February 27, 2005
From Rock The Vote - "Generations Unite!"
We don't have many young readers or members - so it may be instructive - and heartening - to take a look at what Rock The Vote is up to.
The adventurous can receive RTV email alerts/updates by signing up (no birth date required).
What fun.
Note how skillfully RTV links the VA legislature's proposed ban on low-hanging trowsers to the Social Security phase-out proposal.
Generations Unite!
As you probably noticed on our home page, young and old have united! Rock the Vote and AARP have joined together to make sure you get paid the Social Security benefits that you deserve, and to prevent the kinds of cuts in benefits for young people that have been floated by advocates of privatization. Its good to have the AARP on your side.
A recent poll sponsored by Rock the Vote, AARP and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that most Americans support repairing the current system, not replacing it with a privatized system. It further shows that young voters (18 to 39 yrs old), like most Americans, like private accounts but not if it means large cuts in Social Security benefits or massive government borrowing. Of course, those are the "little details" of private accounts plans that you never hear about.
This new poll is noteworthy - not just because we co-sponsored it - since the President is trying to win public backing from his plan, and especially from you - young people.
A recent Newsweek article detailing our campaign noted that in a Newsweek poll 75% of voters under 35 believe we are facing a Social Security "crisis." But even though young people are afraid that they will not receive full benefits if something is not done, a whopping 73 percent of young voters want government protection should a privatized plan prove unsucessful.
Unfortunately, with Social Security, like anything else, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.
With Social Security, you get a foundation of security to protect you while you try to invest for success with your 401(k)s and IRAs. Without Social Security, you're on your own, and there's no going back.
The numbers show, Americans - young and old alike - are worried that private accounts plans that cause large cuts in Social Security benefits will not ensure security for our generation.
There is so much inter-generational harmony in the air, maybe we an even get those Old White Men in the Virginia legislature to lay off their proposal to criminalize wearing low slung pants that show underwear. We love it when politicians try to legislate fashion. They're so in the know.
Come on Virginia, hiphop fashion is the wave of the future. Stop staring at that little piece of lace protruding from the low cut Levis on those UVA co-eds.
Update: Word is that the Virginia Senate has dropped the plan... See! They can't mess with us.
:: posted by RTV Street Report @ 2:49 PM
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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Is this what he meant by “fuzzy math?”
Posted by Hope at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
BUY BLUE
From Dennis Baer of "Boycott AARP" (soon to be renamed)
Please pass this on to other people.
Join the revolution for progressive legislation
http://www.boycott-republicans.com
Write this url on your one, five and ten dollar bills.
http://www.Buyblue.org
http://www.2005blue.com
http://www.choosetheblue.com
http://www.imblue.net
Please pass this onto other people.
How can the people force a mean spirited conservative congress to pass a progressive agenda? Simple. I have picked some well known companies that appear related to issues that progressives find important. Boycott these companies and make them lobby congress and get what we want or they go bust. While I agree we need to elect a Democratic congress and a Democratic president, with a consumer boycott we the people can exert influence every single day and not just at election time and not just with letters or petitions but with petitions with the bite of a boycott.
Join the revolution for progressive legislation
http://www.boycott-republicans.com
Write this url on your one, five and ten dollar bills.
Call Eckerd Pharmacy Corporate Headquarters at 800 325 3737, Call CVS Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 607 4287 and Call Walgreens Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 800 289 2273 and tell them you will not purchase any products from their drug stores until they get the Republican congress to repeal the faulty prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage benefit under Medicare Part B. Then sign the petition.
Call Walmart at 800 WALMART and tell them you will not buy from them until they get the Republican congress to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage to TEN dollars an hour, and extend unemployment insurance for people who lost jobs and sought work for more than 6 months.
Posted by Hope at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Department of Labor Signs Diabolical Pact with Wal-Mart
Go figure. Elaine Chao cares deeply about working people.
The best part of this agreement is where you'll find it outlined - at the Barbara Boxer for President Blog.
Posted by Hope at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
Fafblog Speaks for Leroy* on the matter of Alberto Gonzalez
If you're still not convinced that Fafblog offers the most brilliant analysis of current events,
Here's "The Great Omelet" on the matter of John McCain's vote to confirm Alberto Gonzalez.
*And other "Righteous Gentiles"
The Great Omelet
There was nothing surprising about last week's confirmation of Alberto Gonzales except for the tepidness of those who opposed it. Indeed, it appears that there is greater support for a pro-torture attorney general in the United States Senate than there is for Social Security privatization. And why shouldn't there be? As an institution, Social Security has lasted for generations, while torture has been with us for millennia. The nation has weighed its brief anti-torture past and its pro-torture future and has chosen, and moved on. As a wise man or sociopath has recently said, "The debate is over... the issue is dying out.".
The debate is certainly over for John McCain, Congress's resident expert on torture. Some might call McCain a partisan hypocrite who has cheapened the memory of his five grueling years in a Viet Cong torture camp with a proxy vote for genital electrocution and glowstick rape. But these people entirely miss the point: John McCain's vote wasn't the moral resignation of a partisan hack, but a staunch, no-nonsense advocacy of the administration's torture policy based on his own experience. That is, John McCain has declared that torture is justifiable because his own torture was justifiable.
The Viet Cong, after all, were fighting a new kind of enemy in a new kind of war, and John McCain was that enemy - and an enemy possibly possessing valuable information. Could he know when or where villages or cities were about to be bombed, information that could save hundreds, even thousands of lives? If so, who wouldn't agree to beat him repeatedly, deprive him of sleep, and tie his arms and legs into "stress positions" to find out? Who among us wouldn't torture John McCain to stop a ticking bomb?
"But what of the Geneva Conventions?" you may ask. Ah, but the Viet Cong realized how obsolete these thirty-year-old treaties had become. This was a new enemy, one that disregarded such naive "laws of war" as the binary division between civilians and soldiers. In the strange new conflicts of the twentieth century, where guerilla warfare met carpet bombing, napalm, and free-fire zones, the Geneva Conventions seem charmingly quaint to one as enlightened as the Medium Lobster, as they must have to the bodhisattva who woke McCain up by beating him bloody every day, and as they must now to Senator McCain, who has yielded to the higher wisdom of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
That John McCain was ultimately beaten, broken, abused, and violated for nothing is regrettable, but understandable... as regrettable and understandable as the old men and boys rounded up in villagewide sweeps on the way to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. But to make an omelet, one must break eggs, and war, after all, is the biggest fucking omelet there is. We have a lot more eggs to break, and it's good to see the senator join the rest of us while the kitchen burns down.
posted by Medium Lobster at 12:47 PM Comment (1)
Posted by Hope at 02:53 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
FafBlog's SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS!: The FAQ!
Social Security - "It's a ticking bomb!"
You may think Fafblog isn't for you.
But only if you haven't actually READ Fafblog.
From the Fafblog Research Institute
If you don't laugh out loud . . . You haven't been paying attention! :>)
SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS!: The FAQ!
Social Security: it is in a crisis! But how bad is the crisis, and how can it be solved? Here at the Fafblog Research Institute we've compiled a handy FAQ to tell you what's what.
Q: Is Social Security in crisis?
A: Yes it is! And if we don’t do something right now it is going to EXPLODE!
Q: Oh no!
A: In forty years.
Q: Then what happens?
A: Then Social Security runs out of money! That means either your benefits are reduced, or all Social Security everywhere explodes in a giant fireball and we will have to run away from the fireball and jump away from it in slow motion to escape!
Q: Tell me more about this crisis in gritty detail!
A: The fireball is huge and loud and expensive and there is grinding guitar music on the soundtrack informing everyone that we are bad, bad dudes! The radiation turns all old people into very poor mutants who must scavenge and eat each other for food. Eventually the robots come: they are unstoppable. What has science done!
Q: I’m scared! How can we avert this terrible future?
A: There’s just one chance! We have to borrow trillions of dollars to finance transforming Social Security into a completely different system based on mandatory investments in preferred stocks.
Q: If we’re borrowing trillions of dollars, and the government already owes trillions of dollars, and the Social Security crisis is a debt problem anyway, how does this help Social Security?
A: Quick we have to act fast! We only have twenty years to go!
Q: I thought we had forty years.
A: Now we have ten! It is a ticking bomb.
Q: Oh no! In these extreme circumstances we have to privatize Social Security!
A: If we don't, the terrorists win.
Q: I’ll hold it down. You get the electrodes!
A: It’s so crazy, it just might work!
Q: I’m following you so far, but what if privatization…
A: It’s not privatization it is private accounts.
Q: Alright then, what if these private accounts…
A: They are not private accounts they are personal accounts.
Q: Okay, if these personal accounts…
A: They are not personal accounts, they are privamatupilous splendiferacy.
Q: I forgot what I was talking about.
A: Oh good! Have a lollipop with your splendiferacy.
Q: Can I see your Social Security plan?
A: No you can’t.
Q: Well, I’d really like to, before I decide to…
A: Would you really like to see the plan? Would you really, really?
Q: Yes yes I would I would, ever so much!
A: Okay then! When you go to bed tonight dreaming of private investment accounts a maaaaagical train will pull up to your window, and a maaaaagical conductor will let you on board…
Q: Oh boy!
A: And the maaaaagical train will take you to the North Pole to see Social Security Santa with your very own eyes so you can believe.
Q: Oh wow, I’d love that!
A: And he and his elves will give you your own private account which will last forever and ever. Would you like that?
Q: Yes I would, I would!
A: Well, you won’t get it, ‘cause you didn’t believe on your own!
Q: Oh no!
A: Get thee behind us! No Social Security for you!
Q: I ended up with crap stocks, and my private account went empty early. What do I do?
A: You run out of money and starve. But you’ll starve in freedom, because you OWN your empty personal account, which means you OWN your starvation!
Q: I feel so free and hungry!
A: A wise man once said it is better to live in freedom than to die in slavery … the slavery of a secure retirement.
Q: Give me liberty AND death!
A: That’s the spirit!
Q: Wheeee! *hack hack wheeze*
Posted by Hope at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
"Barbara Boxer 'Delivers the Wood' to Bush's Social Security Plans"
More from Kos. Here's a link to Senator Boxer's speech. It doesn't disappoint.
Posted by Hope at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome the New Chairman of the DNC
Daily Kos provided the code for the contribution button below, and this opportunity to donate to the DNC. Here's what Kos had to say:
Now that "Chairman Dean" is official, let's get Dean's back.
Remember, the GOP will unload on Dean. Everytime you hear the "Dean Scream" without context, consider donating. When you hear some empty head talk about the party "moving left" with Dean, consider donating. When you hear about unnamed big dollar Democratic donors whining about pulling their money out of the party, consider donating.
Click on the link above to see our progress.
Posted by Hope at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)