I watched Barack Obama outline his plan for the economy today in one of his finest speeches ever. He covered all the bases: Jobs, Education, Retirement Security, Health Care, and Upward Mobility. He also laid out the role Republicans have been playing in refusing to to the job the American people elected them to do, but don’t take my word for it. Watch and judge for yourself.
What do you think?
As most of the last benefits from ObamaCare are about go into effect, the Obama administration is doing everything they can to inform the public, increase participation, and make the law better for everyone. Sadly Republicans, displaying that they have no honor, are unwilling to keep the agreements they made when the law was passed, so they are doing everything they can to make YOUR health care less efficient and more expensive.
…The message is clear. Few things are more important to the White House this year than a successful health care rollout on Oct. 1, when millions of uninsured Americans will be required to obtain private health coverage in government-run marketplaces. Getting it right — or wrong — will help determine Mr. Obama’s place in history.
Enter the Obamacare Team, some two dozen political operators and data-crunching technocrats charged with carrying out the biggest health care overhaul since Medicare in the 1960s — but with more pitfalls. Their job is to sell the law to large numbers of Americans who remain divided about its value and wary of its impact. Republicans have seized on one Democratic description of the health care law as a “train wreck,” particularly after the administration announced a politically damaging one-year delay in a key provision of the law.
Working out of war rooms in the West Wing basement, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Department of Health and Human Services, the team is first trying to find in the next year 2.7 million uninsured people between 18 and 35, most of whom are healthy. Just as Mr. Obama’s electoral success hinged on the turnout machine he created in Chicago, the fate of the health care law rests on whether his administration can turn out and enroll the uninsured.
“The key for us is to take this out of the abstract and make it very, very, very real,” one of the leaders of the effort, David Simas, told a dozen White House aides during a strategy session in the West Wing last week… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Click through for an on depth analysis of rollout plans.
That one year delay in the employer mandate would never have been necessary, were it not for Republican sabotage slowing down the process od informing them by confusing employers with lies.
Meanwhile, on the evil side of the street, Republicans are preparing their own rollout plans. Rachel Maddow and Senator Al Franken (D-MN), the guy who originally coined the term "Supply-side Jesus", discussed the Republican Health Care Emergency scam.
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Republicans do not want ObamaCare to work healthier and cheaper for everyone. They want more money for insurance companies and less care for you. We need all the messengers we can get, and we need Real Americans at those Republican Town Halls meetings, debunk their lies, and call them out for their anti-American sabotage of people’s health care. The 80/20 rule is an excellent feature. The seniors’ features are also great.
Of course the alternative is RepubliCare. Do you want to receive the RepubliCare death benefit?
I’m writing for day 41, and this may go up late, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day. The heat is back, and the temperature at my desk is 86° and climbing at 9:00 AM.
Pardon the brevity with which I replied to yesterday’s comments. It has been too hot to sleep.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:40 (average 5:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner stirred controversy today by continuing to send dirty texts throughout a press conference devoted to apologizing for his behavior.
Mr. Weiner was halfway through his apology when reporters noticed him remove a phone from his pocket and aim its camera lens unmistakably in the direction of his pants.
After seeing the candidate snap a photo of the pants region and then send a text, reporters bombarded Mr. Weiner with questions, asking him if he had in fact just sexted.
“Yes, I did, but I swear this was the last time,” he said. “This behavior is now behind me.”
Hmmm… I guess there’s a reason they call him Weiner.
From Daily Kos: The One Simple Graphic that Sums Up the Whole Problem with the Trayvon Martin Case
The only way it’s self defense is if the murdered child is black.
From TPM: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) each laid down incompatible positions on the debt limit Tuesday, possibly setting the stage for another round of brinksmanship this fall over whether the federal government will default on its obligations.
“We are not negotiating on the debt ceiling,” Reid told reporters. “The President has said this. I’ve said it. And I don’t know how many more times we need to say that.”
He was responding to a question about whether he’d consider GOP demands such as defunding Obamacare or significantly cutting spending in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Just hours earlier, Boehner put down an equally categorical marker.
“We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It’s as simple as that,” he said. He floated the so-called “Boehner rule” requiring dollar-for-dollar cuts, which Democrats acceded to in 2011 in order to raise the debt limit, as the right way to go.
Republican terrorists must not be allowed to blackmail America with seditious threats against paying the bills for spending Congress already authorized. Make them pay the political price for whatever damage they do. Giving in one inch is one inch too much!
Cartoon:
Republicans claim blacks owe whites, because whites fought a war to free them. That is a lie. The Crittenden resolution clearly stated that the purpose of the Civil War was to preserve the union, and not to interfere "established institutions", namely slavery.
Not long ago, Harry Reid, aka the Nevada Leg Hound, humped a few Republican legs, whined, rolled over, and played dead, because he reached a “gentlemen’s agreement” with Mitch McConnell, aka Bought Bitch Mitch, over Presidential nominees. At time, I said it could not last, because gentlemen’s agreements require honor and integrity, a quality completely lacking in the Republican leadership. Here we go again!
So much for the Senate’s kumbaya moment.
Rep. Mel Watt’s nomination to lead a key housing agency appears in peril. The top Judiciary Committee Republican is slowing down Obama’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is hinting at another talking filibuster—this time of the FBI director nominee—in order to get information on the president’s drone program.
Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was instrumental in reaching the deal with Majority Leader Harry Reid last week, said he would hold the nomination of Army Gen. Martin Dempsey to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff until he gets more information on U.S. military intervention in Syria. […]
In the words of the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas: “We are where we were before. Which is: It takes 60 votes.”
That’s not even taking into account the three high-profile nominees for the D.C. Circuit, the nominations that have pushed the GOP into "peak Republican stupidity" by threatening not just to block the nominees, but to entirely do away with the three vacant seats on the court…
Inserted from <Daily Kos>
There remains only one viable solution.
The Republican party has …um… graced us with a plethora of absolutely absurd candidates for public office. Sadly, far too many of them sucked Koch all the way into office. However, few have come close to the entertainment value of Christine O’Donnell, aka O’Dingbat, Republican candidate for the US Senate from Delaware.
Christine O’Donnell is considering a new bid for the Senate.
The conservative activist who rode a tea party wave to victory in a Delaware special election primary four years ago is interested in challenging Sen. Chris Coons (D) in 2014, the Wilmington News Journal reports.
O’Donnell would have difficulty winning over skeptics in the Delaware GOP, many of whom see her as a liability. After beating moderate Republican Rep. Mike Castle in the 2010 primary, O’Donnell lost in a landslide to Coons…
Inserted from <Washington Post>
Who could ever forget this famous ad?
Frankly, This one is more credible.
I hope O’Dingbat runs and gets the nomination again. The comedians will have a field day!
Writing for day 40, I feel like Jesus in the wilderness. The 👿 has sure tempted me over and over again. The temperature remains cool enough that I can function, albeit barely, but still too hot for anything resembling comfort. For the next couple days my blogging schedule will be uncertain, because Thursday is a prison volunteer day. It will be my first day back to see my guys since April, and I can’t wait! I’ll just have to see how much it takes out of me.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:25 (average 4:29). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus appearing Sunday on CBN, answering a question about whether right-wing Christian Evangelicals should be worried that Priebus has called on Republicans to be more tolerant.
There’s a reason Renice does not care for that word. Republican and Tolerant are mutually exclusive terms.
From Alternet: Jack Hunter, the Rand Paul social media staffer who wrote columns attacking Abraham Lincoln and defending Southern secession under the name “Southern Avenger,” tells the Daily Caller that he’s leaving the senator’s staff and returning to punditry to clear his name and avoid dimming Paul’s rising star. Even though Paul defended Hunter when the Washington Free Beacon broke the news of his long career of neo-Confederate race-baiting, Hunter says he must leave the senator’s payroll “to avenge his own honor,” the right-wing site reports [Reich-wing delinked]…
…Lucky Rand Paul gets to have it both ways: He stood up to those Northern aggressors and refused to fire Hunter, but he will carry less of Hunter’s baggage into the 2016 GOP presidential primary than if his neo-Confederate staffer fought on.
Still, he will carry some. Hunter’s editor at the Charleston City Paper, Chris Haire, revealed Thursday that his former columnist recently asked him to take down “dozens” of the controversial posts he’d written over the years, after he’d gotten wind of the Washington Free Beacon’s efforts to expose his pro-secession writings. Haire refused, but offered to publish “a column detailing how he’d changed his mind,” an offer Hunter declined.
Rand (Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot) will find an equally racist replacement for the Southern Avenger. Racism is a Paul family tradition.
From PR Watch: …ALEC has been a historic force in suppressing wages and workers’ rights and continues to exert its influence in states across the country in 2013. Where is the bottom in ALEC’s race to the bottom for America’s workers?
Charles Koch made the agenda of the Koch’s, ALEC and their allies very clear in a recent interview with the Wichita Eagle. He laid out his vision of "economic freedom" for America. Key to this freedom for the Koch’s is the repeal of the "avalanche of regulations" that creates a "culture of dependency" in the United States.
Top of the list of burdensome regulations needing repeal? "The minimum wage,"opines Koch.
Koch’s "economic freedom" and ALEC’s legislative agenda may not leave much of an economy for the rest of us.
Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, put it best when he told CMD, "The sole purpose of ALEC has been to develop the most anti-middle class, pro-corporation policies, legislation, and agenda in history. They’ve been waiting for just the right moment to reverse the progress of the American middle class and drive everyone to the bottom, to the lowest wages, the weakest benefits, no job security, and no retirement to speak of. We may not have the billions of dollars of the Koch brothers. But we have each other and we must stick together and fight ALEC’s cynical and un-American agenda."
Click through for an extensive article on ALEC’s reprehensible activities and a complete list of the anti-worker legislation their Republican cronies are pushing for the 1%. Barf Bag Alert!
Cartoon:
It was a freshwater lake then, but Brigham Young’s wives salted it, so he couldn’t spend all his time fishing. 😉
If you believe what Republicans have to say, Detroit is in trouble because of the greed of union workers and bad government by Democrats. Of course, if you believe what Republicans say about that, or virtually everything else, you have the privilege of being wrong. Herr Rick Snyder is not only trying to put Detroit into bankruptcy, but also saying he would decline federal funds if offered.
While Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI), Detroit Mayor David Bing, and emergency manager Kevyn Orr gave varied takes on the likelihood of a federal bailout for the country’s largest bankrupt city on Sunday, Snyder and Orr agreed that the city’s pensioners are going to see their promised benefits cut.
Orr explicitly avoided taking a view on federal help when asked by Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, saying that as an appointee rather than an elected official the question was beyond his purview. On ABC, Bing hinted that federal help might be proper, noting that “when we had Chrysler and General Motors, that the federal government helped in their bankruptcy, they came back and they’re doing well.” Bing said it would be “difficult right now to ask directly” for federal help, and said “not yet” when This Week’s George Stephonopoulos asked directly if he would request federal aid.
Snyder, who appointed Orr, appeared to reject the idea of a bailout. In his first Sunday show appearance, Snyder told NBC that “I’m not going to speak for the federal government.” Later, on CBS, the governor was asked directly if there is a bailout in the city’s future. “No. And I don’t expect one,” Snyder said. “If the federal government wants to do that, that’s their option,” he said, adding “I don’t view that as the right answer.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Herr Snyder has no desire save Detroit, in spite of being elected in 2007 on the promise that he would not let Detroit fall into bankruptcy. He prefers to steal workers’ pensions and get bargain basement prices on Detroit’s assets for his 1% cronies. That is also the plan Republicans have for YOUR community. However, Detroit can be saved, as Ed Schultz discussed with Virg Benero and Michael Eric Dyson.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Detroit is in trouble, because Republican vulture capitalists offshored 90% of the city’s manufacturing jobs.
Ed’s plan includes, public safety, education, tax incentives and jobs., but there needs to be a Step 5. For any plan to succeed, it has to be taken out the hands of Rick Snyder and his goose-stepping 1% minions.
Sadly, I’m so used to its association with Limbarf, just hearing the name Rush triggers a reach for the trash basket to protect my keyboard and screen from flying chunks! However, there is actually another Rush, a good one. He’s Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ).
U.S. Rep. Rush Holt has launched the third in his series of whiteboard videos making the case for bold progressive ideas. In the new video, “Social Security,” Holt argues that millionaires and billionaires should pay the same percent of their income to Social Security as middle-class workers.
“Ordinary people contribute about 6 percent of their paycheck to Social Security,” Holt explains in the video, “but someone earning a million dollars pays less than 1 percent. That’s because Congress has given millionaires and billionaires a free pass: an absolute cap on their social security taxes."
Holt proposes asking the wealthy to pay the same tax rate into Social Security as the middle class. “That would save Social Security, ” Holt says, “no need to raise the retirement age or cut benefits. This isn’t rocket science; it isn’t even fifth grade math."…
Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>
Here’s the video:
You probably recognize his plan, if you area regular here, because it’s my plan and has been for several years. But it’s nice to hear if from someone else, just the same. I was impressed enough with his presentation, that I want you to have his first two videos as well.
Wall Street:
Student Loans:
After all that, you may be surprised to learn that I don’t support Rush’s bid for the Senate. I prefer Corey Booker for the US Senate over him, but we certainly need to keep his voice in the House!