The Republican Party is picking up where they left off in the last election and helping to define themselves as the party “of and for” corporations – especially big oil.

In 2008, they had “Drill, Baby, Drill” and all the money that came along with that. This election year, they’ve chosen the Keystone XL pipeline to show how they plant their lips on the ass of big oil.

Once again, they have the media on their side in this endeavor. Media Matters for America did a study of media coverage from August 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011 on the Keystone XL pipeline.  The results aren’t a surprise to anyone who pays attention to reality. This chart tells the story pretty clearly.

The GOP has been tremendously successful at getting the media to play along with them since August of 2011 on this issue and the above chart shows us the results. The red bars show how “job creation potential” was mentioned in the coverage from major media outlets with the green bar representing the “environmental concerns.” If you’ve been following the topic recently, it is obvious that Republicans are trying to make this into their jobs program, or at least an attempt to show how the Obama administration is preventing job creation. Go read the whole article at Media Matters, it was very thorough.

When you drill down into the numbers (I couldn’t resist), it turns out that reality is much different than the propaganda that has been sold to the American people. In a different post, Media Matters has some interesting information that gets to the real job numbers associated with the pipeline. Here are some snippets that show a progression that begins with Fox News…

Fox Anchor Martha MacCallum: 20,000 Jobs Is “The Low-End Estimate.” [snip]

TransCanada Said In 2010 That Keystone XL Pipeline “Is Expected To Create Over … 13,000 New Jobs For American Workers.” [snip]

Wash. Post: Based On TransCanada’s Numbers, “The Number Of People Employed” Would Actually Be 6,500. A November 5 article in The Washington Post reported that TransCanada CEO Russ Girling “said Friday that the 13,000 figure was actually not a true job number, but actually accounted for ‘one person, one year.’” The Post added that “if the construction jobs lasted two years, the number of people employed in each of the two years would be 6,500.” [snip]

Cornell University Global Labor Institute: Based On TransCanada’s Numbers, “The Project Will Create No More Than 2,500-4,600 Temporary Direct Construction Jobs.” [snip]

Cornell University Global Labor Institute: “Based On The Figures Provided By TransCanada For The Canadian Section Of The Pipeline, The New Permanent US Pipeline Jobs In The US Number As Few As 50.” (emphasis mine)

The estimate by the independent group at Cornell University puts the number of temporary jobs at 2,500 – 4,600 and the number of permanent jobs at 50. Those jobs would certainly matter to the people lucky enough to get them, but it ain’t no 20,000 jobs for sure. And considering all the risks to the states that this pipeline would travel through, not worth it at all.

Republicans are either stupid or crazy, take your pick!

In November of 2011, the Republicans decided to embrace the issue in their negotiations for extending the payroll tax cut that President Obama was fighting for. The pipeline became their bargaining chip in those negotiations, even after being warned by the State Department that trying to force the issue would result in it being killed for sure. That didn’t seem to bother the GOP, from a State Department briefing on December 12, 2011…

The State Department has led a rigorous, thorough, and transparent process that must run its course to obtain the necessary information to make an informed decision on behalf of the national interest. Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project. (emphasis mine)

But like the flat footed, clumsy party that they are, the GOP kept right on pushing it. So during the holidays, we were treated to the White House fighting for tax cuts for every American while the Republicans were blocking those tax cuts and supporting big oil. Coming off the BP oil spill in 2010, I’m not sure that is the group you want to wrap your arms around.

Just over a week ago on January 18, 2012, President Obama officially rejected the Keystone XL pipeline bid.

But the president said today in a statement that the congressionally imposed deadline did not provide adequate time for the State Department to finish a customary review of the pipeline’s route through six states.

“The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” Obama said.

“As a result, the secretary of state has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.”

What is so astounding to me is that they don’t seem to really want the pipeline to go through, they just want it as a campaign issue. Steve Benen summed it up very well…

I’d argue that this is the outcome Republicans wanted all along. The GOP didn’t really want the pipeline; they wanted the ability to whine about the absence of the pipeline. This wasn’t, in other words, about energy production; this was about creating an issue for the 2012 campaign.

There were signs that the Republicans might abandon that tactic, but the other day, Boehner hinted that he may double down on that strategy.

 Besides the stupidity of pitting tax cuts for all Americans against the interests of big oil, Republicans also touted those outrageous claims of how many jobs it would create. Going into an election year that everyone says will be all about jobs, you would think they might pick an issue that would actually create some jobs. But instead, they’ve inflated and exaggerated numbers that even the company building the pipeline doesn’t agree with.

I’m seeing a new slogan, “Lay Pipe, Baby, Lay Pipe.” Now get your minds out of the gutter.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

H/T to The Washington Monthly and Media Matters for America

I so wish I could tell you that the upcoming general election will be close, and that it will be due to the life-and-death seriousness of the issues as they relate to our economy, the environment and our foreign policy — but I cannot honestly say this.  I do believe that the 2012 election will be close, but for the wrong reasons; one being that it is how media conglomerates generate large sums for themselves during an election year.  So when the media crows again how this will not only be close, but the most expensive ever, don’t think they aren’t at the same time counting on the millions they will earn throughout.

We must understand that the protracted Obama-Hillary primary wars of 2008 were a boon to media coffers!  Couple that with the birth of the limitless Super PACs (thanks to our Republican-dominated SCOTUS), and you can easily see what I see: media mavens relying on  their potential earnings after facing lean advertising years. If you hadn’t thought about it before, think about it now, while closely observing how desperately reporters are handling the Republican primaries. It may seem quite entertaining at the moment (to some of us), but I would respectfully suggest that we ought to be preparing for what is to come in the general.

Speaking of the current sorry-ass Republican primaries, it is mighty strange that although there is only one halfway electable Republican left standing, we are now witnessing a media-termed “horse race” as we head toward Super PAC-spending Tuesday. It’s not because the alternative candidates to Romney are actually worth anything (because they aren’t); it is because the faster the Republican Primaries end, the less money the Super PAC will spend, and that would greatly reduce the media’s anticipated advertising windfall.

Look, it’s no accident that the media has been all over candidate Romney since his big win in New Hampshire.  At the exact time the announcement was made that Mitt held an insurmountable double-digit lead in South Carolina polls, the corporate media got hella serious!   To add to the media’s trouble, GOP candidates were dropping like flies, Mitt Romney reeked of the inevitable stench, and the primary season was ending before it had started.  But by golly, all was not lost, as we witnessed the re-resurrection of the twice-fallen Newt in just 7 days!  I will add that this wasn’t an easy get by any means. Just ask Ginger Chuckie on MSNBC; he seemed quite exhausted with that renewed Newt surge!

Yes, truth be told, our poor corporate media has had the hardest time coming up with a plausible scenario to get that primary GOP Super PAC money bomb coming their way, considering what they were given to work with! It isn’t typical of our media to get so resourceful as to report on the manner in which a GOP millionaire candidate built his fortune, or to just allow GOP candidates to be dumb enough to literally destroy each other, after all that St. Reagan preached on that subject!  The media corporations, after all, are not left-leaning, nor have they been for quite some time.  No, the media corporations lean green with greed, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to forget that.

As for the general election of 2012, we have already been repeatedly warned that it will be close due to the economy, and it has been left at that. It is a mantra that too many of us sheepishly agree with. But, come to think of it, wasn’t it the Republican Party who brought upon this nation the worst recession since the Great Depression? Wasn’t it largely Republicans who deregulated our financial institutions, which brought us to our knees? And aren’t they now promising us more of that, and calling it “restoring America”?

Wasn’t it the Republican Party who started an unjustified war via lies trumpeted by our media, and kept the war’s spending off the books for all the years they could, while still to this day proclaiming “cowboy diplomacy” as the only way to go?

Wasn’t it the Republican Party who brought us the tax cuts for the rich, and yet is still proposing tax cuts for the rich as the remedy to the original fiasco? And what about the Medicare drug programs that wasn’t paid for, meant to destroy Medicare by not allowing government drug price negotiations in their legislation?

Wasn’t it Republicans who recently claimed that deficits were their priority concern, deficits that they themselves expanded widely during their eight years of power?

Isn’t it the Republican Party which now vilifies American victims of the great GOP recession, using unemployment benefits as a bludgeon against the jobless, shaming those in need of food stamps, and using outright racial stereotypical slurs in so doing?

Aren’t those Republicans, who, with one hand on their bible, refuse to even consider lending the other hand to their brothers and sisters who happen to be “the lesser” among us?

Isn’t it the Republican Party that assailed our teachers, police and firefighters’ unions and their pensions, as they stay busy laying off many of those same workers at a time of high unemployment?

Wasn’t that a  Republicans audience who cheered Americans dying in the streets for lack of health care, and booed our brave soldiers?

Isn’t it the Republican Party that believes that corporations are people, that money is speech, and that hailed the Citizens United decision as justice served?

Isn’t it Republicans who work diligently at separating the United States by race, creed, religion and sexual orientation, while claiming that discussing income inequality is simply envy and a topic best whispered about in quiet, dark rooms?

Yes, that was all brought to us by the Republican Party. And wait, there’s more…

For the past three years, as most in the Democratic Party have attempted to save this country from a financial abyss while being fought tooth and nail by 99.9% of Republicans (plus 20% Republican-lite), we have observed how Democrats have had to argue and fight for benefits paid in and previously guaranteed to the American people. By now, we should see clearly which party is against jobs programs that would benefit the nation during these very difficult times. We really do know who saved the auto industry and all the jobs associated with it.

We understand who got Bin Laden, ended the Iraq War, passed health care and financial reforms, is ready to cut defense spending and has indeed created jobs despite government job cuts at the state level.  We have an inkling as to who proposed immigration reform, as well as a logical  energy solution, and who opposed all such things.

… and yet, “they” tell us that the election will be “close”?

WTF????

Photos by Extreme Liberal

Too freakin awesome for words!

Here is the exchange that has Candy Crowley doing the heavy lifting for the Romney campaign.

CROWLEY: But couldn’t that huge gap, which is a pretty big gap between those who think you could handle the economy as opposed to Mitt Romney — couldn’t it also be that, from the day — from the month the president took office, we still have 1.7 million fewer jobs in the marketplace?

AXLEROD: Candy, let’s have — you know what, I’m happy to have that discussion. Do you know that, when he was campaigning for president in 2007 and 2008, Governor Romney had nothing but praise for the economic policies that were in place at that time, as America was sliding into the worst recession since the Great Depression, after eight years in which we…

CROWLEY: But this isn’t Romney. This is a fact.

Steve Benen goes on to point out that in the first 6 months of the Obama presidency, the country lost 3.89 million jobs. And yes, President Obama was president at the time of those job losses, but if anyone thinks that a single thing that President Obama did in that first 6 months had ANYTHING to do with the job losses, they are seriously deluded.

Here is a chart that shows the number of job losses/gains over the last 10 years or so.

Courtesy of Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly

You can clearly see that the recession began under the Bush administration in 2008 and continued into the first year of President Obama’s “first” term. Notice the downturn in 2001 under President Bush, that wasn’t Bush’s fault either. If anyone is responsible for that downturn, it would be President Clinton.

In the many economics classes I suffered through in college, there was one thing that was pounded into our heads over and over again. It was the idea that the economy flows in cycles. What goes up will surely come down. They also taught us that policies enacted by any administration only have a marginal effect on the overall economy. I would argue that the stimulus package that was passed in 2009 had a greater impact than most, simply because of its size. But to be honest, what President Obama did was to stabilize our economy, which then allowed for it to begin to grow again.

Another concept we learned in these economics classes was that it takes time for changes in policies to have an impact. There is a lag time between when actions by the Fed or laws passed by congress have an impact. The analogy that it takes time to turn a giant ship around applies very nicely to our economy.

So regardless of what administration is in office, I try not to play the blame game when it comes to the economy. But I do play the “push back” game on those who do like to play the blame game – especially in instances like the one above. Candy Crowley clearly doesn’t understand how our economy works, or she is choosing to play dumb in order to further the new TeaNN network she works for.

When you include the fact that the first budget President Obama signed was one that was negotiated by the previous congress and President Bush, it becomes even more tenuous to try to pin those job losses on President Obama. President Obama reluctantly signed that budget into law, not wanting to create any more uncertainty than already existed. Remember how people were freaking out about the “Second Great Depression?” I do.

And then there is this little tidbit that Steve Benen posted today that shows that the vast majority of Americans don’t blame President Obama for the bad economy, no matter how hard the Republicans and Fox News have tried to do so.

The key to understanding this is simple — most folks still don’t blame the president for the mess he inherited.

A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.

Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.

Heck, even one in five Republicans say Bush is more responsible than Obama for the state of the economy! (emphasis mine)

The same poll shows that the American people hold the Republicans responsible for the gridlock in Washington with 60% saying that President Obama is trying to work with Republicans to “accomplish” something while only 27% say the same about Republicans.

At some point, you would think that Candy Crowley would actually pay attention to some of the polls that run counter to the memes she is trying to push and realize that she looks pretty stupid to most people when she trumpets Republican party talking points that exist only in the wet dreams of the Tea Partiers.

]]> http://extremeliberal.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/noam-chomsky-on-ron-paul-his-policies-are-off-the-wall/feed/ 1 ExtremeLiberal http://extremeliberal.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/a-wise-man-takes-on-progressives-flirting-with-ron-paul/ http://extremeliberal.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/a-wise-man-takes-on-progressives-flirting-with-ron-paul/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:03:46 +0000 ExtremeLiberal http://extremeliberal.wordpress.com/?p=8738 ]]> I’m still in editing mode on a project, but just had to share this post that my friend and fellow blogger Angry Black Lady wrote about a piece by Tim Wise, one of the leading experts on racism in the country. It takes on those on the left flirting with Ron Paul and is a must read for liberals. Go check out ABL’s post and really, go read Tim Wise’s entire piece, it is long but well worth it. Here is ABL’s lead in to an excerpt that gets to the heart of the post.

But people are starting to get it. The Greenwald sweater of polemical deceit is unraveling, and I like it. I like it because I find his sort of polemical discourse and rhetorical bomb-throwing to be a reckless distraction from the serious problems that confront us.

I especially like this, from Tim Wise — “Of Broken Clocks, Presidential Candidates, and the Confusion of Certain White Liberals.”  It’s a thing of beauty. You should read the whole thing, but I’m going to excerpt what I see as the most salient bit:

I want those of you who are seriously singing Paul’s praises, while calling yourself progressive or left to ask what it signifies — not about Ron Paul, but about you — that you can look the rest of us in the eye, your political colleagues and allies, and say, in effect, “Well, he might be a little racist, but…

How do you think that sounds to black people, without whom no remotely progressive candidate stands a chance of winning shit in this country at a national level? How does it sound to them — a group that has been more loyal to progressive and left politics than any group in this country — when you praise a man who opposes probably the single most important piece of legislation ever passed in this country, and whose position on the right of businesses to discriminate, places him on the side of the segregated lunchcounter owners? And how do you think they take it that you praise this man, or possibly even support him for president, all so as to teach the black guy currently in the office a lesson for failing to live up to your expectations?

How do you think it sounds to them, right now, this week, as we prepare to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, that you claim to be progressive, and yet you are praising or even encouraging support for a man who voted against that holiday, who opposes almost every aspect of King’s public policy agenda, and the crowning achievements of the movement he helped lead?

My guess is that you don’t think about this at all. Because you don’t have to. One guess as to why not.

It’s the same reason you don’t have to think about how it sounds to most women — and damned near all progressive women — when you praise Paul openly despite his views on reproductive freedom, and even sexual harassment, which Paul has said should not even be an issue for the courts. He thinks women who are harassed on the job should just quit. In other words, “Yeah, he might be a little bit sexist, but…”

It’s the same reason you don’t have to really sweat the fact that he would love to cut important social programs for poor people. And you don’t have to worry about how it sounds to them that you would claim to be progressive, while encouraging support for a guy who would pull what minimal safety net still exists from under them, and leave it to private charities to fill the gap. And we all know why you don’t have to worry about it. Because you aren’t them. You aren’t the ones who would be affected. You’ll never be them. I doubt you even know anyone like that. People who are that poor don’t follow you on Twitter.

~snip~

And please, Glenn Greenwald, spare me the tired shtick about how Paul “raises important issues” that no one on the left is raising, and so even though you’re not endorsing him, it is still helpful to a progressive narrative that his voice be heard. Bullshit. The stronger Paul gets the stronger Paul gets, period. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger libertarianism gets, and thus, the Libertarian Party as a potential third party: not the Greens, mind you, but the Libertarians. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger become those voices who worship the free market as though it were an invisible fairy godparent, capable of dispensing all good things to all comers — people like Paul Ryan, for instance, or Scott Walker. In a nation where the dominant narrative has long been anti-tax, anti-regulation, poor-people-bashing and God-bless-capitalism, it would be precisely those aspects of Paul’s ideological grab bag that would become more prominent. And if you don’t know that, you are a fool of such Herculean proportions as to suggest that Salon might wish to consider administering some kind of political-movement-related-cognitive skills test for its columnists, and the setting of a minimum cutoff score, below which you would, for this one stroke of asininity alone, most assuredly fall.

I mean, seriously, if “raising important issues” is all it takes to get some kind words from liberal authors, bloggers and activists, and maybe even votes from some progressives, just so as to “shake things up,” then why not support David Duke? With the exception of his views on the drug war, David shares every single view of Paul’s that can be considered progressive or left in orientation. Every single one. So where do you draw the line? Must one have actually donned a Klan hood and lit a cross before his handful of liberal stands prove to be insufficient? Must one actually, as Duke has been known to do, light candles on a birthday cake for Hitler on April 20, before it no longer proves adequate to want to limit the overzealous reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Exactly when does one become too much of an evil fuck even for you? Inquiring minds seriously want to know.

And here is another chunk from ABL’s post which is a preface to a book authored by Glenn Greenwald that I’ve been wanting to write about since I was turned onto it. It made me say out loud, “Whaaaaaaaaa?”…

During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11. Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

And this is the guy going around calling anyone who supports President Obama “baby-killers”. People call this guy smart?

It has become known as “ObamaCare”, thanks to the media, including those on the left and of course, Republican politicians.

I remember the battle for health care reform during the early 90′s when the Clinton’s took on the issue and failed miserably. It sucked all the oxygen out of Washington, along with the wonderful compromise that President Clinton made that brought us Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. (sarcasm)

When President Obama announced that he was going to pass a health care law early on in his presidency, I thought it was a bad idea. I couldn’t help but picture a similar outcome as the Clinton’s produced. NADA!

Since I lived through the other attempt at health care reform and followed it closely, when the Obama administration was successful at passing the Affordable Care Act, I was elated. Even with all of it’s imperfections, the fact that President Obama set the standard that America cares about the health of ALL of its citizens was incredible. It was a monumental achievement, one that will go down as one of the most amazing political wins in the history of our country.

Given the opposition from both sides of the aisle and the huge amount of misinformation that was and still is being spread about it, I thought I’d take a minute to share with you some truth about what “ObamaCare” has accomplished so far. There is much more to come in the years ahead.

The provision that covers adult dependent children between the ages of 19 – 25 was already working in 2010.

More than 2.5 million young Americans under 26 now have health insurance who would otherwise not be covered thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday morning.

Previously, the department had reported that 1 million young people were covered under the provision in the act, which also helps recent college graduates without a job but not on a parent’s plan stay insured.

I work at a university and supervise over 15 student workers. To them, the Affordable Care Act is kick-ass.

The Affordable Care Act has slowed the growth of Medicare spending.

And now for some good news: Medicare spending growth has been slowing noticeably. So far this fiscal year, expenditures have actually declined slightly, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Part of the decline this year reflects timing shifts in certain Medicare payments, which will soon be reversed. Even adjusting for these shifts, though, Medicare spending is still up less than 4 percent so far this year.

The 2011 numbers come on the heels of relatively slow growth in 2010 as well. Last year, Medicare spending rose just a little more than 4 percent.

Compare this with an almost 12 percent average annual growth rate in Medicare spending since the early 1970s.

The “donut hole” in Medicare’s prescription coverage for senior citizens is shrinking, saving them nearly 40%.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare’s prescription coverage gap is getting noticeably smaller and easier to manage this year for millions of older and disabled people with high drug costs.

The “doughnut hole,” an anxiety-inducing catch in an otherwise popular benefit, will shrink about 40 percent for those unlucky enough to land in it, according to new Medicare figures provided in response to a request from The Associated Press.

The average beneficiary who falls into the coverage gap would have spent $1,504 this year on prescriptions. But thanks to discounts and other provisions in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, that cost fell to $901, according to Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which handles economic estimates.

For people with pre-existing conditions, including my niece who had cancer at age 25, the Affordable Care Act rocks…as my niece would say. If you haven’t read Spike Dolomite Ward’s story from the LA Times, go read it now. She wrote an apology to President Obama.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been saved by the federal government’s Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It’s part of President Obama’s healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It’s not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it’s a start, and for me it’s been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

The small business tax credits are working and helping communities in the process.

With the economy still in a slump, small business owners like me are doing everything we can to keep our costs down. A particularly troublesome cost for my business is health insurance.

However, I recently learned there are tax credits in the new healthcare law specifically for small businesses that will help us pocket some extra cash. [...]

Under the Affordable Care Act, our store will receive a $15,000 tax credit. That’s not all the money in the world, but it means a lot to us and costs the government little or nothing.

Here’s how it worked for us. Last spring, when the tea leaves of commerce were hard to read, the tax credit gave me the confidence to hire a new full-time employee.

That employee is now paying taxes. That means thousands of dollars going into government coffers. [...]

Another employee had been paying nearly $20,000 for his family insurance. Our tax credit gave me the confidence to encourage him to switch to our policy, which now saves that family more than $8,000 per year.

That money is going right into a new roof on the house and education for their kids.

Community Health Centers are continuing to expand and service millions of Americans.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating: one of the most important things the Affordable Care Act did was to massively expand the community health centers. If one agrees that health care, at the end of the day,  should be a venture not waged for profit, then one cannot avoid the importance of the community health centers. The health centers currently serve over 20 million people, and are committed to doubling that capacity to 40 million by 2015.

The Affordable Care Act is helping states and making the process more transparent for the insured.

The Affordable Care Act establishes common-sense consumer protections and requires insurers to operate in a more transparent manner.  Fair rules and transparency help create a more level playing field between consumers and insurers. The law also empowers States by putting them in the driver’s seat in implementing many of these new consumer protections.

On July 23, 2010, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury issued an interim final rule regarding internal claims and appeals and external review processes for group health plans and health insurance issuers offering coverage in the group and individual markets.  This rule works to give people in most plans better information about what their rights are and why their claims were denied or coverage rescinded. Under the rule, consumers have the:

• Right to information about why a claim or coverage has been denied.  Health plans and insurance companies have to tell you why they’ve decided to deny a claim or chosen to end your coverage – and how you can appeal that decision.

• Right to appeal to the insurance company.  If you’ve had a claim denied or had your coverage rescinded, you have the right to an internal appeals process, a process in which you ask your insurance company to conduct a full and fair review of its decision.  If the case is urgent, your insurance company must speed up this process.
• Right to an independent review.  Often, insurers and their policyholders can resolve disputes during the internal appeals process.  If you can’t work it out through the internal appeals process, you now have the right to take your appeal to an independent third-party for review of the insurer’s decision.  This is called “external review.”  This way, the insurance company no longer gets the final say regarding your benefits, and patients and doctors get a greater measure of control over health care.

These protections and standards are an important step forward in reforming the health care system to make sure it works for consumers, not just insurance companies.

New rules announced on October 20, 2011 by HHS will save millions of dollars and improve care for patients.

The new rules establish a new voluntary Medicare Shared Savings Program that helps doctors, hospitals, and other providers improve their ability to coordinate care across all health care settings. Providers who meet certain quality standards can share in any resulting savings.

The quality measures are organized into four domains:

• Patient experience
• Care coordination and patient safety
• Preventive health
• Caring for at-risk populations

The higher the quality of care providers deliver and the greater the effectiveness of their care coordination, the more savings they may keep.  Federal savings could be up to $940 million over four years.

And then there is this breaking news, hot off the presses. There is this hidden trigger thing that may just lead to single payer health care or Medicare for all.

Believe it or not, I could go on and on with the many provisions that are working from the Affordable Care Act, but I will leave it at that for now.

I hope you bookmark this post and refer people who have fallen for the misinformation being peddled by Republicans and even many on the left who are using their carefully crafted propaganda against this landmark legislation — to further their own selfish interests.

I remember talking to a friend from Germany over 25 years ago about the difference between European countries and America when it comes to health coverage. He couldn’t understand the attitude of the then Reagan brigade. He said to me something to the effect that “in Europe, we want our fellow citizens to be healthy”. He was 17 years old at the time.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

My gift to you is a very recent picture of my beautiful, smart, talented granddaughter. She was hanging with us for the last two days. I had to go elsewhere yesterday to work on a script. If I’m in the house, she seeks me out. “Grandpa, grandpa…where’s grandpa?”. With all the crap going on in the political and real world, the things that are really important — when my sweet little granddaughter spontaneously says “I love you, grandpa”.

Anyone who wonders why I am so passionate about the future of our country and electing Democrats (the best we got at this point), it is because I don’t want this little girl to live through 8 years of a “Bush-like” presidency or worse. Elections matter, damn it!

And a huge thanks to all the fine people at Angry Black Lady Chronicles, that is one awesome group of people. We plan on having an impact on politics in 2012.

It is clear that many years ago, Ron Paul either authored or allowed his name to be signed on a newsletter that spewed some of the worst of the racist and anti-Semitic propaganda that was prevalent in the late 80′s and 90′s. To get caught up on that Ron Paul newsletter story, check out Joy Reid’s writing at The Reid Report.

But this story caught my eye and adds some context to Ron Paul’s denials on the newsletters. In 2006, Ron Paul was scheduled to appear and may have appeared on a White Supremacist radio show called The Political Cesspool. Charles Johnson describes it for us…

The story so far: apparently Ron Paul was scheduled to appear on the notorious radio show “The Political Cesspool,” a talk show in Tennessee connected to the white separatist Council of Conservative Citizens and the Holocaust denial group Institute for Historical Review.

The announcement of Ron Paul’s appearance was posted on the blog of Political Cesspool co-founder Austin Farley: Congressman Ron Paul TONIGHT On The Cesspool.

Friday, August 18, 2006
Congressman Ron Paul TONIGHT On The Cesspool
One of the only truly conservative Congressmen in office today, Ron Paul, will be doing a live interview on The Political Cesspool www.thepoliticalcesspool.org tonight. The show is from 7-8 PM Central time and can be heard locally (Memphis) on 1380 AM WLRM or the live stream or archives if you miss it live will be at www.thepoliticalcesspool.org. No matter what your opinion of the Cesspool is you will not want to miss this interview. I have heard that No Child Left Behind and possible Bush impeachment will be discussed, but I am not 100% sure on that. Tune in to find out.

Austin
posted by Austin Farley Your Hero @ 5:27 AM

If true, this would be the most direct connection yet between Ron Paul and the kind of people who cheer for David Duke. But as Adam Holland and I both discovered, the archives of The Political Cesspool radio show have apparently been scrubbed of this episode.

Here’s the archive page with the missing day.

It’s very curious that the show Ron Paul was scheduled to appear on is conveniently missing from the archives of The Political Cesspool. Maybe it never happened, last minute cancellations happen all the time. But what if it did happen as scheduled, wouldn’t it be great to hear some of Ron Paul’s wisdom on this station with connections to white supremacist and holocaust deniers? I bet he was plain-spoken as hell and just told them good ole’ boys how it is, ya know?

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs is all over this story, let’s hope he gets to the bottom of it. I’m awfully curious what Ron Paul had to say in that interview.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles