Daily Archives: August 15, 2012

Alternative energy: “That’s part of the choice in this election.”

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barackobama:

“Over the past four years, we’ve doubled the amount of electricity America can generate from wind—from 25 gigawatts to 50 gigawatts. And to put that in perspective, that’s like building 12 new Hoover Dams that are powering homes all across the country. We doubled the amount of electricity we generate from solar energy, too. And combined, these energy sources are enough power to make sure that 13 million homes have reliable power and support the paychecks that help more than 100,000 Americans provide for their families.

“That’s not imaginary. That is real. And that’s what’s at stake in November. Thirty-seven thousand American jobs are on the line if the wind energy tax credit is allowed to expire like my opponent thinks they should. And unlike Gov. Romney, I want to stop giving $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies that have rarely been more profitable so that we can keep investing in homegrown energy sources like wind that have never been more promising. That’s part of the choice in this election.”

—President Obama in Iowa today

http://www.barackobama.com/wind

Paul Ryan is a lean, mean, catfish catchin’ with his bare hands, virility machine

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Paul Ryan has many in the media hot and bothered with his raw virility:

The Week Magazine gushes, “So dedicated is Rep. Paul Ryan to his body-sculpting workout program, P90X, that he leads a daily class for about a dozen fellow Congressional staffers.” The main article describes Ryan as “The ripped new GOP vice presidential candidate” who “catches catfish with his bare hands.“

Fox & Friends’ Steve Doocy can barely contain his passion:

“Paul Ryan does this workout everyday. And, subsequently, you know, number one: he used to be a personal trainer. But, number two, he could be the most ripped – Paul Ryan…And, when you talk about fitness in office, he could define it.” — Fox News Host Steve Doocy, who has a track record of attacking Michelle Obama’s fitness initiatives, suddenly thinks fitness is praiseworthy. (via: dropfox)

It’s great that Ryan works out daily and leads a ‘class’ (your tax dollars at work?) of 12 fellow staffers. What would be ever greater is if Ryan also did this much work in his day job as a Congressman. No wonder he’s only passed two bills in his 13-years as a public servant.

communism-kills: In the real world, people get fired for this.


Yes, the ACA cuts $716 billion to Medicare — but the ACA’s cuts don’t touch Medicare benefits

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Republicans are attacking the passage of the Affordable Care Act for its $716 billion in cuts to Medicare, and they’re desperately trying to make it seem like the cuts are to Medicare benefits. Sarah Kliff breaks down those cuts and looks at the policy rationale behind them.

“The majority of the cuts…come from reductions in how much Medicare reimburses hospitals and private health insurance companies… The whole idea of Medicare Advantage was to drive down the cost of health insurance for the elderly as private insurance companies competing for seniors’ business. That’s not what happened. By 2010, the average Medicare Advantage per-patient cost was 117 percent of regular fee-for-service. The Affordable Care Act gives those private plans a haircut and tethers reimbursement levels to the quality of care administered, and patient satisfaction.”

“Another big chunk comes from the hospitals. The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion… The rest of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts are a lot smaller.”

“It’s worth noting that there’s one area these cuts don’t touch: Medicare benefits.”

— Romney’s right: Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion. Here’s how.

And that is where the Paul Ryan / Romney plan and the President’s budget part ways. Romney-Ryan (if Romney agrees with Ryan’s plan today, who knows?) would cut benefits by implementing a voucher system, meaning seniors would need to shop the innovation of the free market to find their own private insurance. That sounds like an exciting adventure, doesn’t it?

Michael Waldholz explains the reality-based issue with that plan:

“The problem is that its just as likely insurers will cherry pick only the healthiest folks. The sickest folks who generate Medicare’s main costs will stay in the traditional plan, meaning the government won’t be able to spread its responsibility over a large enough pool to keep spending down. In other words, nothing will have changed unless the vouchers are priced high enough for insurers to make a profit. I don’t see the savings there.”

That’s exactly the problem with our current health care system, which the ACA’s implementation seeks to begin to fix. By the way, where are Mitt Romney’s tax returns?


…

This is why we can’t have nice things: the non-voters

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Political Wire reports that non-voters overwhelmingly back Obama: “A nationwide USA Today/Suffolk University Poll of people who are eligible to vote but aren’t likely to do so finds that these stay-at-home Americans back President Obama’s re-election over Mitt Romney by more than 2-1.

“Two-thirds of them say they are registered to vote. Eight in 10 say the government plays an important role in their lives. Even so, they cite a range of reasons for declaring they won’t vote or saying the odds are no better than 50-50 that they will: They’re too busy. They aren’t excited about either candidate. Their vote doesn’t count.”

If your vote doesn’t count, why are the Republicans with their ‘voter id’ laws and billionaires like Sheldon Adelson with his money trying so hard to block it?


christopherstreet

If you’re thinking of not voting, think about it again. Do it.

John Sununu dislikes facts: “Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead.”

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Soledad O’Brien and Romney surrogate John Sununu got into a heated argument over Medicare yesterday, from Mediate:

O’Brien: “The hospitals agreed to that. The drug providers agreed to that because their theory is that what they’re going to be able to do is make up by the number of people who come into the system. It doesn’t reduce or cut the benefits. Right….”

Sununu: “Soledad, stop this! All you’re doing is mimicking the stuff that comes out of the White House and gets repeated on the Democratic blog boards out there….”

O’Brien: “I’m telling you what FactCheck.com tells you. I’m telling you what the CBO tells you. I’m telling you what CNN’s independent analysis does.”

Sununu: “Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this.”

O’Brien: “You know. Let me tell you something. There is independent analysis that details what this about and repeating a number–”

Sununu: “No there isn’t.”

O’Brien: “Yes there is.”

Sununu: “No. There’s Democratic analysis.”

DON’T YOU SEE?! Reality has a well-known liberal bias, just like Stephen Colbert said. If you’re going to challenge lies and distortions coming out of the Romney campaign, just put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead!

Winning arguments with the loudest voice and with blatant lies is a sound byte, not a discussion — but that’s SOP for network news shows today. It’s the Fox / Rush model of easily-digestible, no-work transcription of opinion and propaganda, sold as emotionally-framed infotainment. It deprives viewers of unemotional analysis, opposing outcomes, and facts — which is actual information necessary to make informed decisions, and which is why a majority of Americans are literally unable to make informed decisions.

So kudos to Soledad O’Brien for challenging John Sununu on his lies and prevarications about Medicare and the Romney campaign. It’s long past the time that our mainstream news media started reporting facts — especially if those facts don’t fit comfortably within a political campaign’s narrative.

On Medicare: Romney and Ryan are “very similar” and “very different”

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Steve Benen reports on the impressive clarity of Team Romney-Ryan on Medicare:

Mitt Romney, yesterday, asked about Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan: “[M]y plan for Medicare, it’s very similar to his plan for Medicare.”

Romney surrogate John Sununu, this morning, asked about the similarities in Romney’s Medicare plan to Paul Ryan’s policy: “But it’s very different.”

I’m glad we got this straightened out. Here I thought the Romney-Ryan campaign might have a muddled message on the issue they’ve put at the center of the 2012 presidential race.

To help clarify matters, Romney’s policy director, Lanhee Chen, told TPM, “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama’s $716 billion raid on Medicare and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces.”

Except, as even the most ignorant policy directors surely know, every penny of savings Obama found in Medicare has been included in Paul Ryan’s budget, which Romney endorsed. (And if they repeal Obamacare, they’ll take away benefits for seniors.)

Andrew Sullivan reviews Romney’s new Medicare ad:

…$716 billion is how much Obamacare cuts from Medicare spending – but the ad implies this is some kind of cut to Medicare recipient’s benefits; it’s not. Pema Levy explains: Cuts made in the Affordable Care Act are to future growth and come from reimbursement reductions to hospitals, Medicaid prescription drugs and private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage. Ryan’s cuts come from shifting Medicare from its current form to subsidies for seniors to buy care themselves.

The Ryan plan also makes the same cuts, only by instituting a voucher program, all of which Romney is trying to murky-up by saying he’ll put that $716 billion “back”. The bottom line is they’re spinning another whopper here, just like in the welfare ads.

If the Romney campaign didn’t spin whoppers daily, they’d have nothing to deflect attention away from his business “experience” with Bain Capital and the 2002 Olympics, or why he won’t release his tax returns like every other presidential candidate. And Romney would also have to actually talk about how different his vision for America is from President Obama’s.

Jon Stewart on Paul Ryan’s “misguided policies” and the national debt

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Source: sandandglass

Don’t talk to Paul Ryan about droughts or struggling farmers — he “just wants to enjoy the fair”

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Back off, Farmer John. Your problems come second to Master Ryan’s fair-going, as Joan Walsh explains:

“Ryan, who’s supposed to be the warm, regular guy on the ticket, gave a whiff of that odd Romney entitlement today at the Iowa State Fair. Asked whether he supported efforts to provide federal relief to farmers struggling with the state’s historic drought, Ryan waved off the reporter. “We’ll get into all those policy things later,” he said, adding, rather unbelievably, “Right now I just want to enjoy the fair.” That’s not terribly bold of Paul Ryan. He opposes the drought relief bill that got bipartisan support in the Senate; why not talk about his alternative ideas? An Iowan told the Huffington Post Ryan should have answered the question. “There’s a lot of farmers here,” he said. [...] What kind of person thinks he can give that kind of answer on his third day on the presidential campaign trail? A guy who’s not as good at retail politics as his Republican boosters want to believe, that’s for sure.”

Related:

Mitt Romney is not a fan of metaphor: GOP outrageous outrage / distraction of the day

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When Joe Biden tells a crowd that Romney’s going to “put y’all back in chains” over banking regulation, I think everyone “gets” the metaphor. But Willard Romney took that pretty personally — almost as if putting people in chains was a secret fantasy he’d been called out on.

The quote: “Look at what they value and look at their budget, and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” — VP Joe Biden, yesterday in Virginia 

Raw Story: A furious Romney fired back at a rally in Ohio, accusing Obama, who ran in 2008 vowing to heal political divides, of trying to “smash America apart” to cobble together a 51 percent majority to win a second term. “This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like,” he said, in the most charged exchanges of the campaign so far. “Mr President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America,” the Republican candidate said. 

[...] “Governor Romney’s comments tonight seemed unhinged and particularly strange coming at a time when he’s pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

Because Romney became unhinged over Biden’s metaphor, the news media must either give Mitt a belly rub or chase down an explanation:

USA Today: Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said Biden was referencing comments by leading Republicans who say they support “unshackling” the private sector from regulation. “The Vice President has often used a similar metaphor to describe the need to ‘unshackle’ the middle class,” Cutter said. “Today’s comments were a derivative of those remarks, describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families.” Earlier this year, Biden said, “the last time we unshackled Wall Street, America’s middle class was shackled.”

As if we didn’t already know that.

More importantly: that took some heat off Romney’s tax returns for one day at least, didn’t it?

Factory farming and cruelty for profit

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sarahlee310

Mark Bittman – NY Times: “Sysco is the latest food giant—it’s the largest food distributor in the country—to come out against gestation crate confinement of pigs. The National Pork Producers Council’s communications director was quoted in the National Journal saying: “So our animals can’t turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls producing piglets…I don’t know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around.”

“Really.”