(HuffPo) An Ohio GOP election official who voted against the weekend voting rules that enabled thousands to cast ballots in the 2008 election said Sunday that he did not think that the state's early voting procedures should accommodate African-Americans.
"I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine," Doug Priesse said in an email to the Columbus Dispatch Sunday. "Let's be fair and reasonable."
Priesse is a member of the board of elections for Franklin County, which includes Columbus, and chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, on Wednesday ordered all 88 counties in Ohio to allow early voting Monday through Friday, until 7 p.m., during the final two weeks before the election. Weekend voting, however, will not be allowed.
Weekend voting helped 93,000 Ohioans cast ballots in the final three days before the 2008 election. Black churches promoted taking "your souls to the polls" events on the Sunday preceding the election, an option that will be unavailable if Husted's ruling stands. (The Obama administration has sued Husted to restore the final three days of early voting.)
Early voters in 2008 in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties were disproportionately African-American. A study by Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates found blacks accounted for 56 percent of all in-person early votes in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, while they accounted for 26 percent of votes overall. In Franklin County, African-Americans cast 31 percent of early votes and 21 percent of votes overall.
UPDATE: Priesse expressed regret for his comments Monday. "My comments in the Sunday, August 19th Columbus Dispatch have been misconstrued, and in some cases misquoted entirely," Priesse told HuffPost in a statement. "However, if my comments, either in their original form, or as repeated in other ways, have caused anyone discomfort, I regret that."
**************** B4B Note: This simply exemplifies the concerted effort/desire of the GOP to disenfranchise/squash the Minority vote, particularly in key states. It is for this reason that we MUST UNITE...work diligently to Get Out The Vote....and turn out in record numbers come November.
Mitt Romney has picked as his running mate 42 year-old Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the GOP budget, which the New York Times has described as “the most extreme budget plan passed by a house of Congress in modern times.” Below are 12 things you should know about Ryan and his policies:
1. Ryan embraces the extreme philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ryan heaped praise on Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her philosophy that centered on the idea that selfishness is “virtue.” Rand described altruism as “evil,” condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor, viewed the feminist movement as “phony,” and called Arabs “almost totally primitive savages. Though he publiclyrejected “her philosophy” in 2012, Ryan had professed himself a strong devotee. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he said at a D.C. gathering honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well… I try to make my interns read it.” Learn more about Ryan’s muse:
2. Ryan wants to raises taxes on the middle class, cut them for millionaires. Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result and to avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.” But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”
Audiences have booed Ryan for the unfair distribution:
3. Ryan wants to end Medicare, replace it with a voucher system. Ryan’s latest budget transforms the existing version of Medicare, in which government provides seniors with a guaranteed benefit, into a “premium support” system. All future retirees would receive a government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But since the premium support voucher does not keep up with increasing health care costs, the Congressional Budget Offices estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050. A recent study also found that had the plan been implemented in 2009, 24 million beneficiares enrolled in the program would have paid higher premiums to maintain their choice of plan and doctors. Ryan would also raise Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67.
4. Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005″ would have lost much of their retirement savings.
5. Ryan’s budget would result in 4.1 million lost jobs in 2 years. Ryan’s budget calls for massive reductions in government spending. He has proposed cutting discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, which, the Economic Policy Institute estimates, would suck demand out of the economy and “reduce employment by 1.3 million jobs in fiscal 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in fiscal 2014, relative to current budget policies.”
6. Ryan wants to eliminate Pell Grants for more more than 1 million students. Ryan’s budget claims both that rising financial aid is driving college tuition costs upward, and that Pell Grants, which help cover tuition costs for low-income Americans, don’t go to the “truly needy.” So he cuts the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could “ultimately knock more than one million students off” the program over the next 10 years.
7. Ryan supports $40 billion in subsides for big oil. In 2011, Ryan joined all House Republicans and 13 Democrats in his vote to keep Big Oil tax loopholes as part of the FY 2011 spending bill. His budget would retain a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting “billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil.” For instance, it “calls for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone” and would spend only $150 million over five years — or 20 percent of what was invested in 2012 — on energy programs.
8. Ryan has ownership stakes in companies that benefit from oil subsidies . Ryan “and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan’s budget plan,” the Daily Beast reported in June of 2011. “Ryan’s father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.”
9. Ryan claimed Romneycare has led to “rationing and benefit cuts.” “I’m not a fan of [Romney's health care reform] system,” Ryan told C-SPAN in 2010. He argued that government is rationing care in the state and claimed that people are “seeing the system bursting by the seams, they’re seeing premium increases, rationing and benefit cuts.” He called the system “a fatal conceit” and “unsustainable.” Watch it:
10. Ryan believes that Romneycare is “not that dissimilar to Obamacare.” Though Romney has gone to great lengths to distinguish his Massachusetts health care law from Obamacare, Ryan doesn’t see the difference. “It’s not that dissimilar to Obamacare, and you probably know I’m not a big fan of Obamacare,” Ryan said at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the American Spectator in March of 2011. “I just don’t think the mandates work … all the regulation they’ve put on it…I think it’s beginning to death spiral. They’re beginning to have to look at rationing decisions.”
11. Ryan accused generals of lying about their support for Obama’s military budget. In March, Ryan couldn’t believe that Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey supports Obama’s Pentagon budget, which incorporates $487 billion in cuts over 10 years. “We don’t think the generals are giving us their true advice,” Ryan said at a policy summit hosted by the National Journal. “We don’t think the generals believe that their budget is really the right budget.” He later apologized for the implication. Watch it:
12. Ryan co-sponsored a “personhood” amendment, an extreme anti-abortion measure. Ryan joined 62 other Republicans in co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which declares that a fertilized egg “shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” This would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and invitro fertilization.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Alan B. Krueger, Chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisers, issued the following statement today on the
employment situation in July. You can view the statement HERE.
The Employment Situation in
July
Posted by Alan B. Krueger on August 3, 2012 at
9:32AM EDT
While there is more work that remains to be done, today’s employment
report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover
from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It is critical that we
continue the policies that build an economy that works for the middle class as
we dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that
began in December 2007. To build on the progress of the last few years,
President Obama has proposed an extension of middle class tax cuts that would
prevent the typical middle class family from facing a $2,200 tax increase next
year. In addition, to create more jobs in particularly hard-hit sectors,
President Obama continues to support the elements of the American Jobs Act that
have not yet passed, including further investment in infrastructure to rebuild
our Nation’s ports, roads and highways, and assistance to State and local
governments to prevent layoffs and rehire hundreds of thousands of teachers and
first responders.
Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that
private sector establishments added 172,000 jobs last month, and overall
non-farm payroll employment rose by 163,000. The economy has now added private
sector jobs for 29 straight months, for a total of 4.5 million jobs during that
period.
The household survey showed that the unemployment
rate ticked up to 8.3% in July (or, more precisely, the rate rose from 8.217% in
June to 8.254% in July).
Acting BLS Commissioner John Galvin noted in his statement that the unemployment
rate was “essentially unchanged” from June to July.
The establishment survey indicated that
manufacturing employment continues to expand and manufacturers added 25,000 jobs
in July. After losing millions of manufacturing jobs in the years before and
during the recession, the economy has added 532,000 manufacturing jobs since
January 2010 – the strongest growth for any 30-month period since June 1989.
Within manufacturing,
motor vehicles and parts added 12,800 jobs in July, its strongest monthly growth
since January 2011, partly reflecting fewer seasonal layoffs last month.
To continue the revival
in manufacturing jobs and output, President Obama has proposed tax incentives
for manufacturers, enhanced training for the workforce, and measures to create
manufacturing hubs and discourage sending jobs
overseas.
Other sectors with net job increases included
professional and business
services (+49,000), education and health services (+38,000), leisure and
hospitality (+27,000), and wholesale trade (+9,200). Within leisure and
hospitality, restaurant employment rose by 29,400 jobs. Government lost 9,000 jobs as State government
payrolls fell by 6,000. Local governments shed 7,000 education jobs. Since
February 2010, State and local governments have lost 485,000 jobs.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and
unemployment figures can be volatile, and employment estimates can be subject to
substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any
one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context
of other data that are becoming available.
Alan B. Krueger is Chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisers.
{USA Today} President Obama paid tribute to the victims of today's Colorado
shooting tragedy and asked for Americans to pray for the people of the
Denver suburb where the movie theater shooting spree happened.
Obama's
remarks came in Ft. Myers, Fla., where he was scheduled to speak at a
campaign event. But Obama spoke only briefly and centered his comments
on the tragedy.
"There are going to be other days for politics," Obama said. "This is a day for prayer and reflection."
Obama
said after he was briefed about the shooting early Friday morning, he
immediately thought of his two daughters, who like most young people
enjoy going to the movies.
"If there is any take away from this, it's that life is fragile," Obama said "Our time here is limited and it's precious."
Vice
President Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama have also canceled their
events today, said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The first lady
was scheduled to travel to Virginia for two events and Biden was
supposed to appear at a campaign event in Houston.
In a
statement, Biden said he knows "what it's like to wait and wonder and
the helplessness a parent feels at this moment." Biden lost his first
wife, Neilia, and his daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972. His
two sons were injured in the crash but survived.
"The
reason this is so deeply felt by all Americans is that, but for the
grace of God, the victims could have been any one of our children, in
any one of our towns," Biden said in a statement. "It is every parent's
worst nightmare to receive 'that phone call' and to sit by their child's
bedside, praying."
Obama also spoke with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and the mayor of Aurora, the Denver suburb where the shooting occurred.
"We do not believe at this point there was an apparent nexus to terrorism," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Psaki
said that Obama campaign officials have asked affiliates in Colorado to
pull down "contrast ads" for the time being. The Mitt Romney campaign
has also pulled advertising in the Colorado market, said Romney
spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
"It takes time for stations to be able to do this, but we are making every effort," Psaki said.
The
Romney campaign said the likely GOP nominee will also address the
Colorado incident today at a previously scheduled campaign event. Both
Romney and his wife, Ann, have also canceled scheduled events.
In a
statement earlier today, Obama called the shooting "horrific and
tragic" and said his administration stands ready to help the people of
Aurora, Colo.
"We are committed to bringing whoever was
responsible to justice, ensuring the safety of our people, and caring
for those who have been wounded," Obama said. "As we do when confronted
by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one
American family. All of us must have the people of Aurora in our
thoughts and prayers as they confront the loss of family, friends, and
neighbors, and we must stand together with them in the challenging hours
and days to come."
The President was notified of the shooting by
his deputy national security adviser for homeland security and
counterterrorism, John Brennan, at 5:26 a.m. EST, Carney said. Obama
received a follow-briefing shortly before he spoke from FBI Director
Robert Mueller, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and Brennan, Carney
said.
Obama was in Florida on the second day of a two-day campaign trip.
The Affordable Care Act: Secure Health Coverage for the Middle Class
The Supreme Court's
decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act ensures hard-working, middle
class families will get the security they deserve and protects every
American from the worst insurance
company abuses. This law was also specifically designed to give States
the resources and flexibility they need to tailor their approach to
their unique needs. With the uncertainty about the Court’s decision
behind us, it’s now time to focus on implementing
this law in a smart and non-bureaucratic way that works for the middle
class.
Benefits and Protections for the Middle Class:
The Affordable Care Act includes numerous provisions to keep health
care costs
low, promote prevention, and hold insurance companies accountable. If
you’re one of the 250 million Americans who already have health care –
whether through private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid – the
Affordable Care Act is already making your coverage
more secure.
·
Insurance companies
no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny your child
coverage due to a pre-existing condition, or charge women more than men.
·
Over 86 million
Americans have gained from coverage of preventive care free of charge,
like mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors.
·
Nearly 13 million
Americans will receive a rebate this summer because their insurance
company spent too much of their premium dollars on administrative costs
or
CEO bonuses.
·
The law has already
helped 5.3 million seniors and people with disabilities save an average
of over $600 on prescription drugs in the “donut hole” in Medicare
coverage.
·
The law’s provisions to strengthen and protect Medicare by fighting fraud will continue.
·
The law has helped
6.6 million young adults who have been able to stay on their parents’
plans until the age of 26, including 3.1 million young people who are
newly
insured.
If you are one of the 30
million Americans who don’t yet have health insurance, starting in 2014
this law will offer you an array of quality, affordable, private health
insurance plans to
choose from. If you need care, you will finally have the same
opportunity to get quality, affordable coverage as everyone else.
Coverage for Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions:
A major impact of the Court's decision is that 129 million people with
pre-existing conditions will have the security of affordable health
coverage. Starting in 2014, insurance companies can no longer charge
you more, carve out benefits, or deny you coverage altogether because
you have cancer or diabetes or simply because you
are a woman. To make these protections affordable, people with and
without pre-existing conditions should be insured, since everyone at
some time needs health care.
Tax Credits for Middle Class Families and Small Businesses:
Millions of Americans will soon be eligible for tax credits to ensure
that their health insurance is affordable. Under today’s ruling, having
health insurance is and will continue to be a choice. If you can’t
afford insurance or you’re a small business that wants to provide
affordable insurance to your employees, you’ll get
tax credits that make coverage affordable. But starting in 2014, if
you can afford insurance and you choose not to purchase it, the
taxpayers will no longer subsidize your care for free. The Court’s
ruling today allows Congress to hold the projected 1% of
Americans who will be able to afford health insurance but will choose
not to buy it responsible for that choice. Many small businesses are
already receiving tax credits so they can afford to offer quality health
care to their employees. To date, 360,000
businesses that employ 2 million workers have already benefitted from
the small business tax cuts in the law. And once the Affordable Care
Act takes full effect, about 18 million individuals and families will
get tax credits for health insurance coverage
averaging about $4,000 apiece.
Support for State Implementation of Affordable Insurance Exchanges:
With the uncertainty of the Court decision behind us, we
will step up our work with States to implement Affordable Insurance
Exchanges. Exchanges are new marketplaces, starting in 2014, that will
allow individuals and small businesses to compare and choose private
health plans. Each State will take the lead in
designing its own menu of options. Already, 34 States including the
District of Columbia have received 100 percent Federally funded grants
to build Exchanges. The use of Exchange grants includes support for
activities related to running Exchanges in their
start-up year.
States can also
implement their own brand of reform through Innovation Waivers starting
in 2017. If States can come up with even better ways of covering people
at the same quality and low
cost, this law allows them to do so. The Administration supports
bipartisan legislation to allow States to start such Waivers in 2014.
Moving Forward, Not Back:
No political party has a monopoly on good ideas, and the President will
work with anyone to provide
basic security for middle class families and end the worst insurance
company abuses. But rather than refight old partisan battles by
starting over on health care and repealing basic protections that
provide security for the middle class, Congress needs to
work together to focus on the economy and creating jobs. Right now,
Congress should act on the President’s concrete plans to create an
economy built to last by reducing the deficit in a balanced way and
investing in education, clean energy, infrastructure,
and innovation.
Supreme Court Rules Health Care Act Constitutional... ANOTHER Great Victory for Our President !
WASHINGTON -- The individual health insurance mandate is
constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, upholding the central
provision of President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act.
The controlling opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts,
upheld the mandate as a tax, although concluded it was not valid as an
exercise of Congress' commerce clause power. Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined in the
outcome.
The decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
comes as something of a surprise after the generally hostile reception
the law received during the six hours of oral arguments held over three
days in March. But by siding with the court's four Democratic
appointees, Chief Justice Roberts avoided the delegitimizing taint of
politics that surrounds a party-line vote while passing Obamacare's fate
back to the elected branches. GOP candidates and incumbents will surely
spend the rest of the 2012 campaign season running against the Supreme
Court and for repeal of the law.
Five justices concluded that the mandate, which requires virtually
all Americans to obtain minimum health insurance coverage or pay a
penalty, falls within Congress' power under the Constitution to "lay and
collect taxes."
"The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress's
power under the Commerce Clause," Roberts wrote. "That Clause
authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order
individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to
construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a
certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance.
Such legislation is within Congress's power to tax."
Ginsburg, writing separately for the four liberals, said they would
have upheld the mandate under the commerce clause too. "Unlike the
market for almost any other product or service, the market for medical
care is one in which all individuals inevitably participate," she wrote.
"Virtually every person residing in the United States, sooner or later,
will visit a doctor or other health care professional."
Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel
Alito joined in a dissent. Together, Roberts' controlling opinion,
Ginsburg's concurrence, the four-justice dissent and Thomas' own dissent
add up to 187 pages. (read rest of article from HuffPo)
Been on a bit of an hiatus but just a reminder that we must: Be Inspired...Be Informed...BE INVOLVED !!!
And make certain to help inform others. Get geared up....and READY !
It's going to be a true battle and ALL Warriors will be needed to Fight
the Good Fight.....for the future Our Country.
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer
At a time when American employers are complaining they can't find enough highly-skilled and well-educated workers, a political battle is shaping up over the looming rise in the cost of student loans.
The Obama administration Friday kicked off a push to delay a scheduled increase in the interest rate charged on so-called Stafford loans for college. But the program is just one of many that face pressure from Republicans who say they are too costly for taxpayers.
The president will be taking the issue on the road next week in speeches on college campuses in North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa, hoping to appeal to debt-burdened, college-aged voters who are struggling with a record pile of debt to pay for the relentless rise in the cost of a degree.
"At a time when Americans owe more on student loans than [on] credit cards, President Obama believes we must reward hard work and responsibility by keeping interest rates on student loans low so more Americans get a fair shot at an affordable college education, the skills they need to find a good job and a clear path to middle class," the White House said.
Republicans argue that extending the lower rate on Stafford loans would add to the deficit and add to students' uncertainty about the future cost of borrowing to go to college.
“Bad policy based on lofty campaign promises has put us in an untenable situation," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., and chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. " We must now choose between allowing interest rates to rise or piling billions of dollars on the backs of taxpayers."
Interest rates on federal student loans are set to double to 6.4 percent on July 1 unless the current law is changed. In 2007, Congress cut the rate on subsidized Stafford loans made to undergraduate students in half, but only for four years.
Stafford loans are subsidized for students who qualify based on their family's income. Some 30 percent of undergraduates had Stafford loans in 2008 with an average loan amount of $3,400; another 22 percent received an average of $3,200 in unsubsidized Stafford loans. The White House estimates that allowing the rate to rise would add about $1,000 a year to cost of the the average Stafford loan.
No matter where the increase cost is felt, a variety of government programs to help colleges students are under pressure as Congress faces a looming deadline to cut the federal budget deficit early next year.
The possible funding cuts come as American employers complain that they can't find enough people with the skills and education they need to fill the best-paying jobs. As U.S. companies increasingly compete on a global stage, developing countries like China are investing heavily in higher education and raising completion rates for advanced degrees.
(Read rest of article)
It's Time for Congress to Pass the Buffett Rule President Obama urges Congress to pass the Buffett Rule -- which asks those who make more than $1 million a year to pay at least the same percentage of their income in taxes as middle class families -- as a principle of fairness.
WATCH:
Friday, March 23, 2012
WATCH: President's Powerful Comments on Trayvon Martin case:
" IF I HAD A SON, HE'D LOOK LIKE TRAYVON "
WATCH:
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For the first time since the controversy erupted on the national scene, President Barack Obama weighed in on the killing of Trayvon Martin, calling it a tragedy, urging cooperation among law enforcement and declaring that "some soul searching" was needed throughout the country.
"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said, underscoring how the issue affected him on a personal, and not just a political or legal, level. "I think [Trayvon's parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."
The statement by Obama came after he introduced Dartmouth President Jim Kim to be the next head of the World Bank during an appearance in the Rose Garden. He took only one question before heading back into the West Wing -- signaling that both he and his press handlers were feeling pressure, coming from black activists and others, to make a public comment on the Martin case.
Obama was careful not to get too far ahead of events. He said he was wary of "impairing" an ongoing legal process but praised the fact that federal, state and local law enforcement are now working together on Martin's death.
"Obviously, this is a tragedy," he said. "I can only imagine what these parents are going through, and when I think about this, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and everybody aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together -- federal, state and local -- to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened."
He went on.
"I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen," said Obama. "And that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident."
The latter point may, in the end, be the most politically consequential. George Zimmerman, the man who shot Martin in late February, has avoided arrest by evoking the Stand Your Ground law in Florida, which allows individuals broad latitude to claim self defense in wielding a firearm. Florida is one of 21 states with such laws, which have since come under intense scrutiny even by previous supports. Prior to that law being passed in Florida there were 13 "justified" killings in the state each year. Since then, there have been 36.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, unveiled his latest plan to slash spending Tuesday, returning to his controversial proposal to cut Medicare in part by privatizing the system that provides health care to the elderly.
His budget plan -- which Congress will not enact, but which offers an election-year blueprint for the GOP to tout as evidence of fiscal responsibility -- would set just two income tax rates of 10 percent and 25 percent and a corporate rate of 25 percent, while eliminating many deductions and loopholes. Ryan promised the tax reforms would be "revenue neutral."
But the flash point is likely to be the Wisconsin lawmaker's proposal to begin offering retirees the option of switching to a privatized Medicare system in which beneficiaries receive "premium support" from the government permitting them to buy insurance on the open market. Democrats hammered that proposal last year as ending Medicare as we know it. Ryan cast it as saving the program and controlling costs through competition.
"We propose to save and strengthen Medicare by taking the power away from bureaucrats," said Ryan as he rolled out his proposal Tuesday on Capitol Hill. "We believe competition and choice should be the way forward."
Ryan's budget would cut Medicare by $205 billion compared to President Barack Obama's budget, according to the documents he handed out.
Democrats pounced.
"A Republican budget to end Medicare is a Republican budget to end Medicare, no matter what you call it," said Eddie Vale, a spokesman with the Democrat-aligned Protect Your Care. "Paul Ryan can claim a tweak here or a tweak there from his last budget that ended Medicare. He can try to latch onto a new co-sponsor. But no window dressing can change the fact that, at its heart, his budget is a plan to end Medicare by ending the way the program has worked successfully for decades and throwing seniors out onto the mercy of the private insurance companies."
Also likely to generate opposition are plans to to dramatically cut other safety net programs, including food stamps and Medicaid, both of which would be converted to block grant programs that would be run at the discretion of individual states. Medicaid would lose $770 billion compared to Obama's budget, according to Ryan's documents. (read rest of article)
We at B4B had taken a bit of an hiatus during this GOP primary 'silly season' to get re-energized and now we're back. Although all of the Republican candidates are absolutely horrible (as you know) and seem totally unelectable, we must all be mindful of the absolute fact that if we don't get fired up from coast to coast...one of these Republi-clowns could become the next president simply due to our own complacency. That's what happened in the 2008 midterm elections in which the Dems received the biggest beatdown in modern day history resulting in us losing the House and many Governorships. We can't make that mistake this next election in November. So Get Fired Up.....tell your friends to Get Fired Up too ! The time is Now to Fight as if our lives depended upon it.....because it does ! By the way our site's new web address is Blacks4Barack.net. Please tell all your friends to visit our site to sign up for our instant emails. Remember, Be Inspired...Be Informed...Be Involved !!! And Thank You for all that you do. (Greg Jones)
(CBS News) Michelle Obama said depictions of friction in a new book, "The Obamas," between her and former top aides to her husband, President Obama, aren't true.
In a wide-ranging interview with "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King, the first lady also said that some have tried to portray her as an "angry black woman" since Mr. Obama first announced he was seeking the presidency.
More from the interview: Michelle Obama on how she's changed
" ... I guess it's more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and-- you know? But that's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I'm some angry black woman."
"The Obamas," written by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, reports that there was tension with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and with former presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
The Republican Party, founded by militant abolitionists and the political home through much of its history for committed foes of segregation and discrimination, has since the late 1960s been degenerating toward the crude politics of Southern strategies and what former Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater referred to as the "coded" language of complaints about "forced busing," legal-services programs, welfare and food stamps. But the 2012 campaign has seen this degeneration accelerate, as the candidates have repeatedly played on stereotypes about race, class and "entitlements." On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told a crowd of supporters: "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."
Around the same time, Texas Congressman Ron Paul was scrambling to explain away old newsletters that went out under his name with sections suggesting that "95 percent of the black males in that city (Washington) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal" and describing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as "Hate Whitey Day." Order was restored in riot-torn Los Angeles, the newsletters suggested, only when welfare checks arrived. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spent the fall talking about eliminating child-labor laws so that school janitors could be replaced with poor kids, and who regularly refers to Barack Obama as "best food stamp president in American history," arrived in the first-primary state of New Hampshire and announced: "I'm prepared if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps."
All these remarks and revelations drew consternation. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leaders rebuked Gingrich and Santorum, with NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous saying of Gingrich: "It is a shame that the former speaker feels that these types of inaccurate, divisive statements are in any way helpful to our country. The majority of people using food stamps are not African-American, and most people using food stamps have a job."
Instead of objecting to the excesses of the other contenders, the "adult" in the race, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, picked up on the themes developed by Santorum and Gingrich to gripe about "the ever-expanding payments of an entitlement society" as "a fundamental corruption of the American spirit." Romney is arguably the most disappointing of the current candidates, as he surely knows better.
His father, George Romney, was one of the Republican Party's most ardent advocates of civil rights, anti-poverty programs and investment in urban renewal during the 1960s. As the newly elected governor of Michigan, George Romney marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. Throughout the turbulent 1960s, George Romney argued, at considerably political cost to himself, on behalf of a Republican Party that would welcome newly enfranchised African-American voters and reject the coded language of Southern strategists and repurposed segregationists. In 1964, as one of the nation's most prominent Republican elected officials, he refused to endorse Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy. He complained that Goldwater, who had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was gearing his campaign toward disaffected Democrats in Southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi, had broken faith with party members who valued "basic American and Republican principles."
While some Republicans responded to the outbreak of rioting in American cities by blaming Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's anti-poverty initiatives, Geoffrey Kabaservice recounts in his brilliant new analysis of the decay of the Republican Party, "Rule and Ruin" (Oxford, 2012), how George Romney argued that government was not doing enough. Instead of squandering federal funds on the Vietnam War, he argued, the United States must change its budget priorities and focus on the "human, social and economic problems of own people." George Romney's was an honorable Republicanism, and that Republicanism remained alive long after the elder Romney left the political hustings. In the 1980s, when some Republicans openly opposed the creation of a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, they were called on the carpet by U.S. Sen. Charles Mathias, R-Md., who had in the early 1960s taken the lead (with then-Congressman John Lindsay and a handful of others) in forcing reluctant Democrats in the U.S. House to consider civil-rights and voting-rights legislation. Mathias was horrified that any Republican would consider squandering what he correctly considered to be one of its finest legacies. In the late 1980s and 1990s, former Congressman Jack Kemp, a New York Republican who served as a Cabinet secretary and the party's 1996 vice presidential nominee, repeatedly raised alarms when Republicans engaged in stereotyping of African-Americans and other minority communities. And for a time in the 1990s and early 2000s, it seemed as if a young Mitt Romney, as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and then a few years later as one of the nation's most liberal Republican governors, was aligning with Kemp and revitalizing the best traditions of his father's Republican Party.
But no more. Unlike his father, Mitt Romney refuses to call out, let alone break with, the reactionaries who mouth slightly updated variations on the 1960s language of the "white backlash" against civil rights, social programs and the war on poverty. Indeed, with his crude complaints about the United States as an "entitlement nation," he embraces the rough outlines of their arguments. Even worse, in many senses, is Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who has tried without much success to position himself as a moderate runner in the GOP race.
Huntsman had a perfect opening to distinguish himself in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, when so many of his fellow contenders were objecting to "making black peoples' lives better" and dismissing the first African-American commander in chief as the "best food stamp president in American history." He could have been the leader that Mitt Romney was not. But Huntsman lacked the courage to do the right thing. Or, perhaps, and this is even more unsettling, Huntsman simply concluded that an appeal to "basic American and Republican principles" would not be recognized by what remains of a once Grand Old Party. John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com.
WATCH: President's Weekly Address Continuing to Grow the Economy in the New year
President Obama shares his New Year's resolution: doing whatever it takes to move the economy forward and ensure that middle class families regain the security they've lost in the last decade.
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