Bob Schieffer repeats Republican lies about birth
control mandate on Face the Nation

It's not breaking news that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been engaging in some serious false witnessing when it comes to women's health care and the Church's full assault on it in the name of, um, freedomz 'n stuff. Dolan has fully embraced his new role as de facto mouthpiece for the Republican Party, happily appearing on TV to do the party's dirty work of blasting President Obama and the Democrats, while conveniently ignoring the many positions of the Republican Party?like the Ryan budget plan?to which the Church supposedly objects, but without threats of lawsuits, hunger strikes, or calls for violent resistance.

But on Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer helped the cardinal and the Republican Party by repeating these blatant falsehoods about the health care mandate to cover birth control:

Well, there was certainly no duct tape on your mouth when the president came out and let it be known that his health care plan included Catholic institutions having to buy birth control pills for their employees in churches, in schools, and in hospitals.

Epic fail, Bob. While that absurd claim has been repeated ad nauseum by Republicans and bishops, it's also 100 percent false. The president's mandate?from the very beginning, even before he tweaked it to "accommodate" the faux concerns about religious liberty?specifically exempts churches. (An exemption, by the way, that should be unnecessary, since Catholics don't use birth control, right?)

As for Church-affiliated institutions, like schools and hospitals, the president gave them a special loophole too by allowing them to opt out of the mandate and shift the burden of coverage directly onto the insurance companies:

The new compromise offered by the White House is that the insurer for the religious entities in question, rather than the employer, would be responsible for providing contraceptive coverage free of charge for employees. Insurers would also be responsible for informing employees of those benefits.

So, in other words, what Schieffer said was completely wrong. And the following five-minute lie-filled rant from Cardinal Dolan about how women's health care violates freedomz 'n stuff was also the sort of thing one might expect a Very Serious Journalist such as Schieffer to actually correct. But when such a Very Serious Journalist as Schieffer clearly has no idea what he's talking about, I guess it makes sense that he'd sit there and nod along with the cardinal instead of challenging him to make sure the audience at home gets the facts instead of the spin. You know, like a Very Serious Journalist should.

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-Republican-lies-about-birth-control-mandate-on-Face-the-Nation

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Administration Shies Away from Executive Order on
Campaign Finance Disclosure

A year ago, in the wake of the Citizens United decision, the White House floated a plan to issue an executive order which would require federal contractors to disclose their political contributions. This mirrored the kind of transparency they wanted out[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/SZmPvVONog8/

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Does Mitt Romney stand with Scott Walker or
Wisconsin women

Let's play another round of stump the candidate.
Mitt Romney (Matthew Reichbach)When news leaked out on Friday that Scott Walker signed a new law repealing his state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act, Laura Clawson posed an important question: "What's Mitt Romney going to choose: Scott Walker fandom or equal pay enforcement for women?"

Repealing equal pay wasn't Walker's only anti-woman action last week. He signed three other bills rolling back the clock on women's rights, and women's health:

Yes, he banned private coverage of abortion?that's disallowing any insurance company operating in the state's future exchange from offering abortion coverage, which the federal law unfortunately allows. The second bill, Republicans argued, would prevent something that actually doesn't happen?webcam consultations between women and their doctors. There are criminal penalties attached for physicians who don't conduct the additional, unnecessary consultation. The Wisconsin Medical Society opposed the bill because it interferes with the doctor-patient relationship. And rounding out the parade of backward-thinking, keeping children in the dark about their sexual health.

So Mitt Romney should be challenged, again, on his steadfast support for Walker, particularly in light of his deepening problem with women in the polls. Of course, Mitt being Mitt, if he is challenged he'll just outsource the question to his wife.

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d-with-Scott-Walker-or-Wisconsin-women-

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MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren raises $6.9 million in
first quarter, doubling up Scott Brown

Holy smokes: Elizabeth Warren just announced she raised an astounding $6.9 million in the first three months of the year, in her quest to unseat Republican Sen. Scott Brown. That's more than double the incumbent's take, who pulled in an already-impressive $3.4 mil in the first quarter. Warren previously reported that she's raised $2.5 mil within the state of Massachusetts, which I would also suspect is more than Brown took in from Bay State donors.

By comparison, Warren scored an amazing $5.7 mil in the final three months of 2011?an incredibly tough act to follow, I might add?which means her momentum is gaining. Brown raised $3.2 mil in the fourth quarter of last year, so while he's no slouch (and has a monster $15 million on hand), the enthusiasm powering Warren's campaign is really a sight to behold.

P.S. In a separate email, Warren says "Scott Brown still has $4 million more in the bank than we do," so her campaign must have about $11 mil cash-on-hand.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/RgsBQQE7sCI/-MA-Sen-Elizabeth-Warr
en-raises-6-9-million-in-first-quarter-doubling-up-Scott-Brown

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Obama Job Approval Rating Steadily Improving,
Tracking Economy

For the past eight months President Obama's job approval rating has been steadily improving while his disapproval numbers have fallen by a similar amount, according to Gallup's tracking. The turnaround for Obama's approval started in mid 2011 and closely[...]

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George Carlin Classic: Religion is BS

Adapted from The Stars Hollow GazetteNow for a little irreligious relevance as only George cold do it. I'm here for the chocolate and Peeps.Between you and me, in any decent universe, this guy would have been out on his all powerful ass a long time ago.[...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29574/george-carlin-classic-religion-is-bs

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NEA Calls for the Closing of Corporate Tax
Loopholes

The National Education Association has launched an ad campaign and petition calling elected officials at the state and national level to close corporate tax loopholes in order to more effectively fund education. They point to the fact that corporations in many industries are making record profits while federal and state budgets face shortfalls that are being addressed, frequently, by education cuts -- many of them significant cuts. Many corporations are earning large sums of money and paying little to nothing in terms of the taxes that make the communities they profit off of run. Rather than continue tax loopholes for corporations, NEA says they should:

At the federal level, support revenue positive corporate tax reform by closing the seven largest corporate tax loopholes, which would provide an estimated $1.487 trillion in additional revenues over the next ten-years.

At the state level, support legislation that keeps corporations from shifting profits to low-tax burden states and require full disclosure of state and local incentives to corporations to ensure they pay their fair share to the states and communities where they do business.

NEA notes that closing the top seven corporate loopholes would bring a massive change to the lives of working families:

With just a portion of the $1.487 trillion dollars garnered by closing the seven biggest loopholes every impoverished child under five could attend a high-quality pre-school, the maximum Pell Grant award could be boosted to help low-income students pay for college, every school in America could receive, on average, half a million dollars to support students from low-income families and the government could finally meet its obligation to provide 40% of the financing for students with disabilities.

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http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/nea-calls-closing-corporate-tax-l

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Paul Buchheit's "Five Preposterous but Persistent
Conservative Myths", because it's good and easier than writing my own stuff.

You have to wonder or at least you should wonder how total untruths become accepted as "just feel it in my bones", has to be, actual fact.

Take for instance, that all of mankind's woes because of one woman's/girl's lack of will power and substandard reasoning ability (compared to male's) to withstand the temptation of an apple or some other fruit.  And this, whichever you choose to believe, truth or untruth has been used to subjugate the female sex for centuries.  History is just filled with examples of myths used to give someone or some group an advantage over others.

OK, at least understandable back in the days when humankind had no other way of explaining things besides local superstition, you know, before the internet and now anywhere outside of the American South.

Well, the "why" is pretty simple, if you hear something over and over enough without questioning it, it becomes an accepted fact, not to be confused with actual fact, or truth.

One guy, back in 1925, very eloquently put this idea into words and later and not so eloquently used the idea with devastating effect.

Quote

But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.

Such a simple technique, amazing that it works on an educated and sophisticated population, best example is 1930s Germany and the quote above is from "War Propaganda", in volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925), by Adolf Hitler.

This country is a pretty good example of how it still works and later I'll try to give some insight as to why it does.  But right now from Paul Buchheit at Buzzflash:

Quote

         Five Preposterous but Persistent Conservative Myths

With the mainstream media in the hands of the mostly conservative and wealthy, it's difficult for average Americans to learn the truth about critical issues. The following five conservative claims are examples of the mythical beliefs that fall apart in the presence of inconvenient facts:

1. Entitlements are the Problem
Beyond the fact that we're "entitled" to Social Security and Medicare because we pay for them, these two government-run programs have been largely self-sustaining as they support the needs of millions of Americans.

Medicare is much less costly than private health care. Social Security, which functions with a surplus, would not be in danger of a long-term shortfall if the richest 10% (those making over the $106,800 cutoff) paid their full share.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently reported that 91% of entitlements go to the elderly or disabled, or to members of working households needing supplemental assistance. Only 9% of entitlement dollars go to non-working but employable individuals, and most of that is for medical care, unemployment, and survivor benefits.

2. Charter Schools Are the Answer
Free-market adherents have a lot of people believing that the public school system needs to be "saved" by charter schools. That belief is not supported by the facts. A Stanford University study "reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their traditional public school counterparts."

A Department of Education study found that "On average, charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement, behavior, and school progress."

Charter schools also take money away from the public system. For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District loses nearly $7,000 in state money for each student who transfers to a charter. In Florida, the entire $55 million budgeted in 2011 for school maintenance went to charters. Governors in several states plan to direct money to schools that serve upper-middle-income families.

Furthermore, charter school teachers have fewer years of experience and a higher turnover rate, and according to one study were less likely to be certified.

Perhaps most damning are studies by the University of Colorado and UCLA, which found that some charter schools segregate students by race and income. Said researcher Gary Miron of Western Michigan University, "Parents are selecting schools where their child will experience less diversity."

3. Corporate Taxes Are Too High
This one is easy. The facts can be found in US Office of Management (OMB) figures, which show a gradual drop over the years in Corporate Income Tax as a Share of GDP, from 4% in the 1960s to 2% in the 1990s to 1.3% in 2010. That's one-third of what it used to be.
Also coming from the OMB is the percent of Total Tax Revenue derived from corporate taxes. The corporate share has dropped from about 20% in the 1960s to under 9% in 2010.

Finally, in a US Treasury report of global competitiveness, it is revealed that US corporations paid only 13.4% of their profits in taxes between 2000 and 2005, compared to the OECD average of 16.1%. A similar PayUpNow.org analysis of 100 of the largest US companies found that less than 10% of pre-tax profits in 2010 were paid in non-deferred US federal income taxes.

Corporate tax avoidance is rampant at the state level, too. A new study by Citizens for Tax Justice, which evaluated 265 large companies, determined that an average of 3% was paid in state taxes, less than half the average state tax rate of 6.2%.

4. Jim Crow is Dead
Even though white Americans are the nation's most frequent drug users and dealers, the people in jail for these offenses are overwhelmingly black. In some states, African Americans make up 80-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.

As a nation, we lead the world in rates of imprisonment, and drug offenses have accounted for two-thirds of the increase in federal inmates. 

Once drug users are in prison, they're stigmatized for life. As stated by Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow": "Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind...Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow."

5. Poverty Is Declining Everywhere
There's something disturbing about World Bank researchers using mathematical functions to determine who's living in poverty. But free-market fanatic, The Economist, liked the results, proclaiming that "poverty is declining everywhere."

That's easy to say when the World Bank gets to set its own poverty threshold, at $1.25 per day. The organization admits there was little change in the number of people living below $2 per day between 1981 and 2008. And almost half the world lives on less than $3 a day.

Another fact is that the rapid growth of China accounts for most of the global poverty changes. China is where hundreds of millions of starry-eyed young people went from zero income on the farms to a few dollars a day under oppressive factory working conditions. The GDP may show a decline in poverty, but a "quality of life" index wouldn't make that mistake.

6 and 7. Evolution and global warming don't exist.
These are just too preposterous for words.

Progressive activists continue to work toward the day when poverty is down everywhere, and minorities receive equal treatment, and education is properly funded, and tax subsidies rather than entitlements are minimized. But that day is being delayed by make-believe messages from the American conservative.

Paul Buchheit obviously didn't think that evolution and global warming needed any in depth explanation.  Understandable since evolution is one of those actual, instead of accepted, facts and man made global warming is believed by something like 98%+ of climate scientists.  Now, wait a minute, I'm not going into the evolution thing, that's a done deal.  However I will try to explain why there is so much question about man made global warming, simply.

Let's go back to Herr Hitler's explanation of propaganda and repeating it over and over again and keep that in mind, because it applies to all these myths, not just global warming.  General Motors recently quit its funding of the Heartland Institute.  The Heartland Institute "which identifies itself as a free-market think tank, has questioned the ideas on global warming through its newsletters, web site and associated scientists. Last year, the tagline for its annual conference on the subject was "Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?"  Got that?  Ford and Chrysler stopped funding them some time ago. 

One of Heartland's paid, although he denied being paid and later got caught lying about that, then issued the statement "that being truthful about one's funding is "a very quaint and old fashioned practice", scientists is Robert M. "Bob" Carter.  Bob appears to be just one hell of a guy if you pay him, he'll say what you want him to and even provide the phony data to back it up.  Bob's awfully popular with with the global warming crowd, I guess because there are so few in the scientific community morally bankrupt enough to do what Bob does.  Here are a few;

* The Heartland Institute
 * The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
 * The Science and Environmen­tal Policy Project (SEPP)
 * The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)
 * The Nongovernm­ental Internatio­nal Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
 * The Internatio­nal Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

Check 'em out, all funded by the big polluters who would rather spend their money trying to confuse people instead of cleaning up their nasty acts.

Later I'll bring you why some people refuse to believe actual facts and that's reason enough for the rest of us to really know what's going on.

This is from Stumpburner-The Political Voice of the South, I post there under lowdown and if you enjoy politics it's not a bad place to be.  Couple of minutes to register and hours to try to raise the level of political discourse.  Plus more than 700 games in the arcade.

Later.

Read The Full Article:
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Whose Movement Our Movement!: The 99% Spring and
#OWS

Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.

I?ve written about this coalition before, including ?The 99% Spring,? brought to you by … MoveOn.org?. It?s time for a revisit. From The 99% Spring:

April 9-15 we will gather across America, 100,000 strong … to train ourselves in non-violent action and join together in the work of reclaiming our country. …

In the tradition of our forefathers and foremothers and inspired by today?s brave heroes in Occupy Wall Street and Madison, Wisconsin, we will prepare ourselves for sustained non-violent direct action.

From the Who We Are section, we learn that the 99% Spring coalition was ?launched February 15 with (a) … letter signed by over 40 movement leaders and organizations,? including MoveOn.org, the AFL-CIO, Rebuild the Dream, United Auto Workers, SEIU, National People?s Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Jobs with Justice, and Progressive Democrats of America. In the announcement, they said of The 99% Spring that it would be ?one of the most audacious training projects in American history ? a program to gear up and light up the movement.?

One question asked then, and since, involves those last two words, ?the movement.? What movement? Or to use Occupy language ? ?Whose streets? Our streets!? ? whose movement?

As usual, we each have to decide for ourselves. Is The 99% Spring, and the related 99% Power, an attempt to co-opt Occupy? An effort to join in (though apparently not coordinate with) the efforts of the #OWS movement? Some of each? Is The 99% Spring the establishment version of Occupy? Are both working for the same goals? If so, does it matter who gets it done? If not … well, that leads to even more questions.

According to an AlterNet article:

What is now The 99% Spring actually began last summer. Inspired by the Madison Capitol protests and the Tar Sands actions, leadership from Jobs with Justice, National People?s Action and the National Domestic Workers Alliance realized that the 2012 election year needed to be about issues, not the candidates.

A meeting was called for November 2011 ? and then, in mid-September, Occupy Wall Street began. ?As a professional organizer, I was really humbled? says (Joy) Cushman (with New Organizing Institute) about OWS. ?They were able to shift the entire national debate with the way they were organizing. We realized that nonviolent direct action is the way we have to go because the democratic system isn?t responsive anymore.?

Movements always build on what?s gone before, and almost if not always on what other groups are doing in real time. Last September, Occupy Wall Street took the lead. And when they didn?t disappear within a week or two, others ? ?progressive? organizations and the Duopoly, among others ? started paying attention, though with differing perspectives and goals, of course.

Beyond the training sessions, 99% Spring-ers are already active. At their Actions page, for example: April 2 ? 12, Speak Out Against Rep. Ryan?s Budget for the 1% (Racine, WI) and April 9 ? 19, Equal Pay Day (Denver).

Key actions are described via TruthOut, by one of the organizers, George Goehl (National People?s Action), ?Ninety-Nine Percent Spring and Confronting Corporate Power.?

Key actions are described via TruthOut, by one of the organizers, George Goehl (National People?s Action), ?Ninety-Nine Percent Spring and Confronting Corporate Power.?

Under the broad banner of 99% Power, thousands of people will engage in mobilizations and nonviolent direct action leading up to and at the shareholder meetings of dozens of corporations.

Read an extended interview with Goehl, and another with Ai-jen Poo (National Domestic Workers Alliance) and Sarita Gupta (Jobs with Justice) with Bill Moyers at Standing Up For Democracy: How Activists Are Fighting Injustice in America Today.

Links for more about The 99% Spring, and its relationship with Occupy, as well as about the need for such movements, from various perspectives:

The 99 Percent Spring: The People Are Not Powerless.

The Next Social Movement: Get Ready For The 99% Spring.

You only get what you are willing to accept.

The 99 Percent Spring.

Occupy-inspired Activists Go for Spring Training.

Occupy Wall Street and MoveOn Go Together Like Woodstock and 1999.

The 99%Spring Training for Trainers and the Plot to Coopt #Occupy.

The ?99% Spring? Movement to Train 100,000 Activists: Co-Opting Occupy or Helping Spread its Message?.

99% Spring – An Occupy-Like Movement For People Who Want To Be Told What To Do?.

Occupy Wall Street Activists Respond to the 99 Percent Spring.

Would ?The 99 Percent Spring? be happening if Occupy hadn?t already? Does the heavy involvement of progressive organizations ? MoveOn in particular ? mean they?re attempting to seize the Occupy movement? And is it for the sake of the 99%, or the Dem party and allied organizations? Perhaps some of each? Is this an ?inside? job ? with controllable establishment orgs. playing the agitator role, so as to displace the uncontrollable outsider OWS? If the 99% Spring-ers are successful ? even if in a ?providing cover? kind of way ? in moving the Dems to the Left, do their insider motives matter?

I remain cautious, though I think many and probably most of the individuals, and many of the organizations, involved in The 99% Spring, share many of the concerns of Occupy. OWS created the public space for those concerns to be heard more broadly, loudly and clearly. My caution, and skepticism, come in because I wonder if an honest answer to ?whose movement,? from at least some of The 99% Spring organizers, wouldn?t be about the Democratic Party and 2012. But then, Occupy has clearly inspired if not pushed these organizations to this point, and that ?pushing? will continue. ?Whose movement?? remains a key question.

Read The Full Article:
http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/04/whose-movement-our-movement-the-99-spring-and
-ows/

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Too Much Health Care

If you?re in a waiting room where the TV set is always on Fox News, you may want to check your doctor bills.

In this era of politicized health care, a study by medical specialists finds ?many profitable tests and procedures are performed unnecessarily and may harm patients. By some estimates, unnecessary treatment constitutes one-third of medical spending in the United States.?

Their list of overused lab work includes X-rays, brain imaging and bone scans that are not needed when they are ordered.

Future lists by other specialists are forthcoming, but all this is only the tip of the health care fraud-and-abuse iceberg.

Any reasonably alert patient in recent years has a personal list of providers who specialize more in billing than healing: dermatologists who nick off a small cyst and charge Medicare for surgery; podiatrists who inflate five minutes of nail-paring into hundreds of dollars; physical therapists who put clients on an exercise machine and walk away to file insurance claims.

Five years ago, the FBI estimated ?phony bills? and ?excessive treatments? to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion dollars a year and climbing and, now as Congress and the Court try to nullify Obamacare, who knows how much the tab for free-market cheating may be.

As a New York Times editorial notes: ?Patients with comprehensive health insurance may not care much if needless tests are performed. But if health care costs continue to soar, patients will be shouldering more of the financial burden. And there can be serious health consequences from unnecessary treatment, including excess radiation, adverse drug effects, exposure to germs in medical institutions and even exploratory surgery or biopsies when scans produce a false positive.

"Eliminating needless care is not rationing. It is sound medicine and sound economics.?

Oddly enough, the best commentary on all this may come from megachurch pastor Rick Warren, who tells an interviewer that the main source of Americans? current problems is ?our inability to delay gratification. I want it and I want it now, and I?m going to buy it even if I can?t afford it.?

Health care is on that list.



Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2012/04/too-much-health-care.html

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