Ryans Medicare Privatization Would Hurt Current
Retirees, Too

post from Firedoglake on 14 April 2011 12:15:52 PM. © Firedoglake

In reality, Ryan's plan doesn't actually protect current seniors Medicare. With no new people joining traditional Medicare, its pool would steadily shrink, making doctors less willing to accept it.[...]

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DOJ Asks Courts To Throw Out Arizona Suit Over
Border Security

post from TPMMuckraker on 14 April 2011 12:02:07 PM. © TPMMuckraker

The federal government has asked a judge to throw out the state of Arizona's lawsuit over border security, calling the suit "of a political nature" and coloring it as an attempt to spin the government's own suit against Arizona over its controversial immigration law.

Reuters reports that on Tuesday, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security filed a 35-page response to Arizona's suit, which was filed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in February. "Arizona repeatedly raises generalized allegations and questions of a political nature, rather than a colorable constitutional or statutory claim," the filing said. "This court is not the proper forum in which to air such grievances."

Brewer's suit claimed that the government had failed in its duty to protect her state from an "invasion" of illegal immigrants. The suit was filed as a counter-suit to the government's own lawsuit against SB 1070, Arizona's law that permitted law enforcement officials to demand immigration papers from anyone they suspected of being in the state illegally. The government argued that the law violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, because "in our constitutional system, the federal government has preeminent authority to regulate immigration matters."

According to Reuters, the DOJ and DHS asked District Judge Susan Bolton to dismiss the suit:

The Obama administration said there is no legal basis to compel the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security to take action on immigration enforcement and border control, which is left to their "discretion and expertise."

Judge Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against key parts of SB 1070 last July until the case was completed. The Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction earlier this week.

The fight over Arizona's border security is also about to heat up in Washington. Sens. John Kyl and John McCain, both Republicans, introduced legislation for $4 billion more over the next five years to increase security on the border, National Journal reports.

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New RNC chair does NOT want to discourage
birthers

post from AMERICAblog News on 14 April 2011 12:00:44 PM. © AMERICAblog News

It seems the new RNC chair wants to make it perfectly clear that he is NOT opposed to Donald Trump using birtherism as an election strategy against Obama.

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Harold Ford Jr. Has a Bit of Trouble With the
Concept of Math

post from Crooks and Liars on 14 April 2011 12:00:37 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Harold Ford Jr. Has a Bit of Trouble With the Concept of Math

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Harold Ford Jr. (D-Wall Street) and The Washington Post's Ezra Klein had a bit of a back and forth on Morning Joe earlier today and apparently he had a problem with the concept of math when crunching numbers doesn't fit into his preconceived political assumptions. When Ezra Klein said you could take care of the shortfall for Social Security for the next seventy five years by raising the cap on payroll taxes, Ford wanted to argue with him.

Heaven forbid we can't get a little "shared sacrifice" from the likes of Ford to keep some lower income retirees afloat. Can't have that... oh no. But he loves the idea of means testing it, which we know would just turn it into a welfare program. And we all know what conservatives think about welfare.

Ezra responds here -- What?s hard about deficit reduction isn?t the math:

I got into a bit of a back-and-forth with Harold Ford on ?Morning Joe? today over entitlements. Ford said he ?didn?t like my math,? but the question with math, of course, is not whether you like it, but whether it?s right.
So let?s check it out. Start with Social Security: I said that the size of the shortfall over the next 75 year is 0.7 percent of GDP. You could pretty much wipe that out by allowing the payroll tax to apply to wages over $107,000 (Ford seemed to think the payroll tax applies to earnings up to $116,000 now, but he?s wrong about that). CBO estimates ?the 75-year actuarial balance [of Social Security] to be 0.6 percent of gross domestic product.? I?ve seen 0.7 percent of GDP elsewhere, but I?ll take that as a slight strike against me.
As for eliminating the payroll tax cap do, ?this option would improve the 75-year actuarial balance by 0.6 percentage points of GDP and extend the trust fund exhaustion date to 2083.? Come 2083, you?d have to do something else to shore up Social Security. But I?d be pretty happy to secure Social Security for the next 75 years. Rep. Ted Deutch, incidentally, has legislation to do exactly that.

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During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted
19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion

post from ThinkProgress on 14 April 2011 12:00:03 PM. © ThinkProgress

After pushing the government to brink of shutdown last week, Republican Congressional leaders are now preparing to push America to the edge of default by refusing to increase the nation’s debt limit without first getting Democrats to concede to large spending cuts.

But while the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion.

At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the United States debt limit was $5.95 trillion. Despite promises that he would pay off the debt in 10 years, Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions: Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the five debt limit increases that took place during the Bush presidency and how the four Republican leaders voted:

June 2002: Congress approves a $450 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $6.4 trillion. McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor vote “yea”, Kyl votes “nay.”
May 2003: Congress approves a $900 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $7.384 trillion. All four approve.
November 2004: Congress approves an $800 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.1 trillion. All four approve.
March 2006: Congress approves a $781 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.965 trillion. All four approve.
September 2007: Congress approves an $850 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $9.815 trillion. All four approve.

Database searches revealed no demands from the four legislators that debt increases come accompanied by drastic spending cuts, as there are now. In fact, the May 2003 debt limit increase passed the Senate the same day as the $350 billion Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

When Bush was in office, the current Republican leaders viewed increasing the debt limit as vital to keeping America’s economy running. But with Obama in the White House, it’s nothing more than a political pawn.

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NV-Sen: Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) is in

post from Daily Kos on 14 April 2011 11:55:19 AM. © Daily Kos

Shelley Berkley

This is great news for Democrats:

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) has decided to run for retiring Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) seat.
She made the announcement in a statement Thursday morning.
"Nevadans know me and they know I will never stop working on behalf of our state, standing up for veterans, creating opportunities for our children, fighting to end Yucca Mountain and helping our economy recover by putting people back to work. There is so much at stake in this election for Nevada. And that is why I have decided to run for the U.S. Senate and work to build a stronger future for our state," she said.

Berkley is almost certainly our strongest contender for the open Senate seat, and her entry likely sets up a showdown with Republican Rep. Dean Heller - whom she actually criticized by name in her announcement statement, which is unusual, and suggests she is very much ready for this fight. Other top Dems have all said they'd defer to Berkley, though one candidate is already in the race, wealthy lawyer Byron Georgiou (who just announced he raised a million dollars in the first quarter, half of it is own money). It's unclear whether Georgiou will continue his bid, and it's also possible that teabaggers will try to rally around someone other than Heller, though for now he seems to have a direct path to the nomination.

In any event, assuming we wind up with a Berkley vs. Heller matchup, this is going to be a titanic battle?and I like our odds. Nevada went strongly for Barack Obama in 2008, and I expect he'll contest the state just as vigorously again. That ought to give Berkley a natural advantage, but it's going to be a close-fought race the whole way, and definitely one to watch.

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erkley-(D)-is-in

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NV-Sen: Rep. Shelley Berkeley (D) is in

post from Daily Kos on 14 April 2011 11:55:19 AM. © Daily Kos

Shelley Berkley

This is great news for Democrats:

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) has decided to run for retiring Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) seat.
She made the announcement in a statement Thursday morning.
"Nevadans know me and they know I will never stop working on behalf of our state, standing up for veterans, creating opportunities for our children, fighting to end Yucca Mountain and helping our economy recover by putting people back to work. There is so much at stake in this election for Nevada. And that is why I have decided to run for the U.S. Senate and work to build a stronger future for our state," she said.

Berkley is almost certainly our strongest contender for the open Senate seat, and her entry likely sets up a showdown with Republican Rep. Dean Heller - whom she actually criticized by name in her announcement statement, which is unusual, and suggests she is very much ready for this fight. Other top Dems have all said they'd defer to Berkley, though one candidate is already in the race, wealthy lawyer Byron Georgiou (who just announced he raised a million dollars in the first quarter, half of it is own money). It's unclear whether Georgiou will continue his bid, and it's also possible that teabaggers will try to rally around someone other than Heller, though for now he seems to have a direct path to the nomination.

In any event, assuming we wind up with a Berkley vs. Heller matchup, this is going to be a titanic battle?and I like our odds. Nevada went strongly for Barack Obama in 2008, and I expect he'll contest the state just as vigorously again. That ought to give Berkley a natural advantage, but it's going to be a close-fought race the whole way, and definitely one to watch.

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erkeley-(D)-is-in

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We are being taxed into the stone age, another
myth

Conservatives have told us over and over again that are taxes are simply too high. We pay too much.[...]

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-stone-age-another-myth/

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Santorum Takes Step Toward 2012 Bid

The former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum has announced plans to form what he described as a “testing-the-waters committee” during an interview with Greta van Susteren on Fox News Channel Wednesday night. In[...]

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Report: 27 Million Adults in America Not Working

The best measure of the real economy over the next couple years is probably going to be the employment-population ratio[...]

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