Friday, July 31, 2015

Celebrate fifty years of Medicare.

“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.”

 Voucherizing Medicare is more than Republican political rhetoric, it is an actual agenda item. If it weren't for President Obama in the White House the legislative majority would already have turned Medicare into a disaster.

...Like in past years,(click here) the House Republican Budget would essentially turn Medicare into a voucher program. The proposed structure would undermine traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and eventually render the program unsustainable. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that under the House Republican Budget approach, FFS premiums will be 50 percent higher than current projections for the traditional Medicare Part B premium. This is because, as the voucher fails to keep up with the pace of inflation, a higher share of costs would shift to beneficiaries over time. 

Under current law, Medicare premium rates are consistent across the country, but the House Republican Budget would expose beneficiaries to wide variation in out-of-pocket costs. For traditional FFS Medicare, seniors in a high-cost region in Alaska could pay more than twice what seniors in a low-cost region in Minnesota pay – an estimated $3,300 versus $1,500 for the same plan. Without the affordable Medicare FFS option that the majority of seniors currently choose to enroll in, many beneficiaries would be left with substandard private plans. Insurers offering these plans would be incentivized to compete on price and would do so by limiting benefits and access in order to maintain profit margins....
 
This is not a hot topic. It is settled. Americans want Medicare to remain the same. Don't be afraid of it.

The lame excuse for killing an endangered species is, "I didn't know."

No one knew animals in Africa are considered threatened and endangered from poaching? No one knew that?

I especially love the part where Cecil was tracked for 40 some hours and eventually killed because he was still alive with an hunting arrow lodged in him. I suppose upon finding a collar around his neck which could be picked up to track for many reason, the idea reporting the death to authorities wasn't important. 

The hunting party never acted lawfully.
 
July 31, 2015
By Anthony Castellano

...“A lot of people are angry, (click here) but I think at this stage, let's allow justice to take its course,” Muvhiringi added.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened its own investigation, but has so far been unable to reach Walter Palmer. Officials are asking Palmer to contact them immediately.
The outrage over Cecil's death is now being heard loud and clear in Washington. A WhiteHouse. gov petition urging U.S. authorities to extradite Palmer has more than 100,000 signatures, which means the Obama administration will have to respond.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, Oppah Muchinguri, the country’s environment, water and climate minister, said he is seeking to extradite Palmer, the Associated Press reported.
"Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin," Muchinguri said at a news conference. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable."

Bombing of Gaza has started in the past when three Israeli teenagers' reputation has to be defended.

July 31, 2015
By Ali Sawfta

Suspected Jewish attackers (click here) torched a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank on Friday, killing an 18-month-old child and seriously injuring his parents and older brother, an act that Israel's prime minister described as terrorism. 

The house in Duma, a village near the city of Nablus, had its windows smashed and fire bombs thrown inside shortly before dawn as the family slept, the military and witnesses said. Graffiti in Hebrew reading "revenge" was scrawled outside, below a Star of David. 

The child's parents and four-year-old brother were flown by helicopter to an Israeli hospital where they were said to be in serious condition, officials said. A second house in the village was also set ablaze, but no one was at home.


It was the worst attack by Israeli assailants since a Palestinian teenager was burned to death in Jerusalem a year ago. That followed the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinian militants in the West Bank...


I'm sure FOX will ignore the fact an 18 month old child is dead until Hamas starts sending rockets over the border to Israel's Iron Dome. At that point I am sure there is something the Palestinian family did to warrant the attack.



July 30, 2015
By Keith Wagstaff

Officials (click here) want to know who flew drones near several wildfires in California's San Bernardino mountains, causing firefighters to temporarily ground their flame-battling planes. 

The reward for someone who identifies the drone operators? $75,000.

 "In the most recent fire, the North Fire, we saw cars and trucks burning on the freeway, we saw homes burn, and we saw families running for their lives," Jorge Ramos, chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. 

"We want to know who was flying drones, and we want them punished," he said. "Someone knows who they are, and there is $75,000 waiting for them." 

San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos said that the drone operators could be prosecuted for murder if the drones caused delays that led to deaths of any firefighters or civilians....

The Right Wing politics wants to equiate human beings to animals.

Really?

Okay, let's do that. 

The argument is that people are very upset about Cecil but not about abortion. 

Cecil was self supporting. Did you know that? It was no requirement that he needed childcare or the type of economic burden a child brings to life. He didn't need food stamps or health care. And he and his species also received protections so that they couldn't be hunted. There is a far different sense of responsibility than a human being.

When FOX tries to equate animals to human beings I'd be very careful. I suppose FOX provides incredible funds to animal rescues so they weren't euthanized. Right? They should put those donations to support animals within the USA out to the American public to prove they actually do support socialism.

FOX supports money as people so there is a real issue here for them. Human beings have far less importance in FOX WORLD. Inanimate objects are more important than Americans. So the anti-abortion rant about human beings really isn't all that, is it? FOX regularly states health care is an option and not a requirement. They believe the USA should be bailing out Wall Street and let's face it, money to million billionaires in the tax structure is far more important than a fair tax structure to Moms and Dads the backbone of the Working Poor.

See, the idea war is better than peace is also a human rights issue. So, when comparing animals to human beings Cecil has the same rights as Iranians in FOX's paradigm.

The veil of FOX's idea that abortions do not receive the same compassion as Cecil really is far more complicated than simply saying Americans on the left love animals more than children. That isn't at all true. What the left likes is an equal playing field, not one laced with police that kill or a country that dismisses it's economic priority to provide equal treatment of all citizens trying to move up the socio-economic ladder. Cecil never had an equality problem or had trouble finding his next meal. The attachment to animals is not about abortion vs child care, it is about protecting a species endangered and prey to the will of wealthy Americans. 

The only consistency about FOX's judgmental paradigm is that it favors wealth over poverty to the point where public education is a parasite and contraception a distant second to providing no insurance coverage to Americans unable to provide it.

Cecil is a moral issue. He is the place where compassion lives cost free. He helps build a society that values life. He is the world of abstraction where love and hate exist and a society decides the life of an endangered species is more important than the hunt. Cecil is a very important commodity to the world. He says 'Stop don't kill me." which isn't provided for African Americas stopped for minor traffic infringements. So, when FOX wants to begin some kind of judgement about people with compassion, they need to stop and realize why they have none.