Consumerism, & Religion:: The Elephant In The Room

2010-12-16T07:05:00.001-06:00

Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence.
Hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only truth.
..............................Gautama Siddahartha (the Buddha)

I often wonder why my fellow Americans allow to happen the things they do. How is it that we countenance institutionalized poverty, hunger, deprivation, generational joblessness, endless war, deterioration of public education, and the take-over, by stateless international corporations, of virtually all levels of governance and our military?

How is it that people, who start off life essentially decent and well-meaning, can ignore our slow creep into Fascism, aided and abetted by neo-liberal economists of the Friedman school of economic theory?

I think I know part of the answer. Like combat veterans who know horror and choose to bury it deep in their psyches, where it lies festering, painfully leading to eventual self-medication through alcohol, drugs or violent and otherwise dysfunctional behaviors, we ignore the obvious, the pile of reeking crap in the room left by the elephant who lives with us. We anesthetize ourselves with drugs, alcohol, religion and consumerism to enable to ignore that which is piling up around us.

We find diversion, resort to quick highs or sense deadening lows, and buy, buy, buy! And let us not forget the "opiate of the masses", religion--in American, most notably the various Protestant sects.

So much of Protestantism in America today has morphed into this really odd sort of creature; part boosterism of self-indulgent, individual prosperity, blind, jingoistic loyalty to the state, with self-righteous insistence that Gaaawwwwd and JeeeSUS blesses it all, and that all the problems on earth will go away when the trumpet sounds so it's alright to ignore them as long as we're being "blessed" and successful in our search for affluence.

Christians of this ilk will fervently, with unforgiving, hard-eyed resolve, insist that Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of little baby Jesus--"the reason for the season", while ignoring the historic truth that the man was born in September, as near as theologians and historians can determine! And, the other elephant pile of truth, that the whole of Christmas festivity was co-opted by Christians from earlier "pagan" religions.

They assuage their rightfully felt unease with an extra holiday dollar or two in the collection plate, or serve an hour or two on a holiday food line, or toss an out-of=date can of green beans or threadbare old blanket in a collection bin in the church vestibule without ever having to actually see or touch a "poor person".

I would suggest that they acquaint themselves with the writings of theologian Emmet B. Fox: The Sermon on the Mount and The Ten Commandments. Here they would find, from those wonderful historical and philosophical texts, the old and new testaments, the constant truth about how to live one's daily life so that one is truly "blessed".

Boomers, Xers, Millennials - Social Security is Yours: Fight to Save It!

2010-12-15T07:20:00.000-06:00

Confused about Social Security? Think it's going bankrupt? Think it's driving up the deficit? Here's Ed Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, putting the lie to these misconceptions.

Click to Join the Alliance - Only $10.00 Per Year

A Progressive Rallying Point: 2012

2010-12-14T06:22:00.003-06:00

Last week, I wrote, and copied here, a letter to President Obama, asking him to exercise the political fortitude and personal courage to come before the American people and announce that he would not seek reelection in 2012, leaving the way open for the democratic wing of the Democratic Party to find a viable progressive candidate. This, I strongly believe, would allow him to focus on doing his job for the American people, all of them--he so proudly claims to represent, without thought or worry to reelection or his place in history.

Of course he will not do anything of the sort. And, if the response of his loyalists and apparatchiks over the past week are any indicator, he is going to entrench and move even further to the right. But, we've hit a nerve and the reactions are predictable. We need now to take the initiative.

Progressives, liberals and leftists are currently without much representation and not taken seriously by the corporate media. We are told that if we mount any serious opposition to Obama and his coterie of neo-liberal economic advisers, we will fracture the Democratic Party, thereby insuring even deeper defeats than 2010. Stuff and nonsense! One of the "not being discussed at all" results of the 2010 elections is that democrats who tried to be centrists and moderate republicans LOST! Democrats are already fractured, without platform, or true leadership.

So, what is left (hah) for a leftist, progressive, liberal to do? Let me direct your worthy attention to this article, which lays out a vision, a starting point, and in current political jargon, a way forward. Simply click HERE

We on the left; largely spurned by our own party, derided or blithely ignored by the corporate media, and ridiculed and made the strawman of all that is wrong with America by the rabid right, often feel alone and without organization or structure. Not so. Envision being a part of a unified progressive movement speaking with solidarity from a platform based on a spiritually humanistic world view. Interested? Click HERE

Together, we can!

Obama's Tax Deal, Social Security: Beginning Of The End

2010-12-13T05:27:00.003-06:00

Proposed Tax Deal: Poison Pill for Social Security

President Obama announced a tentative deal with Congressional Republicans a week ago today to extend the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels for two years. The package would reduce the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax on all wage earners by two percentage points, to 4.2%, for one year. However, the package would cost about $900 billion over the next two years, and would be financed entirely by adding to the national debt. The deal would also extend unemployment benefits at their current level for 13 months, through the end of 2011.

The Social Security payroll tax cut is estimated to cost $120 billion per year, and is a provision that Senate Democrats say could ultimately be the undoing of Social Security. Allowing the payroll tax to expire in a year will mean that workers will see a nearly 50% jump in payroll taxes as the rate reverts back -- an event that is likely to be described as a tax hike. According to The Huffington Post, reducing a person's responsibility to contribute to Social Security also deprives the program of the political and moral capital that has kept the program intact despite fierce opposition from a determined investor class. In arguing against the deal, Nancy Altman, head of the group Social Security Works, noted that such responsibility was put into place by FDR for just that purpose. To see more from FDR on the topic, Click Here

Altman said that dividing the stimulus evenly by simply sending an equal check to every worker would be far more desirable. Both the Senate and the House are expected to debate and vote on the proposal early this week.

Tax Cuts for the Rich, Republicans Kill $250 for Seniors

A proposal to provide seniors an emergency payment of $250 was blocked last Wednesday by Republican-led opposition in the House and Senate. The measure would have provided the one-time payment to 58 million Social Security recipients in lieu of an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). This is the second consecutive year that Social Security beneficiaries did not receive a COLA. Senior advocates note that the Consumer Price Index in Social Security, which measures the rate of inflation, does not accurately reflect the rate of inflation faced by seniors who spend a huge amount of their income on health care. Alliance for Retired American members sent more than 5,400 e-mails letting their representative and senators know that they were counting on them to vote in favor of the payment. The bill, S. 3985, required 60 votes to shut off a filibuster in the Senate, but failed 53-45. No Senate Republicans voted for it. To see how your Senators voted, go HERE.

The proposal also failed in the House for passage under House Suspension Calendar rules. There, the measure came up short, 254-153, with 141 Republicans voting against it. Under those rules, two-thirds of members present and voting were necessary for the bill, H.R. 5987, to pass. To see how your representative voted, go HERE.

In arguing for the $250, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) mentioned the Alliance for Retired American's support on the House floor. “This legislation is critical to retirees, but unfortunately, congressional Republicans overwhelmingly chose to oppose it,” said Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance.

Social Security Recipients: GOP> "DROP DEAD!"

2010-12-09T07:01:00.000-06:00

Dear Seniors, retirees, widows, orphans, and disabled workers,

Drop Dead!

Sincerely,

Your Republican Representatives & Senators

******************************************************************

Dear Wealthiest Americans,

See you at the country club, the deal's done. He caved in quicker than my wife's first souffle.

Venally Yours,

Your Republican Representatives & Senators

PS My numbered Swiss account remains the same as before

Letter To Obama: Stand down!

2010-12-08T07:32:00.003-06:00

December 8, 2010

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.20500

Dear Mr. President,

I regret to inform you that I find your naivete' appalling and frightening.

You often remark that, in effect, you're representing all the people of America. In theory, at sort of a ninth grade civics class sort of way, you're correct. But, in reality there are anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of the population who would gladly burn crosses on the White House lawn and drag you and your family out into the cold December night and hang you before setting fire to your corpses. Do you truly believe that you represent them, or that by extending a hand you will change them?

This mindlessly, lunatic rabble is financed, encouraged, and abetted by nameless, faceless corporations that know no national boundaries nor any sense of patriotism toward our nation. They are the vanguard of international fascism, and in no sense of the word do they believe that you "represent" them. They are the masters of destruction, they use our legislature to further their own aims, they use our military to advance their worldwide goals and to advance their profits--do you truly believe that you "represent" them?

I worked long and hard (as did millions of others) to help get you elected. As a cancer survivor, I used strength and energy I could not spare. As a Social Security recipient, I contributed money that I could ill afford to part with. I did these things because I believed you when you promised to rein in and corral the liars, thieves, cut-purses and mendicants of Wall Street and banking. I believed you when you said you would extract us from two unfunded wars of invasion and occupation of non-belligerent sovereign nations. I believed you when you said you would lead us in the fight to bring to heel the hell-hounds of the drug and insurance companies and provide all Americans with an opportunity for quality, affordable health care. And, I believed you when you said you would bring an end to the Bush tax-cuts, which further enrich the already wealthy while diminishing the middle-class and further impoverishing the already poor and destitute.

I believed you were a man of strength, courage and fortitude. I believed you would provide leadership against some very dark and strong forces undermining every precept of representative democracy. I believed that you would help us climb out of the abyss of cynicism and insane self-indulgence wrought by the dry-drunk sociopath who preceded you in the White House.

I watch as your supporters rightfully desert you.I have watched as you have silently suffered insult and attack without response. And sadly, after two years of capitulation, compromise, and weakness, I see no way back for you. You have exhausted my trust and belief. You have failed to accomplish that which you were elected to do. I am saddened and sickened by this.

I encourage you to take the first opportunity to come before the American people and announce that you will not seek a second term in order to allow the Democratic party to find a candidate worthy of the office. Perhaps, without the distraction of re-election considerations or eye toward your place in history, you could find the time, stamina and will to truly represent those Americans who elected you!

Sincerely,

Shane Fox

Call To Action: $250 Emergency Social Security Payment

2010-12-07T05:50:00.000-06:00

The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are both scheduled to vote on Wednesday, December 8 on a $250 emergency payment to seniors. The payment would go to seniors, veterans, disabled individuals, and railroad retirees who did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2010 through Social Security or other programs, as well as retired government workers who do not receive Social Security benefits. These beneficiaries received a similar payment in 2009.

TAKE ACTION - -Click on this link: HERE

BACKGROUND

This is the second consecutive year that Social Security beneficiaries did not receive a COLA. As you know, the Consumer Price Index in Social Security (CPI-W), which measures the rate of inflation, does not accurately reflect the rate of inflation faced by seniors and other Social Security beneficiaries who spend a huge amount of their income on health care. The $250 emergency payment will help with medical, pharmaceutical, and other costs of daily life in these difficult times. Gasoline prices are climbing once again, insurance *(Gap plans and Medicare Part D plans) premiums are soaring, and an early and harsh winter will cause heating bills to mount up for those on limited and fixed incomes.

The Senate will need 60 votes to stop a filibuster and pass this measure. The House will need a simple majority of votes. You need to make your voices heard. Simply click the link above to get the phone number and contact information for your representative as well as the main Capitol switchboard.

But, don't delay. The vote is tomorrow; and the Republicans have already declared war on the middle class and unemployed....Stop them from doing the same thing to Social Security recipients!

Let your representative and senators know that you are watching them and that you are counting on them to protect you by voting in favor of the emergency payment for seniors. We need your call, please do it now!

Deficit Commission Fail: Big Win For Seniors & Working Families

2010-12-06T12:10:00.001-06:00

American baby boomers, seniors and retirees dodged a bullet last Friday when the National Commission on Fiscal Reform and Responsibility's members rejected their co-chair's (*Erskine Boles & Alan Simpson) proposal to drastically cut Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age.

On this rare occasion, sanity and reason trumped ideology, ignorance and venality. We must never again try to balance the federal budget on the backs of current and future retirees, especially when it is an incontrovertible fact that social security has not added a single cent to the current deficit crises. Indeed, members of the commission included in their report to President Obama words acknowledging that Social Security has not contributed to the deficit!

It is a brutal irony that those members of the commission most ready to chop apart Social Security are the same crew of right-wingers that are leading the fight to extend Bush's tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. When one protests this, their retort is that the protester is engaging in "class" warfare. As though socking it to working families and retirees to enrich the already wealthy is not class warfare. Somewhat akin to a mugger telling the judge that his victim, who fought back, assaulted him.

The defeat of these draconian cuts to Social Security did not come easy. Working families, retirees, and future retirees and their supporters mobilized and stood strong while letting commission members know there would be a heavy price if they pursued a course of attack on one of America's greatest success story. The week before the vote, progressive activists from many allied organizations joined with the Alliance for Retired Americans in a national call-in day which shut down the capitol switchboard--which is designed to process 7,000 calls at a single instant.

We can hope that this augers a new chapter in debating and solving the issues related to the preservation of Social Security for generations to come. Solutions must be sought, but, those solutions must strengthen--not weaken--the economic security and well-being of millions of older Americans, widows, orphans and disabled workers. Social Security has kept generations out of poverty and it must be protected and preserved for all future generations.

Texas State Rep. Leo Berman: A National Embarrassment

2010-12-02T08:24:00.001-06:00

Texas state representative (REP-D6), Leo Berman, once again embarrasses himself and Texas with his outlandish insistence that President Obama is not an American citizen. When confronted with facts by CNN's Anderson Cooper, he attempts to wiggle away with lies and falsehoods stacked upon internet right-wing, conspiracy-nut rumors. Cooper annihilates him with documented facts.

Berman claims he is a decorated, retired army officer *(Artillery). However a cursory web search yielded no supporting documentation, and since Berman has sponsored at least two bills building walls of secrecy around military service records, *(TX HB198 & HB199) one can use his rather feverish logic, and suppose he is hiding something from us. All I could find, were mostly self-generated by him, supporters, or his staff. He claims to be a colonel, but after his alleged 22-years of service, he seems to have only made the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In the military, that failure to make what is called "the colonel's list" is an indicator of some sort of problem!

I wonder if we can get him to release his DD214 for public scrutiny.

Indeed, it appears that full colonel rank (of which he so proudly boasts and struts) was an honorific bestowed on him by the Texas National Guard or Civil Air Patrol. I was once the adjutant of a Marine Corp League chapter in Illinois, but do not wave that title in my personal or political life. Nor do I attach it to my regular military service in the Marine Corps.

I've met Berman, twice, and unlike Will Rogers, I found a man I disliked. He is, what we called in the Marine Corps, a "feather merchant", a wee little man suffering from the "short man's disease", with a battleship mouth and row-boat ass. He spews a lot of bile and hate, and makes a lot of noise and gains a lot of media attention doing so. But, as the current cliche' goes, upon close examination, there is just no there, there!

BERMAN: EVENT 1

BERMAN: EVENT2

And, lest you think I am misconstruing this guy's idiocy, here, decide for yourself:

Young Parents: Get A Yardstick!

2010-12-01T09:43:00.001-06:00

There is a point in every young parent's life, particularly the mother, when it becomes realized that despite the intense delight and passionate pleasure during the process of conception, there has been brought forth into the world a psychopath! This realization usually hits somewhere between the child's age of two and five. Regrettably, the derangement continues up to about the age of 25 to 28.

Comedian Bill Cosby calls them "brain damaged"! Brain damaged or psychopathic, the end result is the same. At about the age that a person begins gaining their own sanity, they become the caretakers of the criminally insane. Sweet, cuddly little toddlers become fiendish pre-schoolers more influenced by the worst behaving brat in day-care than by parents or teachers. Sharps have to be placed not just out of reach, but under lock and key, as do medicines and toxic and caustic substances less they be given or applied to family pets, a younger child, or merely self-ingested just for the hell of it.

This particular form of mental derangement's onset demonstrates displays of obstinacy regarding personal hygiene and/or fulfilling the human need for sleep. Those who have descended the deepest into their madness often will eschew all forms of nourishment other than Gummy Bears coated with honey or macaroni and cheese slathered with ketchup. But, bath and bedtime, once ritualized and predictable occasions of bonding and sweet affection, become the kill zones of deadly fire-fights with no quarter given. Banshee like shrieks of retribution from the parent, loud and shrill enough to cause neighborhood dogs to waken and wail, and to shatter Aunt Mildred's wedding gift crystal, merely feed the child's distemper. Milder one's whimper, whine, beg and plea while the more aggressive resort to running naked to hide under the bed or the darkest recesses of the closet--despite earlier avowals that a "hairy monster" resides there and that it would be utterly impossible and life-threatening to sleep under those conditions.

People who once went to country fairs and home shows for the displays and rides now head there for one thing and one thing only: Free Yardsticks! Wise ones will get several, as the newer, more flexible ones, break rather easily.

Dressmakers use them to measure hems and skirt or dress length from the floor. But not so with young parents. They have no time for for dressmaking. Their intent is self-preservation! At wit's end and fully cognizant of the criminal penalties for what they now murderously contemplate each night at bath or bed time, they seek an advantage. And, they know, either from their own experience, or perhaps instinctively, that a well-used yardstick is the perfect weapon of intimidation.

Properly used by a fearless parent, order can be restored to the ward without resulting to strait-jackets, drugs, or duct tape. Like all psychopaths, the young child is wholly motivated, even driven, by a fear-based instinct for self-preservation. Once applied to the brat's butt, the yardstick assumes a life of its own.

Upon hearing the words, "Do I need the yardstick?", all but the most recalcitrant quickly determine that it is best to choose one's battles carefully, and that right now perhaps is not the time. Sometimes, with the brighter ones, all that is needed is a parent's longing look at the yardstick, even without a suggestion of a move in its direction, to be sufficient to alter the situation and bring about docility and compliance.

The additional advantage of the yardstick is that it extends the parent's reach by three feet and can't be easily eluded or dodged, and becomes the perfect tool to rout the misbehaving youngster from under the bed or dark corner of the closest.

A word of caution is needed. Be careful, despite the provocation, to see to it that only the flat side, rather than the edge, is used. Even the most callused little butt might show a mark if it were...and that could launch inquiries from those pesky and nosy CPS people!

And that's a whole other thing!

Fiscal Commission Proposal: "Ridiculous!", says Retiree Leader

2010-11-12T12:56:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday, the co-chairmen of the White House Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, released their ideas for dealing with the country’s massive debt. The recommendations are from Simpson and Bowles only, and do not represent the opinions of the full commission.

The proposals include a reduction in Social Security cost-of-living increases for current retirees; a reduction in Social Security benefits for most future retirees; and a hike in the Social Security retirement age to 69 by 2075.

In response, Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said, “The Bowles-Simpson proposal is not a package we can support. In fact, it is a package we will strongly oppose. While seniors are more than willing to pay their fair share to reduce the nation’s debt, we must not turn to them to pay off such a huge portion of what was accumulated by the entire country.” He also said that raising the retirement age to 69 is not a viable solution, when so many older workers in difficult jobs are already struggling.

He added, “The Social Security cuts would hit current retirees, contrary to what was promised, since the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) seems to take effect immediately. This will lower seniors’ benefits by about 3% after they have been retired for 10 years, and by about 6 % after 20 years.” He said that changing the CPI is an attack on the middle class, since today’s 20-year old workers who retire at age 65 would see their benefits cut by 17% if their wages average $43,000 over their working lives.

He also called it “ridiculous” that billionaires pay the same amount into the system as someone earning $106,800, the current cap. He stressed that a better proposal would be requiring employees (and their employers) who make more than $106,800 a year to pay Social Security taxes on all their wages, not the 90% in the proposal. Coyle concluded, “We must not bully seniors into shouldering such a massive percentage of the debt while Wall Street millionaires once again just skate on through scot-free.”

To see the co-chairs’ proposal, go to http://bit.ly/ajfG8p . To see “Ten Reasons the Social Security Proposal of the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs Should be DOA (Dead on Arrival)” from Social Security Works, where the Alliance is a member of the Steering Committee, go to http://bit.ly/dxDI77. To see Mr. Coyle’s full statement, go to http://bit.ly/by0k67.

Marine Corps Birthday

2010-11-10T14:26:00.000-06:00

On this day, 235 years ago, by an act of congress the United States Marine Corps was created. In Philadelphia recruiting began immediately at Tun Tavern, a combination saloon and bordello---to this day it is believed that a good marine is never far from either!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

CHESTY PULLER

WHEREVER YOU ARE!

Dallas Cowboy Jokes!

2010-11-08T08:23:00.002-06:00

The Texas State Police are cracking down on speeders heading into Dallas. For the first offense, they give you 2 Dallas Cowboy tickets. If you get stopped a second time, they make you use them.

Q. What do you call 47 millionaires around a TV watching the Super Bowl?

A. The Dallas Cowboys

Q. What do the Dallas Cowboys and Billy Graham have in common?

A. They both can make 100,000 people stand up and yell "Jesus Christ".

Q. How do you keep a Dallas Cowboy out of your yard?

A. Put up a goal post.

Q. What do you call a Dallas Cowboy with a Super Bowl ring?

A. Old

Q. What's the difference between the Dallas Cowboys and a dollar bill?

A. You can still get four quarters out of a dollar bill.

Q. How many Dallas Cowboys does it take to win a Super Bowl?

A. Nobody remembers.

Q. What do the Cowboys and a possums have in common?

A. Both play dead at home and get killed on the road!

The police picked up a little boy wandering along the highway, when the questioned the boy he said "My mom beats me.". When they asked about his father, he replied "he beats me too". Finally they asked where he want to go and exclaimed, "the Dallas Cowboys cuz the don't beat anybody!"

A man and his dog are at a bar watching the Cowboys play, and the Cowboys score a TD. The dog does a back flip and then moonwalks. The bartender says,"That is awesome! What does he do when the Cowboys win?" The dog's owner says, "I don't know. I have only had him for two years."

The Election Is Over. What Now?

2010-11-03T12:59:00.002-05:00

So, what does it all mean?

Frankly, I do not think anyone really knows. When President Obama was elected, with a Senate and House majority, there was widespread expectation (hope?) of change. Well, as the current cliche' goes, How's that turned out for you?

Here, in my view, is how it turned out. Our GIs are still locked in hot engagements in the Mideast and central Asia (OK, maybe in Iraq, just hunkered down behind the bunkers waiting for the next wave of violence targeting them); unemployment is worse than even in the Eisenhower years; no meaningful new regulation or restrictions on unbridled and pernicious capitalism exploiting America's working families; tepid reform of health care, which in the long run will be a big bonus for drug and insurance companies; and the vocal and willfully ignorant thirty-five percent of the electorate calling themselves tea-bags have captured the attention of the posturing Hoople-Heads of the national and local media and landed a few elections in what are mostly red states any way--sort of like over coloring crimson with scarlet.

Hardly what we expected from an Obama administration, right? But, it's what we got and where we are.

My suspicion is that the Republicans will mistakenly act as though they have a mandate to destroy Social Security by handing it over to the liars, thieves, cut-purses, mendicants, dementers and death-eaters of Wall Street. They will attempt to further enrich their insurance czar and drug company oligarch buddies by attempting to "privatize" Medicare and the Veteran's Administration health care system. They will do this under the banner of "reducing the size of government and bringing down the deficit".

On it's face, this is an obvious lie: The services and health care will still have to be delivered and the costs will still be there, but instead of well managed and regulated, and very cost effective, federal programs that protect Americans from the avarice of faceless corporations, we would be saddled with the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals of health care for profit companies freed to rampage through the pocket books of Americans of all persuasions.

That is the change they are promising. Very quickly they will run into the same realities that progressives have encountered with Obama, we don't control history--history controls us! They are facing some hard and bitter truths beyond the rhetoric and posturing that helped them gain some level of ascendancy in this by-year election. Democrats still control the Senate and the White House and have enough House seats to impede them. Reid remains majority leader in the Seante and Pelosi will be house minority leader, second guessing Boehner as he did her. Nearly half the Blue-Dog Democrats lost their seats to real Republicans--meaning that the Democrats have the opportunity to assess themselves regarding their progressive roots. The Democrats, having been dope-slapped behind the head, should awaken, abandon pretensions to the center or right, and take this opportunity assume a more unified opposition to the Republican's outlandish notion of fiscal management.

Republicans will find that this election was about anger rather than an endorsement of their policies, and they will find, as progressives found after 2008, that the promise of change is easily made, but delivering on that promise is not easy, and that they have set themselves up for monumental future distrust.

VOTE - THEN HELP!

2010-11-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

By all means vote! But, this is one of those critical elections when just voting is not enough. Take a sick day, a vacation day, or a comp day and work the election.

Drivers are needed to help get people to the polls, people are needed to make phone calls to voter lists to make sure they have voted, or are going to, and volunteers are critically needed to serve as poll watchers to make certain the Republicans do not get away with their usual intimidation or voter suppression ploys. IN TEXAS YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SHOW ANY ID OTHER THAN YOUR REGISTRATION CARD TO VOTE!

Just call your county Democratic Party office, tell them where you reside, and they'll get you plugged in to the process. Sure, we need your vote to offset all the corporate money being thrown into this election cycle--but to win, we need a huge turnout.

We won something big in 2008, now we're having to fight to keep it!

VOTE! ::: Our Endorsements Listed

2010-10-28T08:52:00.003-05:00

VOTE STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC

We need public officials working for us who understand how hard it can be to pay your bills every month, and how expensive it can be to see a doctor and get a prescription filled. We have all heard of the schemes to privatize Social Security in the chaos and greed of Wall Street stock markets, and to turn Medicare into a voucher program where the insurance companies call the shots, all while the wealthiest Americans get more and bigger tax breaks.

This November 2, we are standing with candidates who fight for seniors and working families. We are proud to endorse the candidates below, who will represent TEXAS, you, and your family in these tough economic times. We strongly encourage you to get out and vote November 2, or cast your vote early if you can, and to support these pro-working family candidates.

We have endorsed these candidates

STATEWIDE:

Bill White - Governor

Linda Chavez-Thompson - Lt. Governor

Hector Uribe - Attorney General

Hank Gilbert - Land Commissioner

Blake Bailey - Texas Supreme Court

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

John Lingenfelder – Dist. 3

Tom Berry – Dist. 5

Rep. Al Green – Dist. 9

Ted Ankrum – Dist. 10

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa – Dist. 15

Rep. Silvestre Reyes – Dist. 16

Rep. Chet Edwards – Dist. 17

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee Dist. 18

Rep. Charlie Gonzalez – Dist. 20

Lainey Melnick – Dist. 21

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez – Dist. 23

Rep. Lloyd Doggett – Dist. 25

Rep. Neil Durrance – Dist. 26

Rep. Solomon Ortiz – Dist. 27

Rep. Henry Cuellar – Dist. 28

Rep. Gene Green – Dist. 29

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson – Dist. 30

To see just how current members of Congress have voted to support you and your family, click on the link below, then point at your state and click again. You will see how every member of your state delegation voted on issues vital to you and your family: HERE

Thank you for supporting the candidates who have fought to:

Protect Social Security from privatization, raising the retirement age and benefit cuts

Pass a $250 Social Security payment in place of a 2010 COLA

Help lower drug costs and close the Medicare Part D doughnut hole

End Medicare co-pays and deductibles for life-saving screenings and tests

Help early retirees afford health insurance

Create a way for middle-class families to get long-term care for a loved one.

Thanks again for your support.

Remember to vote on November 2.

Cognitive Dissonance: A Republican Affliction

2010-10-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

Where Republicans are concerned, I am not entirely certain how to regard them. Obviously, they are utterly out of tune and, for the most part, unwitting dupes of huge international corporations with no loyalties other than to their own unrestrained growth and unregulated profiteering.

Maybe it's ignorance that causes otherwise, seemingly, rational human beings to forsake logic and take such outlandish positions or do so many deplorable things as do Republicans. Ignorance? Well maybe. But, with the amount of real information available and easily accessible, mere ignorance does not quiet fit the description. Well then, maybe willful ignorance? You know, that's when someone refuses to allow facts, logic or reason to alter their mindset. But, what I think best describes it is "cognitive dissonance". That's when one knows the facts but just doesn't get it! You know the type, someone who, for years, has been beating themselves on the noggin with a ball-peen hammer in expectation of curing a headache and who never succumbs to the obvious knowledge that they are the source of their own pain. See! Cognitive dissonance.

Either that, or the bozos are all, each and every damned one of them, dumber than a gunny sack filled with wet Neches river mud and muck!

But Shane you say, surely that doesn't apply to all Republicans, and, by the way, surely you must have some Republican friends.

To which, grinning my very best spider to the fly "gotcha" smirk, I reply. Yes it does, and no I don't!

Certainly I know some Republicans, and even socialize with them on rare occasions, and can't help but regard some as acquaintances, but friends? Hell no! You see my friends don't try to cripple Medicare and undo health reform at the behest of Drug Oligarchs and Insurance Tsars. My friends don't engage in race and gay baiting. My friends don't try to vilify the President and undermine the will of the majority. My friends try to build unity between all people rather than working to keep them apart and angry, afraid and mistrustful. My friends don't try to force their narrow religious views upon society as a whole, and certainly recognize that religious expression can take many legitimate forms.

My friends do not view single working moms and dads, older Americans, the unemployed, and working families as leeches simply because they make use of the various social and economic safety nets we've put into place to offset the disparities of wealth created by a perniciously competitive economic system. My friends do not try to rip asunder those safety nets in the spurious name of economic responsibility.

See, that's why I have no Republican friends. The bastards are out to get me and I am not about to extend any sense of friendship to them.

Do those descriptions fit all Republicans? Well, let me put it this way. You bring to me one registered Republican in support of protecting Social Security as it is right now, preserving and improving Medicare, and extending unemployment benefits with free job retaining and relocation support to the unemployed and I will shake that new friend's hand in Nieman Marcus's window on Christmas Eve.

Fight Back - Don't Lose Your Vote

2010-10-26T14:12:00.000-05:00

Protection Available for Those Who Experience Problems While Voting

Ten years have passed since the "hanging chad" problem in Florida, and since then a majority of states across the nation have overhauled their voting methods in hopes of simplifying the process and making it more accurate.

One of the most pronounced changes has been the move away from lever and paper voting in favor of optical and electric voting methods. However, limited funds for voting equipment and rapidly aging voting machines in some areas are an indication that the country is not immune from problems re-emerging. In addition, voter suppression occurred recently when a front group called "Latinos for Reform," run by a major donor to former President George W. Bush, was caught running television ads in Nevada telling Hispanic voters NOT to vote on November 2nd as a way of protesting. The ads are now off the air.

The following resources focus on election protection. They are produced by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, who have set up a national hotline for any voting problems: 1-866-Our-Vote.

For information on fundamental voting rights and commonly asked questions, go to http://www.866ourvote.org/elections-101.

For pages with state-specific laws and pdf's with more detailed information on your state's election laws, click on http://www.866ourvote.org/state.

In addition, for information on the voting rights of the disabled from the National Disability Rights Network, go to http://bit.ly/bokzr8.

"Voters can go the polls with peace of mind, knowing that the system has improved," said Barbara J. Easterling, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans. "However, if you do experience a problem, help is available. Don't go home without casting your ballot."

What It Will Take For White To Win

2010-10-25T10:13:00.000-05:00

Texas Democrats have some very harsh truths to face as they head into the final week of the elections. The Texas Lyceum Poll (the most reliable of all the polls) puts Perry ahead of White by 5% percentage points. Now, given that there is always a margin of error of 2 - 3 percentage points, White could be closer or further than the original number projects.

Perry has virtually all the Republicans and conservatives ready to vote for him, while, White has done an outstanding job of solidifying the traditional Democratic base, and winning over a majority of younger and independent voters. There is no doubt that White will show better than any Democrat in a very, very long time. But, here's the rub. The undecided pool is only 3% and that is an extremely small segment from which White can draw to overtake Perry.

Undecideds at this point in a politcal campaign are usually uneducated, uninterested, and uninvolved and are more easily swayed by emotion and buzz words than reason or logic. Perry wins on that score.

In order to win, White is going to have to find voters missed by the polls. The campaigns of Hector Uribe and Linda Chavez-Thompson in South Texas and "The Valley" combined with Hank Gilbert's focus on rural voters might be the source of those votes. Those demographics generally are under represented in the polls and could be the "sleepers" that would propel White into the Governor's mansion (or trailer).

Even so, the key to those votes lie with the strength of grassroots activists to mobilize and deliver voter turn-out on election day. There is one more week of early voting and reports are that the Democratic precincts are witnessing strong turn-out. It waits to be seen if that energy will be there in the form of car-pooling, phone-banking, and card-pushing come election day.

Without it, Democrats will mollify themselves with, "At least we have something to build on, and then proceed to turn on themselves gnawing and tearing away like gut-shot wolves!"

VOTE! They Don't Want You To!

2010-10-22T11:58:00.000-05:00

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Texans: Vote Early, Here's Why!

2010-10-20T11:44:00.000-05:00

Arson investigators are tracking down the cause of a mysterious fire that destroyed all of the Harris County Texas voting machines several weeks ago. Other counties have loaned some of theirs to Harris County with the net effect that there will be fewer voting machines in Harris County and those counties that have reduced their inventory through loaning. Fewer voting machines mean longer lines, delays and frustration on election days along with increased reliance on time consuming error prone paper ballots.

While we won't jump to conclusions and make precipitous accusations we will acknowledge that the area affected is that with the highest concentration of Democratic voters. Now, in this most critical election when Democrats stand a very good chance of reclaiming some statewide offices, it becomes absolutely essential for activists, organizers and leaders to promote early voting to beat the upcoming crunch.

In early voting one can go at one's own convenience without facing a one-day by 7:00 pm deadline. Additionally, it frees you to work on election day by making GOTV phone calls or car pooling voters to the polls.

We're already hearing of closer scrutiny of voters and demands for proof of identity and eligibility. If you encounter this situation late on election day, you may very well lose your opportunity to vote. Early vote gives you advance time to clear things up if you encounter this.

Voting is the issue, but early voting ensures that you get to vote, your vote will count and affords a way for your party's leaders to gauge voter mood in order to craft efforts and messages right up to election day.

The last day for early voting is Friday, October 29---but, don't wait till the last day, VOTE EARLY!

David's Return To Italy

2010-10-13T10:29:00.000-05:00

Michelangelo's"David" was given in loan to the USA two years ago. Below is a picture upon arrival in the U.S.

Now the statue is being returned. Below is a photo taken just before packing for return.

Below are several of the proud sponsors!

Texas: The Eyes Are Upon You!

2010-10-12T13:50:00.001-05:00

Last week, Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote a compelling story about the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race, linking it to potential Democratic State Mansion pickups in three states, including California and Florida. I will add some credence to this in that last summer when I was in D.C. jockeying for some national attention and money for Texas, I got a nod from a savvy pol who said, "Texas, if not precisely in play, has become a state of interest".

Republicans can no longer expect a "wave through" with their side of the ballot being the default choice. And this presents a major challenge to the sitting governor, Rick Perry, who would prefer to run a "front-porch" campaign in which he could ignore the Democratic Challenger Bill White. This was his stated intent, but when the early polls came out showing White in position to blast past him, Perry immediately launched negative and attack ads. Hardly the reaction of one "ignoring" his challenger.

Perry is a career politician who ascended to the office when Bush was elected president and who has run election twice on his own. Despite his decade-long tenure in the office, Governor Perry has not achieved any lasting or memorable accomplishments. To the contrary, his efforts to force vaccination of pre-teen girls with against STDs and launch a pet project which would have seen family homes, farms and ranches taken over to build a "Trans Texas Corridor" which would have enriched a Spanish company both came up short.

Both were bad ideas, that as time passed and Texans became more aware of the ramifications of both, pretty much died prior to birth! Neither added any luster to a governor already reviled by working families, school teachers, and individuals turned off by his matinee idol hubris and arrogance. His $10,000 dollar a month rental (at tax payer expense) of a mansion while the governor's mansion undergoes repairs won him no champions of fiscal responsibility.

Earlier, we endorsed Bill White as our choice in this coming election. But, today our focus is on Perry and the reasons why the Democrats for the first time in years are poised for success. The anti-incumbency mood coupled with the populist sentiment of "a pox on both their houses" both work to the advantage of the Democrats. Texans are painfully aware of an 8.4 percent rate of unemployment, a budget shortfall that could approach $20-billion while Perry parrots old anti-Obama, anti-Washington rhetoric which has no relation to the state's problems.

By all accounts, Perry should loose this election, and it is becoming more-and-more obvious that Perry very well could loose! Texas, The Eyes Of The Nation Are Upon You.

Read the full WaPo article here.

Early Voting: Use It to Get Out the Vote!

2010-10-11T13:08:00.002-05:00

Early Voting is Under Way in Fourteen States

Early voting is crucial for activists seeking to maximise the senior vote. Aside from the obvious benefit of avoiding election day lines or "crunch", illness, or excuse or apathy, it gives the activist a chance to vote early and devote remaining time to action and getting out the vote or manning phones on election day.

Early voting begins in Texas on Monday, October 18, (First Day) with the last day being Friday, October 29. The final day to request an absentee ballot is Tuesday, October 26.

According to USA Today, early voting, in which a voter may cast a ballot at an elections office, is already underway in 14 states. Early voting gets underway in another 17 states and in the District of Columbia over the next two weeks.

In all, 33 states and the District of Columbia offer some form of in-person early voting, while other states allow voters to file absentee ballots early, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS).

Vermont kicked the voting off on Sept. 20, followed by South Dakota on Sept. 21, Iowa and Wyoming on Sept. 23, Nebraska on Sept. 27, Ohio on September 28, Wisconsin on October 3, California and Indiana on Oct. 4, and Arizona on October 7. Rather than setting a date far in advance, some states began offering ballots when they became available. For the first time this year, Illinois voters are casting absentee ballots without having to explain why they are doing so; this is known as “no excuse” absentee voting. “I encourage Alliance members to take advantage of early voting, so that your ballot will count even if you can’t make it to the polls on Election Day,” said Barbara J. Easterling, President of the Alliance for Retired Americans.

Early ballots accounted for 41.3% of primary ballots this year, up 2 percentage points from 2006. In all, up to 70 percent of voters now have some access to early voting under state laws that permit voters to cast ballots before Election Day for any reason - not just because they expect to be out of town on November 2. If you need additional information about casting your ballot, call your state or local board of elections.

For your state's information, go HERE!

60-Plus, Just Another Right Wing Front

2010-10-06T14:56:00.000-05:00

Back in the day, the 50s to be precise, Pat Boone was a white-bread singer of moderate talent whose primary appeal was to young republicans and the parents of the kids hopping and bopping, and jamming, and necking and petting, to Elvis, Bill Haley, Jerry Lewis, and Little Richard. He was a punk then, and so remains to this minute. I'd break my collection of his 45s, if I'd ever bought tone--I didn't!

The thing about Boone then was that he "covered" a lot of black and true rock-and-roll singers, such as turning Fats Domino's smarmy, throbbing promise of sex, make-out version of Blue Berry Hill into a innocuously pukish ballad. The thing about Boone now, other than his insane need to appear as a teenager to this day --right daddy-o?--is that in addition to claiming to be the founder of the Beverly Hills chapter of the so-called Tea Party, he fronts the insurance and drug industry funded 60-Plus organization in its attempt to roll back health care reform.

If Boone had gone to my high-school he would have been on the wedgie-a-day list, and locked in hall lockers, or tossed pantless into the girls showers at weekly intervals. I'm tellin' you, he was a simpering no talent punk who managed to ride "mellow" to a fortune. That, and his born-again personae got him to where he is now.

Why so much rancor aimed at a no talent has-been--who never really was? Why?

Well, if pandering and pimping the Tea-Party is not sufficient, consider the 60-Plus organization. Boone, as their paid shill and mouthpiece, has been heard to utter these outrageous words; "Barack Obama is a president without a country, water boarding America with socialistic health care and other liberal causes". Beyond that, according to Jon Perr, writing in Crooks and Liars, Boone has called for the "metaphorical gassing" of "all manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites" in Obama's White House team. This punk Boone made his fortune by "covering" black artists and now uses code words to describe the President and White House as resembling a stereotypical "project". The connotation is clearly racist!

But, Boone is merely a stooge, a life size cutout to prop in front of gullible seniors who were conned or frightened into believing the drug oligarch's and insurance tsar's lies about death panels and loss of Medicare during the health care reform debate. Now, the conning continues as the group targets pro-health care reform candidates in Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These are all states with large senior populations and 60 Plus is flooding the airwaves with their lies and distortions once again in an attempt to frighten unwary seniors.

In past years, 60 Plus was the beneficiary of boucoups big bucks from PhRMa, the drug company's lobby group. Correspondingly, while claiming to be a "grassroots" organization, it receives absolutely no money from membership fees--such phony "grassroots' organizations are called AstroTurf by the informed.

When you stir all this in with the news yesterday posted by the LA Times that the drug and insurance companies are pouring money into Republican campaign coffers (3 times as much as given to Democrats) it is very clear that they are dead set on revision or roll back of our hard fought and narrowly won health care reform victory.

Pat Boone, who poses as a "Christian", seems not to care that if 60 Plus and the drug and insurance companies win, we will go back to allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to sick children, or older people with pre-existing conditions, or cancellation when the policy is really used. Well, after all, a no-talent punk has to make a buck somehow and it's a cinch he isn't going to make it from record sales or movie residuals.

We're Endorsing Bill White for Governor

2010-10-05T12:09:00.001-05:00

It would be a laughable understatement if we were to say that this endorsement comes from our sense that it is time for a change. The truth is, Rick Perry, over two terms, has done nothing to distinguish himself to the working people of Texas, seniors, and the middle-class.

His current campaign theme is: Open for Business! Yeah, well we've known that about him from the "git go". And, we also have taken note of how early in the campaign he went negative---usually the resort of politicians who cannot run on a substantive record. A bit of advice, people who live in $10,000 a month rented, at taxpayer expense, glass mansions really should not throw stones. Nor should politicians who dole out $16-million in state money to companies whose investors are top donors. Nor should politicians linked to rumors of impending divorce, infidelity, and putting to death the innocent. Shootin' up a gol-derned coyote jest don't cut through all that!

All that aside, since it merely makes him the atypical Republican, there is still the nasty reality of what is going on during his watch: The student growth of our public schools is among the top ten percent (6%) in the nation, but Texas is the only state in the nation to cut per student expenditures. And, it shows, as our kids rank 49th in verbal and 46th in math SAT scores. Administrators have grown by 33%, and in-school staffing by only 16% and teachers by a mere 13%.

Texas is in a marked descent toward third world status where the rich get richer and the poor, middle-class, working families, and seniors get screwed. Open for business? Monkey business maybe, bad business certainly. Texans pay some of the highest utility and home-owner insurance rates in the nation and lag behind the rest of the country in services to its poor, disabled and older citizens. No more monkey business, it's time for a change.

Clearly, the issue must not be that be that Rick Perry is so bad, it has to be that Bill White is so much better. And that, dear reader, is quite easily demonstrable.

As United States Deputy Secretary of Energy Bill White led a reform team that resulted in saving billions for American taxpayers. As mayor of Houston, the 4th largest city in the nation, White restructured the city's debt allowing for the creation of new libraries and parks and improved public safety. He balanced the city's budget at the same time he lowered tax rates and increased homestead exemptions for the city's disabled and older citizens.

His education initiatives will put Texas back on the path to education parity and affordable college educations. As mayor, he and is wife, Andrea, initiated a drop-out intervention program that saw nearly 9,000 "at risk" youngsters complete their high-school education that otherwise would have dropped out.

Perry has taken Texas well past the point of mediocrity. Let's change that and vote for Bill White for governor of Texas and begin the road back to preeminence.

The Fight to Save Social Security Continues

2010-10-04T06:50:00.000-05:00

Fiscal Commission Meets for the Fifth Time as NOW Confronts Alan Simpson

The President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, looking for ways to balance the federal budget, met for the fifth time on Wednesday, but hard decisions are not expected until after the November 2 elections. Social Security is one of several areas being considered by the panel for changes, and picketers outside the meeting demanded the commission keep its hands off the program.

A top target of protesters was Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator and now a co-chairman of the commission, who this summer described Social Security as "a milk cow with 310 million tits."

The National Organization for Women (NOW) has a new slogan: "Tits for an Ass," and NOW members arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday with 1,500 rubber baby bottle tops (nipples) and presented them to the Fiscal Commission as part of its campaign calling for the removal of Simpson. According to The Washington Post, NOW President Terry O'Neill told Simpson that she was giving him the nipples "in hopes that you'll have the decency to resign from the commission." When Simpson said that cutting Social Security had historically never happened, O'Neill responded, "Well let's hope that your efforts to make it happen now fail."

Members of Congress Hold Press Call to Announce, "Hands off Social Security"

Last Thursday, Alliance for Retired Americans President, Barbara J. Easterling, joined Senators Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), as well as Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), John Conyers (D-MI) and Dan Maffei (D-NY) and AFSCME International President Gerald McEntee, on a conference call with reporters.

Organized by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, the call briefed members of the press on how the participants' efforts to protect Social Security against harmful benefit cuts are gaining momentum in Congress. Senators Sanders and Brown discussed the Sanders resolution, S. Res. 664, which opposes raising the retirement age, risky privatization schemes, or cutting Social Security benefits. This resolution now has 11 co-sponsors. The Giffords Resolution, a similar resolution in the House, is H. Res. 1670 and has 56 co-sponsors.

Reps. Grijalva, Conyers and Maffei also discussed the letter they are spearheading to President Obama against any form of Social Security benefit cuts, including raising the retirement age. The Grijalva-Conyers-Maffei letter has now been signed by over 100 of their colleagues in Congress. The current retirement age is 67, and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has raised the possibility of raising it to 70. "Thank you once again to our dedicated Alliance members, who have sent more than 2,300 letters to their House members urging them not to raise the retirement age," Ms. Easterling said on Thursday.

The House and Senate could face a proposal to cut Social Security benefits in the lame duck session, should it be recommended by the Fiscal Commission on Dec. 1.

GOP Pledge :: A Piss Pot of Previously Failed Policies!

2010-09-28T05:28:00.000-05:00

In large part, President Obama was elected as a repudiation of that dry-drunk sociopath George W. Bush and every lousy thing stood for by him and his minions of deep-forest hobgoblins, bridge trolls, mendicants, cut-purses, thieves, debauchees, and drunkards. Americans had enough. Now, the GOP, nostalgic for all that which got us here, have trotted out their failed policies of the past, stirring them into a festering piss pot they're calling a pledge.

Fortunately, most Americans, while dumbed-down and anesthetized by unrewarding, or, no work, crushing debt, cheap watered down beer, no way out, and diminishing dreams and hope; see through the pledge as nothing new and altogether the same as the so-called Contract with America, conjured up by that philandering fool, Newt Gingrich.

Here's some of what they are pledging to do on behalf their Wall Street, Big Oil, Insurance Tsars, and Drug Company Oligarch masters:

Cut Taxes for the wealthy, while the American middle-class disappears.
Snip away at the health care reform that is bringing relief to seniors, boomers, adult children, and those afflicted with preconditions or life-time chronic diseases.
Continue conditions guaranteeing windfall profits to stateless corporations during the the worst economic crises in America since the great depression.
Hand over Social Security and Medicare to Wall Street, Drug and Insurance companies.
Cut back or entirely eliminate regulations reigning in the excesses of credit card lenders, insurance companies, Wall Street bankers and financiers, and oil companies like BP and Exon.
Make rich the lobbyists, big corporations and special interests while driving up the deficit by trillions of dollars.

They will do all this without ever putting forth and program, proposal or policy to improve education, put America back to work, rebuild a decayed infrastructure that threatens to bring us down to third-world levels, or any plan to invest in key industries like clean energy and manufacturing.

If you're not registered to vote, do so today!. Make certain you do vote....for a Democrat. And volunteer to work with your Democratic precinct chair in getting out the vote on election day. Otherwise, you're going to see mnore of the same..only much, much, much worse.

Alliance for Retired Americans: GOP "Pledge" Leaves Seniors with Unanswered Questions

2010-09-27T12:08:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday (9/23/10) Ed Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans joined U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Nancy Altman of Social Security Works in a telephone press conference call organized by the Democratic National Committee. Here are his prepared remarks:

"My name is Ed Coyle. I am the Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a grassroots advocacy organization with over 4 million members and 1500 local chapters.

The Pledge to America provides few specifics for voters concerned about Social Security and Medicare. Seniors need more than buzzwords and bromides to pay their bills, see a doctor, or fill a prescription.

Conspicuously absent from today’s plan are both aspiring-Speaker John Boehner’s pledge to increase the Social Security retirement age to 70, and also the “Roadmap” of the Budget Committee’s Paul Ryan which would let Wall Street run a privatized Social Security and end Medicare as we know it.

And speaking of the Young Guns, they have nothing to worry about. For example, in 2037, when Social Security will still be making all payments in full even if nothing is done, today’s Young Guns will be anything but young. Paul Ryan will be 67, Kevin McCarthy will be 72, and Eric Cantor will be 74. By the way, John Boehner will be 89… and there will still be no crisis in Social Security.

Voters need to move beyond today’s p.r. stunt and press their local GOP candidates for greater detail on Social Security:

Do they support raising the retirement age?
Would they cut benefits?
Would they privatize Social Security and tie it to the uncertainty and greed on Wall Street?

Today’s call to ‘repeal and replace’ the new health law leaves seniors wondering:

What would happen to closing Medicare’s “doughnut hole” coverage gap?
Would the Republicans stop payment on the over 1 million rebate checks that help seniors better afford their prescriptions drugs?
Are they opposed to the new law’s free tests and screenings for life-threatening diseases?
Would they repeal new long-term care insurance for middle-class families?
How would they replace the new financial assistance that helps early retirees with health coverage?

Many seniors are struggling to get by, and workers of all ages are wondering when, if ever, they will get to retire. Current and future retirees have every right to demand the whole truth out of candidates for office this year.

I am confident that over the next six weeks – as voters see through all this hype and show business – they will learn the truth about the Pledge to America and they will see quite clearly which candidates are on their side and which ones are not.

"60 Plus" TV Ads Lie and Scare Seniors

2010-09-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

FLASH: Alliance for Retired Americans, Washington D. C. 

A pharmaceutical industry front  group that battled the new health care reform law with scare tactics is  using the same techniques in more than a dozen congressional races to  try to elect Republicans who have vowed to repeal health care reform. The 60 Plus Association has, according to the Federal Election Commission, spent $5,516,241 on independent campaigning so far this year, with 100 percent benefiting Republican candidates. 

Click on HERE for The Washington Post's race-by-race breakdown of the spending. 

According to the Center for Media and Democracy,  60 Plus, which claims it is a "nonpartisan senior advocacy group,"  really operates counter to seniors' best interests by staking out  positions that explicitly favor the pharmaceutical industry. Their ads  are running in Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  - states with a high percentage of seniors.

 "With a drug-money-fueled  war chest, they are likely to pop up elsewhere," according to the  AFL-CIO blog. In Pennsylvania, for example, the ad attacks Rep. Paul Kanjorski  (D), claiming that Kanjorski's vote on health care reform legislation  threatened Medicare payments to seniors, when, in fact, the new health reform law  does not cut Medicare. The new law actually takes money away from the  big corporations who were receiving millions in taxpayer subsidies and  instead puts that money back into the Medicare Trust Fund to strengthen  Medicare for current and future retirees. To learn more, go to HERE. 

Democrats Alert: Change the Framework and Outcome in 2010

2010-09-23T14:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we wrote of the advantage that Republicans are gaining from angry and apathetic voters and the success they are having delivering a message of big-government spending and waste, federal take over, and a perceived failed economic policy. Democrats, on the defensive, are losing donors and traditional big-dollar contributors who are sitting out 2010 preferring to rebuild for 2012.

A recent tracking poll and focus group  study conducted by Democracy Corps (Carville * Greenberg)suggests that Democrats can still overcome this powerful Republican message by changing the framework of the message to move young people, unmarried women, and minorities, and the more conservative white working class back to the Democrats.  

The essence of their study is that the election is not fixed in concrete and a tidal wave of Republican success is not inevitable.  Based on their study, they recommend several things.

First, Democrats must change the context of their message to that of an "against Wall Street outsider", saying, "We need to change Washington for the benefit of the middle-class".  This context moved 16 percent of voters to be more supportive of Democrats than Republicans.

Then, within that context and message, Democrats must communicate a real commitment to change Washington in order to take it out of the hands of Wall Street to the benefit of the middle class.  The issue is very clear, Democrats have to be reformers reigning in corporate power.

Democrats would weaken this message if they engage in attacks on Republicans for spending cuts harming the middle class.  While this particular message has resonance and generates head nods of agreement, it does not move voters as effectively as does hearing of the determination of the candidate to change Washington first!

Finally, lip-service will not suffice.  Voters want to know precisely how the candidate will help the middle-class, how corporate spending will be brought under control, and, maybe most importantly, has the candidate "walked in our shoes"?

Democrats must overcome the perception that they have gone Washington, backed bailouts, forgotten all their previous campaign promises, and are cashing in. Despite all this baggage being toted by Democrats, Republicans remain very suspect, and can quickly lose what is a rather tenuous support growing out of emotionally volatile feelings of despair, anger, and apathy.

Obama: Not A Lot Of Help In 2010

2010-09-22T10:45:00.000-05:00

Special Two-Part: Today...Big Worries For Dems!

We progressives, liberals and leftists are facing some very daunting issues this election cycle. The certifiably insane tea-baggers, along with fundamentalist, hard-shell religionists, and the ever present reactionary right-wing, have captured the Republican party and are on their "Great March"; burning, pillaging, and trashing everything and everyone not associated with their race and class based hate-war on Democracy and working families. This is compounded by a president who seems determined to ride an already spavined centrist philosophy which rewards Chamber-of Commerce Republicans and Wall Street mendicants while those of us who worked so hard to elect him to bring about change are left shaking our heads in disbelief--Obama is making Clinton look good, and that ain't all that easy!

Republicans hate him, and many, many Democrats are growing less fond of him. The glibness of the cliche' recently launched by the White House that, "we're must be doing something right, if everyone is unhappy with us", is mere whistling through the graveyard, and hardly suffices in the real world of politics. Believe me, that left many pols snickering!

Politics is about money, and at the moment, at the most critical time in this election cycle, traditional liberal contributors and donors are leaving their checkbooks in the desk. According to a very reliable and well-placed activist based in Washington, there are several reasons for this.

First, he says, is Obama. The president is not providing the leadership or doing the things which progressives expected of him. While not yet toxic, too many Democrats are avoiding any linkage to him or his administration this election cycle--some, such as Bill White here in Texas, have built firewalls between themselves and the president and, not all that secretly, dread any successful Republican attempt to link them to Obama.

Secondly, the current framework of debate seems to favor the hard right, and traditional donors to leftist, liberal, and progressive causes are taking a wait and see approach, preferring to let whatever happens in November happen, and use their money to build for 2012. In effect, the money is setting out this round.

What makes this particularly bad and worrisome is that the Republican message targeting "big" government, deficits, spending taxes, and the recession it helped spawn has seeped into the minds of independents causing too many to see Democrats as the source of "out of control spending".

So, here we are between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" while someone is pounding us with sledgehammers of debt, spending, failed recovery, and government take over of our lives.

That is the message that is gaining resonance as the rabble from the tea-baggers, abetted by the corporate media, continue to prance around their bonfires of anti-this and anti-that without ever proposing a sound solution for any of the problems facing this nation...other than do nothing, and let the wealthy get richer.

They are framing the debate, and Democrats, with or without their traditional financial backers, and with or without Obama, must refocus and frame the debate in a new and positive way that shows, to their advantage, that they can handle the economy and bring about the changes which will restore the middle class and create jobs for working families.

Democrats will have to accomplish this without enough money and burdened with the baggage of a president seemingly intent on the pacification of Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce.

Tomorrow: We will examine how this might be done.

RIP - Emile Shaw

2010-09-20T13:20:00.000-05:00

Long time activist, Holocaust survivor, and social justice leader, Emile Shaw, died September 12th, at the age of 81. His wife, family, and many friends were at this side.

Mr. Shaw was a former president of the New Mexico Alliance for Retired Americans and a much-respected leader in the Albuquerque, New Mexico peace and justice community as well as numerous other labor and leftist movements. Earlier this month, he and his wife, Rose, celebrated 60-years of marriage.

At the age of nine, he and his parents (one was an American citizen) escaped Nazi Austria and came to New York city. Before retiring and relocating to New Mexico, he and Rose taught for 30-years in the New York public school system. You can read more at the Alliance for Retired American's blog.

As a remembrance, Emile's family asks that you make a donation to your favorite charity, social justice organization or to Peopleworld.org.

Shut Up, Baldinger--Ines Sainz Did Not "Bring It On Herself"

2010-09-17T11:38:00.000-05:00

If you are following the Inez Sainz flap, you have heard by now that former Dallas Cowboy lineman and, for the moment, Fox Sports commentator, Brian Baldinger (no, I'm serious, that's his name) has added his two-cents to the debate. It's called two-cents, because that is usually the real value of the unenlightened opinion being put forth. In Baldinger's case, I'd say a penny would be a gross over evaluation.

The short version of the flap is that Ms. Sainz asserts she was the victim of cat-calls, whistles, and other overtly sexual, and sexist, and intimidating repartee' and behavior in the locker room and practice field of the New York Jets NFL football team. Ms. Sainz is a veteran professional reporter from Mexico. She, also, does not shy from the limelight, and seemingly has never hesitated to wear revealing and/or form fitting clothes. The internet is full of sites featuring her "hot bod" photos.

But, Baldinger's opinion that Sainz "brought it on herself" by wearing revealing apparel is resonate of every damned rapist's, abuser's, spouse beater's, molester's, and violator's cop-out that she "brought it on herself" or "she was just asking for it!". That is not to equate Baldinger with such--absolutely not, or suggest that he is any of those! . But, it is a pervasive mindset based in willful ignorance and still held by too many men--especially those boy-men who see themselves as engaged in "macho" professions.. I have often felt a bit of sympathy for Baldinger---imagine the crap he caught in Junior and Senior High with a name like "Baldinger". But, putting all that aside, his inserting himself into the flap with such gratuitous nonsense is not easily understandable or forgivable. There is no valid mitigation available for what is reported as some very crude, rude, churlish and retarded adolescent behavior by some of those NY Jet's players and coaches. And, he should know better.

If Ms. Sainz arrived dressed inappropriately for the locker room or practice field the recourse was very simple. Ask her to leave, and if she refused, have security escort her from the premises. The recourse is not intimidation, or embarrassment, or discomfort through sexually suggestive displays or words. But, even beyond that, who determines what is appropriate attire? Are women to wear Mu-Mus or Mother Hubbards when reporting on sporting events or from team facilities? If a woman is shapely and pretty is she to wear sack cloth or Burka to disguise that. Or, do we really think that our mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, daughters, nieces, and female friends, neighbors or acquaintances are fair game for harassment because someone finds them attractive or sexy?

We don't seem to put restrictions on young, athletic, and fit (well packaged) male reporters wearing skin tight trousers or form-fitting tailored shirts, do we? No, Ms. Sainz did not bring it on herself, despite Baldinger's half-assed assertion otherwise!

The Tea Party: Racing To History's Garbage Pail

2010-09-16T14:24:00.000-05:00

People are taking the so-called Tea Party far more seriously than it deserves. It is not a new "movement". It is the same 25-30%, or so, of the population, that has always been there, living in delusion and fantasy of creating a 18th-century nation where one can move on when the closest neighbor's smoke becomes visible, and never have to pay taxes, or pay attention to any authority other than personal whim or that which comes to them in dreams.

For the most part...nah..actually every damned one of them is willfully ignorant, anti-intellectual, pseudo-populist, and filled with misplaced anger at what they call big government, wasteful spending, an invasion of hordes of "illegals" they believe are taking jobs and sopping up socials services. They will scream in your face that President Obama is a Kenyan, Socialist, Muslim, Terrorist bent on the destruction of America and enslavement its people. According to that philandering fool, Newt Gingrich, who is obsessively pandering to them, those of us who support the president are part of his "Socialist Secular Machine!" They make no effort to conceal their racism and xenophobia. Many of them mouth Christian platitudes, which they in turn belie with hideously un-Christian characterizations of all that they oppose.

They are overwhelmingly white, extremely emotional, middle-aged, and affluent enough to show up at day-time, workday rallies, incoherently angry and red-faced from self-induced frustration. They really are no more than the descendants of the same lunatic fringe that supported the likes of Barry Goldwater, George Wallace and Ross Perot. They are later day John Birchers. They are the "same as it always was" collection of butt-scratching, nose-picking, fly-caressing, nincompoops who gave Goldwater 39% of the popular vote in 64, Wallace 14% in 68, and Perot 19% in 92. On average, over time, that is 24% of the popular vote...hardly the "tidal wave of change" sweeping America narrative fostered and foisted by the corporate media.

If a plebiscite were held today on the George W. Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy, only 31% would support them. Note, that number keeps showing up; people who still support our latest wars of invasion and occupation, or support the excesses of the Bush administration or claim identity with the "tea party". 31% of the population gone moon-barking, car-chasing nuts!

Were it not for an inept and incestuous corporate media in search of a simplified narrative to explain the extraordinarily complex world of American politics, and primarily reporting on each other, and itself, these nincompoops would not even be in the public awareness.

You can bet last summer's straw hat against a stale doughnut that they're not going to get a hell of lot of money from the GOP. AND, believe this, they might pass the hat at rallies, but they sure as hell aren't going to gin up any big-time contributions among themselves, seeing as how broke paying taxes keeps them!

The garbage pail of history where lie Perot, Wallace, Goldwater, Bush, John Birch, awaits them after this little flurry!

Hank Gilbert: Our First Endorsement

2010-09-14T14:56:00.001-05:00

We are endorsing Hank Gilbert for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture.

I liked Hank Gilbert from the moment we first met at a Health Care Reform rally a little over a year ago. Hank is the kind of Texan that you think of when you hear someone say, "He's a Texan"; tall, broad-shouldered, pearl white stetson, honest, straight-talking , and unafraid to call a spade a dirty shovel! We've all heard the story, from back in the day, of "one riot-one ranger". Well, Hank is that sort of Texan.

As I got to know Hank a bit from sharing platforms and podiums with him, talking with him, and hearing him speak at gatherings, and reading about him out on the campaign trail, my like grew to respect. Here's a man that, at the age of ten, began taking on a man's size work load on the family ranch. Now, some of you "modern" Texans may not know what that means, but let me tell you as a person who, along with his cousins, all preteens, rose out of bed before dawn to take to the fields of Southern Illinois until sunset, in the heat of August, to walk behind a mule-drawn baler and wagon to wrestle, lug, lift cuss and shove "square bales" of hay for our uncle , I know how such work shapes a fellow and prepares him for life. I don't know how much Hank got paid back then, but my cousins and I were grateful for some picture-show money and a bottle of pop.

Hank recently revealed that, under the neglect of current ag-commissioner, Republican, Todd Staples, inspections of the state's gasoline pumps have been allowed to dwindle from annual inspections to only once every four years, resulting in 20%-40% of Texas gasoline pumps overcharging hard-working Texans already paying outrageous pump prices. At that press conference, he cited a specific gas-station in Tyler with out-dated inspection stickers on its pumps.

Yesterday, while Hank was holding a follow-up press-conference across the street from that very station, a state inspector showed up to conduct an inspection. It was caught by a TV station's news cameras. KETK-TV attempted to get a statement from Staples, who characteristically exercised his right to willful arrogance, and did not deign to respond to their request. Just another example of Hank getting it right, while Staples was getting it all wrong. Most politicians will climb a tree to tell a lie rather than stand flat-footed and tell the truth, Well, from Hank, you're going to get the truth, no matter how much it smarts!

If Hank Gilbert's name sounds familiar, you may remember him as a leader in the fight against Texas Republican Governor, Rick Perry's, attempt to inflict the so-called, Trans Texas Corridor on unwary Texans. This was a plan that would have taken the family homes, ranches and farms from Texans (some were in the same family since before statehood) in order to build a gigantic toll road from Mexico to northern states, with the concession for that toll road going to a Spanish company. Mexican trucks would have gotten a cursory "wave-through" inspection at the border with the effect of putting American truck drivers out of business. Lading and loading would have shifted from American ports to Mexico, again putting American docks and dock workers out of business. Hank fought and won that battle, and as seen yesterday, he continues to fight and win for Texans. As the head of our Department of Agriculture, Hank Gilbert will continue to fight and win for working families and seniors.

The Texas Department of Agriculture oversees a large department with extensive and disparate responsibilities including licensing, regulation, crops, livestock, the coming broad band revolution, school lunch program, pesticide regulations, and feral hog abatement programs just to name a few.

House Progressive Caucus Joins Fight To Save Social Security

2010-09-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

Democrats, led by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are finding the courage to face down the White House's fiscal commission with a resounding NO! to Social Security cuts.

Leaks from the commission indicate that even some of its Democrats would support measures to extend the retirement age to 70, eliminate cost-of-living increases, employ some form of "means testing" in order to deny earned benefits to retirees of a certain income level, and to revisit "privatization". Earlier, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll returned numbers showing that a overwhelming majority (68%) of Americans are "uncomfortable" with candidates supporting such radical views.

Talking Points Memo Blog, reports that if the commission recommends cuts or other changes to Social Security, the caucus will say, "You will lose our support". Also, Democrats are preparing a letter to be sent to President Obama declaring that Democrats will pledge to vote against any legislation coming from the commission unless Social Security is taken off the table. The letter will include words stating firm opposition to any attempts at "privatization", cuts, or efforts to diminish Social Security in any way.

Earlier we reported on a sense of Congress letter initiated by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Now that the Congressional Progressive Caucus has signed on and is taking a leadership role in opposing the commission indicates that opposition to this latest outrageous assault on Social Security by Republicans and some lick-spit Blue Dog Democrats is growing and gaining traction in efforts supported by many grassroots groups, including the Alliance for Retired Americans, to tie the hands of the commissions on its suspected ploy of undermining Social Security in the name of deficit reduction.

It is expected that the letter will be sent to the president once members of congress have returned later this month and the number of signers has climbed.

Newspapers: It's Over For Them & Online Will Not Save Them!

2010-09-10T12:39:00.000-05:00

PART TWO: Circulation and Marketing>Models For Failure

If you have an opportunity to sit down and talk with any of the ever declining number of people still in the newspaper business, you will find, to a person, they will say the reason for the decline of newspapers is the internet. They are abjectly and utterly wrong, and merely whistling through the graveyard!

Yesterday, I gave you a perspective on how greed, arrogance, elitism and stupidity have driven off subscribers, readers and advertisers. Today, we'll examine circulation and marketing practices that have all but driven the nails in the coffin and tossed on the first shovel of dirt.

Consider this. The circulation department of any newspaper contains some of the best and worst paid people in the company. Managers generally make pretty good money...as is befitting their many responsibilities. But, the worst paid, virtually within the entire company, not just the department, are the men and women who are most in daily contact with the customers--the carriers and customer service people and their direct supervisors. This is more stupidity and short-sightedness. You do not put your most valuable asset in the hands of under-paid, overworked employees, if you are wise. Or, if you expect to succeed.

The circulation department should be any newspaper's "Consumer Marketing Department". It seldom is, and is considered by most publishers and newspaper executives to have an operational orientation rather than marketing. Oh yeah, it might execute some of those "sales" promotions with discounts and premiums that I wrote of yesterday. Such campaigns usually feature some snotty, urban-sounding, telemarketer or else a shaggy solciitor or carrier at the door. Precisely how you want to "image" your product, right? But, as to a real "deciding" voice in strategy, design, or content? Forget about it. Never mind that this is the department most in touch with customers and most able to advise what they want.

As a result, too many circulation managers focusing on "sales" & "starts" lose sight of (that is, if they ever had it) their primary responsibility: Acquiring and Retaining readers and subscribers by meeting their delivery/distribution needs with a product that is wanted or needed. They blithely "hope" that their $7.50 an hour (or less) customer service people will be able to untangle the hard-feelings of customers aggrieved by the vagaries of some part-timer, netting a couple of hundred a week, hurling newspapers in the general direction of their home from a speeding car. And since these delivery people are always "independent contractors", they get no supervision or training other than some cursory "best-practice" guidance.

It is a model fraught with peril begging for problems. Most of those well-paid managers spend more time dealing with problem resolution, internal squabbles, angry customers, and dodging or explaining away complaints that find their way to the executive wing than they do on their real jobs. As a result, most circulation managers dither around from project to project, staying busy while confusing activity with result.

I once made a publisher furious when I pointed out to him that people lined up just before noon on Sunday to by beer, but I never saw people standing around news-racks, or in C-Stores waiting for the newspaper to hit the stands. This man rose to great heights in the Hearst corporation...but, he didn't get it; and as far as I know, still doesn't...Hearst's newspapers aren't doing any better than anyone else's!

There are plenty of products that people want and buy eagerly, while choosing one brand over another, based on some sort of advertising position or "branding" statement. Those products use "pull" marketing to attract customers or buyers. The market for these products are people who already know "what's in it for them" and when they buy, base their buying decision on which product or service will do the best job of meeting their needs.

Newspapers have to be "pushed". Tell that to publishers or managing editors and watch their faces turn red and their eyeballs pop out. They spend tons of money on branding, imaging, or promoting some new feature without ever having done the marketing groundwork of researching market needs, and designing product and features to meet those needs. They hardly ever engage professional survey firms to talk to former subscribers and readers to find out why they left. Or, for that matter, to any other market segment. Oh yeah, sometimes they mount amateurish in-house questionnaires for their poorly-paid, over-worked, barely-trained customer service people to do in addition to dealing with irate complaints about billing or delivery problems--yep, that's really a model that will give you some marketing insight.

Instead, the publisher, and a few other execs head-huddle, and churn out some new project or campaign based on their "experience, knowledge and insight". Or, at the more "enlightened" newspapers there is a "marketing committee" made up mostly of middle-aged white guys, with a smattering of token women, younger managers, or minorities who are generally too intimidated, awed, or fearful to rebut or challenge most of the utter nonsense coming out of these committees.

So, they launch these vast, expensive, time and energy consuming projects, or campaigns, which distract attention and effort away from the primary job of acquiring and retaining readers, subscribers, and advertisers through determination of their needs and putting forth a product that meets those needs--AND THEN TELLING THEM!.

In short, you want to sell me a newspaper, don't tell me what features you have, don't tell me how proud you are of being in business since Hector was a pup. You need to tell me what's in it for me, and why I need to Act Now! Why am I going to be better off by by buying your product? You need to tell me, over-and-over -and-over. Don't give me a branding statement and expect that to pull me to a buying decision. You need to push me to that decision by telling me why I am going to be better off!

Okay. Now. If the internet is not the real problem, why in the name of hell do newspapers think it will be their salvation? They have been at it for fifteen years now, some of the best minds in the business (yes, I know, that's not necessarily saying much) have yet to come up with a successful business model that generates the revenue needed to staff a professional newsroom so they can continue with their core expertise..delivery of in-depth local news, information and entertainment, and advertising. The reason they have not succeeded, is that there is no model to be found!

Got newspaper stock, dump it! That old dog has had its last hunt, and just ain't gonna leave the porch much longer!

But there are success stories. Hispanic newspapers, in particular, are filling the gaps left by the dailies grappling with...well, whatever it is they are grappling with so they can appear busy.arranging deck chairs as the ship sinks. Those Hispanic publications know what their market wants and they provide it at a fair price and have been very successful in capturing advertising dollars. That is a business model that predicates success--find out what your market needs and wants (ain't always the same), meet those needs and wants, let the market know you are meeting those needs and wants, and close the deal with a fair price.

The New York Times - Gone In 5 Years!

2010-09-09T12:04:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, the publisher of The New York Times reiterated a prediction of the imminent demise of the newspaper's print edition, which he first predicted about five-years ago. Back then publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, said the newspaper's print-edition would be gone within a decade. Now, he is tacitly confirming recent predictions by industry analysts that America's Newspaper of Record will no longer publish a print edition by 2015--five years!

Sadly, and inevitably, the same fate awaits almost all printed newspapers in this country. There are exceptions, such as Spanish language newspapers which flourish---hold this thought, I'll come back to it tomorrow.

There is a desire, particularly among those who are really responsible for newspaper's declines, to blame the internet. You can include this shallow, tunnel-visioned way of thinking as part of the problem, not identification of the problem. It is always easier to point fingers and assign blame than to assume responsibility. Newspapers began losing subscribers, readers, and advertisers long, long before the advent of online news, information and entertainment sources.

The death of newspapers (and their online efforts) is easily attributable to several things.

First: Publisher's greed. The moment that the accountants glommed their sweaty hands on subscription fees as a way to jack up revenues circulation began its decline-advertisers pay their rates based on circulation, among other things. In short, newspapers priced themselves out of inner-city, and working-family neighborhoods, and mounted outrageous pressure sales schemes targeting affluent suburbs using discounts, and merchandise give-aways. They demanded multi-month payment in advance. They rejected and left behind their most loyal readers. Over the short term it worked. Long term, it has become a dismal failure as economics now force scaled-down products to compete for subscribers without bribes, irrelevant inducements, and give-aways!

Equally devastating to the bottom line was the way publishers gouged and ignored the pleas and complaints from advertisers during the go-go 80's and 90's. Doubt me? Take a look around at the proliferation of the FREE Real Estate, Automobile, "Saver", and neighborhood publications out there. Local advertisers find them more effective and less costly than newspapers. They exist because newspapers created their need.

National advertisers also bailed out and took their free-standing inserts to direct mail programs. Those inserts on Sunday constitute a major amount of revenue and...the newsroom will not like to hear this, are a significant reason for Sunday newsstand or news-rack purchase. But, if it comes in the mail for free, why do we have to shell out two-bucks or more to get it? We don't!

Remember this. Loyalty is the absence of something better!

Editorial Elitism and Sheer Stupidity: Aside from greed, the arrogance of the newsroom is the singularly easiest identifiable factor in the readership exodus. Let me cite some things that they ignore, disregard or choose not to acknowledge. They are not in competition with TV or radio--yet they behave as though they were. Except for national newspapers, their lead stories ought not be national or international news.

Locally, they just can't match the immediacy of television or radio. Yet they persist in rehashing, the next morning, that which was worn out and stale by 10:00PM the night before. Folks, hitting yourself in the head with a hammer does not make the headache go away. Cheez! Catch a clue, will you?

Look, TV and Radio are little more than headlines services, throwing out a few stories between commercials per airtime bloc, with each taking little more than 60-seconds to one minute to air. The network, cable and national newspapers adequately (ahem) cover world and national news. Local newspapers can't compete with that, but my God, how they try; filling their news holes with day-old, wire-service accounts of world and national news that has already been exploited to sheer mind-numbing exhaustion elsewhere. Sometimes I think every news staffer has visions of a desk at The NYT or WaPo.

This leaves local, regional and state news as their franchise. Please, do this for me. Take several of your local newspapers, lay them out on the kitchen table (that's where we blue-collar types do our best thinking) and see what proportion of the lineage is devoted to local news, information, and entertainment. Chances are you'll be treated to a rehash of Karzai's corruption, but will play hell finding out why there were sirens on your street last night, or an account of your company's softball game, or kid's soccer game. The closer it is to me, the more interested I am.

Turn to the editorial and op-ed page, and see whether or not your newspaper gives a fair, balanced and equal voice to divergent opinions and columnists across the political spectrum. I'm betting a doughnut against last summer's straw hat, they don't! Hell, we don't need liberal readers! Hell, we don't need conservative readers!

As I said, elitist and stupid.

Tomorrow: Circulation & Marketing Dithering, Disaster, & Why Online Is Not The Answer.

Please note: The writer worked for over three decades for newspapers in Major Markets to Podunk towns in positions ranging from carrier to Group Marketing Director, and Interim Circulation Director of the Oakland Tribune, and Circulation Director at a Midwest daily. Most recently, before the position was eliminated, he was the promotion/sales manager of a small-market newspaper in Texas.

PacifiCare Facing $9.9-Billion Legal Action

2010-09-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

Today, we're learning that the inevitable is happening: The czars of the nation's largest health insurance oligarchies are poised to clobber us with huge rate hikes and blame it on health care reform, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, republican dough-boy strategist, Karl Rove is leading a campaign of disinformation composed of lies, damned lies, distortion, and omission. Clearly, they're banking on using their lies and damned lies to foster big wins in November, so they can continue their campaign of destruction of the middle class, and further enrichment of the already obscenely wealthy insurance czars and drug company oligarchs.

All this has not passed unnoticed. Back in June, I wrote of Humana's back-tracking on promises regarding their Medicare Advantage plans. At that time, some right-wing, insurance company apologist, named Dave Fiflit, of Iowa, took me to task for not knowing of what I was writing and challenging my command of the facts. "Dave of Iowa" fell silent, after I took him by the hand and led him to the truth!

Now, in an in-depth, copyrighted, investigative-story by reporter, Duke Helfand, of the L.A. Times, we find out that California is launching what amounts to a $10-billion action against mega-insurance company, PacifiCare. That state's Department of Insurance claims 1-million violations of state laws by PacifiCare after it was bought out by America's largest health care insurance company, United HealthGroup inc. (This was the crux of the argument "Old Dave of Iowa" gave me back in June. He was willfully ignorant of the fact then that United had acquired Secure Horizons).

California has a lengthy laundry list of claimed abuses and violations, which include; "...intentional disregard for the interest of doctors, hospitals and patients in California with the pursuit of cost cutting above all else", according to, Adam Cole, the state's insurance department's general counsel. The state's legal claims include allegations that the insurance giant mismanaged medical claims, lost thousands of patient documents, failed to pay doctors what they were owed, and ignored calls to fix the system.

A PacifiCare PR-flack issued a typically lame response, "...PacifiCare pays its claims promptly and accurately."

Cole said, "It's a story of intense corporate greed."

California is seeking a $10,000 fine for each of the 992,936 violations it alleges, potentially making it the biggest action of its kind. The vast dimensions of the case were revealed as it was under review in a California administrative law court this past year.

Earlier, the state's Department of Managed Health Care ( a separate entity from the one now pursuing PacifiCare) fined and collected from the insurance giant, $2-million, over allegations that it had improperly denied medical claims for HMO policyholders. PacifiCare paid, but denied wrongdoing.

Our suggestion is to keep a close eye on this case. You can be certain that Attorneys General, and other agencies, of cash-strapped states across the nation will. And, you can also be certain that the greed, misfeasance, arrogance, and abuses of the Humana/Secure Horizon/PacifiCare and all other corporate kith and kin are not isolated to California.

This is the second time, we've reported on the nefarious dealings of this huge health-care insurance oligarchy. It will not be the last.

Republican = Lies & More Lies::The Evidence!

2010-09-07T07:26:00.000-05:00

I am continually asked for evidence of Republican lies and efforts to disenfranchise voters. Evidence? You want some stinking evidence...here:

This picture is of people rallying in Florida to protest the 2000 right-wing's vote theft:

This is how it appeared throughout America after a Republican group in Houston doctored it!

Pretty damned stinky, isn't it?

Go HERE To Read the full account...

SOLIDARITY

2010-09-06T15:19:00.000-05:00

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

SOLIDARITY

Congresswoman Giffords Joins Fight to Save Social Security!

2010-09-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

Tell Congress: Don't Raise Retirement Age!

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) plans to introduce a resolution expressing the sense of Congress against raising the retirement age when Congress reconvenes this month. "This resolution, especially with a large number of cosponsors, can be a good counterweight to proposals at the Fiscal Commission to raise the retirement age," said Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans.

In a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to members of the House recently, Giffords said that an increase in the retirement age is simply a cut in benefits. Current cosponsors include: Reps. Travis Childers (D-MS), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Laura Richardson (D-CA), Diane Watson (D-CA), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and Joe Courtney (D-CT). To ask your Member of Congress to co-sponsor the resolution, go HERE

"For 75 years, Social Security has been a bedrock promise. Seniors have earned it with a lifetime of hard work and depend on it to live independently and with dignity in their retirement. That's why I unequivocally oppose proposals to cut Social Security benefits and balance the budget on the backs of seniors by raising the Social Security retirement age," Giffords wrote in her letter. Rep. Giffords listed several reasons for not raising the retirement age: the surplus within the Social Security trust fund is estimated to grow to more than $4 trillion by 2023; also, the normal retirement age, currently 66, was already increased by two months each year in 1983 until it reaches 67 in 2022.

In addition, she wrote that raising the retirement age will place a greater burden on older, blue-collar workers in physically demanding occupations, like nurses, auto workers and teachers, who may not be able to continue to work in their jobs into their mid-to-late 60s; that the burden of raising the retirement age will fall most heavily on older workers with limited employment opportunities; and that life expectancy numbers are skewed in favor of men, higher income earners, and the more educated.

Simpson Blames Fiscal Mess On Veterans!

2010-09-02T10:25:00.003-05:00

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

There are words which resonate, reverberate, and echo through the consciousness of those of us who have lived long enough to have a sense of history. We find inspiration and fortitude in them.

Not so strangely, those words have invariably sprung forth from people of liberal belief in the concept of decency, justice, fairness, dignity, and respect for all peoples: "I have a dream", "Wrong is still wrong if every one's doing it, and right is still right if no one's doing it!" and, of course, those words above, spoken to a mentally unbalanced Senator Joseph McCarthy by Joseph N. Welch during the "Red Scare" Army Hearing in the 1950's

Now, here we are, more than a half-century later with another deranged (former) senator, Alan Simpson, outdoing even the drunken and deranged McCarthy with venomous attacks on people deserving his respect. Recently, we've written of his manic diatribes against the Older Women's League and seniors, working people and retirees everywhere and the outrage expressed by leaders from many national organizations.

But now, like McCarthy he has gotten carried away with himself, and has attacked veterans as being one of the causes of the current financial mess. You breathed agent orange--it's your fault, Jack! You have PTSD, or lost an arm or leg, or suffer a head injury, or are blinded, scalded, burned or otherwise maimed? Too bad, so sad--you're costing this country a boatload of money!

Now, let me pause and quickly answer the above question. No, the ridiculous old bastard has no sense of decency at all!

Simpson: "The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us save the country in this fiscal mess."

Outrageous in it's implications that veteran's with health problems, and who are using the benefits they were promised and earned, are somehow at the root of the country's financial mess; the statement demonstrates a callous disconnect from reality.

Simpson, is a former Republican Senator, now serving on the President's deficit commission is a veteran himself and was once chairman of the Senate's Veteran's Affairs Committee. He really ought to know better. Which leaves us believing that his tawdry hi-jinks are not mere lapses in self-restraint, but more along the order of a major deterioration of his mental capacities. Either that, or he's another example of the willful ignorance of the right-wing ideologues.

The accusation is scurrilous and appalling. This is particularly true when we have, over the past decade, created ten of thousands of new combat veterans with service connected health problems. Is it his plan to scapegoat veterans as he already has seniors, retirees, the elderly, the disabled, orphans and widows(ers)?

Obviously so! No, no decency at all!

Bristol Palin, Obama, Fox, Japanese Wankers-All Making News

2010-09-01T12:03:00.000-05:00

Some gleanings from this morning's news:

Pius pudgette, Bristol Palin, perhaps rankled by her baby-daddy's latest betrayal, has settled our curiosity and removed all drama from her upcoming appearances on one of those ubiquitous TV dance contest clones of American Idol, by announcing that she will not be wearing any sexy or brief outfits. Modesty, she says, will prevail. Bristol, honey--that's a really good choice, you have much to be modest about...so thank you, and until you lose that baby fat, you might want to wear a Burkah!

Yeah, yeah. I know. Snarky and cruel and way, way beneath me.

President Obama spoke on national TV last night and at least five dozen people left reruns of Bones or NCIS to watch his 15-minute soliloquy on our wars of invasion and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of those watching was uber-conservative, William Kristol, who said he liked some of what he heard. Which prompts me to suggest that, perhaps, President Obama, you might want to stop playing for history books a hundred years from now and cease trying to placate those bastards--do you not understand that what they'd really like to do is to burn crosses on the White House lawn and lynch you and your family?

Fox News has again outstripped all its rivals in viewership proving that you can't go broke overestimating the vacuity and willful ignorance of American TV viewers. The four-decade process of the "dumbing down" of America has taken fruit!

And in Japan, there has been created a resort specifically for men with "virtual" girlfriends. Yes, they will go and pretend they are there with the girl of their dreams...with online images, and through the miracle of technology, they can even have their girlfriend's pictures taken at spots around the resort as though they were actually there. Now, I may be snarky about certain things, but judgmental I am not. Whatever gets your lawn mowed and all that! But, hear me on this--if I ever meet up with one of these guys, I am not going to shake his hand!

America: An Insane Asylum Gone Ariot!

2010-08-31T08:45:00.000-05:00

The United States of America is a nation gone insane.

We watch as poisonous puerile passions pose as political ideology; the guttersnipe trash-talk of a former Republican senator obfuscates the seriousness of protecting one of the world's most effective anti-poverty programs-Social Security; and our corporately owned news media, staffed mostly by semi-literate, shellac-haired, "Barbie" & "Ken" clones, race each other to be the first to voice the press releases of right-wing geeks rather than developing a story or checking for the facts; and our president vacates and placates in the face of scurrilous and dangerously provocative personal attacks from the mentally incapacitated and venomously vile and violent professional wing-nuts (the same 35% of the willfully ignorant who believe to this day that George W. Bush was just the beans).

Today, we awaken to the news:

That the White House will not demand the resignation of Alan Simpson as co-chair of the commission on fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. This, despite his continued campaign of abuse and insult and disparagement of older people and retirees!
That another member of the commission, Republican Paul Ryan, using the commission as a pulpit from which he can continue his chant for drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, which he has now added, national defense and the FBI.
That, according to a Newsweek poll of Republicans, a majority believe that President Obama "...sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists and wants worldwide Islamic law".
That a dying Christopher Hitchens has called the recent Glen Beck rally as the "Water World of White Self-Pity!"
That since Saturday last, 18 GIs have been killed in Afghanistan (*may I personally note that their presence in that backwater of the world serves mainly to shore up a corrupt Karzai regime and narco-terrorists).

And, I can assure you of this. More Americans are aware of Bristol Palin's standings on some TV dance contest than they are of the above.

Yep, America has gone moon-baying nuts!

Mr. President: It Is Time to Fire Alan Simpson

2010-08-30T12:44:00.002-05:00

I have written extensively of that damned fool Alan Simpson and his dismal attitude toward older Americans--perhaps he is driven by self-loathing, as he himself is older than dirt and obviously dumber than a gunny sack full of wet Brazos River sand!

But over the past week or so, he has gone way beyond his earlier snide sarcasms and ugly denigrations of seniors to display a level of hatred that borders on the psychotic. The man is in desperate need of an intervention and some geriatric counseling and treatment.

In an e-mail to the Executive Director of the Older Women's League, Simpson wrote that Social Security is like a "milk cow with 310 million tits". Furthermore, he also told her, "call when you get honest work". Gosh, Alan, has no one warned you that one sign of a deteriorating mind in the elderly is a careless disregard for self-control demonstrated by wildly inappropriate outbursts of rudeness and crudity. Alan, seek help!

Last Wednesday, on August 25th, Barbara Easterling (*President) and Edward Coyle, (*Executive Director) of the 4-million member Alliance for Retired Americans wrote to President Barack Obama demanding Simpson's resignation from the Co-Chair of the National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Obama appointed Simpson to that position when the commission was formed.

In their jointly signed letter they wrote:

"This is conduct unbecoming a person named to co-chair a presidential panel. Moreover, it is the latest in a series of divisive and inappropriate comments Mr. Simpson has made about our nation's seniors and the Social Security benefits they have earned and rely upon to make ends meet.

He has also said, according to multiple news sources:

"Where do I get my mail? From these old cats 70 and 80 years old who are not affected in one whiff. People who live in gated communities and drive their Lexus to Perkins restaurant to get the AARP discount"
That older Americans are greedy geezers";
That the economically-disadvantaged are the lesser-people in society."

Mr. President, the Alliance for Retired Americans fully supports your goal of lowering the federal budget deficit, but as you know Social Security has not added one cent to the debt. We do not want a large debt to be our legacy we leave behind to our children and grandchildren. But the growing series series of venomous comments by Mr. Simpson greatly compromises his ability to lea a panel that tackles these complex issues in a thorough and objective manner"

The B.A. Stands For Bad Attitude

2010-08-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

I am ready to admit that the B.A. after my name does not necessarily mean Bachelor of Arts, rather it could readily mean Bad Attitude! Yes, I will own up to it here and now, I am a short-fused, contentious, curmudgeonly old S.O.B. who is fairly easy to rile. Nonsense does it most often, but people trying to rip me off is guaranteed to make my dander soar like a hungry raptor in search of prey. Put the two together and I am a sight to behold, and be sure to cover the ears of the children.

Here's what has my dudgeon boiling right now. Stay with me here and see if my peevishness is not well based.

I go to our neighborhood Brookshire's and being the taciturn lout that I am, I just prefer to enter the store, remain silent and anonymous, and do my business and get out without being chatted up...but no! By the time I've gotten through the door and wiped down the cart handles at least three clerks, baggers, managers, or assistant managers have shouted out, for all to hear, inquiries as to my well being..."How are you today Sir?"

I'm tempted on these occasions to tell them about my aching back, the things going on with my wife's health and the horrific affliction of a hives-like rash I'm afflicted with periodically as a residual effect of either the chemo or radiation for my cancer treatment. How am I? Don't ask!

And by the time I make it to produce and around the corner past the meat department at least three more store employees have greeted me with cheery "hello, how are yous" and I want to shout, "Just the same as I was when I walked in the damned door and was first assaulted with your misplaced interest as to my well-being".

Now understand, I went to Brookshire's as a conscious decision because I really was in no humor for Wal-Mart. That tedium is best undertaken early in the morning while still half asleep. Had I gone to Wal-Mart in this humor, there would have been headlines.

Sure, I get it; some suit in Brooshire's home-office had a brain spasm and held a few dozen meetings and drilled every one in the stores on being "friendly" and "customer aware". High motives indeed. But, put into practice, the redundancy plays out like a skit put on by lunatics.

Then I get to the pharmacy and find out I have to show my I.D. and sign three documents to merely pick up a prescription...a "controlled substance" you see, and all overseen by a pimply-faced 18-year old clerk! Just answer me this will you? How many 70-year old drug addicts go to the trouble of having a physician call in a prescription on a Medicare Part D plan and stand in line at Brookshires to get it.

As I check out (yet another bubbly inquiry as to my health) and am ready to leave the store, I am forced, over a pretty strong protest, to allow one of the store employees to push my cart and load my car. Never mind that I'm 6'1", 190lbs and fairly rugged and this employee is a wizened, partially crippled with osteoporosis, old woman at least my age or more. Brookshires will try to tell you it's more of their "friendly customer service" but I think it's just a means to keep their shopping carts from wandering off. For God's sake, find her something meaningful to do in the office instead of schlepping heavy carts and loading cars!

If Brookshire's were serious about customer service instead of just imposing their ill-advised solicitous groveling on people for the sake of appearances they would figure out a way to sell produce that does not turn rotten with a day or two of leaving the store, or 60-cent a pound bananas, or $2.00 a pound oranges. A few less "greeters" and "cart pushers' and they could trim their overhead enough to provide real customer satisfaction.

They make a big deal out of how "Christian" they are, even to the extent of ballyhooing their closures on Easter in celebration of their "Savior". That's fine, but tell me when gouging for every last penny and selling sub-standard products became a Christian virtue.

How am I? Aren't you glad you asked?

Entitlements - We've Earned them

2010-08-25T11:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I partook of some socialized medicine at the Dallas, TX V.A. hospital. I searched through the entire building for the "Death Panel" office but found none. Which, I regard as a damned shame, since I have a few people I would have suggested they take under consideration.

It was a pleasant enough experience; no wait for more than twenty minutes within my appointment time and friendly, courteous, and caring front end staff, and bright intelligent doctors who quickly responded to my questions with clear and meaningful answers. Altogether opposite the experiences I have had with some of the rude and arrogant bozos in private practice here in East Texas.

I mention this because my V.A eligibility is an "entitlement"! I am entitled to it because I am an honorably discharged veteran of the Marine Corps who put his ass on the line and did all the hideous things expected of me with barely a whimper or objection and because I was told that if I did those things in an honorable way someday health care through the V.A would be mine.

But along the way, the damned Republicans rewrote the rules and rescinded that promise and applied "means testing" to my eligibility so that I am now saddled with some co-pays. Minimal co-pays actually, but co-pays and not free, none-the-less. And, the V.A. drug plan beats the living hell out of the Republican and drug company designed Medicare Part D. But, never mind all that, it is an "entitlement" which I use and plan to continue using despite the nattering of right-wing politicians and corporate media.

I also draw monthly Social Security benefits--another entitlement. And, I've got to tell you, a damned good one. I and my employers have been paying into it since I "officially" began working at age 16 in 1955. I say officially, because no one paid into it when I was about 14 and running around collecting numbers slips for my stepfather. That is when I wasn't lugging beer cases up out of the basement of the bar where he worked. So yeah, I'm entitled! But, the point is this; I would be flat on my ass without it---my 401k took a beating in this recession, and every company that I worked for with the promise of a "pension" failed and folded their pension programs! Yes, I have some savings, and what remains of my 401k, some equity, low expenses and overhead--but without social security, they would be whittled away in mere survival!

I am also entitled to be safe and secure in my home and protected against fire or flood. I am entitled to those things through my willingness to sacrifice some of my earnings to pay taxes to support police, fire, EMT and other first responders. I am also entitled to these things because I am a good citizen who stays informed, involved, and who votes and serves on juries and stands ready to help my neighbors when they need it.

I am also entitled to timely mail delivery at a reasonable cost. That's because I am an American citizen and it's in the Constitution. And, I am entitled to decent roads and highways in return for my prompt payment of taxes. I am also entitled to see that my children and the children of others get a good, building for the future, public education free of any particular religion or other superstitious mumbo-jumbo or displays of uber-patriotism.

I am entitled to having my money safe and secure in well regulated banks and financial institutions and protected against loss if those entities should "fail".

Oh yeah, let's not forget, were it not for another "socialized medicine" entitlement; Medicare, I would have died of cancer or been made bankrupt by the expense of my treatment. Which, by the way, is another plan that I and my employers paid into for most of my working years--hardly "welfare", just a very effective, well-managed health insurance option.

Entitlements? You damned straight skippy! And I don't want to hear a stupid word against them. I, and millions of others just like me, have earned them...we are entitled to them!

Texas: Social Security Works For You!

2010-08-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

Social Security brings nearly $39-billion to the Texas economy each year. Those dollars "turn over" several times after being spent for health care, lodging, food, transportation and other of life's necessities. They lift from poverty over 1.3-million Texans and provide income to nearly 1/2-million disabled workers, nearly 300-thousand children, 3.25-million widows & widowers and almost 2-million retired workers.

As that $39-billion (equivalent to 3% of the state's annual GDP) works its way through our economy; businesses, small and large, are able to grow and and provide employment to other Texas.

As these figures demonstrate, Social Security is an extremely effective and beneficial family insurance protection for Texans against lost wages due to old age, disability, or death. Simply put: It is impossible to overstate the importance of Social Security's earned protections. However, we find ourselves here in Texas with too many rabidly-radical, right-wing politicians of the type that would have us apologize to BP for its disastrous oil spill and hand Social Security over the the cut-purses, liars, thieves, and mendicants of Wall Street.

They ignore the truth that Social Security has not caused the federal deficit, and that the program enjoys a $2.6-trillion surplus today which is projected to become $4.3-trillion by 2023. Middle-aged and young workers will find that Social Security must be a mainstay against poverty as they become older after watching their housing equities, retirement savings and 401k investments being ravaged by what is now called "The Great Recession". The attempts to deprive them of FULL Social Security benefits by Republicans and Blue-Dog Democrats and their arch-conservative fellow travelors is both unbelievable and unconscionab

Social Security is not a welfare program breaking our financial backs and causing our fiscal deficit. Social Security is paid for through dedicated taxes contributed by workers and their employers into a trust fund. This makes Social Security a promise---a bond between generations that belongs to the people who have worked hard all their lives and their families!

Do These Things Today & Save Social Security

2010-08-20T13:33:00.001-05:00

Known foes of Social Security and Medicare from the rabidly radical right-wing of American politics are waging an all out war against working families, retirees, the elderly, disabled workers and the survivor beneficiaries of Social Security. Over the past several days, we have exposed their lies and provided clear and easy remedies which insure Social Security's solvency for decades to come.

Today we're going to name the key protagonists in the assault on this vital social safety net which has helped keep Americans of all ages and from all walks of life out of poverty for 75 years.

Billionaire Peter G. (Pete) Peterson, one of that perfidious bastard Richard Nixon's advisers, is joined in a cabal with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to pump millions into schemes and on-air advertising to contriving to take away Social Security and Medicare under the canard of "fiscal responsibility". Peterson, former CEO of the disgraced and bankrupt Lehman brothers, has revealed his true motives in the remark, "...Social Security would crowd out all forms of capital accumulations".

These reactionary right-wing politicians were appointed to the President's Fiscal Commission by House Minority Leader, John Boehner; Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Dave Camp of Michigan, and Jeb Hensarling of Texas.

Ryan has called for the "sun-setting" of Social Security while stating that "secure retirement is a myth". He is a key proponent of the wait to 70 to retire shell game.

Hensarling has called for the privatization of Social Security and reducing benefits for those already receiving it. (If Bush's 2005 privatization plot had passed, those "individual investment accounts" would have, by now, lost 20% of their worth!). He was a protege' of former Republican Senator Phil Gramm, the architect of the deregulation which contributed to the recent Wall Street catastrophe.

Camp has mastered the art of political double-speak from each side of his mouth, with a tongue that wags at both ends. On one hand he bully-pulpits about making Social Security strong while at the same time joining in with the privatization crowd. He has amassed a lifetime "0" rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans for his anti-senior voting record!

Those are some of the principals out to destroy Social Security. Now, take a few minutes and fight back and help preserve and protect it so it can be passed along to coming generations:

Contact your member of Congress today to let them know that you support Social Security and Medicare and that they request the Fiscal Commission to hold open field hearings that will encourage honest debate and input from constituents like you.

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper that urges the commission to fully examine ALL the tax and spending that created the deficit (2 wars, tax cuts, spiraling health costs, housing bubble), not just entitlement programs.

Talk to your friends and neighbors about the value of Social Security and Medicare. Shane the good word about the importance of making these vital programs remain strong for our children and grandchildren!

COMING MONDAY: Social Security Works for Texas

How To Fix Social Security

2010-08-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

For 75 years now, Social Security has provided benefits to individuals of all ages; retirees, disabled workers, widows & widowers, and surviving dependent children of deceased workers. Despite its success as a preeminent anti-poverty program it is once again under attack from the rabidly radical right wing of the American political spectrum. These attacks are taking form, from the vilification of seniors as "greedy geezers" to the false claims that Social security has contributed to the current deficit and that somehow Social Security will be a "burden" on coming generations of working Americans, of scare tactics similar to the "death panel" lies of the health car reform debate..

The facts are these: Social Security is sound, solvent, and secure with a surplus of $2.5-trillion which puts the program on schedule to pay full, guaranteed benefits until at least 2037. Even if no changes were made, Social Security could, after 2037, continue to pay benefits at 75% until around 2084. These figures and projections are readily verifiable through the Congressional Budget Office and Social Security websites.

However, we do need to act in order that we protect, preserve and pass along to future generations a cost effective, strong, and fully funded program as is now benefiting more than 53-million Americans. The ways to do this are really quiet simple and could be easily implemented were it not for the recalcitrance and pigheadedness of Republicans, Conservatives and Blue-Dog Democrats.

1. Congress should allow the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans--those with annual incomes of $350,000 or more--which would generate revenues that would keep Social Security fully funded for a full 75 years.

2. Raise the payroll tax cap on Social Security for the wealthiest Americans. The cap, which right now is at $106,800 means that millionaires and billionaires such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pay no more into the Social Security trust fund than do their middle level managers.

3. Freeze the estate tax at 2009 levels and apply those revenues to the Social Security trust fund.

4. Establish a real and meaningful jobs program putting Americans back to work in good-paying, American jobs.

All it would take is for people to make their voices heard that they want a real fix to Social Security that does not penalize contributors and future recipients with outrageous means testing, or increases in the retirement age, or cuts in benefits or elimination of cost-of-living-adjustments.

COMING TOMORROW: How You Can Make A Difference.

Answering Republican Lies About Social Security

2010-08-18T10:26:00.001-05:00

Please allow me to burden you with some facts regarding Social Security.

Did you know that with the current cap on contributions set at $106,800 billionaires such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and George Soros contribute no more to the trust fund than do their middle managers?

Republicans, knee-jerk conservatives, tea-baggers, Blue Dog Democrats and others who attempt to link Social Security to the deficit are not merely misrepresenting the facts, they are lying to you! Social Security is in the very strictest sense an insurance program protecting from poverty; retirees, disabled workers, widows and orphans and is funded by contributions from working Americans and their employers...its payouts come from a trust fund supported by those contributions not from the general treasury!

When you hear Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Alan Simpson and others of their ilk whimpering about IOUs and future generations you need to understand this---Congress has borrowed against the trust fund and now doesn't want to repay the loan...in effect they want to default on a "car title' loan and let the repo man come out and then claim they've "cleaned up an entitlement debt". Don't let them con you, they know this to be true and are engaging in name-calling, generational warfare, and outright lies to distract you from the truth.

They would have you believe that Social Security and "entitlements" are the cause of the deficit. This is more of their lies and fear-mongering. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), most of the currently projected budget deficit over the next ten years results from Bush's tax cuts for the rich, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq fought on the national credit card, spiraling health care costs, and the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The simple truth is this, Social Security has not contributed to the deficit and has a $2.5-trillion surplus that would see it to about 2040 with absolutely no revisions!

If anyone tries to tell you differently, they are lying to you!

COMING TOMORROW: Practical Ways to Preserve, Protect and Pass Along Social Security.

Cancer & Friendship

2010-08-17T14:59:00.001-05:00

Right at two years ago to the day, after fighting and arguing with a (the) prominent local (Tyler, Texas) Ears, Nose, Throat specialist for four months that my sore throat was more than "drainage", I was finally given a CAT Scan and subsequent "surface" biopsy that indicated a non-malignant mass at the base of my tongue.

Not satisfied, after a quarter of a year of dithering, indifference and outright rudeness, I demanded referral to a different doctor. On the first visit to the new fellow at Baylor in Dallas, a review of the CAT Scan and "hands on" palpitation of the area caused him to schedule me for an almost immediate deep-tissue biopsy which determined I had a malignant, stage four, squamous cell cancer on the base of my tongue. A hurriedly scheduled PET Scan later indicated that it it had not yet metastasized. No, I hadn't smoked for 30 years.

While on the operating table for the biopsy; once it came back positive, I was fitted with a medi-port in my upper left chest and a feeding tube into my stomach just below the sternum and was referred to an oncologist and radiologist to begin chemo and radiation therapy. Surgery is out of the question for this type cancer in this location due to the complex involvement of muscle, nerve and bone structure in the area. Also, due to the slight possibility of radiation finding a cavity and leaking into the jawbone causing an almost always fatal condition involving necrosis of the jawbone, I had to have all my teeth, except for the front six, removed.

Following a healing period after my oral surgery, treatment began in early October and continued until the end of March at which time, after a CAT & PET Scan, I was diagnosed cancer free. Subsequent exams have gone very well.

Six month of chemo and radiation beat the living hell out of me and left me 67 pound lighter than when I started. Anyone who has gone through it knows what it is like...but, I had an outstanding medical team and a former Marine's instinct to keep on fighting, regardless! It was miserable, but something happened when I was at one of my lowest points of continual nausea, intestinal vagaries, mental confusion, and general malaise that caused me to suck it up, put my head down and swing away.

I got a phone call from a guy who had been my best friend back in grade school and junior high and who I had not seen or talked to in forty some years. He had heard of what I was undergoing and called to "check on me". I can think of nothing, except perhaps the birth of my children, that affected me in such a powerfully emotional way. That phone call made the difference, it was a turning point, a benchmark, in my treatment and recovery.

Lat year, in October, a year after treatment began, I made a journey to my home town (the first in several decades) and spent a marvelous afternoon with he and his wife talking about the "glory days". We, in many ways, were the last generation of kids to experience the camaraderie and freedom of the "sand-lot" and life without adult interference and meddling. Those experiences left us with a lot of rich stories and "characters" to remind ourselves of.

I was warned that cancer is a life-altering disease. It is. That phone call was also life-altering, and I can not explain the comfort, strength and calm that came from it and that remain with me to this day.

Social Security Birthday Parties & Rallies - A Great Success!

2010-08-16T11:45:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday, August 14th, the 75th Anniversary of the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security program into law, the Alliance For Retired Americans put together over 100 birthday parties and other events to highlight both the occasion and the importance of the program. For a list of all the activities, go to http://bit.ly/aTIDaP.

Here in Texas we held Birthday rallies in Austin and Dallas. Over 55 people, young and old, attended the Dallas rally. Other events included those in Tucson, Arizona, where FDR's granddaughter is the special speaker at a lunch, and Rock Hill, South Carolina, where Alliance members will present Rep. John Spratt (D) with a special plaque to thank him for his service, along with a giant card signed by constituents asking him to continue protecting and preserving Social Security. Rep. Spratt will then cut a birthday cake and announce the winner of the raffle for whacking rights to a large "Fat Cat" piñata.

Alliance President Barbara J. Easterling called into the Social Security-Medicare party in Omaha, Nebraska to address those in attendance. "Retirees have much to be proud of as Social Security turns 75. It is a true American success story, one that has kept generations of seniors out of poverty, and allowed millions to retire with dignity and peace of mind. But this milestone anniversary is tainted by calls, in the name of deficit reduction, to cut Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age," said Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance.

Mr. Coyle was referring in part to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who offered another signal a week ago Sunday that his party would favor raising the Social Security retirement age. Asked specifically on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he supports raising the retirement age to, say, 70, Boehner replied, "There are a lot of options on how you solve these (issues), but I don't want to put the cart before the horse." Later during the program, Boehner's deputy, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), said of raising the retirement age, "...for younger Americans, absolutely yes, we ought to bring real reform for the sake of future generations of Americans to get spending under control." For related information, including a link to state reports from the group Strengthen Social Security, with detailed information down to the congressional district level on the impact of Social Security, go to www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/reports.

Raising the Retirement Age, with People Filing for Early Social Security Benefits?
A striking trend is occurring: more people are filing early for their Social Security benefits in response to the weak economy. The Washington Post ( http://bit.ly/aHvTsz ) reported this week that more people filed for Social Security in 2009 (2.74 million) than in any year before. It's not just because of the baby boomers - there is a significant increase in individuals receiving reduced benefits because they filed in advance of their full retirement age.

Noting the trend and referring to the Republican efforts to raise the retirement age, Alliance Secretary-Treasurer Ruben Burks said, "Can you imagine working until 70? In physically demanding jobs like construction, manufacturing, and the service sector, I just don't see how you can. And in a tough job market, who would hire someone in their late 60s? Raising the retirement age is a benefit cut - plain and simple. We cannot allow it to be done."

Blog Resumes Monday - August 16

2010-08-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

On The Road This Week

Conducting rallies celebrating the 75th anniversary of Social Security and countering the radical rights efforts to destroy it.

Blog Resumes: Monday, August 16

A "Murder" Of Crows - There's A Reason For The Label

2010-08-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

This morning, while taking a break sitting under a shade-tree in my (Green Retro Tubular Lawn Chair - Some Assembly Required) and thinking about the things I want to accomplish today and watching the Ruby-Throat humming birds joust with each other and dodge wasps for feeding rights, I heard in the distance the raucous caws of a raiding party of crows. "Aha", I thought, "There is a reason a bunch of crows is called a "murder"!

If you get a chance sometime, watch them as they go about visiting carnage and havoc on the settlements of other birds. Crows, which nest in flocks up to a thousand or more, send out smaller patrols up to fifty miles in their daily search for food. While on patrol, they operate with the precision and skill of a highly-trained military unit. They send out advance recon birds, post sentries, forward observers, flank and rear security, and look-outs and strike en-masse with force quickly establishing dominance and control. They are avian warriors and unremitting with the strength and persistence of their attacks. Aside from humans, hawks and owls are their only predators, and even these, for the most part, give crows a very wide berth unless they can find a single, inexperienced youngster away from the flock.

In additional to their highly refined attack operations they have a extremely well evolved social structure including constant, 24/7, look-outs, and non-mated "aunts" who serve the flock as "baby sitters" and senior "bachelor uncles" who help in the rigorous training of fledglings. And don't think for a minute that their caws are merely random--most experts agree that they employ a rich, varied, and effective "language" of nuanced communication.

They are believed to be the most intelligent of the birds and are readily adaptable to most any situation or climate excepting arctic areas. Crows are non-secretive to the point of arrogant defiance, and, can be very dangerous if an unwary animal or person strays into their roosting grounds. They will "attack" humans in such situations.

Even though they mate and bond for life, crows (females in particular) tend to be as wildly promiscuous as Bonobos. Their sexual cavorting, even with other family members, would be enough to cause a god of Greek Mythology to blush.

Once hunted, poisoned, and otherwise scourged by farmers crows are now a "protected" species.

Social Security's 75th Birthday Festivities Begin

2010-08-04T11:26:00.000-05:00

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Democratic Leaders, and House Democrats held a press event last week on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Social Security Act, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law on August 14, 1935. At the event, the Speaker blasted Republicans for trying to privatize Social Security, saying the change would have resulted in the trust fund incurring a massive loss due to the downturn in the stock market.

Earlier in Las Vegas, at the "Netroots Nation" convention, the Speaker said that she is opposed to raising the retirement age. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has said that he favors raising the Social Security retirement age to 70.

More than 60 groups, including the Alliance for Retired Americans, announced the creation of the coalition "Strengthen Social Security…Don't Cut It." The new group is launching a major mobilization to push back against Fiscal Commission assertions, backed by the Wall Street spin machine, that claim Social Security is a major component of the budget deficit and is teetering on the brink of disaster.

In a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the group outlined plans to build support in Congress to fight benefits cuts and press candidates this election to push back against any move to raise the retirement age or privatize the program. "We are united by our concerns over the new Fiscal Commission, which operates in virtual secrecy and with a fundamentally flawed understanding of how Social Security is financed and operates. There is no government financial commitment at all. Every dime comes from workers and employers," Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said at the event.

The new group's web site is HERE . For more information, go to the AFL-CIO blog Here. For photos of the press conference, go HERE. For a new Alliance document on Social Security Disability Insurance, go HERE.

The American Dream - You Have To Be Asleep To Believe It!

2010-08-02T13:37:00.000-05:00

The "Greedy Geezers" Lie Rebuted: Social Security Protects The Disabled!

2010-07-29T13:11:00.001-05:00

Back in the forties and fifties, my grandfather called Social security an "Old Age Pension" and sadly today all too many, who should really know better, have the misconception that it's only protection for older workers entering retirement.

The facts belie that pervasive misunderstanding. According to the Social Security Administration, nearly a third of men (3 in 10) and twenty-five percent (1 in 4) women will become seriously disabled before retirement age. Disability brings with it severe and unexpected financial burdens and hardship. Studies show that if a 50-year old , without expensive private disability insurance, suffers a two year period of disability, that person can lose over $1-million in retirement assets. Social Security provides protection against poverty in retirement years and benefits to the disabled individual's family members, especially their children--children account for 20% of the 1.8-million recipients of SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance).

What is Social Security Disability Insurance?

SSDI provides cash benefits to eligible, disabled Americans. The program provides monthly benefits to people who have worked in the past and paid their Social Security taxes. Compared to SSDI, private disability insurance generally is not adjusted for inflation, is not designed to cover children of disabled workers and is not available to workers with disabilities and other health problems.

Who pays for SSDI?

When you work, 85 cents of every Social Security tax dollar you pay goes to the Old-Age and Survivor’s Insurance (OASI) trust fund which pays monthly benefits to current retirees and their families and to surviving spouses and children of workers who have died. The other 15 cents goes to the SSDI trust fund to pay benefits to people with disabilities and their families.

Who is eligible for SSDI?

In order to qualify for SSDI, an individual must (1) Have an eligible disability; (2) be the primary wage earner of their family; (3) have paid their FICA taxes; (4) be younger than the Social Security retirement age; (5) be insured for benefits; and (6) go through an application process.

Who Receives SSDI?

Nearly 8 million disabled workers, more than 1.8 million minor children of disabled workers, over 930,000 disabled adult children and almsot a quarter million disabled widow(er)s.

And, despite the lies, misunderstandings and exaggerations regarding Social Security and SSDI, no one is getting rich from receiving SSDI: There is no flat rate that beneficiaries receive. Instead, the disability benefit is linked through a formula to a worker’s earnings before he or she became disabled with annual payments up to only $25,570 for a person who had earned $90,000 while still healthy.

In 2008, disabled worker beneficiaries received an average monthly benefit of only $1,063.10. Once a person hits retirement age, they are automatically switched to regular Social Security retirement benefits.

Did you know?

For a young worker with a spouse and two children, Social Security provides benefits that are equivalent to disability insurance worth $465,000. About 22 percent of families with disabled workers live below the poverty line. But without Social Security, their circumstances would be even worse!

To reach an SSA office near you, call 1-800-772-1213.
· Online: Visit http://www.socialsecurity.gov/disabilityonline/

Union Veterans Hope To Inluence Other Veteran 's Groups

2010-07-27T12:49:00.000-05:00

All too often people with common interests find themselves not trusting the other and failing to see opportunity to act in their own self-interest. I think this situation is readily apparent between members of the various veteran's organizations and unions. Both groups care about America, and both groups have memberships of men and women with strong inner codes of decency and fairness; what some would call basic blue-collar values. But, we often see both groups misunderstanding or misinterpreting the motives and intent of the other with cynical politicians using "hot-button" issues to keep divided the two constituencies .

In response to this situation, the National AFL/CIO, two years ago to the month, launched its Union Veterans Council with initial plans for state councils in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia and West Virginia with union activists currently planning expanding by establishing state councils or union-veteran led events in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Oregon and Arizona.

As I write this, there are over 12-million union members who are also military veterans and hundreds of thousands or retirees are veterans, with an untold number of union families with relatives actively serving or recently released from military service. This is a powerful constituency. When they speak, veterans and union members do well to listen!

The Union Veterans Council includes representatives from 20 unions and labor organizations who come from every branch of the military. It is chaired by Navy veteran Mark Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL/CIO, who served during the Vietnam War. The Co-Vice Chairs of the Council, Ann Converso, United American Nurses President, and J. David Cox, American Federation of Government Employees Secretary-Treasurer, have between them over fifty years of combined service in the Veteran Administration.

Through their website they have already identified over 4,600 e-activists who want to stay engaged with the movement and over 400 union veteran spokespeople.

They are bringing together top union leaders who are also veterans to strategize and mobilize union veterans at all levels of the union movement. During the 2008 elections, Vietnam veteran and IBEW member, Jim Wasserman, appeared in a TV ad explaining why Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain's agenda was all wrong for working people. His words were a legitimate and welcome contrast to the inflammatory and divisive attacks by previous ad-hoc and spurious veteran's groups such as the Swift Boat crowd.

While it is true that many veteran organizations seem to represent only the viewpoints of a jingoistic and reactionary right-wing the Union Veterans Councils provide validation for union and other veterans who do not share such extremist views. Union veterans are leading walks, work site visits and round-table discussions talking to union members and veterans about key issues.

Personally, as a veteran of the Marine Corps, I find it refreshing and exciting to know that there are other veterans just like me that value the progressive and liberal dreams and aspirations on which our country and the union movement were built and who are working to deliver that message to other union members and veterans.

One of its key resolutions is to "encourage union veterans to take leadership roles in other veteran's organizations and strive to form coalitions and alliances with other veteran groups around union veteran's issues".

To learn more, just click on their website which is linked above.

Yet Another Deficit/Social Security Lie

2010-07-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

Well, here we go again.

The war is on, as I warned everyone a couple of months ago. Those same people who brought you the housing bubble, bail-outs, failed banks and auto-manufacturing giants and 401k plans whose assets dropped faster than the mercury in the thermometer at Antarctica in January are going after the one program that is always on time, always in the correct amount and which keeps millions upon millions of seniors, retirees, widows, orphans and the disabled out of poverty--Social Security!

If you, after reading this, do not get up off your butt and do something, we will lose it.

Here's the latest foray from the rabid right and hucksters, lairs, thieves, cut-purses and mendicants of Wall Street. And, guess from whence it comes--did you guess Neel Kashkari? Oh c'mon, you remember Neel doncha? During the bail-out, he was in charge of administering the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for the U. S. Treasury's Office of Financial Stability. Sounding familiar? Maybe the $700-billion of our tax dollars tossed out in the pig-sty that is today's world of as banking and finance will shake your recall a bit.

Actually, it is somewhat of an insult to swill sucking hogs the world over to compare them to our Wall Street bankers and financiers.

After this successful road-agent like looting of the national treasury on behalf of those "too-big-to-fail" and "troubled" financial institutions, Kashkari donned sackcloth and went into the woods for a period of self-appraisal and navel concentrating, but now has emerged as an expert on "entitlements", i.e. Social Security.

Writing on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, Kashkari asserts, "The fiscal crisis in Europe has awoken Americans to the enormous challenge we face from entitlements. The promises our country has made over the past few decades, combined with changing demographics and rising costs, have put us on a path to national insolvency. Unless we control our deficits..." You can read the entire article HERE.

Allow me, please, to suggest this: Every time these right-wing stooges use entitlement, i.e. Social Security, in the same sentence as "deficit" understand that you are being lied to! And, as I said last week, there are lies and then there are god-damned lies. And, once again, I will leave it to you to decide what sort of liar is Kashkari.

And never mind the arrant hypocrisy hissed by Kashkari's forked tongue (after all he's done quite well for himself now working for a company that profited in the millions from holdings which were part of the Fed's buybacks) and just focus on this very simple, irrefutable fact which puts a lie to every "deficit based" attack on Social security: Social Security in no way contributes to the deficit. It is funded, with around a trillion dollars in reserves, from contributions of workers and employers into a trust fund

It is a lie to link the deficit and Social Security. Their obvious motive is this. The Republicans want to latch on to that trillion dollars in order to claim that they solved our deficit crises without raising taxes and to turn over to their wet-palmed masters in the counting houses of Wall Street all future contributions.

In the nasal words of that hill-billy financier, Ross Perot, "It is jest that simple"!

Republicans: Always Jerks, Even Back In Play-School

2010-07-22T11:22:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we learned that the Republican Senators, having lost their effort to deny unemployment insurance compensation payments to millions of long-term unemployed Americans, engaged in parliamentary tactics to delay the bill for 30-hours. Yep, delay the inevitable for 30-hours, Out of pique, they added a full additional day to the time that worthy (formerly employed) out-of-work Americans will go without money to pay rent, hunt for jobs, buy groceries, make mortgage or car payments, or take care of a pressing health need--or just simply get by!

What is with these people? you must wonder. Well, if you remember former Texas Governor, the late Ann Richards' description of George Bush as a man born on third base bragging to the world that he had hit a triple, you will have some clue.

I have written before of this insane sense of "entitlement" felt by Republicans. They are "entitled" to be in charge, they are "entitled" to have things their way, and they are "entitled" to tell the rest of us to toe the line, or else! Or so they think.

Hell, they start early and they really are not all that hard to spot from playschool on: "Teacher, Teacher, Johnny is not coloring inside the lines, see how pretty mine is" = Republican. Or in grade school, out on the playground, "I want to be pitcher, and if I can't be pitcher, I'll throw the ball over the fence!" = Republican Or more simply, "I'm going to tell on you" = Republican.

What about in junior high? Weren't they the little punks whose hands would pop up to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?" And, in high school, weren't they the ones that got placed in the college prep classes regardless of their being dumber than a wet sack of Brazos River sand? And the rest of us? well' that's what shop, auto mechanics and cosmetology classes are for, regardless of how bright we might be.

By college they'd developed significant social skills such as the "I am soooo superior" sniff, or the condescending nod to obvious subordinates, and my all time favorite, the assumption that the way is being paved for them and if they just play the game there will be BIG payouts awaiting them, which they will gladly trickle down to the "little people" who behave properly.

And somewhere along the way they all pick up this sense of being victimized. Oh yeah, despite controlling most of the wealth, having access to the best educations, investment opportunities, finest homes and neighborhoods and memberships to the best golf courses, they feel somehow deprived if any of the rest of us happen to acquire a higher standard of life...somehow, they must think, that would deprive them of something!

They become peevish and worried, much in the same way fundamentalist Christians fret that someone somewhere is enjoying life, and do their utmost to stymie, stall or impede anyone else trying to advance in life.

So we need not be surprised at the latest peevish ploy of the Senate Republicans. They have always been nasty little buggers; but now, they are just older, richer and more powerful versions of that little jerk in seventh grade algebra who invariably raised his hand on Friday to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?"

Health Care Reform - Big Gains For Seniors

2010-07-21T15:38:00.001-05:00

Officially it's called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but most of us just call it the Health Care Reform Bill--that is unless you're a right-wing nutter, then you stupidly call it "Obamacare".

Regardless of what it is called, it has many, many very positive changes for seniors.

Let's start with the the "Doughnut Hole". Starting this year (2010) it provides for a $250 rebate to seniors falling in the doughnut hole. In 2011 it will provide a 50% discount on name-brand drugs and initiate a government subsidy for generic drugs (7% in 2011). In 2013 there will phase in a 2.5% subsidy for name-brand drugs and by 2020, the doughnut hole will be entirely eliminated.

Free Preventative Services & Improved Care commence in 2011. Starting next year seniors will receive FREE annual checkups. And all co-pays and deductibles are eliminated for mammograms, colonoscopies and other critical preventative screenings.

Elder Justice Act & Nursing Home Transparency. Nursing homes and home-care companies receiving federal money will have to conduct pre-employment background checks on job applicants. They will also be required to disclose all owners, operators, suppliers, financiers and others with whom they do business. Complaint procedures will be simplified and $500-million will be earmarked for: Adult Protective Services, A Long-Term Ombudsman Program and Staff Training.

Reins In Medicare Advantage Plans. It begins in 2011 a phase out of the 14% overpayment to Medicare Advantage plans and requires such plans to spend at least 85% of premiums on patient care, instead of profits. Such plans can no longer charge higher deductible than original Medicare.

Improves Auditing For Medicare Fraud and Abuse. From streamlining prepayment reviews to increased funding for the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Fund the new bill puts in place stronger reviews and controls. It also puts into place strong new requirements for community mental health centers that provide Medicare partial hospitalization services.

Other exciting changes include emphasis on community-based health care and new provisions enabling seniors to age "in place" rather being forced into demoralizing and dehumanizing "Nursing Homes".

These improvements and additions to Medicare, along with other provisions of the bill promises to extend the solvency of Medicare by at least 12 additional years.

All in all, seniors should be proud of what they've obtained in the health care reform process and they should be prepared to tell the insurance and drug company owned Republicans to "take a chill pill and call back if the condition worsens!"

Seniors Gouged By Hospitals Hiding From Medicare Auditors

2010-07-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

"Under Observation" - Surprise Hospital Bills Hit Seniors!

An unintended glitch in Medicare rule is hitting a growing number of seniors with thousands of dollars with non-reimbursed hospital bills, according to a recent article in Bloomberg Business Week.

Medicare expanded a pilot program in December 2008 aimed at conducting audits to cut fraud. Since then, the number of patients nationally who placed in long-term observation has increased and therein lies the problem. Under Medicare rules, patients who are listed "under observation" face 20% co-payments that they would not if actually admitted to the hospital. Furthermore, expensive aftercare is not covered at all!

The "under observation" classification was to be designed when there is not an immediate diagnosis, or if it is determined the condition is not normally treated under "inpatient" care.

The problem is that hospitals are extending the the use of the "under observation status" in order to hide behind it so that Medicare auditors will not challenge them on patient admissions when cases lie between inpatient and outpatient.

Barbara Easterling, president of the 4-million grassroots senior activist organization, Alliance for Retired Americans is calling on Congress to clean up the problem. "In the past, hospitals and physicians were on their honor, but no more" she said. "Congress needs to make it clear that anyone who is in a hospital for 24 hours or more is considered an inpatient.

Click HERE to read more.about this critical problem.

Seniors Beware: You Did Not Cause The Deficit!

2010-07-19T15:16:00.001-05:00

Fiscal Commissioners Demonize Senior Programs

Despite the obvious and readily verifiable proof that our current budgetary deficit is the direct result of George W. Bush's tax breaks for wealthy individuals and greedy, unregulated, international corporations; two wars of invasion and occupation fought on the national credit card; and a near bottomless chasm of recession and unemployment with diminished real earnings and property and 401k values, America's seniors, its disabled, its widows and its orphans are being targeted as helping cause the deficit.

Recently, the co-chairmen of President Obama's Fiscal Study Commission, while calling the current budget deficit a "cancer" that will destroy America from within, (damn, sounds almost McCarthyesque doesn't it--The Enemy Within) unless Washington takes tough action.

The two leaders of the fiscal commission issued their ominous forecast singled out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as "consuming" more than their share of revenue. Well there are liars and god-damned liars, I'll leave it to you to decide which category fits Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles the two co-chairs of the commission. But, without any doubt, each is some sort of liar.

Social Security does not "consume" revenue! Each of these men know this. Social Security is funded by contributions from workers and their employers and has somewhere around a trillion dollars "in reserve". That is fact, and to suggest otherwise is a bald-faced lie and an attempt by both politicians to launch an inter-generational war by suggesting that Social Security is a tax burden for future generations. It is not! And that suggestion, is within itself another lie!

They are floating other "trial balloons", hinting that Social Security should be "privatized" and handed over to Wall Street thieves and mendicants. The very same hellish fiends that gave us the current recession, unemployment, bail-outs, derivatives, and the swap markets. Right! Just the very people we could trust to make things wonderful.

Another of their ploys is to suggest that increasing the retirement age to 70 would "save" Social Security and reduce the deficit----and watch their hands closely enough and you'll see which shell hides the pea! Or, and I like this one, phase out or end the Cost of Living Adjustments....there's the pea, there's the pea!

Alright, I will concede that unless something is done, in a decade or two, the Social Security Trust Fund will face some challenges. But, clearly, and oh so simply and so utterly fairly, the answer to that is raise the cap on earnings. Did you know that as it is right now billionaires such as Bill Gates pay no more into Social Security than some average Joe or Jane making around $120-thousand a year. Hardly seems right does it?

The Center for Economic and Political Research (CEPR) has released an in-depth analysis that shows that if the draconian measures suggest by Simpson and Bowles were adopted the effect on low and middle-income families would be devastating. You can find it HERE.

The truth is that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have helped generations of deserving Americans to stay healthy and out of poverty and to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of older people, widows, orphans, and the disabled is heinous. And when that notion is based on lies, it rises to the level of a crime against humanity!

Raise Retirement Age to Age 70 - A Bad Idea!

2010-07-16T10:56:00.007-05:00

No Blog Today!

2010-07-14T16:03:00.002-05:00

NO BLOG TODAY! TRAVEL DAY TO D.C.

Republicans Just Don't Get It About Social Security Privatization!

2010-07-13T16:13:00.004-05:00

SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION--A STUPID NOTION!

What the hell is it with these damned Republicans? To me they appear to be the sort that if they had brains they would take those brains out of their brain pans and roll them in the dust giggling and drooling at the fun of it all.

We are in what many are calling the "Great Recession"; trillions lost on wall street, housing values and equities dropping faster than Aunt Maggie's panties at the drive-in movie, 401K accounts mere shadows of the promise they once offered, five people chasing every available job, and long-term unemployment protection tossed under the bus for political expediency. Got it?

Well sure you do, unless you happen to be a Republican. If you're one of them, likely you're all for another run a privatizing Social Security...yeah, hand over to the mendicants, thieves, liars and cut-purses of wall street the most effective and best managed social safety net program in America. Just give the notion a moment's reflection, would you: Our Social Security Trust Fund in the hands of the very (nary a damned one of them is jail where they should be) people who gave us the worldwide economic crises we now are floundering about in.

Don't take my word for it. Here from the Alliance for Retired Americans weekly report to members.

"House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) stated this week that he is unsure whether the Republican Party will revive their 2005 movement to privatize Social Security. Recently, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a member of the president's Fiscal Commission on addressing the national debt, released a budget blueprint that included dramatic cuts to Medicare and Social Security before effectively privatizing both systems.

Boehner has distanced himself from Ryan's blueprint without mentioning where he stands, leaving many advocates for seniors uneasy about the fate of these programs should Republicans return to power. "Representatives Ryan and Boehner must not have seen what I saw when we put unbridled faith in the markets and Wall Street," said Barbara J. Easterling, President of the Alliance. "We need to continue our work to protect Social Security. It is a valuable lifeline which has kept millions of retirees out of poverty."

At least, in this sole instance, bar-hopping Boehner recognizes a truly bad notion! But, all that proves is that a stopped clock gives the correct time twice a day.

RIP: Frisco (2004 - 2010)

2010-07-12T16:08:00.001-05:00

FRISCO

About five years ago, I can't tell you the precise date, (but my wife could as she writes these sort of events down on a calender and files it away for future reference) we adopted Frisco. And, since I'm being careless with the the exact date, I may as well admit that adopt is probably not the exact word for what happened between us and Frisco.

Maybe rescue, or liberation, or even intervention in a death sentence would be the more exact term for what happened between us and Frisco. He was in the pound, condemned to die and up against his penultimate day on earth when we went to check him out.

I can't tell you why we went there after I saw his picture in the newspaper.. Fate? Whim? No, not that--we're not the sort that takes on a pound dog based on a whim. We even took our dog Daisy with us to see how they would get along, observed him with the kittens and asked twenty-gazillion questions. No, it was not a whim. Maybe fate, as there were weekly pictures of beguiling dogs in the newspaper each week and we never before, or since, felt compelled to act on those.

Frisco, was, at best reckoning, a "street-dog", cast away and probably on his own for six months or so. He was a survivor and maybe, at some level, I identified with him--a tough former street kid used to getting by on wit and moxie until the Marine Corps straightened me out. Maybe I thought I could be his Marine Corps.

I'm fairly good at handling dogs and quickly had Frisco responding to all the basic obedience commands and some very rigorous deprogramming of targeting and attacking our cats. But, there was a glitch in his wiring somewhere that made him exceptional, and not in a good way. It wasn't just that on occasion he would "drop a command response" and not in a way that it was a training issue; he would make an obvious choice of disobeying. Now, part of this could be attributed to the breed. You see, he was a Pyrenees-Golden Retriever mix and Pyrenees are noted for this trait...some less informed see it as obstinacy. It really does not anthropomorphize in that way.

Pyrenees are one of the earliest breeds, if not the first, and have been breed through the millenia to be autonomous and to decide who or what lives or dies. Their wiring is that basic and simple. Thus, Frisco never really adapted himself to the rules of the "pack" as most other dogs do. He was 120 pounds of autonomous animal with jaw strength of at least 3,000 pounds. I worked with him a lot and truly believed that I had him under control, but was always very cautious with him: head-halter, muzzle, short lead and always, always, always under observation. Cautious the way one is with a loaded gun.

Frisco trained to a crate, we called it his "hooch", and each night at 8:00 he would be handed a treat which he would carry to his "hooch" gurgling in delight before settling in for the night. He wanted nothing more, except he really would have liked to climb up in my lap like a puppy...someone, in his puppy days, had encouraged that behavior, I think. He was a "talkative" dog and never hesitated in offering up an "opinion" about whatever was going on. In his best moments he was a delight...but, the gun was always loaded and cocked!

He never gave up his habit of targeting cats and once bit my wife and last week turned on me with a snarl and bite attack. I was nimble enough to avoid it, but later that day he attacked our other dog, Daisy, and gave her a nasty gash over her eye. A half-inch another way and she would have lost that eye!

The cocked gun was becoming a short-fused time-bomb.

The next day, while he was left alone in a room with the door closed he attacked and mauled one of our cats who unbeknown to me had been under some furniture in the room. I managed to get him under control and the cat ran out (we have not been able to find him since) and I got Frisco crated. It had become obvious that Frisco was a danger--what if he got out and attacked neighborhood children or pets, or a child come to the door in that split second when he was off leash en route to his crate, would he burst through the door and attack?

Without a doubt, he would and no amount of "training" would reverse that. It is just how Frisco was wired.

The situation was deteriorating and after talking with a couple of trainers well-experienced with the breed we decided there was no recourse but to have him euthanized.

Our vet gave us some tranquilizers for him and I rode in the back seat with him in my lap for the ten mile journey to clinic. He was so sedated that I wasn't certain that he knew that at last he was getting his way, and lying in my lap. I held him as he died and I cried as I am crying now. He was my dog, and as difficult as he was, I loved him. He was my dog...and I loved him.

I dug him a grave, as big and deep as a human grave. He was, after all, 120 pounds. And I buried him with his food bowl and a treat for the journey to Rainbow Bridge where there are several very worth animals waiting to welcome him and to ask about how I'm doing.

Today, I took apart his crate, burned his blankets and vacuumed the few stray hairs and found one of his old treats he had stashed under his blankets. He shared my extra-bedroom turned office with me and now he is gone and someday soon the tears will stop. But, for now..they flow.

Retiree Leader Sets Deficit Commission Straight on Social Security

2010-07-08T16:17:00.001-05:00

Testimony Transcript: Ed Coyle, Executive Director,

Alliance for Retired Americans

My name is Edward F. Coyle, and I am the Executive Director of the four million-member Alliance for Retired Americans. We are a grassroots organization of retirees from labor and community-based groups.

Retirees are deeply disturbed by talk coming out of this Commission about cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age.

Social Security is one of America’s greatest success stories. It has kept generations of seniors out of poverty. It did not, I repeat did not, cause these deficits. The fact is that Social Security currently has a surplus of $2.6 trillion.

The federal government does not fund Social Security - it is a fiscally conservative, self-sufficient program with a dedicated source of revenue. It is an efficient, rock-solid program, with only one percent of funds going to administrative costs. I challenge the Commission to find a federal program run as efficiently and effectively as Social
Security, and one that is financially solvent for many years to come.

No one dislikes the federal debt more than today’s retirees. They do not want it to be the legacy they leave behind to their children and grandchildren. Is our federal budget deficit too large? Yes. Is it Social Security’s fault? No.

Earlier today you heard from America Speaks. Retirees are greatly disturbed that they are recommending increasing the retirement age to 69. Not only would this reduce benefits which, as I said, have nothing to do with the budget deficit, but it would be devastating to American workers, particularly those who work in physically demanding construction and service sector jobs.

Americans in their late 50s and 60s are already bearing the brunt of layoffs and benefit cuts from the recession. Raising the retirement age would inflict further hardship among a group of workers who are struggling to keep or find jobs. Many people this age face health
problems in these years. Simply put, many workers cannot continue in their jobs until they are nearly 70.

The Alliance for Retired Americans strongly rejects the gloom-and-doom, sky-is-falling predictions that Social Security is going bankrupt. Not only is this factually untrue, but it is a malicious scare tactic to divert attention away from the root causes of our deficit - unwise tax
and spending decisions by Washington over the past decade.

To further strengthen Social Security’s financial structure, the Alliance for Retired Americans supports raising the payroll tax cap - currently at $106,800 - for the wealthiest Americans. Right now, someone like Bill Gates is paying the same in Social Security taxes as a
$106,800 worker. Experts have said that raising the cap to 90 percent of all wages would fill one-third of a projected shortfall over the next 75 years in the Social Security Trust Fund. This change would only increase taxes on six percent of all workers, but would further
strengthen Social Security benefits for the remaining 94 percent of workers when they retire.

In conclusion, retirees care about more than just themselves. They worry about their children and grandchildren in these difficult times. Will they ever get to retire? And if so, what will be there for them? At a time of rising cynicism toward government, particularly among young people, it is more important than ever that our nation fully honors the
promise of Social Security.

B.P. Headlines In 2111

2010-07-07T15:04:00.001-05:00

JUST A RANDOM NOTION OR TWO TODAY

Am I the only one who has noticed that it is the same collection of mindless yahoos that used to shout and chant "Love It or Leave It" with high dudgeon , who then morphed into the self-rightious, post 9-11 uber-patriots who tripped over each other racing out to K-Mart and Wal-Mart to buy their yellow-ribbon, stick-on patriotism and who so often sported (improperly) waving flags on the windows of their gas-guzzling SUVs, who are now sporting the "Secede" bumper-stickers. Same bunch of crack-brains, I'd say.

Same collection of damned-fool, self-contradictory, nimrods showing off their pathological and congenital stupidity!

I had a chance, last night, to meet Tom Berry, who is challenging Republican, Jeb Hensarling for the (TX-5) U.S. Congress. Berry, a retired working-class guy, had a lot to say about how and why we need to get the lobbyists' money out of the election process. I found that particularly to the point, since Hensarling is currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for contributions from lobbyists that give the appearance of vote buying by the lobbyists of an industry to be affected by Hensarling's upcoming vote. In fairness, we note that Hensarling has denied any wrongdoing and others on the same committee are also under investigation.

The same lobbyists also have made contributions to other politicians who are not under any sort of investigation, which merely shows, in my mind anyway, that the money gets spread around like grass-seed and if some of it takes root...well, you know the rest I guess.

And, I'm imagining lead stories like this in whatever form the 2110 media takes:

Scientists Find Hint of Life in Bayou

Researchers from Texas A & M University yesterday revealed that they have found what they believe to be living organisms in the brackish waters of Black Begonia Bayou, thirty miles east of New Orleans. Flander Flapdoodle, the lead scientist on the Opec funded research project said, "We're very excited to find what we are certain is amoebic life forms that were taken from scrappings of rocks on the shores of the bayou".

"It's been pretty much a "dead-zone" for the past ninety-years or so", he said. "Oh, there's some of those crazy Cajuns that stuck it out, but there's honest debate whether or not they qualify as a life form."

Nettie Boudreaux, a longtime bayou resident, scurried on her six legs out to the road to tell reporters that, "She warn't surprised none, because she's had at least five dogs, twelve kittens, the neighborhood gator, and two children eaten by something or other over the past two-dozen years or so."

"It ain't just those savage howls and green glow at nighttime that scares me, it's them there fireflies as big as eagles thet git thet job done", she continued.

As the reporters were leaving, she shouted out, "Don't go yet, I jest heard a great new Aggie joke!"

Officials the British oil company, B.P., called a press conference at their villa on the Riviera this morning to announce that they believed they had a final solution to the century-old oil spill...the well was running out! An unidentified executive said also that Nettie Broudreaux was a gadfly out to cash in on a piece of the company's $500-trillion world indemnity fund. He went on to state that her claims were ridiculous and that her "weirdness" was not from environmental damage, but due to her being a descendant of several carnival side-show freaks who had dangerously inbred.

"Besides, we're protecting our investors, the American public and our stockholders by maintaining a system that has not paid out a single claim in one-hundred years", he said. "That fund started at a few billion a century ago, and now it is all the way up to $500-trillion, and we didn't get there by paying claims or honoring commitments. By God, let them eat tar balls if they don't like it!"

My Jaws Are Locked: Our Kids Are In A War & Who Cares?

2010-07-06T16:26:00.003-05:00

WHERE IS THE HOME-FRONT SACRIFICE???

My jaws are locked, or as I said as as young, hard-charging Marine Corps non-commissioned officer, "My friggin' jibs are jacked!" Why?

It's the stupid war(s) stupid. And, just to set the issue straight, my anger and outrage is not new and part of the new-found sense of protest that seems to be coming alive in America. You want some proof? Cool. Here's a column I wrote for the Columbia Daily Tribune back in March of 2002. CLICK HERE

I offer it simply to affirm to you, dear reader, that I was among the early few whom from the git go, were standing up against our dry-drunk, sociopath-in-chief, who, amidst a cheering populace waving flags and adorning their houses and vehicles with yellow ribbons from K-Mart, launched a war of invasion and occupation against a non-combatant--and, in world law and diplomatic terms, "non-belligerent", sovereign nation that had done us absolutely no harm. Unless you think sitting atop a large percentage of the world's remaining oil reserves is a great wrong.

We have lost to death in Iraq, so far, at least 4,413 of our young men and women serving in the military who often were on multiple, endlessly extended and under-armored deployment. Somewhere around 32,000 have been maimed, wounded, blinded, scorched, injured and afflicted with PTSD. And, we've identified a whole other new (initial-tagged) result of combat, TBI-Traumatic Brian Injury. It is estimated that somewhere around 30% of returning troops suffer from the devastating injury!

We have squandered at least $925-billion in tax-payer money to cost of war, missing, stolen, or lost monies, missing, stolen, or lost weaponry and equipment, contractor malfeasance, misfeasance, over-charging, and questionable billings (Cheney's Halliburton). CLICK HERE FOR DETAILED ACCOUNTING

In Afghanistan, where, if you recall, the mission was to capture or kill Bin Ladin, drive-out Al Qeada, and remove the supremacy of the Taliban. Except for our dismal failure to hunt down and kill Bin Ladin (what good would a dead arch-enemy serve?) we were fairly successful in the others until Bush diverted our attention and resources to Iraq.

Well, while it is difficult to put an immediate figure on the total accruing cost of this particularly misguided adventure in nation-building, it is known that congress has just authorized another $80-billion and at least, to the moment I am writing this, nearly 1200 troops have died. And, to set the record straight, as far as we know, Bin Ladin is still alive and kicking, the Taliban is in resurgence and the narco-terrorists are still racking in profane profits from the opium fields while Hamid Karzai (elected president in a bitterly corrupt election) functions as little more than the mayor of Kabul!

Yet, we drone on with our platitudes and good-guy, bad-guy world view in the nightly news while we at home feel no pain and make no sacrifice.

And therein lies my anger and I've got to tell you, it is an immense anger. I'll not go into all the CIA World Book reasons for why we should be fighting this war--look at a globe, look at China and Russia and then look at where we're digging in, and think of the game of RISK--I really think it is that damned simple. And, I'll not burden you with all my left-wing reasons for why we need to extract ourselves from this particular lash-up, forthwith.

These wars have nothing to do with terrorism as such, but they do have to do with global position and strategy to contain and maintain our access to oil and other strategic interests, included new bases. All of which will work to enrich the profits and further the global goals of our oil and defense industries. But, that is not what has my jaws locked, hell that's the way it's always been. Underlying every patriotic platitude of every war lie the economic truths--corporate profits.

The thing of it is this, you and I, all of us and each of us, are cruising along as though nothing was happening out of the ordinary. Where are the bond drives or special taxes to support and pay for the wars? where is the home-front mobilization? where is the rationing to reduce our demands for foreign oil? where is the day-to-day realization that we've set our warriors to their deadly tasks? where is the daily front-page reports of our progress? and for crying out loud, how is progress even measured anymore?

Yep, that's what has me pissed. Our kids are fighting (they think for us) but, we're so cynical, so lazy, so self-absorbed that we can't even maintain a daily awareness of solemnity of their daily deaths, woundings and sacrifices. My friggin' jibs are jacked!

Unemployed? Send Your Resume to Congress & POTUS!

2010-07-01T10:10:00.001-05:00

TAKE A STAND - SEND YOUR RESUME TO CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Since May 31, a short month ago, more than 1.2-million American unemployed workers (maybe an oxymoron-can you still be a worker if you're out of job) have lost their unemployment benefits because they have been unemployed for longer than 6-months. Shame on them, lazy bunch of layabouts.

According to Nevada's Tea-Party (I am so happy to see that it is not Texas alone that breeds these insipid idiots) senatorial candidate, Sharon Angle, there are plenty of jobs out there, but "We have spoiled Americans so that think they can make more on unemployment than they can working". Now, this is not the first time this comprehension incapacitated idiot has tripped over her tongue. The simple truth is this: There are roughly 5 workers for each single available job. And, more horrifying, there are probably at least 5-million long-term unemployed who don't actually get the benefits even when the program is in play.

I will not belabor the complexity of those available jobs, except to say that the majority of them are entry level jobs traditionally filled by the young who, if left without jobs, often find the devil's work to fill their idle hands.

Yesterday, for the fourth time, the United States Senate said to unemployed working men and women, "Screw You!" and voted down re-authorization of extended benefits for the long term unemployed. Yes, it is the Republicans who stymie this social safety net that provides minimal survival level income for the unemployed which is quickly spent to circulate and turn over several times to invigorate an exsanguinating economy. But, it is also the ineffectual Democrats who manage to summon up crocodile tears but not the needed vote that deserve our attention.

Similarly, president Obama, remains isolated, aloof, and silent on this issue preferring, one supposes, to engage in photo-ops of stuffing his face with junk food of one sort or another.

While not quite rising to the level of genocide, the situation is one of cruelty and an affront to human decency. We can't let this stand without a fight. Here is what I recommend.

Today I e-mailed people I know in Washington that are closely associated with the labor movement to encourage AFL/CIO President, Richard Trumka, to launch a a nationwide campaign encouraging unemployed workers to e-mail, mail, or fax their resumes to Congress and the White House. I would also suggest that you send a copy to the governor of your respective state as the program, while funded by federal dollars, are actually administered at the state level.

If you, or someone you know, is unemployed and wants a job send your resumes or letters of application to these addresses:

U.S. Senate; Click here for assistance

U.S. House; Click here for assistance

The White House; Click here for assistance

Why 2010 Elections Are So Important for Texas Democrats

2010-06-30T09:23:00.000-05:00

BIG ISSUES CONFRONT 2011 TEXAS LEGISLATURE

In seven short months we will have worked our way through an election and have seated and convened the 2011 Texas legislature. That January 2011 session will begin to deal with many issues affecting Texas for decades to come:

Redistricting: The 2010 National Census presents an opportunity to redraw state and congressional electoral districts to reflect population changes. It could present Democrats an opportunity to undo the Tom Delay "gerrymandering" or the Republicans the chance to continue and entrench the process. And, it is likely that Texas will pick up one or more House seats. It will, without any doubt, be the most rancorous issue facing the new legislature and will very likely spawn its own set of legal challenges and lawsuits regardless which party is in control of the process. You can expect this to be one of the, if not the most, dominant issue before this legislature.

State Budget Shortfall & New Taxes: The 2011 legislature will be presented with a budget shortfall now estimated to be in the range of $18 billion. Putting aside all else, common sense (I know, I know) dictates that there are only a few options available; amend the state constitution to permit a continued budget deficit, reduce spending through budget and service cuts, austerity programs, accounting tricks and devices, tap the so-called "Rainy Day Fund", find new sources of state revenue i.e. casino gambling, or raise taxes. Even if we were to see some or all of these measures except "raise taxes", there still would be a shortfall.

One area with a big "bull's-eye" are the goods and services that currently benefit from $30 billion in tax exemptions, exclusions and credits. The way politicians think is that eliminating such is not the same as creating new taxes..."We balanced the budget without creating new taxes!"

Sunset Review/Environmental Issues: Twenty-eight state agencies are to come under "sunset reviews" this coming session. The process will determine which agencies will continue and how and if they should be "reformed". Businesses and and established interests will be ready to fight any attempts to increase or impose new regulations. If the Democrats are in control they will target many of those agencies, which under Republican control, have all but given businesses and special interest veritable wave throughs in the regulatory and review processes.

In addition to the big, well-known agencies like the Department of Insurance and the Department of Transportation, energy and environmental agencies such as The Public Utilities Commission, Commission on Environmental Quality, Water Development Board, and the Soil and Water Conservation Board will be closely scrutinized.

It is very important for us to note that this review process will take place as Texas is receiving more and more pressure to effect stronger regulations from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and non-government environmental groups.

Voter ID/Immigration: We do not expect these hot-button, emotion laden issues to even come forth in a serious manner this session. Frankly, this legislature is going to be so busy with the issues itemized above that there will no doubt be one, or even several, special sessions next summer. There will be some posturing and blustering, but no significant action.

Health Care Reform: Most of the noise on this will simply be Republicans and Democrats getting "on the record" for the folks back home. However, look to decisions on how Texas is to implement new federal requirements to generate a lot of spleen as the legislature confronts whether to join the federal high-risk pool, and at what level to set Medicaid reimbursements.

As always with the Texas Legislature, we can expect several to make utter jackasses of themselves, and at least a number of invitations to the "parking lot" to settle differences. All that side, this is coming up to be as important a session as there ever has been.. Stay tuned, we will!

Bill White Will Win Texas Governorship---If!

2010-06-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

BILL WHITE: NEXT GOVERNOR OF TEXAS--(Probably)

As it stands right now, the upcoming Texas Governor's race is the Democrat's to lose! Here's why, and why it will not necessarily be a victory for all Democrats.

Consider our current dunce-cap wearing Governor, Rick Perry, who won his party's nod in a blistering and costly primary (alley-fight) with Senator Kay Bailey-Hutchison that deeply damaged his well-coiffed persona and left him open for some big questions about his high-on-the-hog personal lifestyle, honesty, and general inability to deal with problems greater than sleeping coyotes. I'm not going to rag on the guy (I've already done that a time or two) but, I can tell you this: You can't trust a man who's hair doesn't move in a gale force wind!

Running against him this time is the most viable candidate the Democrats have put forth in recent memory, Mayor Bill White of Houston. He will win! Now don't get me wrong, this is not going to be a wave-through, but as mentioned earlier, Perry has lost whatever gravitas he once had through his reckless mismanagement of state fiances and his absurd and adolescent boasting of shooting a coyote while out jogging....most of us don't have time for jogging governor, we're busy going to two or three jobs that are needed to to keep afloat in your misshapen economy that favors wealthy outside corporations and Wall Street financiers over hard-working everyday Texans.

Perry's blatant deficiencies are legendary and obviously haven't kept him from winning in the past. But this time there is an opposing candidate with the credentials to give him a good old-fashioned parking lot style butt kicking. Bill White, as mayor of the fourth largest city in the nation has proven himself with high-energy planning and exceptionally strong economic management. Beyond that, is his singular (for Texas) ability to craft a strong coalition of Hispanics, independents and urban-based moderate Republicans along with the Democratic faithful who sense a winner and put aside their differences to effect a unified face at their recent convention in Corpus Christi.

However, all is not wonderful for all Democrats. White is studiously putting distance between himself and President Obama (did you read what I wrote about Independents & Urban Based Moderate Republicans?) causing more than just little heartburn among the Obama faithful. Liberals, already disenchanted with Obama, will support White simply because not to would be unthinkable given the stakes in this election. Even a nominal Democrat is better than no Democrat!

Even with all this, there are some wild cards on the table. The Democrats have an extraordinarily strong slate of candidates in addition to White and I have heard some backroom concerns that the unity is all on the surface but at the street level the White campaign is not offering support or "coattails" to the other statewide candidates. And it is yet to be seen if the Democrats can mount an effective rural (E. Texas) presence and cash in with Hispanic voters through the draw of Linda Chavez-Thompson and Hector Uribe on the statewide ticket.

If the Democrats do not effectively pick up rural voters and craft a historic level of voter registration and ensuing turnout in Hispanic South Texas, they will be facing another four years of woulda, coulda, shoulda despite the strength of the ticket!

SOCIAL SECURITY: A Promise To All Generations

2010-06-28T09:36:00.001-05:00

Social Security: A Comprehensive Family Insurance Program

Social Security provides vital life insurance and disability insurance protection for millions of Americans, particularly children and their families. For nearly 75-years now, Social Security has operated as a family insurance program that serves and benefits individuals of all ages. In addition to its well known, and often debated, role as a retirement program, Social Security provides a safety net for more than 53-million Americans, including retirees, the disabled, children and families. Last week, we wrote of its essential role in the lives of the orphans, and widows, and widowers, of our fallen military.

The truth is that more than 6.5-million children under age 18, or nearly 9% of all children in the United States,benefit from Social Security, as dependents of workers or military who have died or become disabled, or as dependents in households where an adult relies on Social Security. Of those 6.5-million children, fully 1.3-million were lifted out of poverty by Social Security benefits.

Over 2.4-million American grandparents are now raising their grandchildren. In these instances, Social Security works to ensure that America's children are kept safe and secure by providing a source of income for older Americans who are raising their grandchildren. These children do not receive Social Security directly, BUT! they do benefit directly from the program because of the increase in income of the grandparent who is receiving Social Security. In fact, it is estimated that 44% of older Americans, including such grandparents, would be considered poor by federal poverty standards if they did not receive these necessary and critical Social Security benefits.

Average 2010 Social Security Benefits

All Retired Workers............ $1,164

Aged Couple, Both Receiving Benefits............ $1,892

Disabled Worker............ $1,064

Disabled Worker With Spouse & Child.......... $1,803

Widow or Widower............ $1,123

Young Widow or Widower With Two Children. $2,391

For more information go to Alliance for Retired Americans or call 1-888-633-4435

The Lies About Social Security & How To Answer Them

2010-06-23T12:43:00.004-05:00

You've Surely Heard These Lies - Fight Back With The Truth!

"Social Security is burying our children in mountains of debt!"

* Social Security has not added a single cent to the federal budget deficit. The federal government doesn't fund Social Security -- American workers do. Think about it. Social Security is funded directly by payroll contributions divided equally between workers and their employers. As such it has its own dedicated sources of revenue and it is fully financed for years to come. Today's youths are falling behind their parent's generation due to a decline in quality American jobs and a failure to adopt policies that help young families balance their roles as workers and parents.

"Social Security is a burden to our youth!"

* While the highly privileged and wealthy may be fortunate enough to already be setting reserves aside for their retirement, the fact remains that the vast majority of today's youth and their families are struggling as a result of high unemployment, stagnant wages and a shift from traditional pensions to 401K plans. These are the hard-working people who will likely need strong retirement, disability and survivor protections they grow and raise families of their own. Moreover, younger workers already have been handed a higher normal retirement age of 67. We ought to be talking more about preserving and strengthening the program for young and old alike, instead of pushing for cuts to the benefits of future generations.

"The baby boomers are going to bankrupt the program!"

* Social Security has run a surplus since the early 1980s in anticipation of the Baby Boomer retirement. Thus, the savings in the trust fund are already there to met this increased demand.

"The Fiscal Commission says that everything is on the table for consideration, including Social Security.!"

* So far, not everything has been on the Commission's table of consideration. In fact, many potential sources of revenue have been conveniently absent from the discussion: Where is the discussion about reducing the deficit by levying a financial transaction tax against Wall Street? Likewise, where is the discussion about closing tax loopholes and other tax advantages for wealthy corporations and individuals?

The Truth About Social Security

2010-06-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know...that Social Security is the nation's largest disability program? It's true. Almost 8-million disabled workers receive monthly Social Security benefits. Included among those are thousands of wounded U.S. soldiers.

Did you know...that Social Security is the nation's most effective anti-poverty program? It's true! Without the safety net of Social Security, at least 44 percent of those age 65 and over would live below the poverty line.

Did you know...that social Security provides for children of those who have died in military service to our country? It's true! As of September 2006, an estimated 12,290 children were receiving payments as dependents of deceased service members who had been on active duty in the Gulf War period (extending from August 2, 1990 to date). These children are eligible to receive Social Security in addition to veterans' compensation.

Did you know...that Social Security was the first on the scene to provide benefits for the children and widowed spouses of people who were killed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. It's true! Social Security is paying monthly benefits to 2,377 children and 853 widowed spouses of people killed in the terrorist attack and to 642 individuals disabled during the attacks.

Don't believe the lies you're hearing about Social Security--Tomorrow, Some Answers to Those Lies!

Our Clown Alley Congressmen

2010-06-21T08:37:00.001-05:00

KIDS BEHAVING THIS BADLY WOULD BE PUNISHED!

At one time Texas sent men and women of honor and integrity to Congress. These were men and women of stature who earned the respect of the world, not just their fellow Texans and Americans. Men and women such as Barbara Jordan, Ralph Yarborough, Mickey Leland, Sam Rayburn, Lloyd Bentsen, and Lyndon Johnson just to name a handful.

You might not always have agreed with them and on occasion you might take them to task for their political postures, but you always had respect for them--mainly because they demonstrated self-respect and obvious respect for the offices they held.They understood the gravitas of the moment and the decorum expected of them.

Not so with our current collection of Clown Alley congressman. As unattractive and motley a bunch of fools and damned fools as you would ever want to be subjected to. There was a time when Texans would horsewhip such fools and send them over to Arkansas where they belonged--now we just elect them to congress.

Here's a sampling:

Jeb Hensarling (R), who was reported (Washington Monthly on August 26, 2009) to have responded to Senator Edward Kennedy's death in this way, "While Americans should honor the legacy of the Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Republicans won't allow healthcare reform to proceed in the late senator's honor."

"Certainly people honor Sen. Ted Kennedy for all of his work," Hensarling, a top House Republican, said during an appearance on CNBC. "But at the end of the day, this is a democracy, and I think the voice of the people have [sic] been heard quite loudly in the month of August." Hensarling said health care reform should die "if anybody's listening to the American people."

Hensarling apparently was in Arkansas or some other foreign county for the 2008 elections in which Americans overwhelmingly voted for Democrats who were promising to bring about health care reform. Fools and damned fools!

Randy Nuegebauer (R), who during the debate preceding the passage of the health reform legislation shouted out "Baby Killer" at Democratic congressman Bart Stupak who was explaining why he had shifted postions and would support the legislation. Nuegebauer later trotted out some lame, tortuously convoluted excuse that he really wasn't yelling at Stupak, he was yelling at the legislation...it is not known if the legislation deigned to yell back. Fools and damned fools!

Louie Gohmert (R), who like a misbehaving and out of line kid at a middle-school assembly waved a sign "What Plan" during President Obama's address to a joint session of congress on health care reform. And, just like an errant teenager, Gohmert launched a tortuously laborious "explanation" in self defense of what he really meant by by his rudeness and thoughtfully ignorant behavior. Had he have pulled that sort of crap at my school, Mr. Harlow would have given him a week's worth of detention! Or maybe swats too! Fools and damned fools!

Joe Barton (R), who recently apologized to BP for the dreadful way they were being treated and what he termed "the strong-arm tactics of the White House" in getting them to agree to set up a $20-billion fund to indemnify people and business for their losses and for clean up and recovery of the environment related to the catastrophic oil spill coming from their rig in the gulf.

Barton, like Nuegebauer and Gohmert, quickly came force with some half-ass, quasi-apologetic explanation for his foolishness. Even the BP executive testifying to a house committee to whom Barton rendered his apology looked at him like he'd just bitten the head off a living chicken.

Fools and Damned fools! Blithering idiots. Braying jack-asses. Utter disgraces to their party, to their state, to their nation, to themselves and to all humanity.

Seniors Falling Victim to Drive-By Health Care!

2010-06-17T15:35:00.000-05:00

WARNING SENIORS: HOSPITALS CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

I've learned that a study slated to come out shortly in the Journal of the American Medical Association will report that the practice of discharging heart patients after short stays does not save on hospital expenses and makes it more likely that shortly those patients will return to the hospital for additional care.

One result of health care reform is that hospitals are facing closer scrutiny for their "cost-containment" practices and high infection rates. A recent study by a Yale University cardiologist has found that shorter stays for heart patients, while not even cost effective, do create the likelihood of need for additional care within only one month of the initial release of those patients making the enti5re process very expensive.

The data from the study found that while the length of hospital stays for heart failure patients declined by 26 percent, the readmission rate increased from 17.3 percent to 20 percent, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. Obviously, the readmissions cause a greater increase in costs than if the patient had remained in hospital care until fully ready for release. Another case of penny wise and pound foolish, and since Medicare is picking up most of the added costs we find ourselves with an opportunity to answer its critics with a meaningful way to reduce Medicare expenses. Cut expense and see to it that seniors are properly cared for--now there's a concept!

Early discharges and the resultant complications are not the only thing scaring seniors about hospital stays. A recent Consumer Reports study of intensive care units at 926 hospitals across America found that some hospitals have startlingly high infection rates. The report suggests that the problem is highest at major "teaching" hospitals. One of those, New York University's Langone Medical Center, reported 39 infections in 10,119 central line processes in 2008. This is double the national average.

The article said, "Our study focused on one of the most dreaded types of the approximately 1.7 million infections that occur each year in U.S. hospitals. They are bloodstream infections introduced through the large intravenous catheters that deliver medication, nutrition, and fluids to patients in intensive care. These so-called central-line infections account for 15 percent of all hospital infections but are responsible for at least 30 percent of the 99,000 annual hospital-infection-related deaths, according to the best estimates available.

Even for those who survive, a central-line infection means weeks or months of debilitating treatments and side effects".

To read more Click HERE

Some Seniors To See $250 Soon!

2010-06-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

In The Doughnut Hole? -- Your Check Is In The Mail

Try Not to Spend It All In One Place!

After tomorrow, seniors who are heavily burdened with high cost prescriptions can begin looking in their mail boxes for a bit of relief as a result of our recent health care reform legislation. Seniors stuck in the Medicare Part D (Drug Plan) "doughnut hole" will begin receiving a one-time automatic payment from the federal government with the first checks going into the mail Thursday, June 17.

Tragically there are some people, even though the year is barely half finished, who have already "maxed out" on their coverage and can look to their mailboxes by Friday or Saturday. The "doughnut hole" is the coverage gap facing seniors, who are Medicare prescription subscribers, when they reach a point at which they must pay 100% of drug costs out of pocket (and continue paying premiums to the insurance company) until they qualify for catastrophic coverage.

This year, seniors on the plan will shell out the full price of their medications once they have spent $940 out-of-pocket (front-end co-payments) and will not get additional coverage until they have ponied up another $3,610. Once they reach this "catastrophic" level, seniors (continuing to pay their full premiums) will pay 5% of drug costs. The plan is run by private insurance companies with multiple variations, different drug coverages, and other variables which vary from company to company and from state to state--there is no single unified plan. Each year, the insurance companies raise their premiums, reduce or completely eliminate drugs in their coverage. Compounding this dismal situation for seniors is the often heard story of physicians insisting their patients take a name-brand (high cost) drug rather than its lower cost generic.

As the year progresses, seniors who hit the "doughnut hole" can expect their check within 45-days of getting there. While the $250 is welcome, it hardly makes a real dent in the burdensome drug costs faced by millions of seniors already seeing their home equity and 401K plan values decline and daily increasing energy and food cost increases.

Humana Crab Walks On Health Care Debate Lies!

2010-06-15T14:34:00.001-05:00

Humana Now Back-Tracking On Its Health Care Reform Lies

Can you remember as far back as the run up to health care reform vote?

I ask this with just a certain amount of sarcasm, as I'm noticing that so many of my fellow Americans seem to suffer from both short and long term memory dysfunction. For example, why are people ragging on Obama for getting us into the life-sucking quicksand of Afghanistan's history when it was Bush who took us there, then dallied while exploiting the oil-rich potential of Iraq with a war of invasion and occupation?

OK! I am digressing. But do you remember what all the Medicare dis-Advantage lobbyists were spending millions of dollars to say to you? Didn't it go something like this, "If Obama-care passes you'll lose your Medicare benefits". Or something along those lines, right? Oh yeah, and death panels, don't forget those damned old death panels.

Well, one of my sources has today provided me with a letter from SecureHorizons, the Medicare "Advantage" plan of healthcare insurance giant, Humana.

"Your existing plan is not changing". Well lordy me, Obama-care did not wipe out Medicare after all. And to my certain knowledge, there are no death panels being formed.

There is only one reason people (and giant insurance companies) lie. That is to hide the truth! The only reason this letter war necessary was to clean up from the lies Humana used to scare the living hell out of retirees and seniors---now they're having to back track. It would be hilarious were it not so ludicrously tragic!

Obama Talks to Seniors

2010-06-14T13:14:00.009-05:00

Tele-Town Hall Reached Out to Seniors

The Alliance for Retired Americans continues its involvement in the implementation process of the health care reform that President Obama signed into law in March.

Last Tuesday, the Alliance, along with several other organizations, helped the White House and President Obama organize a tele-town hall meeting to explain the new health care law to seniors.  The president emphasized that his administration has already started to send out $250 rebate checks for those who fall into the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” prescription drug coverage gap. 
 
Just days ago, (Thursday, June 10th - three weeks earlier than initially scheduled), checks from the federal government began to go out to some 80,000 seniors who hit the doughnut hole earlier this year.  The President went on to remind seniors that in 2011, those who fall in the doughnut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs, and that by 2020, the doughnut hole will be eliminated. 

Alliance members joined Obama in person at his Wheaton,  Maryland forum.  Barbara Franklin, President of the Illinois Alliance, asked Obama a question by phone which highlighted the fact that the new health care law will end the federal government’s practice of distributing unfair, unnecessary subsidies to private insurers under Medicare Advantage.  The question came a day after Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, sent a letter warning insurance companies offering Medicare plans that if they don’t keep their costs in check, they will be subject to harsh penalties.   

The Alliance also hosted 25 “watch parties” and related events elsewhere across the country. “Retirees are grateful for President Obama's strong support for America's seniors and his personal commitment to help them become better aware of the new law's many benefits,” said Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance. To see pictures from the Maryland event, check out the slide-show at http://bit.ly/9gnyFK.

RIP - Pansy Fox (1996 - 2010)

2010-06-11T16:49:00.001-05:00

At, 2:42 pm, CDT, Friday June 11, 2010 time stopped and rebooted for Pansy and she left us and began her journey to The Rainbow Bridge. This is the place where all animals who once loved a human are made whole and healthy and gather together while waiting to be united with their person. Pansy will be welcomed by a host of critters awaiting our arrival someday.

Pansy Napping 2008

Winter came early to the Ozarks in 1996 and in mid-November there had already been a light dusting of snow on the ground and the Foxes that lived in a burrow behind a fallen tree down in the dry creek bed at the foot of our hill often were seen at the edges of our yard or coming around the corners of our out buildings, even in the early hours of daybreak, foraging for food and hoping to stir up a field mouse or unwary bird at our bird feeders.

I was watching out the window at the vixen tracking and closing on what I thought looked like a chipmunk, but, I quickly thought to myself, "That little guy should be hibernating..it's not a chipmunk". Then I realized that what I thought was a chipmunk was actually a small kitten. Now, where foxes and chipmunks are concerned, I'm not likely to interfere with the drama of nature, the curtain rises and the players have their lines, and so it goes. But, a kitten! No way!.

I ran outside whooping and scaring the fox away as the kitten cringed down and went into a thrall just as it would if the fox had struck. I picked up the little morsel thinking my most evil and dire thoughts at people who dumps pets in rural areas expecting them to make their own way. Usually they don't make any sort of way at all. They die of hunger, accident, or are eaten by predators.

Back in the house I went, with the kitten held by the scruff to keep it from scratching or biting me. We took it into the spare bedroom and set it up with water, food, and litter and left it to its self. Later, we were able to take a closer look at her and determined that she was stinky and filthy and at the verge of starvation and would have been pretty poor pickings for that young vixen and her pups.

We quickly named her Pansy because her facial markings looked like a flower pansy popping its face up and quickly nursed her back to health. She easily joined in with and was readily accepted by the other critters we chose to surround ourselves with. Pansy was one of those sweet unassuming little cats that never met a foe and was always the first to show up if one of the other cats let out a "distress call". She loved to have her head bathed and would head butt the others til one would stop and give her head and face a big, long, slurping bath. I can't remember her ever having a quarrel...unlike a couple of the others.

The worse thing she ever did was to run outside on a bitterly cold night in January and hide under the porch and refuse to come out. As frigid wind gusts blasted me and snow swirled about I spread myself out on the hard ground and managed to move some rocks for just enough space to get my head and one arm holding a flashlight up under the porch where I spotted her well out of reach and snuggled up next to an opossum while bathing its head. She ignored my blandishments and offers of canned tuna and just looked at me blinking her incredibly beautiful and fiercely stubborn blue eyes. She didn't come in until the next morning, and suffered a frost bitten ear which from then forward had a wrinkly, crinkly look to it. After that, she made a daily visit to the 'possum up until we moved back to Texas. And, we began leaving kibble and other treats out at night for it.

That was nearly ten years ago.

The past month her health was failing, as, despite steroids and special vitamins, each day she became weaker and weaker. Even last night, she was the first and loudest for feeding in the evening. But, this morning her breathing was shallow, she was too weak to walk or do much more than raise her head a bit and to prolong her in this state would have been cruel.

Arrangements were made with the vet and I held her in my hands as her little head relaxed and then dropped as she left this reality for another. As I said, she has some very worthy companions, and at least one 'possum, waiting to show her the ropes over there...and, I suspect, to give her daily big, long, slurping head baths.

Serial Criminal BP: Crimes Against Humanity & Political Clout

2010-06-10T10:10:00.001-05:00

DAY THREE: Crimes Against Humanity & The Environment

Right at four years ago, in the summer of 2006, BP lost a multi-million pound settlement to a group of Colombian farmers after being accused of benefiting from a regime of terror enforced by Colombian government paramilitaries protecting one of BP's pipelines.

BP has been heavily criticized for its complicity in human rights violations (defined), and environmental and safety concerns stemming from its involvements with the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

The Crees (first nation's peoples) in Canada have described BP as being complicit in "the biggest environmental crime on the planet". Probably true, that is up until April 20, 2010. BP is one of a number of companies there using a process to extract oil from sand that produces four times as much CO2 as drilling!

Concerned and fearful British Columbians have called on BP to cease its "Mist Mountain" Coalbed Methane Project in a stretch of the Rocky Mountains which is immediately adjacent to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

After the Texas City explosion ( detailed yesterday) OSHA found that two BP refineries, one in Texas City, Texas and the other in Toledo, Ohio were responsible for 97% of the 851 safety violations by oil refiners from June 2007 to last February---two months before the Gulf disaster. These two sites had between them 829 safety violations leaving only 23 to be spread out over every other refinery in the nation!

Mother Jones Magazine has twice (2001 & 2003) cited BP as one of the ten worst corporations as a result of their shoddy environmental and human rights history. BP, according to Public Interest Research
Group investigations, caused 104 oil spills in the one year period of 1997 to 1998. Additionally, BP has paid a $10-million EPA fine for its mismanagement of US refineries and an imposed fine of $1.7-million after having been charged with burning polluted gases its Ohio refinery.

The Center for Responsive Politics found that BP is an aggressive and generous donor to American political campaigns, particularly Republican. Of the more than $5-million of identifiable corporate contributions since 1990, 72% have gone to Republicans

Speaking from one side of his mouth in 2002, BPs chief executive, Lord Browne of Madingly, said, "...from now on we will make no political contributions from corporate funds anywhere in the world". Seven years later, in 2009, BP was still bankrolling Washington, that year alone shelling out $16-million to K-Street lobbyists topping its own previous record of $10.4-million. Not surprisingly, BP sought exemptions from U.S. corporate laws and reforms.

Three days ago we set out to prove that the British company now calling itself BP was no better than career criminals and repeat offenders who, in many U.S. jurisdictions, find themselves facing life imprisonment. We believe we have made our case and that BP should be treated as we would any other thug that repeatedly preys on the unsuspecting, weak and innocent.

Therefore, we beseech those with the authority to immediately: (1) Cancel all visas and lift the passports of all foreign nationals employed by BP above the level of "line" manager and incarcerate them until such time as they may be deported. (2) Seize and nationalize all holdings, accounts, businesses, and any and all other BP assets now held by BP in the United States or its territories. (3) Put Americans in those executive positions left vacant by the deportation of foreign nationals. (4) Use all net revenues, immediate and future, to satisfy the legitimate claims of those sustaining loss as the result of the current oil spill catastrophe and to clean up and restore damaged coastlines, seabeds, beaches, communities and habitats. (5) Once all such claims have been settled and all restoration is complete or the restoration process is properly funded and ongoing all ensuing net revenues should be placed in a "lock-box", interest-earning fund dedicated to the preservation and protection of Social Security, Medicare, and other social safety net programs.

It is really no different than seizing the assets and expelling any other repeat offenders!

psst!

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Sunday Pot Roast = Thursday Hash

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Obama Fails at Hold 'Em Poker

Big Changes For Medicare Beneficiaries

Time Is On My Side - See You Next Year

Ten Things Right-Wingers Will Try to Destroy Economic Recovery

Sergeant With a Death Wish

Christians, Do You Help Shoulder the Cross?

An Interactive, Secular-Humanist X-Mas Card

Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Dorothy Parker::The Wisdom of Women

Dorothy Parker

“Razors pain you;

rivers are damp;

acids stain you;

and drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

nooses give;

gas smells awful;

you might as well live.”

Alcohol, Drugs, Consumerism, & Religion:: The Elephant In The Room

Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only truth...............................Gautama Siddahartha (the Buddha)

How is it that people, who start off life essentially decent and well-meaning, can ignore our slow creep into Fascism, aided and abetted by neo-liberal economists of the Friedman school of economic theory?

We find diversion, resort to quick highs or sense deadening lows, and buy, buy, buy! And let us not forget the "opiate of the masses", religion--in American, most notably the various Protestant sects.

Boomers, Xers, Millennials - Social Security is Yours: Fight to Save It!

A Progressive Rallying Point: 2012

Obama's Tax Deal, Social Security: Beginning Of The End

Social Security Recipients: GOP> "DROP DEAD!"

Letter To Obama: Stand down!

Call To Action: $250 Emergency Social Security Payment

Deficit Commission Fail: Big Win For Seniors & Working Families

Texas State Rep. Leo Berman: A National Embarrassment

Young Parents: Get A Yardstick!

Fiscal Commission Proposal: "Ridiculous!", says Retiree Leader

Marine Corps Birthday

Dallas Cowboy Jokes!

The Election Is Over. What Now?

VOTE - THEN HELP!

VOTE! ::: Our Endorsements Listed

Cognitive Dissonance: A Republican Affliction

Fight Back - Don't Lose Your Vote

What It Will Take For White To Win

VOTE! They Don't Want You To!

Texans: Vote Early, Here's Why!

David's Return To Italy

Texas: The Eyes Are Upon You!

Early Voting: Use It to Get Out the Vote!

60-Plus, Just Another Right Wing Front

We're Endorsing Bill White for Governor

The Fight to Save Social Security Continues

GOP Pledge :: A Piss Pot of Previously Failed Policies!

Alliance for Retired Americans: GOP "Pledge" Leaves Seniors with Unanswered Questions

"60 Plus" TV Ads Lie and Scare Seniors

Democrats Alert: Change the Framework and Outcome in 2010

Obama: Not A Lot Of Help In 2010

RIP - Emile Shaw

Shut Up, Baldinger--Ines Sainz Did Not "Bring It On Herself"

The Tea Party: Racing To History's Garbage Pail

Hank Gilbert: Our First Endorsement

House Progressive Caucus Joins Fight To Save Social Security

Newspapers: It's Over For Them & Online Will Not Save Them!

The New York Times - Gone In 5 Years!

PacifiCare Facing $9.9-Billion Legal Action

Republican = Lies & More Lies::The Evidence!

SOLIDARITY

Congresswoman Giffords Joins Fight to Save Social Security!

Simpson Blames Fiscal Mess On Veterans!

Bristol Palin, Obama, Fox, Japanese Wankers-All Making News

America: An Insane Asylum Gone Ariot!

Mr. President: It Is Time to Fire Alan Simpson

The B.A. Stands For Bad Attitude

Entitlements - We've Earned them

Texas: Social Security Works For You!

Do These Things Today & Save Social Security

How To Fix Social Security

Answering Republican Lies About Social Security

Cancer & Friendship

Social Security Birthday Parties & Rallies - A Great Success!

Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence.
Hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only truth.
..............................Gautama Siddahartha (the Buddha)