Featured Stories
GOP ‘trickle down’ economics disproved and discredited, once again
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: According to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, cutting taxes for the wealthiest does not result in economic growth, despite constant conservative claims to the contrary. But you already knew that. New Study Finds Tax Cuts For The Rich Cause Income Inequality, Not Economic Growth: Instead, tax cuts for the … Read more
Tea Party ‘True the Vote’ voter suppression efforts
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The New York Times finally caught up to the Tea Party voter suppression efforts by "True the Vote" in a lengthy report on Sunday. Looking, Very Closely, for Voter Fraud:
It might as well be Harry Potter’s invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.
The bus has been repeatedly cited by True the Vote, a national group focused on voter fraud. Catherine Engelbrecht, the group’s leader, told a gathering in July about buses carrying dozens of voters showing up at polling places during the recent Wisconsin recall election.
“Magically, all of them needed to register and vote at the same time,” Ms. Engelbrecht said. “Do you think maybe they registered falsely under false pretenses? Probably so.”
Weeks later, another True the Vote representative told a meeting of conservative women about a bus seen at a San Diego polling place in 2010 offloading people “who did not appear to be from this country.”
Officials in both San Diego and Wisconsin said they had no evidence that the buses were real. “It’s so stealthy that no one is ever able to get a picture and no one is able to get a license plate,” said Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin agency that oversees elections. In some versions the bus is from an Indian reservation; in others it is full of voters from Chicago or Detroit. “Pick your minority group,” he said.
[In 2010, Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly's Claims That Mexicans Are Being Bused In To Vote Were Dismissed By AZ Secretary Of State – the claims “are without merit.” Matthew Benson, then communications director for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, called it an “urban legend” and pointed out that “in terms of specific instances, we haven’t seen it.”]
The buses are part of the election fraud gospel according to True the Vote, which is mobilizing a small army of volunteers to combat what it sees as a force out to subvert elections. Ms. Engelbrecht’s July speech in Montana was titled “Voter Fraud: The Plot to Undermine American Democracy.”
True the Vote’s plan is to scrutinize the validity of voter registration rolls and voters who appear at the polls. Among those in their cross hairs: noncitizens who are registered to vote, those without proper identification, others who may be registered twice, and dead people. In Ohio and Indiana, True the Vote recently filed lawsuits to force officials to clean up voter rolls.
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In a report this month, the liberal-leaning organizations Common Cause and Demos cited True the Vote as the central player in this effort, which it called a threat to the fundamental right to vote.
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While [Ms. Englebrecht] portrays True the Vote as nonpartisan, it grew out of a Tea Party group, King Street Patriots, that she founded in Texas. An examination shows that it has worked closely with a variety of well-financed organizations, many unabashed in their desire to defeat President Obama.
A polished and provocative video, circulating among Tea Party activists, seeks to raise a “cavalry” to march on swing states and identifies True the Vote as a participant in the effort, called Code Red USA.
In the past year, Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, and other Republican-leaning independent groups have sponsored meetings featuring Ms. Engelbrecht and other True the Vote speakers.
Latino Decisions Tracking Poll: Obama advantage grows
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: "Mr. Self-deport," Willard "Mittens" Romney, is giving a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles on Monday. Yeah, good luck with that. The latest numbers from the tracking poll by Latino Decisions this morning shows Obama's advantage is growing: With seven weeks until the election Republican candidate Mitt … Read more
Obama campaign ad: ‘The Question’
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign has trotted out Saint Ronnie Reagan's tired old trope "are you better off than you were foure years ago?"
We have been over this point: "We have witnessed the rise of a new brand of conservatism, an odd blend of Ayn Rand, who rejected all forms of faith and religion, and rejected Christian altruism for "moral nihilism" (morality does not inherently exist, and any established moral values are abstractly contrived) and "ethical egoism" (people should act in their own self interest); and Gordon Gekko: "Greed is good." In short, a philosophy of "I've got mine, f#@& you!"
The selfish interest framing of this question reflects this self-interest. But the proper framing of the question is whether we together, as a nation, are better off than we were four years ago?
Do you rememember where we were four years ago this September? I do. We were nine months into a recession; the housing bubble had long since burst and foreclosures were skyrocketing; Lehman Brothers was the latest financial institution in a series of institutions to collapse under the weight of casino capitalism on Wall Street and there was market panic that the rest of the financial system would collapse with it; the stock market was in free-fall; mass lay-offs of workers were under way. We were staring into the maw of another Great Depression.
Are we together, as a nation, better off than we were four years ago? To paraphrase Weeper of the House John Boehner, "Hell yes we are!"
The Obama campaign makes this critical thinking point in its latest ad, "The Question," which responds to the "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign's selfish interest "are you better off than you were foure years ago?"
Video below the fold.
Blogging the DNC2012: The inside scoop from the Tucson Progressive
September 17, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley
Want the inside scoop on blogging the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte? The parties? The people? The protests? The politics?
Check out my interview on The Lou Show.
If you want to hear my pearls of wisdom in person, come to the Laughing Liberally Tucson Comedy Showcase on Tuesday, September 18 at Casa Vincente. The show starts at 7 p.m.
Here I am with Arianna Huffington, a very gracious lady, and Krzystzof Piotrowski, another Huffington Post Off the Bus blogger, at the Huffington Post Oasis at the DNC. You can hear my interview and see part of his video after the jump.
Great Hearts Charters: Our educational model costs more than we get from the state
September 17, 2012
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by David Safier Great Hearts Academy charter schools ask its parents to give between $1,200 and $1,500 per student per year. From the Scottsdale Preparatory Academy website: The essential priorities of Scottsdale Prep’s educational model cost more per-student than what we receive from the state. Therefore, we ask our families to contribute to the annual … Read more
Upcoming political debates on the Bill Buckmaster show
September 17, 2012
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by David Safier Bill Buckmaster will be hosting a series of political debates on his radio show (Noon-1pm, AM 1030 KVOI) which should prove interesting. If you haven't seen his studio, he sits at the middle microphone and the other two sit at mics on either side, just barely an arm's distance away. A very … Read more
Romney’s Medicaid cuts would be devastating to nursing home care and the disabled
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
During his DNC Convention speech, former president Bill Clinton raised a subject that had been largely ignored by the media until then — the Romney/Ryan proposed cuts to Medicaid that would immeidately affect many seniors on Medicare (the "dual eligibles"). DNC 2012: Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (Full transcript):
Now, folks, this is serious, because it gets worse. And you won’t be laughing when I finish telling you this. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming 10 years. Of course, that’s going to really hurt a lot of poor kids. But that’s not all. A lot of folks don’t know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors who are eligible for Medicaid. It’s going to end Medicare as we know it. And a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities, including a lot of middle-class families whose kids have Down’s syndrome or autism or other severe conditions. And, honestly, just think about it. If that happens, I don’t know what those families are going to do. So I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to do everything I can to see that it doesn’t happen. We can’t let it happen. We can’t.
As everyone knows by now, Clinton departed from his prepared text and was winging it for much of his speech. Sarah Kliff at Ezra Klein's Wonkblog at the Washington Post fact-checked this portion of Clinton's speech, and found that his prepared text on this subject was accurate. Fact-checking Bill Clinton on Medicare:
Lots of folks don’t know this fact… because it’s not true. Clinton here is referring to the 9.1 million seniors who are low-income or disabled, making them eligible for both entitlement programs. In health wonk terminology, they’re referred to as the “dual eligibles.”
Dual eligibles certainly cost more than other Medicaid enrollees, like children and pregnant women. But there’s no evidence to support that these patients eat up two-thirds of the Medicaid budget. Kaiser Family Foundation looked at this issue in an April 2012 brief. It found that, “Although these ‘dual eligibles’ accounted for only 15 percent of Medicaid enrollment in 2008, 39 percent of all Medicaid expenditures for medical services were made on their behalf.”
Clinton’s prepared remarks on this point, however, were quite different. Here’s how those went: “Almost two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for seniors and on people with disabilities, including kids from middle class families, with special needs like, Downs syndrome or Autism.” That checks out: the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 63.5 percent – or $148 billion – of federal Medicaid spending ($251 billion in total) goes towards the elderly, blind and disabled.
Bloomberg News last week looked at this issue and found Medicaid to Lose $1.26 Trillion Under Romney Block Grant – Bloomberg:
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would strip Medicaid of $1.26 trillion over nine years as part of a plan to do away with the open-ended approach to funding the U.S. health-insurance plan for the poor, a Bloomberg Government study found.
