The following is from The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it.

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

What are the vast majority of Americans who are suffering from this supposed to do, when you have Republicans running on a platform that insists on extending the tax cuts on the super-rich from the Bush Era? Tax cuts that PRODUCED the current deficit and runaway national debt, has been demonstrated again and again by economists motivated by truth, not dogma or a corporate controlled media.

The following graph, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says it all.

Original image from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

If Shirley Sherrod is not IMMEDIATELY reinstated in her USDA position, my support of Obama is over. Done with. I donated $250 to his campaign, and for us, that was a LOT of money. I expected change. But the change I expected was not a knee-jerk reaction to the dog-whistling right wing racist press of Andrew Breitbart, based on a FALSIFIED VIDEO, that had been manipulated to make it appear this woman was acting in a racist manner. When in fact, the family was HELPED by her, and they love her for it to this day. If her resignation is allowed to stand, my support of this administration is over. At an end. I am sick to death and at heart to see Obama and this administration kowtow and buckle to the radical racist right wing Republican neo-Confederate party again and again. I am done with it. I have told the Democratic campaign committees already to quit calling us, and quit mailing us. They will get no more money from us. Why should they? If I had wanted this sort of action, I would not have voted for Obama and the Democratic party straight ticket.

And just to make it clear, it is the Obama White House that is the problem here, this report quoting Ms. Sherrod on the pressure to resign she received from the White House.

Shirley Sherrod, a former USDA employee who resigned after a controversial video surfaced, told CNN Tuesday that members of the Obama administration “harassed” her and demanded she resign her post immediately.

In an interview with CNN, Sherrod said she repeatedly fielded calls on Monday during a long car ride, during which officials insisted that she pull over to the side of the road and quit her post.

“They asked me to resign, and, in fact, they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia yesterday,” Sherrod told CNN. “I had at least three calls telling me the White House wanted me to resign…and the last one asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it.”

…

Sherrod said the final call came from Cheryl Cook, an undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture. Sherrod said White House officials wanted her to quit immediately because the controversy was “going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.”

“We did not pressure USDA or Ms. Sherrod,” a White House official reportedly wrote in an email on Tuesday to The Washington Post.

Vilsack Will Review Decision to Fire Sherrod

At least the NAACP has the guts to admit that they were wrong, and leaped to judgment based on erroneous facts. They have now issued a critical statement on this, calling for Sherrod to be reinstated. Below is the first part of the statement. Go read the whole thing.

July 20, 2010

(BALTIMORE, MD) - NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after a careful investigation into the presentation of former USDA Official Shirley Sherrod.

“The NAACP has a zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites, or any other group.

The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Governor George Wallace and late US Senator Robert Byrd — each a man who had associated with and supported white supremacists and their cause before embracing civil rights for all.

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.” “It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people,” says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists.

NAACP Statement on the Resignation of Shirley Sherrod

Of course the real background story here is the role of Faux Noise Nutwork (otherwise known as the Fox News Network), which repeatedly and willingly pushes stories like this, knowing they are fabrications and lies. But they are not reporting news, they are the water carrying propagandists of the radical conservative right wing.

Rachel Maddow went after Fox News Tuesday night for its role in propagating the Shirley Sherrod story, but she also criticized the White House for continuing to fall for the network’s stunts.
After showing repeated instance of Fox News anchors pushing the idea that Sherrod was a racist based on an out-of-context excerpt of a speech she gave to the NAACP earlier this year, Maddow laid into the network.
“This is what Fox News does, this is how they are different from other news organizations,” Maddow said. “This is why the White House argued months ago that Fox should be treated as a media organization but not as a normal news organization, because they don’t treat news the way a normal news organization treats news. Just like the fake ACORN controversy, Fox News knows that it has a role in this dance….
“Fox does what Fox does, that is dog bites man, that is not interesting. What is interesting about this story is that the Obama administration inexplicably keeps falling for it.”
Blasting the White House and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for requesting Sherrod’s resignation based on a false (or at least out-of-context) story, Maddow said:
Dear White House, dear administration: believing conservative spin about what’s so wrong with you and then giving into that spin is not an effective defense against that spin. Just buying it and apologizing for it, and doing whatever they want you to do doesn’t make the problem of them lying about you go away. In fact, it makes it worse…

The huge tide of negative publicity that followed these video tapes and the coverage they got on Fox wall-to-wall was a dishonest political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no resemblance to the actual facts of what happened. But it worked. Means be damned, in the end it worked.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/rachel-maddow-white-house_n_654134.html

Not only does he make clear that in Al Qaeda we are dealing with a small sect, not a government, that represents a distortion of the teachings of Islam, he goes into great detail documenting the American founding fathers statements on the role of religion in the emerging United States, the clear principles of separation of church and state, and most of all, the tolerance for other religions that was the heart of there thinking as they sough to form our nation and its laws.

A couple of quotes, but go to Cole’s site and read the entire thing.

Finally, forbidding the building of a mosque in New York is inconsistent with the ideals of the Founding Generation of the United States of America, who explicitly mentioned Islam among the cases when they spoke of religious freedom:

‘George Washington asked in a March 24, 1784, letter to his aide Tench Tilghman that some craftsmen be hired for him: “If they are good workmen, they may be of Assia, [sic] Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, [Muslims] Jews, or Christian of any Sect – or they may be Atheists …”

Ben Franklin, the founding father of many important institutions in Philadelphia, a key diplomat and a framer of the US Constitution, wrote in his Autobiography concerning a non-denominational place of public preaching he helped found “so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”

I left the following comment for Cole, attached to the post at his blog.

This is one of the finest, most succinct posts I have ever read on your blog.

Clear, documented, historically and factually accurate, and putting the lie to the Christian dominionism lies being pushed by the far right such as Glenn Beck and Grizzly Mama Palin.

Of course it will never penetrate the dense skulls of the 24 percent of our population who steep happily in their ignorance out of fear, and well, ignorance. I once spent nearly a year if life of my youth working with profoundly mentally disabled teens in a state mental hospital. I learned very quickly that a key to understanding them was to come to grips with the fact that they were incapable of understanding their own condition and state. The retarded and mentally damaged do not have the capacity to understand that that is their condition.

That is where we are with at least a quarter of the populace of America. No amount of clear exposition of fact will penetrate the ignorance and superstition and fear and hysteria of their current state of being.

Besides, you didn’t boil this down to a tweet, a sound byte, heck, it is not even a one page double spaced executive summary, so much in demand by the current generation of leaders in our society at large; so who in this modern day is going to read it anyway, other than other academic type liberal progressive over-educated elitists?

Sorry, but if there is anything I am steeped in these days, it is 64 years of weariness with the madness that is culminating in a deep, dark cynicism toward my fellow human beans and this society of ours, which I see devolving into political and social madness more and more every day.

Signed into law in April by Governor Patrick and effective today, the law, Chapter 74 of the Acts of 2010, imposes severe restrictions on the distribution of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet. The law could make anyone who operates a website or communicates through a listserv criminally liable for nudity or sexually related material, if the material can be considered “harmful to minors” under the law’s definition. In effect, it bans from the Internet anything that may be “harmful to minors,” including material adults have a First Amendment right to view. Violators can be fined $10,000 or sentenced to up to five years in prison, or both.

“The Internet is the broadest, most participatory marketplace for human expression ever created, enabling hundreds of millions of people of all ages throughout the world to communicate with a speed and ease never before possible,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “If allowed to go into effect, this law would reduce all Internet content and discussion to a level suitable for young children. It must not be allowed to go into effect.”

Local Booksellers, National Trade Associations, ACLU, and Others Sue to Block Internet Censorship Law

The point here is simply this. The ruling class will continue trying to use wedge and emotionally loaded issues like this in order to put a stop to the free exchange of information on the Internet, because that exchange is a threat to their political control.

I remain surprised that I have to explain this to anyone.

The signs are clear. In Australia, you already have government censorship via blacklisting of web sites IN PLACE and active.

And now, our very own government is pushing a program called ‘Perfect Citizen’, with obvious lack of irony or knowledge of the term ‘Orwellian’.

What’s in a Name for NSA “Perfect Citizen” Program”

Read all of Krugman’s commentary, but below I a few paragraphs from the introduction and the summary that say it all.

Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?

The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it’s possible to clear up some of the confusion.
…
But won’t extending unemployment benefits worsen the budget deficit? Yes, slightly — but as I and others have been arguing at length, penny-pinching in the midst of a severely depressed economy is no way to deal with our long-run budget problems. And penny-pinching at the expense of the unemployed is cruel as well as misguided.

So, is there any chance that these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.” But there are also centrist Democrats who have bought into the arguments against helping the unemployed. It’s up to them to step back, realize that they have been misled — and do the right thing by passing extended benefits.

]]> http://keepamericafree.com/?feed=rss2&p=36 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=35 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=35#comments Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:36:27 +0000 Ron http://keepamericafree.com/?p=35 On July 2nd, I faxed Sen. Lugar and Rep. Hill my thoughts on their vote against extending unemployment benefits.

I want to credit Rep. Hill for constituent outreach. One of his aides called me on the phone at home, and we talked for probably a good 15-20 minutes. That is an eternity for a constituent contact. I eagerly await Sen. Lugar’s form letter, of course, which will, as usual, not address the issue at all.

The aide explained the Hill is under severe pressure, from what to him appears to be the majority of his constituency, to stop the mad spending by Washington, and that he believes we must make every effort to do so.

I could only respond that then perhaps there were other areas that Washington might consider cutting, such as all the tax-payer dollars that saved and propped up the corrupt Wall Street hedge fund dealers, derivative traders, the corrupt banks that destroyed the housing market, and all the economic and business geniuses who have created the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

I also pointed out the historically accurate fact that FDR, in 1938, responded to these same pressures and cut back the spending that was reviving the American economy, and the economy sputtered and went into a tale-spin. It took the “economic stimulus” of World War II to get it back on track. I expressed the notion that maybe we could try accomplishing the same thing this time, but without another World War.

Today I find that a newspaper in Vermont has done the necessary research to graphically portray just what is so wrong with Congress and America right now. Below is their pie chart and text from their site, breaking down where the money has gone so far.

From Rock Creek Free Press of Vermont

Wall Street Bailout Exceeds Cost of All US Wars Combined

And you can throw in the New Deal, Marshall Plan and Moon Shots as well

Casey Research, of Vermont, has analyzed the costs of the government bailouts of the housing crisis, the credit crisis and others and has concluded that the total is $8.5 trillion, which is more than the cost of all US wars, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the NASA Space Program combined.

According to CRS, the Congressional Research Service, all major US wars (including such events as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the invasion of Panama, the Kosovo War and numerous other small conflicts), cost a total of $7.5 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars.

There is little left to say. I don’t see any place on that chart outlining where this nation should be spending money, namely, on rebuilding our roads and our bridges; on building high speed mass transit systems; on updating the water supply infrastructure of our cities. I don’t see anything even hinting at laying the groundwork for a national health care system that might lift us from our current position as 37th in the world in health care per the World Health Organization.

And most of all, there is not even room on that chart to fit unemployment benefits so you could see, I would bet. The finally low ball attempt that did not pass was less than the cost of the Civil War for both North and South! During the most recent negotiations, even after members of Congress reduced the bill’s 10-year deficit impact from $134 billion to $33 billion — the cost of reauthorizing extended unemployment benefits through November, the House still refused to pass the legislation.

This in the face of money thrown by Congress at the corrupt minions of Wall Street and the mega-banking industry totaling $8.5 TRILLION dollars.

This so those bankers and hedge fund managers, whose gamble failed, who, if left to the mercies of the free market place the the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith, would have taken their rightful places among the ranks of the unemployed. Instead, they wallow in BONUSES, not just their salaries, of millions and millions of dollars, and are using that very same tax payer money to constantly lobby Congress to prevent meaningful regulation of their corrupt and criminal industries.

It is hard to comprehend or wrap one’s head around the fact that Congress has thrown more more money at this bunch of criminals than we spent on all of World War II. But there it is.

What makes it even worse is that a special commission has been meeting right now in Washington, and its primary goal is to come up with a way to sell the American people on the idea that to fund these banker and Wall Street criminals, and to fund the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American people are going to have give up social security until they are 70, and see even more cuts in Medicare. This was Sen. Boehner’s plan, announced on behalf of the Republican party last week. We are really in trouble when the goals of a study group appointed by a Democratic president converge with the goals of someone as despicable as Sen. Boehner and the Republicans.

I am reminded of the parable of the frog in the crock pot, the water of which is slowly heated by the cook, so slowly that the frog does not realize he is about to become dinner. Of course, by the time he realizes it, it is too late. He is cooked.

That is pretty much where the American people are right now. Our freedoms are being eroded beyond the point of no return by unconstitutional legislation like the Patriot Act. And the Middle Class is on the verge of extinction. And the numbers counted living at or below the poverty level continues to grow. Meanwhile, we see the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the smallest percentage of Americans in our nation’s history. And this massive concentration of wealth, just as is our current economic crisis, is a global phenomenon.

The world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries. Fact, while those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government’s gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded. Another 200 million are at risk in precarious jobs and the World Bank tells us that at the end of 2010, another 64 million will have lost their jobs. By 2030, more than half the population of the megacities of the Global South will be slumdwellers with no access to education, health care, water, or sanitation.
‘The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History’

A recent study on the distribution of wealth in the United States, by G. William Domhoff of the University of California in Santa Cruz, is just as disheartening.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.
Power in America. Wealth, Income, and Power

Pretty soon the pot will reach a boil. And we will be well and thoroughly cooked.

]]> http://keepamericafree.com/?feed=rss2&p=35 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=33 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=33#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:44:23 +0000 Ron http://keepamericafree.com/?p=33 Anderson Cooper of CNN, ‘Letters to the President #501: “The birds’

” Sure, it’s just a few birds. But the plight of animals touches a chord in many American hearts and can spur outrage beyond anything you have seen so far in the Gulf. Maybe that’s not right; maybe it’s not fair, especially in a circumstance in which 11 people were killed. But it is reality. Those birds gave a blinking, horrible, dying face to the Gulf of Mexico, and that is almost without question going to turn the tide of public sentiment much more strongly against BP, your administration, and anyone perceived to be responsible for mishandling the situation. So print out a picture. Tape it onto your desk. And use it to remind yourself every hour or every day until it is resolved; the calamity down south continues.”

This is going to be the iconic image forever portraying the horror of what we are doing in the Gulf and to our planet:

To which I can only quote from the Gospels:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Of course, the really sick part is, WE KNOW D*MNED WELL what we are doing. And we are doing it anyway.

]]> http://keepamericafree.com/?feed=rss2&p=33 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=34 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=34#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:38:40 +0000 Ron http://keepamericafree.com/?p=34 Fax To Senator Richard Lugar and Representative Baron Hill

Subj: Republicans Love Their Bankers and Bombs, but Hate Unemployed American Workers. Sadly, Baron Hill, D IN-09, Marches to the Same Mistaken Drum

One has to wonder about what legacy Richard Lugar thinks he is going to leave for all his years of service in the Senate.

Given his continued unswerving allegiance to the corrupt marketers of hedge funds and derivatives, Wall Street firms, and the mega-banks, and his consistent votes to prevent any return to rational regulation of a financial industry that is corrupt to the core, and drinking their monster bonuses from the dollars of the American taxpayers who bailed them out of the mess they had created, it should come as no surprise that Sen. Lugar now chooses to spit on the downtrodden and suffering unemployed, who find themselves abandoned in the middle of the George Bush / Republican Recession that, according to Paul Krugman, now threatens to spiral downward into a Third Great Depression.

Sen. Lugar must really care about his wealthy and powerful corporate and banker friends.

He certainly does not give a d*mn about the American worker.

How does the Senator look himself in the mirror every morning without blushing in shame at the damage done to this nation done by his Republican party? Damage they seem intent on increasing with every passing act of obstruction and monstrous lies that deny the reality of the mess this nation is in?

They had no hesitation in running up the biggest debt and deficit in the history of the nation for their fat-cat financial, corporate, and military-industrial complex friends to get us into unending wars that provided billions in contracts to privateers and war profiteers, while only succeeding in increasing the hatred for America in the Middle East.

But help Americans who are out of work? Insure social security at age 66? Insure Medicare for the elderly? Oh, clearly the only way to fix the mess they have created is to continue their master plan to destroy the middle class, increase the percentage of Americans living at or below poverty wages, and continue the transfer of wealth to the top 5% of Americans that has accelerated over the past 20 years, the greatest concentration of the nation’s wealth in the hands of the smallest number of people in the history of the nation.

Senator Lugar should be ashamed of himself. I can assure him that we are.

We note that Baron Hill also voted against extended unemployment relief. In this case, the same criticisms apply to Rep. Hill. Although we have donated to and voted for Hill in the past, this year we will just not vote. And Hill is going to suffer what Democrats who have failed their constituency nationwide are going to suffer: Democrats, discouraged by the failure of those they elected to live up to their promises and the principles of the party, will simply stay at home. And you know what that means? Energized Republicans will show up and vote.

Following commentary source: 17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates repeatedly vote to filibuster unemployment benefits.

1.3 million people have lost their benefits this month alone, and this is actually an historic step on the part of the Senate, as “never before has Congress cut off benefits when unemployment was so high.” But perhaps Republicans in the Senate agree with Sharron Angle that unemployed people are simply “spoiled” and “afraid to get a job”?
17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates repeatedly vote to filibuster unemployment benefits.
Since the beginning of the Great Recession, 15 million Americans have lost their jobs. Almost half of them have been out of work for six months or more, and there are currently nearly five workers actively seeking work for every available job. However, the Senate has been unable to extend job benefits because of a Republican filibuster, which has been joined by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). On three separate occasions, Democrats tried to break the filibuster but were unsuccessful. And while no senator voting to continue the filibuster should be allowed to escape responsibility, many voting to sustain it are from states that have been hit particularly hard by the unemployment crisis. Here are the 17 senators from states with double-digit unemployment who are willing to leave their constituents without a safety net:

Senator(s) State Unemployment Rate Votes Against Cloture (Out Of Three)

Sen. Richard Lugar (R) Indiana 10.0% Three

]]> http://keepamericafree.com/?feed=rss2&p=34 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=32 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=32#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:33:00 +0000 Ron http://keepamericafree.com/?p=32 To: Congressman Baron Hill
233 Cannon House Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20515

Subj: VOTE YES ON HEALTH CARE REFORM THIS WEEKEND!

First the bottom line: If Baron Hill does not vote YES on this legislation we will never contribute to him again; we will never make phone calls soliciting votes; we will NEVER vote for him again, we will simply abstain and withhold our votes.

I read with horror in the past 24 hours that Baron Hill, IN-09, would not state unequivocally that he would be voting yes for the health care bill being sent back to the Senate under rules of reconciliation this weekend.

I say with horror, because I had not until then heard any inkling that Hill was among those who had said they would vote no, or among the wafflers in the Democratic Party who had no courage and would not commit to support their President and the will of the vast majority of the American people.

There is no reason not to support this bill, and every reason to support it.

The final revised Congressional Budget Office estimate of its impact came out this week, according to Congressional Quarterly, here are the findings.

1. CUTS THE DEFICIT. Cuts the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (2010 – 2019). Cuts deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years.

2. REINS IN WASTEFUL MEDICARE COSTS AND EXTENDS THE SOLVENCY OF MEDICARE; CLOSES THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG DONUT HOLE Reduces annual growth in Medicare expenditures by 1.4 percentage points per year—while improving benefits and lowering costs for seniors. Extends Medicare’s solvency by at least 9 years.

3. EXPANDS AND IMPROVES HEALTH COVERAGE FOR MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES Expands health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans Helps guarantee that 95 percent of Americans will be covered.

4. IS FULLY PAID FOR Is fully paid for – costs $940 billion over a decade. (Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion each year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill’s cost is paid for by reducing health care costs).

That’s more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill. The reconciliation bill will have more deficit reduction than either of the previous two bills.

It will save American lives. It will lower the cost of health care and insurance for the vast majority.

It will bring absolutely necessary regulation and controls to a for profit health care industry that has become a ‘murder by spreadsheet’ industry, putting the profits of shareholders ahead of the sick and needy of America.

I had hoped that Baron Hill had more intelligence and sense than to for a moment be swayed by the unending lies and hysterical propaganda of the Republicans.

Just today, in a final desperate act, they were caught passing around a FRAUDULENT memo, IN THE HOUSE, ON THE HOUSE FLOOR, “that claims to be sent to “Democratic health and communications staff” and which suggests the majority party leadership wants to make big changes to Medicare next year after health care passes.”

The Republican Party has acted in bad faith again, and again, and again. They have no intention of voting for any form of Health Care Reform, no matter that this bill represents MANY ideas that their party has floated for years, and in fact, which Romney enacted in Massachusetts. It was hilarious this week watching him try to deny the truth of his own legacy as governor there.

Yes, Baron Hill may be inundated with calls from tea bagging tea partiers, but surely he has the wisdom and insight to realize these people are in a tiny minority of the American people, they are just being supported financially by the far right wing, and the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, the Faux Noise Nutwork. Surely Baron Hill does not base his votes on the frothing of a deranged, deluded, and misinformed minority. For that is what they are. No more. No less.

This bill is not perfect. We would prefer, and still intend in the future to fight for, a national single payer or Medicare for all option. Such a bill to allow anyone to voluntarily buy in to the Medicare system has been signed by over 80 members of the House. Baron Hill should sign it. As soon as possible.

But this week end, Baron Hill better vote with the Democratic Party and the principles it represents.

If this bill fails, it will be taken as a sign of the inability of the Democratic Party and President Obama to govern.

And I can guarantee you, neither Baron Hill, nor any other Democrat, will be receiving our money, or our efforts on their behalf to be elected or reelected. Nor will we bother to go to the polls next time. Just do without our votes, if you think you can afford it.

We don’t think the total disillusion the failure of the legislation will engender among the base of the party will allow the party to survive massive losses.

And frankly, those who do not do the right thing and vote yes on this legislation deserve to lose, for they have marked themselves down in the history of this nation as failing in courage and wisdom at one of the most critical junctures in our history.

VOTE YES FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM.

Faxed to Baron Hill. Posted on the website http://keepamericafree.com

]]> http://keepamericafree.com/?feed=rss2&p=32 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=31 http://keepamericafree.com/?p=31#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:27:24 +0000 Ron http://keepamericafree.com/?p=31 Date: March 11, 2010

Faxed To: Senator Evan Bayh, Senator Richard Lugar, Representative Baron Hill
CC: Senator Harry Reid, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Pres. Barack Obama

Subj: Pass Health Care Reform via Reconciliation
Allow Up or Down Vote on Public Option
Allow Up or Down Vote on Optional Medicate for Any Citizen at Any Age

The blinding hypocrisy of the Republican party, the party of NO NO NO, was made completely evident today, when the Congressional Budget Office released its Estimate of the Budgetary Effects of the Senate-Passed Health Bill. I am including two highlights, with emphasis added.

“CBO and JCT now estimate that, on balance, the direct (mandatory) spending and revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $118 billion over the 2010–2019 period.”

“The gross cost of the proposed expansions in insurance coverage over those 10 years is now projected to be $875 billion, reflecting subsidies provided through insurance exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers. Those costs are partly offset by revenues from an excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and net savings from other coverage-related sources, leaving a net cost of $624 billion for the coverage provisions. Other provisions affecting direct spending save $478 billion, on net—mostly in Medicare—and other provisions affecting revenues reduce the deficit by $264 billion, on net. Thus, the net effect on deficits of the bill as a whole equals $624 billion less $478 billion less $264 billion, or a reduction of $118 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”

Every attack on health care reform by the Republican Party, and the members of the Democratic party who are owned and operated by the same corporate for-profit health care industry, has been a lie. In fact, a stream of unending lies, everything from the ‘death panels’ to the claims it will bust the budget.

If the United States does NOT reform its health care system, that will in fact be just one more nail in the coffin of an economy that has been pushed to the edge of extinction by illegal wars waged off the books, and the insane, never-ending deficit spending, greater than in the entire previous history of our nation, by the Bush / Cheney administration, and the Republican Congress in control for the those eight lost years in our nation’s history.

We do not just ask, we now DEMAND that you, our representatives, make a very simple choice. Either you will continue to support a private, for-profit health care industry that is not providing the needs of this nation, but is oriented solely to profits for shareholders. Or you stand with the American people, and finally, finally, vote for change that is needed for this nation.

We fully support a public option. In fact, we would prefer to see a national health care plan, Medicare for all. We laughed our heads off this week when Rush Limbaugh threatened to move to Costa Rica if Congress passes reform. Ironic, in that Costa Rica has a fully nationalized health care system that serves all its citizens, providing better, more comprehensive service than does the United States, which is now ranked far below most of the developed nations in the world, around #37, last time we checked.

The Senate and House Bills are not perfect. But they are a start. They MUST BE PASSED. Quit dithering. Quit prevaricating. Do your duty to history and this nation, and stop this madness.

The Republicans passed everything from health care to budgets using reconciliation. Their protests now are just more lies and hypocrisy layered on top of lies and hypocrisy, so deep the party seems to have lost all touch with reality. We wonder how people like Richard Lugar, who used to represent principles, are able to look at themselves in the mirror every morning and still remain members of this failed political party.

As many in the nation are now saying, we can only repeat: PASS THE D*MNED BILL!

This FAX to Congress has been posted publicly at http://keepamericafree.com.

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