Politics Plus

With the sequester looming, many progressives are concerned that Obama might  make a deal with Republicans that effect benefits people receive from earned entitlements, for which they have paid all their working lives.  The CPC (Congressional Progressive Caucus), joined by several other Democrats, are telling Obama to hold the line.

Concerned that a potential deal to defuse the looming sequestration cuts will include cuts to social safety-net programs, 107 House Democrats sent a letter to President Obama today calling on him to oppose any entitlement benefit reductions, including switching to the so-called chained CPI. It’s by far the largest number that have come out against the CPI cut, and it represents a majority of the Democratic Caucus in the lower chamber.

Republicans are demanding entitlement reform as part of a deal to avert the sequester, the planned spending cuts that will go into effect next month unless Congress acts. So far, neither Obama nor Senate Democrats have endorsed any cuts to the social safety-net programs, and the White House has specifically ruled out raising the Medicare eligibility age, but liberals fear Democratic leaders will give in on the chained CPI in order to win GOP support.

“I am concerned about it. We’ve got to remain vigilant; that’s why we wrote this letter,” Rep. Keith Ellison, the Chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, told Salon. Rep. Jan Schakowsky spearheaded the letter… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Salon.com>

Chained CPI is a different method of calculating cost of living increases.  It supposes that, if there is a substitute for an item, whose price has increased, and if the substitute costs no more than that item used to cost, there is no increase in the cost of living.  Now lets try that on.  If my filet mignon increases in price, but I can get chuck steak for what I used to pay for filet mignon, my cost of living has not changed.  And if that chuck steak increases in price, but I can get beans for what I used to pay for chuck steak, my cost of living has not changed again.  And if my beans increase in price, but I can get dawg food for what I used to pay for beans, my cost of living still has not changed.  But the transition from filet mignon to dawg food is one hell of a change!  This shows that chained CPI can cause seniors’ standard of living to plummet, while maintaining the cost of living index.  That’s why chained CPI is not acceptable.

While her former opponent, Scott ‘Bought Bagger’ Brown is fulfilling his calling as a professional liar on the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, Elizabeth Warren is doing exactly what we hoped she would do, using her vast knowledge of the industry expose abuse by Banksters and regulators.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) used her debut on the Senate Banking Committee to question financial regulators about the lack of accountability for Wall Street banks’ role in the financial crisis, challenging them to name the last time a Wall Street bank was taken to trial over allegations of fraud and other crimes instead of being allowed to settle out of court.

“What I’d like to know is, tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to a trial,” Warren asked the regulators. But none provided a specific answer. That led Warren to wonder if Wall Street banks had become “too big for trial”…

…Prosecution of financial fraud hit a 20-year low in 2011, even amid broad findings of fraud that took place at the biggest banks… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Here’s the video:

Warren made a valid point that regulators consider that TBTF also means too big for trial. If that is truly the case, then TBTF is too big to exist. The individual criminal Banksters are NOT too big to jail!

The Republican Ministry of Propaganda, aka Faux Noise, has a problem.  Because they report so-called news from an exclusively Republican perspective, they usually find themselves positioned in exact opposition to the facts of the story.  When unable to argue a valid position, they attack a person, as they did here.

After glossing over state Republicans’ role in exacerbating long lines at the ballot box, three Fox hosts mocked the hours-long wait and multiple trips a 102-year-old woman endured in order to cast her vote in 2012.

On Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade and Fox’s Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer laughed off the difficulties 102-year-old Desiline Victor endured in order to vote in the 2012 election. Victor, who was invited to the State of the Union address and whom President Obama applauded for enduring a long wait to vote, had to make two trips to the polls and wait in line for over three hours before she was able to cast her ballot. Discussing Victor, MacCallum wondered, "What’s the big deal?" and said, "This is such a non-issue. Ridiculous." Hemmer added that at the State of the Union, "They held her up as a victim. What was she a victim of?"

But long lines at polling places are widely acknowledged as a major issue nationwide. In Victor’s home state of Florida alone, at least 201,000 eligible voters reportedly did not cast ballots because they were discouraged by lengthy wait times…

Inserted from <Media Matters>

Here’s the audio:

In this case, the facts are that Florida Republicans did everything in their power to keep likely Democratic voters from voting, and many suffered severe hardship to exercise their right to vote.  Victor was a very sympatric example of the suffering the Republican War on Voting caused.  These Republican propagandists have no shame.