So I sat up, very gingerly, and waited to hear who the Republicans were that voted against Paulie's plan. 4 of the 5 votes I understood based on who they were...but when the talking head said Rand Paul...well...
I damn near shat myself.
How is that gonna play in KY, Senator Rand Paul, you teabagging jackhole?
As I googled the vote, I found this piece at the CSM that has a lovely quote from one of the Senate R's about the vote..please..note the asshole saying it:
“It’s a shocking display of irresponsibility,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) of Alabama, after the vote. “They have said: we’re not going to produce anything. We’re just going to attack what you’ve done.”
Isn't that all the fucking R's have done for the first two years of Obama's administration?
The answer is yes.
So fuck you very much Jeffy for having a shortass memory and being a bit of a hypocrite. How did you feel when it went down today and how did you feel about those five R's that voted against it as well, but you failed to acknowledge their votes against Ryan's bullshit budget Jeffy Sessions?
I don't expect an answer from the Senator..it just felt good to ask it. ;)
Finally, however, Democrats look to be stepping up to the plate to match Republicans’ fury to gut Medicare with an equal fury to save it, a position likely to have far more sway with the 84 percent of voters who oppose changes to the program. This afternoon, Nancy Pelosi drew the line in the sand the left has been clamoring for, promising “no benefit cuts.” Democrats have also enlisted Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to spread the message on Capitol Hill today that proposals within Ryan’s plan will cut the benefits of current seniors, despite the fact that full Medicare privatization only begins in 2022. For instance, by undoing the prescription doughnut-hole benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the plan would leave seniors to cover a huge tab on their medication. For the 150,000 seniors in Rhode Island, this would amount to an additional $9.5 million annually.
Democrats are also circulating disturbing projections from the Center for Economic and Policy Research that projects an adult currently between the ages of 45 and 55 will have to pay $182,000 extra for health insurance under Ryan’s plan, despite having paid into Medicare for a half decade or more. This extra burden won’t just stretch budgets. $180,000 is more than a minimum-wage earner would make in five years, let alone save. It shows once and for all that the Ryan plan doesn’t save Medicare, it ends it, and it doesn’t help the seniors of today or the next generation.(emphasis mine)
Anyone that thinks doing away w/traditional Medicare is a good thing must be either rich or uninformed in my humble yet vocal opinion. From the CEPR press release on their own report:
“The Ryan plan does nothing to control private-sector waste in health care costs,” said David Rosnick, an author of the report. “As a result of the waste in the private system, beneficiaries will end up paying substantially more for Medicare, in effect paying a hefty new tax on their health care.”
The report, “Representative Ryan’s $30 Trillion Medicare Waste Tax,” documents the potential effects of replacing Medicare with a system of vouchers or premium supports and raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 as suggested in the Ryan plan, which was passed by the House of Representatives with almost unanimous support from Republicans and no votes from Democrats. The authors note that each voucher under the plan will initially be worth $6,600, but would be frozen at this amount over the program’s 75-year planning window, paying less and less of a beneficiary’s health care costs over time.
In addition to comparing the costs of Medicare to the government under the current system and under the Ryan plan, the authors also show the effects of raising the age of Medicare eligibility. The paper also demonstrates that while Ryan shifts $4.9 trillion in health care costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries, this number is dwarfed by a $34 trillion increase in overall costs to beneficiaries that is projected based on the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis.
More and more of the R's seem to be backing away from Paulie's Medicare Plan, so the D's need to make hay out of this boondoggle now and continue to use it as one of their main examples of how the R's want to 'do business' and cut entitlements, the EPA, Dept of Education and other federal departments so they can continue to provide tax breaks and/or lower the tax rate for the uber rich if they run thewhole show..aka the House, The Senate and the Oval Office.
Eye of Newt was trying to be less rightwing nutter and more centrist, or even....gasp..moderate when he was on Meet the Press (transcript here) this past weekend. The money quote that is getting more press than anything else I think he said Sunday:
"I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering."
According to most if not all political pundits, his run for the Presidency is over, less than a week after he started. That was all that was talked about today on the MSNBC political shows and probably all other news network shows. At least it was the prime story of the day for Tweety, Cenk. O'Donnell, Maddow, Ed and all the rest of the early day/evening shows on MSNBC. The biggest video of the day was Eye of Newt doing a handshake campaign and a rightwing nutter holding on to his hand as Newt tried to escape..all the while, the guy was tearing into Newt. Of course he was an Iowa voter, the most rightwing nutter group of all Republican voters:
I actually feel sorry for the fuckwit I call Eye of Newt. He sounded like more of a centrist Republican than ANYONE else running or threatening to run for President in that party of Corporate Ass-kissers. He sounded sane and logical, for a Republican...which of course pissed off the teabaggers and anyone else that wants to take the Republican party as far right as possible...like just about everyone with an R behind their name lately or that is a mouthpiece for the extremist rightwing ideology..aka Limbaugh and the all the rightwing pundits on tv, radio and in print. Fox News went batshit over it all day I believe..since I don't watch than non-news, Republican talking points only, station I can't say for absolute certainty..ok? For a catch-all of everyone that took a shot at Eye of Newt, including the dipshit emeritus Charles Krauthammer check out this link from this morning's FirstRead or just Google Republican reaction to Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press.
His other big boo-boo? Taking Paul Ryan's bullshit idea of ending Medicare as we know it, and calling it " too big a change". All the rightwing fuckwits are of course taking this phrase as heresy. So, when he said, and I quote:
I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.
All the nutters took it personal and said he was calling Ryan's entire plan radical.
Well, it fucking IS radical and not to the good..Christ, you don't have to be a damn rocket scientist to see that in Ryan's budget 'plan' as he slashes programs that help the sick, poor, elderly, etc and then actually gives another tax break to the uber rich.
They, the rightwing elected and the rightwing pundits, were probably pissing down both legs I suspect when they either read or heard Eye of Newt say both sets of phrases above.
He called Paul Ryan and begged for forgiveness. Eye of Newt is now pulling a Palin saying it was a 'Gotcha' question and taken out of context. He is blaming those damn liberals too.
No jackass, it wasn't. Read the fucking text of your little sitdown w/ David Gregory. You couldn't shut the fuck up. You didn't answer in sentences, you answered in paragraphs you friggin moron. You have been on that show 35-fucking-times..I am quite sure you are used to how it works and how questions are framed.
You, Mr. Eye of Newt Gingrich, are a liar and a pussy. A pussy in the fact that you refuse to stand up to the racists, the Corporate ass-kissers and the haters of your own party. A pussy in the fact that you refuse to stand by Your Own Words.
And that makes you a pathetic fuck in my book.
Say Good Bye Newt, your campaign is over according to pretty much anyone that has an opinion on you and your 5th run or 10th run for President of the United States..its been so many, I forget the total number.
He relies on the Heritage Foundation for all his 'projections'. The Heritage Foundation is of course supported by Big Oil, Big Pharma, Insurance companies, rich rightwing patrons and the likes of Phillip Morris..just to name some of the many corporate sponsors.
The Shrub, aka George Bush,also relied heavily on the Heritage Foundation's economic forecasting models. We all know how well that shit worked out, but let's look at it again, from AmericanProgress.org;
Anyone can make an economic forecasting model. But the true measure of a model’s worth is how accurately it forecasts future economic developments. Before looking at what their model predicts for the Ryan budget proposal, it’s important to understand how well this model has performed in the past. Heritage analyzed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts using a similar dynamic scoring methodology. In 2001 they predicted that if the Bush tax cuts were implemented, between FY 2002 and FY 2011 income for a family of four would increase by $4,544, investment in our economy would grow 1.9 percent a year, gross domestic product would grow by an average of 3.3 percent per year, more than 1.6 million more jobs would be added, and the unemployment rate would average to 4.7 percent over the 10-year period. But that’s not what happened.
In fact, the period following the Bush tax cuts yielded one of the worst economic performances, as investment growth, employment, and output were slower than in any other economic recovery in the post-World War II era. Further, rather than growing by nearly $5,000, for the first time in any economic recovery since the end of World War II, our nation’s middle-class families saw their incomes fall after factoring for inflation.
The actual feeble performance of our economy under the Bush-era tax cuts was a far cry from what the Heritage Foundation’s economic model had predicted. Take, for example, Heritage’s 2001 forecasts for job creation and GDP growth effects from the Bush tax cuts. To measure the effect of the Bush tax-cut policies, Heritage’s forecasts and actual economic performance are compared to a baseline scenario of what would have happened in the absence of any policy changes. Heritage’s model did not fare well in predicting the job-creation effect of the Bush tax cuts (see Figure 1).
There are so many more reasons why the neocons at the Heritage Foundation can't predict shit, so I suggest reading the AmericanProgress piece I linked above for more reasons why no one with two brains cells to rub together would buy into their projections.
Paulie also plans on screwing the middle and lower classes even more and calling it tax reform.
He also plans on dumping the Medicare load on the elderly and he wants to do away with the entire program....all the while giving the rich an even bigger tax break than they have now...what a guy eh? The winners and losers are laid out here (pdf) by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
I have purchased a domain name. I have been meticulously working on a new site,Leftwing Nutjob. Please change your bookmarks people..this puppy will no longer be updated as of July 1st 2011.
