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UCmeNdc's JournalKeeping Our Social Security Promises Act
S.500, the Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act. This bill would keep Social Security solvent for the next 75 years by applying the current payroll tax rate to annual income above $250,000. It would raise more than $85 billion a year for the Social Security Trust Fund with no increase in taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year – that is, 98.7 percent of American workers.
Write your congress person and ask them to support this bill.
Obama Pick for Court Is 3rd in a Row Blocked by Republicans
Senate Republicans on Monday blocked President Obama’s third consecutive nominee to the country’s most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president’s right to shape the judiciary.
By a vote of 53 to 38, the Senate failed to break a filibuster of Robert L. Wilkins, a federal judge who was nominated to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, falling seven votes short of the 60 needed. Two Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with the Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/us/politics/republicans-block-another-obama-nominee-for-key-judgeship.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131119&_r=0
Elizabeth Warren supports expansion of Social Security
In remarks Warren just began delivering, she strongly endorsed the push to boost Social Security benefits — in keeping with Senator Tom Harkin’s proposal to do the same — and condemned the “Chained CPI” that liberals fear Dems will embrace in strong terms. From the prepared remarks:
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/elizabeth-warren-supports-expansion
Hayes: 'The Only Way Out is Through'
Chris Hayes opened his show with an editorial tonight and I'm right there with him. I'm sick to death of the media coverage comparing the rollout of the Affordable Care Act to Katrina. I've had it with the Republicans doing everything in their power to do real damage to real people's lives with their sabotage and obstruction and like Hayes, I'm fed up with these weak kneed Democrats thinking that they can distance themselves from the law politically if they wanted to.
As Hayes noted during the opening to his rant, Media Matters had a very simple rebuttal to the talking point about Obamacare vs. Hurricane Katrina. Here's some of the rest and it was definitely a breath of fresh air from what has dominated the better part of his own network's broadcast time.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/hayes-only-way-out-through
Janet Yellen Shames Congress For Austerity, Being Terrible
Yellen reminded lawmakers of their sheer terribleness during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday about her nomination to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve when his term ends in January. Republican senators moaned and groaned, as usual, about the Fed's extreme easy-money policies. Yellen reminded everybody that Congress has forced the Fed to act by constantly imposing harsh austerity measures on an economy still recovering from a financial crisis and deep recession.
snip.......
"Fiscal policy has been working at cross purposes to monetary policy," Yellen said. "Some of the near-term reductions in spending that we have seen have certainly detracted from the momentum of the economy and from demand, making it harder for the Fed to get the economy moving, making our task more difficult.
"We are worried about a fragile recovery, and a more supportive fiscal policy, or one that at least had less drag, that did no harm, would make life easier," she added later.
Yellen was referring to the austerity that has come out of a rolling series of debt crises instigated by Republicans in the past few years, including the deep budget cuts known as sequestration and this year's payroll-tax increase. Under pressure from Republicans, the federal government has cut spending at the fastest pace since the end of the Vietnam War. Government investment has tumbled to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since 1948.
This belt-tightening has probably cost the economy nearly 2.5 million jobs, according to a recent study
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/janet-yellen-congress_n_4275572.html
What is the Republican Plan for health care reform in the United States?
The media never asks the GOP to be specific about its plan to make health care more practical.
McCain Tears Into Cruz Over Shutdown: 'Stop! You're Wrong, You're Crazy!'
Sen. John McCain (AZ) lashed out at fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) on Thursday for causing a government shutdown that made it difficult for hungry residents in rural Arizona to get food.
"I have to say, 'Stop! You're wrong, you're crazy!'" McCain exclaimed. "That's what I have to say and if I sound angry, it's because I have met and talked to constituents of mine who are on minimum wage who had to resort to go to food banks. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen again."
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/mccain-tears-cruz-over-shutdown-stop-youre
The War Within
Instead, it was the close-quarters throwdown within the GOP—a fight in the House Republican Conference between the party’s centrists and its vocal Tea Party activists—that illuminates both why the shutdown happened and what it will mean for a Republican Party at war with itself. It is a narrative best told Rashomon-style, as a story of wildly divergent tellings—and ultimately as an expression of the Republican Party’s all-encompassing identity crisis.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/war-within-shutdown-tea-party-robert-draper-99378.html#ixzz2kcwV6eEl
Interesting......
Pope Francis targeted by the Mafia
"If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."
Francis, who has called for "a poor church", has backed reform at the Vatican's bank, which has been suspected for years of being a channel for the laundering of mob profits. This week police impounded a luxury hotel on Rome's Janiculum hill – formerly a monastery – which the 'Ndrangheta allegedly purchased from a religious order.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/prosecutor-pope-francis-mafia-target
Premiere Networks on Wednesday announced it is dropping Randi Rhodes' radio show
"Premiere Networks will no longer produce and distribute The Randi Rhodes Show after Tuesday, December 31, 2013," Premiere's public relations director Rachel Nelson told POLITICO in an email.
...
While Wednesday's confirmation from Premiere is the first official news about the end of Rhodes' contract, the liberal talker had alluded to listeners in October that "my ability to talk to you is going away."
"The only way you'll be able to find me in a little while is if you have my personal phone number," she said on her Oct. 18 show.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10372
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