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May 19, 2013

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Tag: Social Security

Pecked

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Posted on May 10, 2013 READ MORE


Obama’s Wake-Up Call

President Obama got roughed up by the pundit class last week. The question is what lessons he draws from the going-over.

Posted on May 6, 2013 READ MORE



Categorizing Women on Wikipedia

When female writers disappeared from the Wikipedia heading “American novelists,” more than a few eyebrows were raised; Pvt. Bradley Manning being revoked as grand marshal of the San Francisco Gay Pride parade proves that the military-industrial complex rules all; meanwhile, another price-fixing scandal reminiscent of Libor is about to explode. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE



Misogynist Much? Politico Attacks Times Editor Jill Abramson

Politico’s piece on New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson implied she was a “bitchy woman character”; fossil fuels may never be depleted and this could be the best and worst thing to happen; meanwhile, violence is less rampant on YouTube than on television programs. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Apr 29, 2013 READ MORE



eflon (CC BY 2.0)

Obama’s ‘Mixed Feelings About Old People’

The president gave wealthy Americans “a most generous reduction in their estate taxes” while telling Social Security beneficiaries “to live with smaller benefit checks,” William Greider writes in The Nation.

Posted on Apr 27, 2013 READ MORE



How the News Is Killing You

Reading mass media news articles is unhealthy and causes unhappiness, so stop it; Americans want to know more about socialism, as evidenced by Merriam-Webster’s two most searched entries in 2012; meanwhile the Swedes were dissatisfied with gendered pronouns and have officially incorporated a third, gender-neutral one into their language. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Apr 15, 2013 READ MORE



Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)

Michael Hudson on Obama, Social Security and Mean Mrs. Thatcher

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Economist Michael Hudson attacks Obama’s proposed cuts. Also on the program: the fight to keep Monsanto from polluting Hawaii’s natural wonders, a college degree ain’t what it used to be, and a new movie documents the legal showdown over medical marijuana.

Posted on Apr 14, 2013 READ MORE


Michael Hudson on Obama, Social Security and Mean Mrs. Thatcher

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Economist Michael Hudson attacks Obama’s proposed cuts. Also on the program: the fight to keep Monsanto from polluting Hawaii’s natural wonders, a college degree ain’t what it used to be, and a new movie documents the legal showdown over medical marijuana.

Posted on Apr 14, 2013 READ MORE


Sen. Sanders Lays Into Obama for Attacking Social Security

The senator stood before a crowd of retirees, veterans and their supporters Thursday to point out that the president’s proposal for a “Chained CPI” adjustment to the calculation of retirement benefits would wreak destruction on the lives of elderly and disabled Americans.

Posted on Apr 13, 2013 READ MORE


Obama Budget

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Posted on Apr 13, 2013 READ MORE


Eat Your Cat Food, Mrs. Robinson

The new cost-of-living index proposed in Obama’s latest budget is really a means to push lower living standards on people who need Social Security, University of Missouri economist Michael Hudson says.

Posted on Apr 12, 2013 READ MORE


Obama’s Social Security Move Breaks Campaign Promise

Remember when, running for president back in 2008, Barack Obama vowed never to cut Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments? He seems to be having second thoughts.

Posted on Apr 12, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/cathro

Bipartisanship We Don’t Need

John Boehner, speaker of the House, revealed why it’s politically naive for the president to offer up cuts in Social Security in the hope of getting Republicans to close some tax loopholes for the rich.

Posted on Apr 11, 2013 READ MORE



Glyn Lowe Photoworks (CC BY-ND 2.0)

A Tax Day Plan for Righting the Republic

If we had a government capable of honoring the collective desire for more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels and Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved, our future could be guaranteed at tax time in no time.

Posted on Apr 11, 2013 READ MORE


Compromise

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Posted on Apr 11, 2013 READ MORE



AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Obama Submits Destructive, Unnecessary Budget Plan

The president is following through on his intention to abandon the welfare of elderly and disabled Americans in a budget deal that would cut $130 billion from programs like Social Security over the next 10 years, and that could starve the system in the long run.

Posted on Apr 10, 2013 READ MORE



Write a Blog, Risk Going to Jail

Daniel McGowan, an Earth Liberation Front activist, was imprisoned last week for writing a HuffPo post; Fox News claims that Rutgers University firing its abusive basketball coach is evidence of cultural decline; and no, Bitcoin is apparently not the future of currency. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Apr 8, 2013 READ MORE



Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Republicans Dismiss Obama’s Budget Proposal

Thanks to Speaker of the House John Boehner and his fellow Republicans in the chamber, there is serious legislative opposition to the attack on Social Security that President Obama proposed in his budget plan this week.

Posted on Apr 6, 2013 READ MORE


Reich Decodes the Chained CPI

This week, President Obama proposed to reduce the national deficit by adopting a new formula for adjusting for inflation in Social Security payments. Robert Reich points out that it would be “stingier than the current one.” Frankly, it would destroy Social Security over the next two decades as prices for goods and services rose and the program wasn’t allowed to keep up.

Posted on Apr 6, 2013 READ MORE


‘Left, Right & Center:’ A Dismal Jobs Report and the Morning After Pill

Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right & Center” panelists discuss the depressing jobs report, unrestricted birth control, California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ looks and Social Security.

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 READ MORE



AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Obama to Formally Propose Social Security Cuts

In the name of compromise, bipartisanship and the satisfaction of a ruling class that is indifferent to the suffering of ordinary Americans, President Obama is ready to sell parts of Social Security and Medicare in his attempt to strike an annual budget that satisfies Republicans and reduces the long-term deficit by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, administration officials say.

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 READ MORE



Campaign rally image via Shutterstock

Why Politicians Listen to Public Opinion on Gay Marriage and Guns but Not the Economy

Recent polls show Americans would rather reduce the deficit by raising taxes than by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education and transportation. Yet Congress seems incapable of making that kind of deal. Some 65 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on large corporations, but both parties are heading in precisely the opposite direction.

Posted on Mar 31, 2013 READ MORE



Presidential Con Artist

George W. Bush’s paintings do not reveal anything about the Iraq War, despite our wishing that they did; absurdly, the main argument against gay marriage is the state’s supposed need to regulate procreation; meanwhile, the entire Senate voted against Social Security cuts and the media said nothing. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Mar 27, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/Fighting For Our Health

An Interview With AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

Trumka recently spoke with The National Memo about the sequester’s automatic budget cuts, the danger of cuts to Social Security, the Keystone XL pipeline, immigration reform, President Obama and how to defend labor in an era of attacks on the right to organize.

Posted on Mar 24, 2013 READ MORE


Why Democrats Shouldn’t Put Social Security and Medicare on the Table

If there was ever a time for the Democratic Party to champion working Americans and reverse these troubling trends, it is now — forging an alliance between the frustrated middle and the working poor.

Posted on Mar 21, 2013 READ MORE



kenteegardin (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Debt Is the Problem

It’s not the kind created by government spending on social programs, however, economist Michael Hudson says.

Posted on Mar 15, 2013 READ MORE


Krugman Slams GOP Senator on Social Security: ‘Your Facts Are Wrong’

Memo to congressional Republicans: You might want to stray from GOP talking points and stick to the facts when facing off against a Nobel Prize-winning economist unless you want to be called out for falsehoods.

Posted on Mar 10, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/Seuss

The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot

Sequestration is only the start. What the tea party set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government—“drown it in the bathtub,” in the words of their guru Grover Norquist.

Posted on Mar 3, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/401(K) 2013

The Myth of Living Beyond Our Means

Brace yourself. In coming weeks you’ll hear there’s no serious alternative to cutting Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on middle class, and decimating what’s left of the federal government’s discretionary spending on everything from education and job training to highways and basic research.

Posted on Jan 29, 2013 READ MORE


Echoes of FDR: Obama’s Inspiring Address Links Freedom With Security and Dignity

So much for the “Grand Bargain”—or at least for the not-so-grand gutting of Social Security and Medicare that the “very serious” thought-leaders of Washington political and media circles have always found so appealing.

Posted on Jan 23, 2013 READ MORE



Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)

How a Bunch of Liberal Groups Are Trying to Kill the Filibuster and Citizens United

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The progressive plot to save representative democracy, China’s retirement bomb, Republican junk science, and doping in sports.

Posted on Jan 18, 2013 READ MORE


How a Bunch of Liberal Groups Are Trying to Kill the Filibuster and Citizens United

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The progressive plot to save representative democracy, China’s retirement bomb, Republican junk science, and doping in sports.

Posted on Jan 18, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/ 401(K) 2013

Are Single People Getting Financially Screwed?

According to Lisa Arnold and Christina Campbell, singles can pay as much as $1 million more over a lifetime than those who are married, simply because of their marital status.

Posted on Jan 15, 2013 READ MORE


Geezers

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Posted on Jan 10, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Rich Pedroncelli

A Temperature Check From Sen. Sanders

“Despite such terminology as ‘fiscal cliff’ and ‘debt ceiling,’ ” writes Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., “the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues. It is all about ideology.”

Posted on Jan 9, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/401(K) 2013

The Hoax of Entitlement Reform

It has become accepted economic wisdom, uttered with deadpan certainty by policy pundits and budget scolds on both sides of the aisle, that the only way to get control over America’s looming deficits is to “reform entitlements.”

Posted on Jan 7, 2013 READ MORE


‘Left, Right & Center’: One Fiscal Cliff Down, Boehner, and Al Gore’s Big Payday

Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right & Center” panelists consider the fiscal cliff deal and the issues it left untouched: the debt ceiling and the threat of “reform” to social services. They also dissect the re-election of John Boehner as speaker of the House as well as the FTC’s decision on Google and antitrust and anti-competition laws.

Posted on Jan 4, 2013 READ MORE


The Next War: The Battle Over the Debt Ceiling

The last time the debt ceiling had to be raised, in 2011, Republicans demanded major cuts in programs for the poor as well as Medicare and Social Security. They got some concessions from the White House but didn’t get what they wanted—which led us to the fiscal cliff. So we’ve come full circle.

Posted on Jan 2, 2013 READ MORE


Mr. Fish's Cartoon

Dutch Catholics Seek to Ditch a Homophobic Church

Many Dutch citizens are attempting to “de-baptize” themselves to protest Pope Benedict’s anti-gay marriage declarations; a national database of gun owners may have helped prevent the Newtown shooting; and although the media insist the president is giving in to the Republicans’ demands to make cuts to Social Security, Obama’s been trying to reduce it all along. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Dec 28, 2012 READ MORE


Happy New Fiscal Cliff

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Posted on Dec 28, 2012 READ MORE


Snow Job

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Posted on Dec 28, 2012 READ MORE


Fiscal Clown Car

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Posted on Dec 28, 2012 READ MORE


Social Security

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Posted on Dec 26, 2012 READ MORE



Wade Rockett (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Liberals Back to Giving Obama a Pass

“Now that Obama appears poised to push substantial parts of Social Security and Medicare over the ‘fiscal cliff’—in exchange for a paltry, largely symbolic, increase in the top marginal income-tax rate—we might ask whether liberals will once again rise to Obama’s defense, no matter how indefensible his actions,” writes John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s Magazine.

Posted on Dec 20, 2012 READ MORE



Pete Souza/The White House

Cliffhanger: Obama’s Unnecessary and Unwise Concessions

Why is the president back to making premature and unnecessary concessions to Republicans?

Posted on Dec 20, 2012 READ MORE



Where Are the Tears for Pakistani Children?

President Obama should be crying over kids killed by drones in Pakistan, not just those slain on American soil; apparently some believe that the Sandy Hook massacre was God’s reckoning for our support of abortion and gay marriage; meanwhile, the open Internet comes to an end as the United Nations give governments power to cut off parts of it. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 READ MORE


Sanders Reacts to the GOP Budget Plan

The independent senator from Vermont appeared on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation with Al Sharpton” on Monday to talk about the ongoing budget negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, respectively the winners and losers of last month’s national referendum on economic policy in America.

Posted on Dec 4, 2012 READ MORE


Understanding the Fiscal Cliff (in 2 Minutes 30 Seconds)

Democrats, here are eight principles to guide you in the coming showdown over the fiscal cliff.

Posted on Dec 3, 2012 READ MORE



Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Krugman Derides ‘Pathetic’ GOP Fiscal Cliff Offer

The Nobel Prize-winning economist puts specifics offered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell through some harsh analysis.

Posted on Dec 2, 2012 READ MORE


Bernie Sanders
senate.gov

Let the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Expire Already

Now is the time to hold Democrats accountable and ensure that we do deficit reduction in a way that is fair, while also protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Posted on Nov 28, 2012 READ MORE


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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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