Limbaugh: "Pre-existing condition coverage is not
insurance; it's welfare"

Crooks and Liars and digby have the story, but here's Limbaugh in his own words.

Now insurance that most people will actually have to pay for themselves is welfare. That's going to be the new talking point for Republicans. What digby says:

Although it sounds ridiculous, Rush is in the process of making his followers believe that the pre-existing condition provision in the health care reforms is something bad and shameful. The reason he's doing this, of course, is because this is the most popular piece of the bill and the one on which the rest of it hinges. If they can divide people on that, the repeal of the plan will be much easier.

I wonder if Limbaugh has considered that his prescription-drug addiction would qualify as a pre-existing condition in many insurance plans. And if acne can be used as a pre-existing condition, then chances are the ass boil that Limbaugh used to get out of serving in Vietnam likely would, too. So if his insurance company will have to provide him coverage despite these things, he's receiving welfare?

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Limbaugh: "Pre-existing condition coverage is not
insurance; it's welfare

Crooks and Liars and digby have the story, but here's Limbaugh in his own words.

Now insurance that most people will actually have to pay for themselves is welfare. That's going to be the new talking point for Republicans. What digby says:

Although it sounds ridiculous, Rush is in the process of making his followers believe that the pre-existing condition provision in the health care reforms is something bad and shameful. The reason he's doing this, of course, is because this is the most popular piece of the bill and the one on which the rest of it hinges. If they can divide people on that, the repeal of the plan will be much easier.

I wonder if Limbaugh has considered that his prescription-drug addiction would qualify as a pre-existing condition in many insurance plans. And if acne can be used as a pre-existing condition, then chances are the ass boil that Limbaugh used to get out of serving in Vietnam likely would, too. So if his insurance company will have to provide him coverage despite these things, he's receiving welfare?

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Bread and Circuses and Baseball: Government by
Organized Money is as Dangerous as Government by Mob

ADAM BESSIE FOR BUZZFLASH

What an emotional week for San Francisco.

On Wednesday morning, the San Francisco Democratic elite - mayor Gavin Newsom, former mayor Willie Brown and Senator Dianne Feinstein -  proudly handed the World Series' winning Giants the key to the city at the end of their Victory Parade, attended by hundreds of thousands of fans, making it "one of the largest gatherings the city has seen in years," as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The City nearly stopped, as fans ditched their jobs and schools to crowd Market Street to cheer the Giants' historic victory, its first since in over a half century.  And most of all, these fanatic fans endured the traffic and the crowds because these Giants embodied the outcast spirit of the City - they are "long-haired, farm-raised, mostly home-grown and organic," they are "eccentric," as the New York Times opined.

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A letter to Congressman Elect Tim Scott

To: Congressman-Elect Tim Scott

Dear Congressman-Elect Scott,

When your Party takes power in the upcoming months, I implore you do not follow the likes of Republicans Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint and Mick Mulvaney. It is imperative you break the mold in a positive way, completely doing a 180-degree turn from what Congressman Henry Brown has done in this district.

Mr. Scott, you have a port in Georgetown that desperately needs funding to 1) become active in trade 2) incorporate industry in the surrounding area and 3) bring new jobs to the area as well. If you recall, pleas have reached as far as Congressman Jim Clyburn's office. Why? Because Brown dragged his feet.

Just today, I see where Senator Jim DeMint blames the Charleston port for "dragging feet" in promoting its necessity for funding. I find this appalling. Should it be a surprise? Should we all be like Oliver Twist, begging "please sir, may I have some more" to elected leaders? Or, should it be more like Animal House, where we, as a state, get spanked while asking "please sir, may I have another."

Today's GOP isn't one to be proud of. They consist of people who want one thing, but do not understand consequences. In order to have no taxes, we trade in government functions.

The Georgetown port is adjacent to the ArcelorMittal - Georgetown steel mill. A mill that is starting back up after laying dormant for about two years. The mill could use the port if 1) it was dredged to accommodate sizable ships and 2) if it was expanded to include one crane similar to what Charleston has to unload cargo.

Republicans talk about jobs. You, Mr. Scott, talked about jobs in Pawleys Island, not the City of Georgetown. I urge you to visit this area, talk to manufacturing workers and tell them you plan to push for funding to expand the port in Georgetown.

As a state legislator, you were on the Labor, Commerce and Industry committee, so I do expect some progressive action.

If you don't, and I will be watching, I plan to be the biggest thorn in your side politically. I will see to it you only hold one term. Because if you fail to produce for the working people in your district, there's no need for such representation.

Mr. Scott, I hope you consider doing the right thing - even in the face of fringed rhetoric. The people, sir, matter. Jobs matter.

It takes money to produce jobs. The port in Georgetown is a start.

Thank you,

Jamie Sanderson
USW Local 7898 Member
Former Georgetown County Democratic Party Chair
Blogger, Activist

Read The Full Article:
http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2010/11/letter-to-congressman-ele
ct-tim-scott.html

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Hoyer: I Got This Thing!

Sources close to Hoyer say they've got the votes locked down to be the next Minority Whip. [...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/-qtK_zv8944/hoyer_i_got_thi
s_thing.php

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Republican Hypocrites Playing Dangerous Game of
Chicken with U.S. Debt Ceiling

enlargeCredit: OpenCongress

"Reagan proved," Vice President Dick Cheney famously said in 2002, "deficits don't matter." Not, that is, when a Republican is sitting in the White House. After all, Republicans were silent as the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under George W. Bush. As it turns out, the same hypocrisy of the GOP's born-again deficit hawks extends to the U.S. debt ceiling as well. After voting seven times to raise the debt ceiling under Bush, Republicans are now promising to just say no to Democrat Barack Obama. And for their political posturing, they risk not only a shutdown of the federal government, but a global economic crisis as well.

In early 2011, the U.S. debt ceiling will have to be bumped up from it current $14.3 trillion level. But for the first time in the nation's history, the emboldened GOP leadership is threatening to block the needed increase and so trigger a default by the government of the United States.

That was the word from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Within hours of Tuesday's midterm voting, McConnell signaled the GOP would oppose boosting the debt ceiling needed to avoid a global economic panic unless there were "strings attached." Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, South Carolina Senator Jim Demint made clear what strings he had in mind. Asked if he'll support raising the debt ceiling, Demint responded:

"No, I won't. Not unless this debt ceiling is combined with some path to balancing our budget, returning to 2008 spending levels, repealing Obamacare. We have got to demonstrate that we have the resolve to cut spending ... we cannot allow that to go through the Congress without showing the American people that we are going to balance the budget, and we're not going to continue to raise the debt in America."

Meanwhile in the House, Eric Cantor (R-VA), who joined the ranks of Republican spending cut cowards refusing to say how they'd slash the budget, insisted the looming government shutdown and worldwide economic calamity would be all President Obama's fault:

"The chief executive, the president, is as responsible as any in terms of running this government. The president has a responsibility, as much or more so than Congress, to make sure that we are continuing to function in a way that the people want."

Of course, it wasn't always this way with Congressional Republicans. Not when they were taking orders from George W. Bush.

As OpenCongress detailed after January's party-line vote to add $1.9 trillion to the debt ceiling, Republican intransigence began in earnest when Bush left the White House for good. As Donny Shaw documented:

The Republicans haven't always been against increasing the federal debt ceiling. This is the first time in recent history (the past decade or so) that no Republican has voted for the increase. In fact, on most of the ten other votes to increase the federal debt limit that the Senate has taken since 1997, the Republicans provided the majority of the votes in favor.

Using data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Shaw compiled the handy table above showing the GOP blessed Bush's proposals to almost double the debt ceiling in just six short years.

Of course, those increases were the inevitable results of the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy, which accounted for half of the exploding deficits during his tenure. (The same Republicans are predictably silent about the deficit impact of extending the Bush tax cuts, which over the next decade would add $4 trillion - including $700 billion for the richest 2% of Americans - to the national debt.)

But that was then. Now a Democrat is in the Oval Office. And the Republican agenda, as Mitch McConnell admitted, is to make him "a one-term president." And he and his GOP allies are committed to doing just that, even if it is means playing a very dangerous game of chicken with the U.S. debt ceiling - and Americans' economic future.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

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Nicholas Kristof: 'Is our economic priority the
jobless, or is it zillionaires'

The answer with the incoming Congress is clear. It's all about the zillionaires.

And if Republicans are worried about long-term budget deficits, a reasonable concern, why are they insistent on two steps that nonpartisan economists say would worsen the deficits by more than $800 billion over a decade ? cutting taxes for the most opulent, and repealing health care reform? What other programs would they cut to make up the lost $800 billion in revenue?

In weighing these issues, let?s remember that backdrop of America?s rising inequality.

In the past, many of us acquiesced in discomfiting levels of inequality because we perceived a tradeoff between equity and economic growth. But there?s evidence that the levels of inequality we?ve now reached may actually suppress growth. A drop of inequality lubricates economic growth, but too much may gum it up.

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The end of the end of DADT

Adam Serwer:The Wall Street Journal reports Democrats are ready to cave on DADT in the lame[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/1J74_XA-HqQ/the-end-of-the-e
nd-of-dadt

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Pouring Salt in the Wound

Not all democracies are equally bad.

Brad Friedman:

How terribly quaint. Via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire today...

British Election Overturned Because of "False Statements"

The Independent reports that former British immigration minister Phil Woolas "lost his seat as an MP today after an election court ruled that he knowingly made false statements about an opponent in May's general election."

Bloomberg notes Woolas was guilty of "an illegal practice" by making statements "he had no reasonable grounds for believing were true and did not believe were true."

The Independent reports that Woolas, a Labour MP, "is to be barred from the Commons for three years and the election contest for his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat [will be] re-run." His crime:

The specially-convened election court had heard that Mr Woolas stirred up racial tensions in a desperate bid to retain his seat in Oldham East and Saddleworth.

His campaign team was said to have set out to "make the white folk angry" by depicting an alleged campaign by Muslims to "take Phil out".

Thank God we, the people of the United States of America, live in a land where there is no such need for laws to protect the electorate from the sort of dirty, disingenuously-divisive, knowingly-false, racially-based fear-mongering that might otherwise plague our totally free and respectable democratic elections!

The problem with trying to make that work here is that the most outrageous campaign lies are told by "independent expenditure" entities separate from campaigns, so the candidates cannot be held responsible for them.

Impeach the Roberts Court Traitors.


Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/Wc7VGwzawGY/pouri
ng-salt-in-the-wound

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Fox's "brain room" parrots Rand Paul's false
talking points on federal pay

Megyn Kelly said Fox's "brain room" had found that "federal workers' average compensation is over twice that of non-government workers," a claim also made by Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) in a video clip she aired moments before. In fact, the statistic Kelly cited is based on a discredited apples-to-oranges comparison.

Fox claims federal workers make twice as much as private sector workers

Parroting Rand Paul, Fox claims "federal workers' average compensation is over twice that of non-government workers." During the November 8 edition of Fox News' America Live, host Megyn Kelly aired a clip of Rand Paul stating, "The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year." Moments later Kelly said "our brain room pulled out some of these statistics ... Federal workers made an average pay, benefits of approximately 123,000 back in 2009. And federal workers' average compensation is over twice that of non-government workers":

KELLY: Well fresh off their midterm election victories, some Tea Party candidates are already taking aim at the folks who work for the federal government. Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky suggesting one of the ways we can tackle our nation's ballooning debt is by cutting the federal workforce.

PAUL (video clip): I'm going to look at every program, every program. But I would freeze federal hiring. I would maybe reduce federal employees by 10 percent. I'd probably reduce their wages by 10 percent. The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year. Let's get them more in line, and let's find savings. Let's hire no new federal workers.

[...]

KELLY: OK look, our brain room pulled out some of these statistics. Federal works pay, benefit, etcetera, has grown 36.9 percent since 2000. Guess how much its grown for the private sector - for private workers: 8.8 percent. So 36.9 percent for the federal workers; only 8.8 percent since 2000 for the privates. Federal workers made an average pay, benefits of approximately 123,000 back in 2009. And federal workers' average compensation is over twice that of non-government workers. It's twice that of non-government workers. When we say federal workers, we're talking about people we pay for - taxpayer dollars.

Claim that federal workers make twice as much as private workers is based on false comparison

Fox News' statistics about federal pay are echo misleading USA Today analysis. Fox News' statistics appear to come from an August USA Today article which cited data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and reported that "[f]ederal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation." Right-wing media seized on that report to criticize federal workers.

Politifact: Simply comparing federal employees' compensation with private sector compensation "is not an apples-to-apples comparison." From a February 3 Politifact article rebutting the claim that "federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts":

[I]t's important to understand that a big reason for the disparity is the different mix of jobs in the federal work force. It has more higher-paying white-collar jobs, experts told us, while there are more lower-paying, blue-collar jobs in the private sector that bring the average down. So it is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

USA Today article acknowledges that its "analysis did not consider differences in experience and education." The USA Today analysis compared the average pay and compensation for all federal employees to that of all private employees. The analysis did not attempt to determine if a private sector worker earns more or less than a federal worker with a similar job. USA Today noted that it's analysis of private and federal pay "did not consider differences in experience and education."

The average federal salary has grown 33% faster than inflation since 2000. USA TODAY reported in March that the federal government pays an average of 20% more than private firms for comparable occupations. The analysis did not consider differences in experience and education.

Bureau of Economic Analysis: "Skill levels and educational attainment tend to be higher" for federal workers.  An August 18 Politifact article on federal pay reported that the Bureau of Economic Analysis -- the source for USA Today's data -- says that the numbers used by USA Today "do not tell the complete story," in part because in recent years, "the federal government is hiring more highly skilled workers who tend to make more money." From the Politifact article:

The BEA notes that its private-sector data includes employees of all professions. That means everything from minimum-wage jobs to the salaries of chief executive officers. Federal employees typically work in professional occupations that pay more, such as accountants, attorneys and economists, according to Congressional Budget Office research.

The BEA also noted in recent years that the federal government is hiring more highly skilled workers who tend to make more money. Many of the lower-paid positions, the BEA found, have been contracted out to the private sector.

Indeed, the BEA website lists "a number of factors that explain why average compensation for federal government non-postal civilian employees is higher than average compensation for private-sector employees":

• The mix of occupations held by federal government civilian employees is different from that of occupations held by the entire private-sector workforce. The private-sector workforce are in a wider range of jobs than federal government employees -- from minimum-wage positions to highly paid CEOs. According to studies conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), jobs in the federal government civilian workforce are concentrated in professional (e.g., lawyers, accountants, and economists), administrative, and technical occupations. In addition, skill levels and educational attainment tend to be higher, on average, for federal government civilian employees than for private-sector employees because of the occupational requirements in the federal government.
• Over the past several years, there has been a shift in federal employment toward higher-skilled, higher-paid positions because lower-skilled (and lower-paid) positions have been contracted out to private industries. This trend has contributed to higher average pay for federal government civilian employees than for private-sector employees.
• On average, federal government employees receive higher benefits in the form of pensions and health insurance contributions than private-sector employees; some private-sector employees receive no benefits.
• Moreover, federal compensation estimates include sizable payments for unfunded liabilities that distort comparisons with private-sector compensation. For 2006, for example, the value of these payments for unfunded liability was $28.6 billion or 10.7 percent of total federal civilian compensation.

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