Month: October 2013

Media villager concern trolling over ‘ObamaCare’ enrollment

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare" is based upon and was designed by the same people who built "RomneyCare" in Massachusetts, and "RomneyCare" originated from a plan from the Heritage Foundation back in the days when it still had some modicum of crediblity as a conservative think tank. During the 2012 election, i mocked Willard "Mittens" Romney for his hypocritical attacks on "ObamneyCare" — it was his plan!

The media villagers, as they are wont to do, are irresponsibly behaving hysterically about the rollout of the federal health care Marketplace — which had to be set up only because of Tea-Publican sabotage of "ObamaCare" in red states, a critical point the media villagers always fail to mention — while the Marketplaces set up by individual states as the law intended are working just fine, something else the media villagers always fail to mention.

The media villager concern trolls have adopted the GOPropaganda line that the slow sign-ups will doom "ObamaCare" (the GOP does not care how many Americans sign up, they are committed to sabotaging and killing "ObamaCare," and are rooting for it to fail).

Tea-Publican sabotage, rooting for failure

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Because nothing says sober, serious, responsible government like someone rooting for it to fail . . .

There is something deeply disturbing about Tea-Publicans. GOP
hopes Obama heath care woes have staying power. What kind of patriotic American roots for their country to fail? Whatever happened to "American exceptionalism" and our can-do spirit? Who are these people?

Remember back when the GOP pushed through its Medicare Part D government subsidy to Big Pharma and tried to set up its program? The Tea-Publicans are all pretending to have amnesia about this disaster now. Jon Perr remembers How Democrats Saved Bush's Medicare Drug Program:

President [Obama] declared, "It's time for folks to stop rooting for its
failure because hard working middle class families are rooting for its
success."

["I’m willing to work with anyone, on any idea, who’s actually willing to
make this law perform better.  But it’s well past the time for folks to
stop rooting for its failure.  Because hardworking, middle-class
families are rooting for its success." Transcript of Weekly Address: Enrolling in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace (10/26/2013).]

Which is exactly right. After all, when President Bush's Medicare
prescription drug program nearly crashed and burned in late 2005 and
early 2006, Democrats in Washington and in the states stepped in to save
it.

Creeping Poverty

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Posted by Bob Lord

Remember Andrei Cherny? Contrary to popular belief, he didn't vanish. He may have failed in his quest for elected office, but he's continued his work as a writer, and on that front he's no slouch. His op-ed piece in Friday's Washington Post, ALICE Americans, Slipping Out of the Middle Class, is worth the read.

"ALICE," Cherny explains, stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed. The ALICE Americans are the group lodged between the bottom 20% of Americans (the poor) and the middle 20% of Americans (the middle class). The ALICE Americans are the group that has felt the brunt of our difficulties over the past decade.

For most of the past 50 years, the income growth lines for the middle 20 percent of Americans and the 20 percent right below them tracked one another. A unified middle class rose and fell together. But increasingly over the past decade, these lines have diverged and a new income gap has grown. While the financial situation for both the bottom 20 percent and the middle of the middle class has stabilized over the past couple of years, the income of the 20 percent in between has continued to fall at such a rate that, as of 2012, their total income growth since 1967 is roughly 60 percent of those below or above them.

Cherny then focuses on ALICE Americans as a demographic group which he believes is up for grabs in the next election.

Beyond the scope of Cherny's piece (op-ed word limits are stingy) is what the plight of ALICE Americans signifies in terms of the bigger picture. 

Cindy McCain petitions her husband to support ENDA

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Cindy McCain who, unlike her angry old man husband, Sen. John McCain, has been a strong and vocal supporter of equal rights for women and gays, was asked to sign a petition this past week in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that is awaiting action in Congress. Cindy McCain petitions husband to back gay rights bill:

Cindyenda-186x300Call it a bold canvassing move that paid off: An organizer for the Human Rights Campaign
asked Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) wife Cindy to sign a postcard
Thursday urging the senator to back legislation barring workplace
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

She signed it.

The senator has never supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
which passed a Senate committee in July and could come to the floor for
a vote soon. A bipartisan coalition  has dispatched field organizers in
seven states across the country to mobilize constituents on behalf of
the bill, and HRC has collected "tens of thousands of postcards" as part
of the effort, according to HRC spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz.

Arizona is a key state, since activists are targeting both McCain and
his fellow Republican Sen. Jeff Flake; McCain has opposed the bill in
the past, while Flake has not voted on the issue since taking office in
January.