kpete
kpete's JournalCartoon: Wolf Blitzer, please chill out
Cartoon: Wolf Blitzer, please chill out
by Matt Bors
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/02/1288980/-Cartoon-Wolf-Blitzer-please-chill-out
Did Chuck Todd just admit that the media works for the GOP?
WED APR 02, 2014 AT 05:31 AM PDT
by illinifan17
Over on the NBC News website, Chucky just asked, "What if all the negative healthcare headlines go away?" Well, that's a really odd question.
Todd mentions the new WP/ABC poll from yesterday, about which we are all cautiously optimistic and says this amazing thing:
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Perhaps more telling is the discussion further down in his badly written column about the mental disconnect in Kentucky:
Chucky, you are giving away the game.
MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/02/1289077/-Did-Chuck-Todd-just-admit-that-the-media-works-for-the-GOP
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/fading-negative-health-care-headlines-could-be-trouble-gop-n68671
LA TIMES: Paul Ryan rehashes an old Social Security LIE--at your expense
Paul Ryan rehashes an old Social Security lie--at your expensehis misunderstandings--heck, let's go ahead and call them misrepresentations--are aimed at taking your money.
What's at issue is a passage in the budget resolution Ryan released today, the fourth annual version of his "Path to Prosperity" budget. Like the others, this budget calls for large cuts in government programs for the poor, in order to preserve tax breaks for the rich and finance lavish defense spending.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-paul-ryan-rehashes-20140401,0,6898624.story#ixzz2xgvajxIM
Here's the passage in question, from page 66 of his plan.
"Any value in the balances in the Social Security Trust Fund is derived from dubious government accounting. The trust fund is not a real savings account. From 1983 to 2010, it collected more Social Security taxes than it paid out in Social Security benefits. But the government borrowed all of these surpluses and spent them on other government programs unrelated to Social Security. The Trust Fund holds Treasury securities, but the ability to redeem these securities is completely dependent on the Treasury’s ability to raise money through taxes or borrowing."
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But if Ryan has his way, yes, the money will be stolen. It's up to you and me to make sure that doesn't happen. ... So, to put all these pieces together, there's no "dubious government accounting" involved here--the dubious accounting is all Ryan's. The trust fund is indeed a real savings account, involving deposits and interest. Yes, the government borrowed the money, and it has paid interest on it every year (duly recorded and published, down to the last dollar, in the annual reports of the Social Security trustees). ...
The most important factor is the one that people like Ryan want you to forget: The money in the Social Security trust fund came directly or indirectly from the payroll taxes paid by millions of American workers--100% of it. It was paid by workers in the trust that the government would pay it back. Paul Ryan is hinting, pretty strongly, that he doesn't want to pay it back.
MORE:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-paul-ryan-rehashes-20140401,0,6898624.story#axzz2xguKz5W4
OBAMA: “I don’t get it. Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?"
THE PRESIDENT:
“I don’t get it. Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance? Many of the tall tales that have been told about this law have been debunked. There are still no death panels. Armageddon has not arrived. Instead, this law is helping millions of Americans, and in the coming years it will help millions more.”
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“In the end,” Obama said, “history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/enrollment-under-the-affordable-care-act-on-track-to-reach-7-million/2014/04/01/1f6b8b96-b99b-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html
MR. RYAN'S OPUS - By Charles P. Pierce
MR. RYAN'S OPUS
By Charles P. Pierce on April 1, 2014
Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, and most recent First Runner-Up in our national vice-presidential pageant, has released another "budget," this one a sham even by his remarkable standards because this is an election year and nobody is going to vote for a budget, even a fake one, unless it includes free money, doughnuts, and oral sex for everyone in the country. Anyway, it's pretty much what we have come to expect from Ryan. More money for the military, more granny-starving for the rest of us.
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Of course, when it comes to poor people, whose souls Ryan seeks to fill with his deep concern, it will all be for their own good.
Such an approach "empowers recipients to get off the aid rolls and back on the payrolls," Mr. Ryan writes.
Says the guy who went to college on my dime -- You're welcome, dickhead. -- and who hasn't drawn a salary from anywhere except the government for the greater part of his adult life, and whose mansion gets maintained by the National Park Service.
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MORE:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Today_In_Zombie_Eyed_Granny_Starving
Appeals Court Finds Florida's 2012 Voter Purge Broke The Law
Source: Talking Points Memo
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Florida's 2012 efforts to remove non-citizens from its voter rolls violated the National Voter Registration Act.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the state's efforts to remove non-citizens from the rolls violated the act's so-called "90 Days Provision," which requires states to “complete, not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”
A district court had previously entered a judgement in favor of Florida Secretary of State Kenneth Detzner, who has argued that the National Voter Registration Act either allows non-citizens to be removed from voter rolls at any time or not at all.
Under Detzner's watch, Florida undertook two separate efforts to identify and remove non-citizens from the state's voter rolls before the primary and general elections in 2012. Those efforts prompted lawsuits from individuals and organizations, as well as from the U.S. Justice Department. Among the plaintiffs in the case decided Tuesday were two people, Karla Arcia and Melande Antoine, who were identified as non-citizens who should be removed from the voter rolls but who were, in fact, U.S. citizens eligible to vote in 2012.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/florida-voter-purge-appeals-ruling
another link:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/01/3421701/florida-voter-purge-illegal-appeal/
Ruling:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/215795055/Florida-Ruling
Pat Boone at Large: Arrest Warrant Issued
not April Fools
but a fool nonetheless
The 50's hitmaker was supposed to be in court last week in a lawsuit over a condo that he purchased on a luxury liner. According to TMZ, the singer was on vacation in Hawaii with his wife and didn't show up for the scheduled hearing so the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
Boone is only involved because he purchased a condo which was being built on the big boat. When the construction company and the project investors got into a dispute, a lawsuit was initiated and the company was ordered to pay the investors $800,000 in attorney fees. Because the company never paid the money, the investors were forced to go after the condo buyers.
Read more: http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2014/03/arrest-warrant-issued-for-pat-boone.html#ixzz2xfpNNH2E
dupe
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024764767Haslam Administration Linked $300M Offer To VW-UAW Process
Were hundreds of millions of your tax dollars offered to Volkswagen -- and then pulled back -- to try to keep the United Auto Workers out of Chattanooga?
For months, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has denied any connection.
But documents leaked to NewsChannel 5 Investigates offer conclusive proof that the Haslam administration wanted a say in the automaker's deal with organized labor -- in exchange for $300 million in economic incentives to help VW expand its Chattanooga operations.
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News Channel 5 obtained a confidential report called Project Trinity. In it Haslam gives away millions of taxpayer dollars, if VW does not go with UAW:
The catch?
"The incentives … are subject to works council discussions between the State of Tennessee and VW being concluded to the satisfaction of the State of Tennessee."
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/25122909/haslam-administration-linked-300m-offer-to-vw-uaw-process?fb_action_ids=10153958636865364&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_ref=.Uzq3A6gRTd4.like&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/01/1288896/-TN-Gov-Haslam-offered-VW-300-million-in-incentives-if-no-UAW
Exposing how Obama and the Democrats are cooking the Obamacare numbers
http://www.unskewobamacare.com/Elizabeth Warren: Wall Street Should Disclose Its Think Tank Contributions
Elizabeth Warren:
Wall Street Should Disclose Its Think Tank Contributions
Wall Street banks have the right to express their views to lawmakers and regulators through lobbying, but the law is clear: If they want to influence lawmakers, they must disclose their lobbying expenditures. Yet these same institutions can make huge contributions to think tanks with an eye toward influencing the same lawmakers and keep the whole transaction secret. This is wrong.
If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know. If the big banks don't expect to buy influence and are merely making charitable contributions, then their shareholders have a right to know. Either way, there's no excuse for keeping these payments secret.
MORE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/wall-street-should-disclo_b_5069515.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
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