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this is new revision to medicare after cuts, treat person and then shot them. much kinder healthcare

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Charles Koch’s Frankenstein problem: He created the Tea Party monster — and now he’s horrified with the results

Charles Koch’s Frankenstein problem: He created the Tea Party monster — and now he’s horrified with the results



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I’m a big fan of irony, which is why I enjoyed this Wall Street Journal profile of Charles Koch so much. In an interview with Patrick O’Connor, Charles – evidently the more diplomatic half of the two most politically active Koch brothers – spoke somberly about the tone of the 2016 presidential race and of political discourse more generally. “It’s mainly about personalities and ‘your mother sucked rotten eggs,’” he lamented to O’Connor.

On the one hand, I understand Charles’s frustration. After all, he and his brother are looking to invest $750 million on this election. When a man, his brother, and 450 wealthy donors build a national network of umbrella organizations in order to dictate political outcomes via dark money, they expect to get the results they want.

Here’s the problem: The Koch brothers, whether they know it or not, got exactly what they paid for. If the tone of our politics has sunk to Cro-Magnon levels, it’s because the process has been flooded with money and propaganda and rabid right-wingers who’ve coarsened the discourse and made compromise impossible.

Everything about our politics took a dark turn around the time of Obama’s election in 2008, which is precisely when the Koch brothers’ political machine exploded into being. As O’Connor writes:

Conservative House Republican budget would cut $7.1T | TheHill

Conservative House Republican budget would cut $7.1T | TheHill:



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The budget would also transform Medicaid by combining it with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which expires later this year, and providing states with block grants.

The RSC budget would reform the nation’s welfare system by restoring work requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services decided it would consider state waivers for welfare work requirements. The budget would also reform the government’s food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, by calling on the House Agriculture Committee to offer legislation that would convert it to a block grant.

For Social Security, the RSC blueprint would eventually raise the full retirement age to 70 and would impose chained consumer price index (CPI) for Social Security benefit calculations. The proposal, which Obama had offered in previous budgets and then dropped, would result in lower benefits.

To address infrastructure issues, the budget calls for shifting the authority to state and local governments, and phase out the federal government’s authority over five years. The plan also says Congress should lower the federal gas tax, which currently funds the Highway Trust Fund.

To balance the budget through cuts, the RSC proposes eliminating or repealing a slew of government programs such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Election Assistance Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Labor Relations Board and a program that taxes Christmas trees.

The plan would also reduce funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS and foreign governments.

GOP leaders normally allow votes on RSC budgets, but the GOP-led House has rejected their blueprints over the last several years. Last year, for example, it failed in a 133-291 vote.

Why Democrats Might Cave On Social Security Cuts

Why Democrats Might Cave On Social Security Cuts:



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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday opened the door to Social Security cuts as part of a budget deal with congressional Republicans. But Durbin pushed back against GOP calls for entitlement cuts as the negotiating price to curb or extinguish the economically damaging sequester cuts.

"If this is the bargain that the Republicans are now pushing for, that we have to cut Medicare to avoid cuts at the Department of Defense, they need to take a step back," Durbin said on "Fox News Sunday."

Congress is currently negotiating a new budget, with a December deadline. The talks were mandated by last week's deal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown.

Also speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) explicitly offered up trading some of the short-term cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act, known as the sequester, for long-term Social Security and Medicare cuts. He argued that Republicans had the tactical advantage on such an exchange.

"If you're in a divided government and you're arguing against the law, you're at a disadvantage," Blunt said, noting the failed GOP effort to defund Obamacare that resulted in a government shutdown. "The Budget Control Act is the only thing we've found that actually controls spending."

Blunt said that if Democrats aren't willing to negotiate over "entitlement savings versus some additional spending," to ease the sequester, then Democrats will have to live with the sequester cuts.

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GOP eyeing Social Security reforms in budget deal | TheHill

GOP eyeing Social Security reforms in budget deal | TheHill:





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The GOP-led reforms could include a move toward “flat benefits,” in which beneficiaries would receive payments tied to the federal poverty level instead of payments based on their pre-disability earnings.

It’s a change that’s been championed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which found in an analysis published Friday that the move would save $168 billion – the same amount discussed in the deal Monday.

GOP leaders say those reforms would help stave off the 20-percent cut in disability benefits that would hit about 11 million recipients next year without action by Congress.  

But talk of shrinking some Social Security benefits is already generating an outcry from liberal groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

“The White House, every Democrat running for president, and every Democrat in Congress should make clear that any deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits would be unacceptable policy -- and politically, would be wildly unpopular with voters,” Adam Green, co-founder of the progressive group, wrote in a statement late Monday.

While the change could mean payment cuts for some beneficiaries, Heritage Action analyst Rachel Greszler argues that those impacted would be insulated because they are more likely to have “substantial private savings or private [disability] coverage.”

Greszler, a former senior economist for Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, also writes that most cuts would be “relatively minor,” as only one-third of all beneficiaries exceed 125 percent of the poverty level.

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comment:  remember folks voting to cut these programs next November for soar 11-3 in Missouri will most certainly remember.   it would be a nice time for presidential contenders and federal running folks to comment

Union-Made in America Halloween Candy Shopping List

Union-Made in America Halloween Candy Shopping List:

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10/14/2014

Jackie Tortora

If you want your Halloween to be all treats and no tricks, make sure all your candy is union-made in America. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's resource site, Labor 411, has an extensive list of union-made candies. Here are some highlights, featuring sweets made by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW):

1. Baby Ruth

2. Butterfinger

3. Candy House Buttons

4. Caramello 

5. Clark Bar

6. 5th Avenue chocolate bar

7. Ghirardelli Chocolates

8. Halloween Candy Corn (Herman Goelitz Company)

9. Hershey's Candy Corn Kisses

10. Hershey's Extra Dark Chocolate bar

11. Hershey's Hugs

12. Hershey's Kisses and Kissables

13. Hershey's Nuggets

14. Hot Tamales

15. Jelly Belly

16. Kit Kat bars

17. Laffy Taffy

18. Malted Milk Balls

19. Mary Jane

20. Mike and Ike

21. Peanut Chews

22. Rolo

23. Smarties

24. Super Ropes

25. Tootsie Roll

26. Trolli

Analyzing The Campaign Strategy Of Establishment Republicans

Buy Union-made Candy For Halloween. Here's a List.

Buy Union-made Candy For Halloween. Here's a List.:





"This here link gives the following list of candies made by union workers:



 5th Avenue
Abba-Zaba Original and Strawberry
Almond Roca
Baby Ruth
Big Hunk
Butterfinger
Cadbury
Jelly Belly Candy Corn
Candy House Buttons
Caramello Bar
Clark Bar
Disney Jelly Beans
Ghirardelli Chocolates
Gimbal’s Fine Candies
Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans
Hersheys Kisses and Hugs
Hersheys Nuggets
Hot Tamales candies
Jawbreakers
Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
Kit Kat Bars
Laffy Taffy
LOOK!
Mallo Cups
Mary Jane
Mighty Malts Malted Milk Balls
Mike and Ike
Necco Candy Wafers
Nestle
Pearsons Candy
Red Vines Red Licorice and Black Licorice
Rocky Road Original, Dark, Mint, and S’Mores
Rolo
Russell Stover Candy
Sconza Candy
See
Sip-n-chew
Smarties
Smarties Candy Lipstick
Snaps
Sour Punch
Sunkist Candies
Super Ropes
Sweethearts Mummy Hearts
Thin Mints
Tootsie Rolls
Trolli
U-NO
Zagnut
Zours

PS: I try to avoid Mars candy. The Mars family has colluded with other 1-percenters to repeal the Estate Tax. See this Wikipedia article."



'via Blog this'

Sign the petition: Join Hillary Clinton and oppose Keystone XL

Sign the petition: Join Hillary Clinton and oppose Keystone XL:

Hobby Lobby invests in contraceptive, abortion drug manufacturers

Hobby Lobby invests in contraceptive, abortion drug manufacturers:



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attribution: None Specified

20% off hypocritical blowhards, just bring this coupon

It's peculiar how a group of individuals who are so devoted to their religious beliefs that they demand the very laws of the nation be rewritten to accommodate them can be so lax about those same religious beliefs if ignoring them will net them a little dough.

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby's retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby's health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

So the company demands it not have to pay for any employee insurance that might purchase such things, but investing in their manufacture? Not a problem.

Mind the gap: The staggering income of America’s 10 richest CEOs

Mind the gap: The staggering income of America’s 10 richest CEOs



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Enlarge(Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

This article originally appeared on Demos.

In America, chief executive pay is now 300 times more than the average worker. That’s a high enough ratio that presidential candidates are taking note on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bernie Sanders listed the statistic in a statement supporting mandated CEO disclosure of salaries, and CEO Trump himself declared that the numbers were “disgraceful.”  

However, even on a topic where a democratic socialist and a real estate mogul agree, it turns out that there’s always a devil’s advocate. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon proposed an interesting hypothesis on a recent “Meet the Press“: lowering executive pay won’t fix our nation’s staggering income inequality.

“If you took all the compensation of all the CEOs of the top 500 companies in America, it wouldn’t make a dent in the problem,” he said.

Like two ships passing each other in the night, this neatly parallels another recent CEO wage moment. In April, Dan Price of Gravity Payments announced that everyone in his 120-person company—from the lowest-paid clerk on up—would receive a minimum salary of $70,000. In part, he achieved this by cutting his own $1 million salary to $70,000.

America is changing its mind on Israel: How Netanyahu is alienating his most essential ally

America is changing its mind on Israel: How Netanyahu is alienating his most essential ally





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(Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Nir Elias/Photo montage by Salon)

The current violence in Israel-Palestine—immediately following the debate about the Iran arms deal, which revealed growing fissures in American support of Israel–has brought the conflict into the foreground of U.S. political discourse. The absence of any serious mention of Israel-Palestine during the first Democratic presidential debate thus speaks volumes. It tells us that even as polls show more and more of the Democratic base shifting its support away from Israel, the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination are reluctant to talk about Israel. It will be interesting to see if they shift their stances at all in the next few months, given the stakes that are emerging. Recent polls have shown that Latinos, a critical constituency, are lending their sympathy to the Palestinians. They join the young, progressives, Blacks, and Asian Americans. This is not only the perception of supporters of Palestinian rights, this point of view is shared by advocates of Israel as well.

Everything seems in play, and that calls for our attention. Here’s what is unfolding on the American political scene:

To begin with, let’s look at the reactions of the U.S. State Department regarding the escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine. On October 13, Secretary of State John Kerry declared “What’s happening is that, unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody… And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing.”

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Christian fundamentalists’ plot against the Constitution: What Kim Davis’s newly unearthed emails reveal

Christian fundamentalists’ plot against the Constitution: What Kim Davis’s newly unearthed emails reveal



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Enlarge(Credit: AP/Timothy D. Easley)

Thanks to Kentucky’s open records law, the Associated Press has obtained the emails county clerk Kim Davis sent just before she went to jail late this summer. And yes, they are every bit as unhinged as you imagined they’d be. In case you forgot, Davis is the God-loving homophobe who courageously denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky two months ago.

The emails are interesting if only because they show just how crazy (and dangerous) fanatics like Davis are, particularly if they happen to work as public servants. Here’s Davis in her own words:

The battle has just begun…It has truly been a firestorm here and the days are pretty much a blur, but I am confident that God is in control of all of this!! I desire your prayers, I will need strength that only God can supply and I need a backbone like a saw log!!…They are going to try and make a whipping post out of me!! I know it, but God is still alive and on the throne!!! He IS in control and knows exactly where I am!!…September 1 will be the day to prepare for, if the Lord doesn’t return before then. I have weighted the cost, and will stay the course.

We’re getting the right all wrong: The surprising origins of modern conservative movement

We’re getting the right all wrong: The surprising origins of modern conservative movement





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EnlargeDavid Koch in a still from "Citizen Koch"

With the notable exception of #tcot and National Review’s Kevin Williamson, most informed and engaged observers of American politics understand how central the civil rights movement — and the backlash against its successes — was to the creation of the conservative movement. The narrative has many well-known manifestations; there’s the (perhaps apocryphal) story of LBJ claiming the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would “lose” the South for the Democratic Party for “a generation.” There’s the Southern Strategy. There’s the GOP’s embrace of “states’ rights.”

But what if that narrative is wrong — or at least incomplete? What if the conservative movement’s creation happened earlier, and westward? What if the archetypal founder of the modern right is not a former Dixiecrat or a resentful “Reagan Democrat,” but rather a mega-tycoon like, say, one of the Koch brothers? What if the foundation of conservatism as we know it wasn’t laid by recalcitrant segregationists in the Deep South in the 1960s, but by anti-labor big businessmen in 1930s California instead?

That’s the argument put forward by University of California, Davis professor and historian Kathryn Olmsted in her new book, “Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism.” If she’s right, it means the way we understand American politics today is due for some profound alterations. Recently, Salon spoke with Olmsted over the phone about her argument and its implications. 

Walmart forced to remove 'Made in the USA' logos

Walmart forced to remove 'Made in the USA' logos:





 "The Federal Trade Commission has dropped its investigation into Walmart's decision to lie about where its products were sourced. As the FTC's letter to Walmart confirms, the decision to end the investigation comes after Walmart was forced to pull their misleading logos."

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TCS Retro Classic: Budget of the Living Dead, 1995 | Taxpayers for Common Sense

TCS Retro Classic: Budget of the Living Dead, 1995 | Taxpayers for Common Sense

"Taxpayers from all political persuasions agree on the common sense principle that, once a wasteful government program is killed, it should stay dead.  Unfortunately, like zombies in an old horror movie, 13 wasteful spending programs, subsidies and tax breaks that have been killed in recent years have risen from the dead. This taxpayers’ nightmare wastes billions of hard-earned dollars and further undermines Americans’ trust in their government and in both political parties. While average taxpayers are told they must share in mutual sacrifice, powerful special interests pull their programs out of the grave.

The zombie programs in this report might be laughable—except that the joke is on taxpayers who a

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