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http://ckm3.blogspot.com/
The Nightwatch: Reports are again claiming that Obama is telling Democrats that “they must be open to entitlement changes”. For which read, caving in to Paul Ryan and gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Social Security System. Good thing he won by a goodly margin in November or he'd have to give away the farm.
Waiting For... The system has failed us. Thirty years ago they told us that 401(k)s were going to provide us with a comfy retirement. The evidence is in, and they have not, do not and will not. They have provided a rich flow of fees to the financial industry. And the failure to live up to the propaganda is, they say, our fault because we do not save enough. Out of what, our falling wages? Our unemployment checks? Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid were created for a reason. We cannot afford to retire. Given health care costs, we cannot even afford to live. We have a societal problem, not a financial one. None of us can go it alone. We must rely on each other. We do not need to destroy the safety nets, we need to strengthen them.
The Market Speaks: “What the markets are clearly saying, however, is that the fears and prejudices that have dominated Washington discussion for years are entirely misguided. And they’re also telling us that the people who have been feeding those fears and peddling those prejudices don’t have a clue about how the economy actually works." Paul K, of course.
The Others: Most Americans (56%) support using drones to kill people in those places they can't find on a map, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia,
Hung Jury: Chris Matthews suggests that if we are ever going to learn the truth about how and who got the US to invade Iraq, someone would have to waterboard Dick Cheney. As appealing as it sounds, let’s not become one of the Bad Guys; waterboarding is not the way to “learn the truth” about anything - I’d settle for a public trial for treason.
The Map Is Not The Territory: The 2013 version of Paul Ryan's assault on the social fabric of the United States: Repeal Obamacare but keep the Obamacare cuts to Medicare and the new taxes in the plan. Convert Medicare to a voucher system, giving profits to private insurance companies while depriving seniors of needed health care. Cut Medicaid to the bone and then prevent the poor from getting medical care by putting them in the loving hands of state-level grifters. Cut as many other domestic social programs as deeply as possible. Increase Defense spending in order to strengthen defense contributions to the Republicans. Simplify taxes by doing away with taxes on the rich and cutting corporate taxes (which nobody pays anyway) to 25%. Also include a rather stupid mandatory cap on total spending so in the next recession the government won't be able to help anyone. Continue to fund any and all wars under the table, like Iraq and Afghanistan have been. Same old same old. This is not “deficit reduction” it is an assault on the social compact. And it is Paul Ryan's attempt to save himself from the obscurity of being a losing vice-presidential candidate. Why is this treated as anything other than self-promotion? That Paul Ryan is the intellectual leader of the Republican Party says far more about the low state of Republican intelligence than it does about his presumed brilliance.
Flash! Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 SC case that established the right of unmarried people to use contraception is “the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court,” according to the Family Research Council, which also says that “functioning societies” have never given single people “the right to engage in sexual intercourse.” No, that would have been Mother Nature's doing, some time earlier.
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