Republican Ryan's Medicare Plan Plunders Seniors, Puts Insurance Tycoons on Path to Prosperity

Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to shamelessly plunder Medicare and hand the uber-rich enormous tax subsidies advanced out of the Budget Committee and headed to the House floor for a vote next week. 22 Republicans voted to destroy America and reduce the nation to a GOP plutocratic fiefdom. 16 Democrats voted to preserve the Union.

As wrangling over the 2011 Budget continued on Capitol Hill with Republicans gleefully cheering the prospect of a federal government shutdown that would give their plutocrats unfettered reign during the forced fiscal hiatus, Right-Wing Ryan and his cohort pushed ahead with a 2012 Budget that would permanently reshape the nation into a plutocratic fiefdom on the China model.

Ryan called his assault the "Path to Prosperity," easily fooling poor, ignorant grassroots Republican white separatists and evangelical supremacists into believing there would be prosperity for them. While there might be an occasional bone thrown to the poverty-stricken racist hordes to reward their skull-bashing thuggery, the prosperity on this path is reserved for the plutocrats. An income tax cut from 35% to 25% awaits the fat cats, along with continued subsidies galore for oil moguls and polluters.

Meanwhile, future seniors can look forward to having to pay 68% and more of their health care costs out of their own pockets. Ryan Buy 'em dismantles Medicare and replaces it with private insurance you will buy on the open market with a combination of out-of-pocket cash and vouchers.  Health insurance premiums today for folks over 55 with pre-existing conditions top $1,000 a month throughout the land. Private insurers mostly don't cover folks over 65. In ten years, when Ryan's death express takes hold, does anyone really believe the monthly premiums wouldn't have doubled at the very least?  Ryan's sinister scheme would cap the voucher value at $15,000 a year, which means that seniors would literally have to cough up any amount of the monthly premium over $1,250.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated by 2030 seniors would end up paying 68% of the costs of coverage when figuring in premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Ryan grinned his toothy smile and flashed his baby blues while bleached blonds swooned. Cheap matinee idol looks get you anywhere in America.

Let's be clear about this. Under Ryan Buy 'em, you will get up to $1,250 a month to buy private insurance that may or may not cover all your medical needs. In 2030, twenty years from now, if the premiums, deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses average a not-unlikely $3,900 a month, you will need to make up the $2,650-a-month difference out of your own money.

That's $2,650 a month you will have to pay. For those without a calculator handy, that comes to $31,800 a year. Then, you will have to pay for housing, food, gas, electricity, heat, car insurance, homeowners' or renters' insurance, property taxes, and pet food, unless you've already counted that under regular food.

But, you will be happy to know that insurance execs would be getting way more than the $13 million compensation package Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly got way back in 2010.

And, that's the just the tip of Ryan's Titanic-wrecking iceberg. Republicans nixed Democratic amendments to the Ryan wrecking ball that would have prevented tax hikes on people making less than $200,000; halted Medicaid cuts to seniors in nursing homes; prevented cuts to firefighters, education, and medical research; and guaranteed funding for food safety and financial regulations.

Republicans also deep-sixed a Democratic amendment that promised Social Security wouldn't be privatized. The GOP laughed out loud at the notion they wouldn't plunder the Social Security trust funds, hand the money to their Wall Street cronies, and let them toss the taxpayers' hard earned retirement savings onto the roulette wheel of international equity markets.

So, if the Wall Street tycoons bet your farm on widget futures, and the widget bubble bursts, you won't be getting a Social Security check to help pay that $31,800 a year you need for your health care. Or for your rent. Or cat food.

Oh, well, dying horribly and miserably isn't all that bad. People in the Middle Ages did it all the time.

Of course, in the Middle Ages, kings and princes and lords died horribly and miserably too. Ryan's Path to Plutocrat Prosperity prevents that from happening to today's evil overlords.

Unless the peasantry decides to pick up their pitchforks and torches.

Republican Diebold Machines Could Tip Balance in Wisconsin Vote

A massive grassroots drive and higher than usual turnout has put upstart Democratic candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg in a dead heat with Republican Incumbent David Prosser for Prosser's Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. The election was widely touted as a referendum on Governor Scott Walker's union-busting, asset-plundering Republican regime, and likely a critical vote that could decide the fate of state Republican's anti-union and plutocrat-coddling laws. Prosser, widely held to be Walker's henchman and tool, is a pivotal vote on the court's 4-3 split between majority right-wing ideologues and minority non-partisan judges.

Looming over the race is the infamous Republican Diebold machines, known to change some votes while not tallying others.  Diebold has been a major contributor to Republican causes, and its execs had once promised to "deliver votes" to George W. Bush.

Any tally in which Diebold machines are involved are highly suspect.  Diebold is a cornerstone of Republican election-winning strategy.

As the vote totals came in, Kloppenburg clung to a narrow lead, and it would likely be some time before a final outcome can be determined. A recount is not unlikely.

That Kloppenburg has come so close to victory is a testament to the riptide of disdain Wisconsins bear for the Republican regime. Even with Diebold machines that many suspect throw out and change numerous Democratic votes, Kloppenburg held a slim lead Wednesday morning.

Republican plutocrats such as Ohio's Diebold and Nebraska's ES&S supplies upwards of 80% of the voting machines Americans depend upon to give voice to the people's will.  The arrogance with which Republican legislators act, driving agendas opposed by the respondents to numerous polls and surveys, indicates that Republicans are unconcerned their actions will result in voter backlashes at home.  From eliminating Medicare and privatising Social Security to doing away with disaster preparedness and education, Republicans reveal a disdain for the electorate that presupposes people's votes don't count.  With companies like Diebold and ES&S acting as gatekeepers to the democratic process, it is no wonder that Republicans can act with such smug certainty. A few lines of code in a few corrupted machines, and the GOP can drop another race into the win column. 

Despite numerous warnings from watchdogs and voter advocates, Republican Secretaries of State have implemented Diebold machines in states throughout the nation.  Wisconsin suffers from the presence of many Diebold machines, and have been plagued by their new Republican governor and his rubber-stamp legislature. As Republican arrogance grows exponentially, the role of vote-turning Diebold machines will undoubtedly increase.  As more and more voters turn against the GOP, Republicans will count on Diebold to flip more and more votes.

With no paper trail to confirm whether their votes have been counted properly, there can be no assurance that any plebiscite has been correctly tabulated. Voters only have the condescending assurances of plutocrats who openly sponsor Republican underlings tasked with carrying out the plutocrat agenda.

Americans would be better off marking paper ballots. The day will come when happy Americans can show ink-stained fingers to TV cameras to prove they've voted. Until then, no American can be sure their vote has been correctly tabulated.

Will Obama Lie and Let Medicare Die?

"Outrage," and "veto," and "dead on arrival," were three things President Barack Obama didn't say when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled the Republican plan to eliminate Medicare.  The GOP 2012 budget scheme to cut trillions in spending and hand the money to their plutocrat masters through more gratuitous tax subsidies features eliminating the nation's health plan for retirees and the disabled. Ryan and his horde would replace elder Americans' access to health care with a handful of worthless vouchers that might knock a few bucks off the exorbitantly expensive private insurance policies most people can't afford even now, let alone in ten years when the premiums will skyrocket logarithmically.

Once again, the White House has met another horrific Republican assault on the very fabric of American democracy with deafening silence. The Republicans moved to cut vital funding to environmental protection and disaster preparedness, and the White House said nothing. The Republicans moved to cut funding to womens' right to choice, and the White House said nothing. The Republicans busted unions and slashed collective bargaining, and the White House said nothing.

The President of the United States has the bully pulpit, but the President doesn't much seem to care about using it. The President hasn't stood up to the torrent of Republican lies that tax cuts for the wealthy and trickle-down supply side Ayn Randian plutocrat coddling creates jobs.  The President hasn't stood up to Republican demands to do away with health, safety, and business regulations.  The President hasn't stood up to Republican harangues against livable wages and pensions and benefits.

The President has countenanced billions of dollars in ruthless, grandstanding service cuts that do nothing to address economic ills, and meekly extended the Bush-era tax cuts that are the cause of America's grief.

Across America, political observers wonder when and whether Obama will stand up for the people who elected him.  Thus far, he's been nothing but a corporate tool, a lapdog for the monied interests who are driving the nation straight into the ground while filling their own coffers.

If Obama wanted to fight for Medicare and Social Security and balanced budgets through revenue reform, he had the ideal venue in Monday's 2012 re-election launch. He could have defined the battle for America's democratic institutions and thrown down the gauntlet before the Republicans and their wealthy overlords. Instead, he had no message beyond a tepid appeal for his supporters to go out and put him back on the plutocrats' laps.

In 2008, when Hillary Clinton was all but anointed as George W. Bush's successor, the corporate media suddenly put Barack Obama at the top of the twenty-four hour news cycle and buried Hillary and John Edwards on the back pages when they reported on them at all. Obama's every move and fawning up-close-and-personals were everywhere from dawn to dusk, to the point of being lampooned on Saturday Night Live. The media blitz revealed Obama was the corporations' choice for Democratic nominee. All the coverage may have been historic fascination for the first viable black presidential candidate, but his election sure has worked out well for the plutocrats who daily grow fatter as the stock market climbs on rich overseas profits and pyramid accounting schemes.

American democracy and the modern pluralistic state is on the line. With 20% of Americans owning 84% of all the wealth, the ultra-rich have been able to hire armies of lawyers to tie up any legal dissent to their running roughshod over business, industry, and environmental regulation.  The ultra-rich have been able to hire hordes of lobbyists to buy off every politician and election in the land.  The ultra-rich have been able to hire thugs and screamers to disrupt and sabotage grassroots organization and protest.  Unbridled by any sort of reasonable taxation, the ultra-rich have been able to use the massive weight of their enormous wealth as a bludgeon to crush the democratic process and reign as unfettered plutocrats.  They can pollute at will, scam financial markets at will, and cripple the ability of ordinary Americans to live dignified lives at will.

The Republicans' endless shrieking about debt and balanced budgets is nothing more than a smokescreen behind which they vie to hand ever more and greater tax subsidies to the ultra-rich. The Ryan proposal slashes taxes on the top tier from the lowly 35% it is now to a nation-busting 25%. None of the Republican schemes do anything to balance budgets. Republicans care only to find new reserves of taxpayer money and plunder them for their plutocrat masters. Having emptied the nation's numerous pension funds, they now covet the Social Security trust funds. Having drained Americans of their assets, they want to hand Medicare to their insurance company cronies to plunder as they wish.

Ryan and the Republicans have revealed with naked arrogance a disdain for the American people unparalleled by any of America's legion of historic enemies. The Republicans relish seeing Americans in pain and suffering, and wish for them to die horribly and miserably as their anguished loved ones are torn apart trying to comfort their dying elders. The Republicans lust for the spurious trinkets and tokens their plutocrat masters will toss them for the tax cuts and subsidies they've stolen from the American people.  The Republicans, by cutting off Americans' access to health care at age 65, want to commit the medical genocide of everyone who has become too old or injured to be of use to the corporate plutocrats.  There is no gilding this lily. The Republicans' slaughter would be wholesale and complete, and target their own people.

In the midst of all this, the Leader of the Free World can only shuffle about and make noises about bipartisanship.  The Republicans have learned that, so far, when Obama says, "bipartisan," he means caving in to everything the Republicans want.

Right-Wing Ryan and the GOP to Eliminate Medicare and Cut Taxes for the Rich

The GOP is eliminating Medicare, and, to make up for this, they're giving the ultra-rich another enormous tax cut.

Every time a Republican opens his mouth, the offending orifice spews the same bile Republicans have been heaving for thirty years: More tax giveaways for the rich, more service cuts for everyone else. Brandishing with naked arrogance their utter disdain for the American people, the GOP announced they will eliminate Medicare, the vital health care plan for all older and disabled Americans.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin - the state which gave you Joe McCarthy and today's union-busting and state asset giveaway to the rich - will this week unveil how fevered is the GOP's 2012 turgid lust for destroying America. Unsated by hacking billions of dollars from vital services from the 2011 budget, the GOP is demanding trillions in cuts for 2012 and beyond. And, people say Mayan astrologers were wrong about the world ending in 2012.

Ryan and his GOP cadre hope this most draconian bludgeoning of America will curry the favor of their plutocrat masters. Cutting mere billions to cripple services for the elderly, poor, children, and women, to hobble oversight of business, finance, and industry so their overlords can run amok, to destroy environmental protections and disaster preparedness hasn't been enough to please these Republican vassals' overlords. The GOP will now cut trillions to completely eliminate government altogether.

The centerpiece of this final attack on America is the elimination of Medicare. Ryan and his racketeers will disband Medicare, and force seniors to buy astronomically expensive private insurance with their own money and a handful of worthless discount vouchers Ryan and company might deign to so generously supply.

When they turn 65, everyone under age 55 right now will not get the Medicare health plan Americans have relied on for generations.  They will only get a discount coupon for a few bucks off whatever for-profit insurance companies will be charging for health insurance when they reach retirement age.  Those private plans are beyond the reach of most Americans as it is, let alone years from now when they'll be logarithmically more expensive, especially for the elderly who suffer from any number of pre-existing conditions.

"20% off a second heart surgery with the purchase of a heart surgery of equal or greater value at regular price!" will say the coupon featuring Paul Ryan's smiling mug. Anyone who believes any of Ryan's coupons will be worth any more has rocks in his head.

Of course, Ryan is a Republican, so he can't open his mouth without giving more tax breaks for the ultra-rich, so the budget will cut the top income tax rate from the 35% pittance it is now to 25%. And that goes for corporations too.

Not that the corporations would be impressed with this fawning attempt at toadying, as they don't pay taxes anyway, and, in many cases, get big subsidies to boot.

Rep. Ryan has opened his mouth, and out has spewed more tax giveaways for the ultra-rich, and the biggest service cut in American history. Unless you're one of their handful of ultra-wealthy international jet-setting plutocrats, Americans will no longer receive health care after age 65. You will not get to see a doctor if you're sick, or get into a hospital if you need surgery.  Rep. Ryan and his GOP thugs, vying to curry the favor of their plutocrat overlords, would rather see you suffer horrible pain and agony and die a miserable death, would rather see your loved ones torn with anguish and torment and perhaps drain their meager savings to ease your suffering, than disappoint their billionaire overlords' lust for more and more and more money that rightfully belongs to you.

Ryan and the Republicans want to perpetrate the largest medical genocide in history by cutting off every Americans' health care access at age 65.  Their plutocrat overlords see no reason why anybody over 65 should continue to live if his death might put a copper or two into the plutocrat hoard. The top 20% of Americans already own 84% of all the wealth in the nation, while the bottom 40% split an infinitesimal three-tenths of one percent. Nonetheless, the plutocrat overlords covet that sliver of a penny, and want you dead so they can have it.

Rep. Paul Ryan is swinging his bloody broadsword to hack you down. He lusts to be the one to bestow his overlords with that sliver of a penny.

If Republicans Want to Cut Spending, They Should Just Stop Taking the Money

In spite of the Democrats accepting an outrageous $33 billion in cuts to vital federal services that will scourge children, the elderly, the environment, women and the poor while handing dumptrucks full of cash to greedy plutocrats, House Republicans continue to preen and strut while threatening to shut down the government. Unless they get the additional $30 billion in cuts that would completely cripple the government into collapse, the Republicans won't let America continue to exist.

House Leader John Boehner, who insists on pronouncing his name as though it were spelled b-a-y-n-e-r, continues to rally his caucus with taunts that a government shutdown would cost more than the cuts might save. Incredibly, Republicans claim that Democrats would be the cause of the shutdown for not accepting the Republicans' continuously growing list of outrageous demands. Republicans, ever on the lookout for TV exposure in their media circus, even floated a completely spurious bill that declares their budget proposal is the law of the land because no other deal could be reached. This is, of course, completely outside the Constitutional framework, which specifically states no bill can proceed toward becoming law until both the House and the Senate pass it.

The Republicans are only interested in grandstand displays and ruling by fiat. The only laws they understand are the laws of plutocracy.  They have no interest in serious negotiations or fiscal responsibility, and only care about funnelling ever larger sums to their wealthy corporate masters. Their ideas of governing are entirely dictatorial.

In fact, it is the Republicans' "Red" states that are draining the national coffers. Their states have always been wretched cesspits of penniless, uneducated white separatists and evangelical supremacists homeschooled on hate and misinterpretations of the Bible. With tax codes geared to coddle noveau riche oil moguls and strip miners, the Red States have been deserts barren of revenue for the common good, while their multitudes of self-righteous, uber-entitled white racists demand and receive an ever burgeoning mountain of federal handouts, pork, and earmark endowments.

Red States exist solely on the largess of the Democratically administered Blue States, where industry, innovation and economic growth are concentrated. The Blue States of the northeastern United States and along the West Coast send more federal tax dollars to Washington than they get back, while the Red States continually take more federal tax dollars from Washington than they raise. The brutal truth is that the Blue States carry the Red States, who, like lazy oafs parked on a successful relations' couch, refuse to leave, and make ever greater and more outrageous demands.

If Republicans really wanted to balance the Budget and eliminate debt, all they really have to do is to stop taking federal money. If Red State masses don't want to pay taxes, they should keep their pitiful pittance, but they should stop taking money away from their Blue State sponsors.

For every dollar of federal taxes Blue State California takes in and sends to Washington, it gets back just 78 cents from the federal government. The rest goes to prop up the Red States. For every dollar Red State Alabama raises, it receives $1.66 from the federal government.

For every dollar Blue State New York raises, it gets 79 cents from the federal government. For every dollar Red State Mississippi raises, it gets $2.02 from the federal government.

For every dollar Blue State Massachusetts raises, it gets 82 cents from the federal government. For every dollar Red State Alaska raises, it gets $1.84 from the federal government.

For every dollar Blue State Illinois raises, it gets 75 cents from the federal government.  For every dollar Red State Louisiana raises, it gets $1.78 from the federal government.

Blue States Connecticut 69 cents, Delaware 77 cents, New Jersey 61 cents. Red States Arkansas $1.41, Kentucky $1.51, New Mexico $2.03.

Among the Red States, only Texas is a significant contributor to the federal coffers. For every dollar they raise in federal taxes, they get back 94 cents. California would take that deal any day of the week.

If Republican pols really wanted to cut federal spending, all they need to do is stop taking federal largess. Instead of cutting off funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, cut off funding to North Dakota ($1.68).  Instead of cutting off funding for financial oversight and regulation, cut off funding to South Dakota ($1.53).

The Blue States could fund education, single-payer health care, environmental stewardship, high-speed rail, and give every man, woman and child a vacation in Disneyland if they didn't have to carry the money pits of Idaho, Utah, Montana and all the other bastions of racist hate and religious extremism.

The Republican pols' have the arrogance to dictate how the Blue States should spend wealth the Blue States created. Just as Republicans are incapable of administering a modern civilization, they have always been incapable of creating wealth, so they have always just stolen it from others. Their plutocrats grew rich from avarice and larceny, and their ignorant racist masses have always brutalized non-whites' to enrich their wealthy overlords. Theirs' is the culture of easy money through pillage and plunder.

If the Blue States didn't have to carry the parasitic Red States, they could enjoy unlimited surpluses, provide for their peoples' education, welfare, health care, and retirement.  If the Blue States didn't have to carry the Red State leeches, they could restore the environment, clean the air and the waters, and lead the world into a bright future of progress and universal growth.

The Blue States should kick the Red States off the sofa and make them pay their own way. But, the Blue States are too kind and soft-hearted, in the way of all progressives and liberals. That is what the Red States have always counted on. They know they can scream at their Blue hosts to quit spending so much on Dad's car repairs and on mending Mom's worn clothes and on Juniors' school supplies and Sis' bus fare, and demand money to fly first class to the Annual Country Music Hoedown and White Supremacists' Lynching Jamboree in Vegas.

The Blue States aren't broke. They just need to dump the Red State money pits.

GOP's Right Wing Extremists Pose Clear and Present Danger to World

An enraged mob of more than one thousand ordinary Afghans stormed a UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, killing at least twenty members of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Friday. The rioting was in response to a band of racist Florida evangelical supremacists who made a public display of burning a Koran March 20.

UN Dispatch reported that the crowd that attacked the UN compound, in what it described as an area of Afghanistan deemed peaceful enough to have been turned over to Afghan security forces, were not Taliban insurgents or Al Qaeda operatives, but ordinary townsfolk who had been riled up at Friday prayers by news of hate merchant Terry Jones and his coven of publicity-obsessed spiritual defectives' Koran burning.

Terry Jones, head of the so-called Dove World Outreach Center, had insinuated himself into national headlines by threatening to burn Korans on September 11, 2010. Mollified by fawning attention from the likes of US Defense Secretary Richard Gates and US network television, Jones announced in ostentatious style that his tiny group of moral incompetents would magnanimously forgo Koran burning in the interest of world peace.

As Jones jonesed for more TV attention, he decided to go ahead with burning Korans, and staged a bizarre mock trial in which a Koran was "condemned" and executed by burning. As a result, twenty people are dead, and Jones is basking in the limelight of media attention. It is not known whether Jones and his group mistake their narcissistic media lust for religious fervor, or whether their self-serving piety is a sham.

The angry mob that overran the UN compound hadn't even been armed at the outset, but acquired weapons from UN guards they overpowered during the rioting. Five Nepalese guards and civilians from Norway, Sweden and Romania were among those killed, along with at least four of the rioters.

American white supremacists and right-wing extremists are delighted, as they hold the United Nations in deep disdain. They would cheer the failure of the UN Afghanistan mission, as they would cheer the dissolution of the body. This extremist view is not merely the crazed fantasy of a small group of psychotics, but is a core value of the Republican Party, including Republican John Bolton, George W. Bush's infamous choice to be the US Ambassador to the UN.

For folks out there unfamiliar with US law, freedom of speech is nearly unrestricted, but there are limits, the most prominent being speech that poses a "clear and present danger."  The classic example of posing a clear and present danger is shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater that is not actually on fire. Speech intended to incite a riot is likewise not protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.

Jones and his little tribe of narcissists obviously acted to create a clear and present danger, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This will likely not occur, as religious extremists like Jones are an important constituency for the Republican Party, and the Republican Party, with their plutocrat masters, are overlords of America. While President Barack Obama, a Democrat, denounced the violence in Afghanistan, he didn't utter a single word sanctioning hate monger Jones.

Obama and his Democratic Party are acting as mere place-keepers for the Republicans, acceding to every Republican whim, from crippling budget strangulation to the complete abdication of environmental stewardship. It is hate extremists like Jones who are coddled, as they are the GOP's front-line thugs enforcing the plutocrats' reign over their formerly democratic fiefdom.

By embracing its present Muslim-bashing identity, Dove World, once primarily an anti-homosexual cadre,  found the fawning media stardom that many celebrity-obsessed Americans crave. Jones, who calls himself a pastor, will no doubt be able to expand his tiny base of twenty or thirty sycophants as a result of his media stardom. His original stab at fame garnered him a round of appearances on the network TV talk shows, and he will certainly be back on the A-list for a while. As his star inevitably dims, he will inevitably be inspired to carry out ever more horrific and grotesque demonstrations to rope in the media attention he, with his blow-dried hair and brushed muttonchop beard, so obviously lusts after. Every racist and evangelical supremacist will be emboldened to make his or her bid to star on Good Morning America and the Today Show.

It is an unconscionable tragedy that the lives and mission of earnest international aide workers are mere chattel to the GOP media circus that elevates gangs of back woods Neanderthals to stars of global statecraft.