The headline on this article in today’s Washington Post says it all: “Senate leaders’ talks on shutdown, debt limit stall as sides await market’s reaction”. Apparently, the leaders in Congress are waiting to see what happens to the stock market today to see if there is a crisis that will force them to act. [Read more…]
In all these discussions over the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid provision, the Republican party talks in high-minded terms of the cost, and they sigh regretfully that any adverse consequences for the working poor are the unfortunate side effects of the sacrifice we have to make for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Those hurt now are collateral damage, if you will, and need to suck it up. [Read more…]
Martin Longman provides a helpful summary of the current state of affairs. It is pretty complicated. [Read more…]
In his grandstanding against the Affordable Care Act in particular and president Obama in general, the rhetoric of US senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been getting more and more extreme. In a speech to the Values Voters Summit, the annual gathering of all the right wing religious nutcases (take a look at the list of invited speakers), he said that Obama is seeking to void the entire Bill of Rights, facetiously including the little known Third Amendment which prevents the government from requiring people to put up soldiers in their homes. [Read more…]
Republicans have a lock on all statewide elected positions in Ohio and have comfortable majorities in both legislative bodies, with the exception of the US senate where Sherrod Brown is one of the senators. So they can do pretty much what they like and one of the things they like to do is restrict women’s health options by passing legislation that “defund Planned Parenthood, block grants to rape crisis centers that refer women to abortion clinics, and prevent abortion clinics from transferring patients to public hospitals in the case of severe complications.” [Read more…]
With all the other things going on in international politics, often overlooked is the sheer cruelty of the 51-year old US embargo on Cuba that is meant to designed to strangle the economy of that country and bring hardship to their people so as to make their government subservient to the US. For the 22nd year in a row, the Cuban government is seeking to have the United Nations condemn the US embargo. Last year, 188 nations voted to condemn the embargo with only Israel and Palau supporting the US, showing how isolated the US is on this issue. The vote this year is scheduled for October 29. [Read more…]
Since what the Republicans are doing has been likened to a hostage taking, Jason Jones decided to get the advice of an expert in hostage negotiations when he talked with Noelle Nikpour, a Republican strategist. [Read more…]
I am not a big fan of Jack Lew but I disagree with some supporters of the Democratic party who are saying that the treasury secretary hasn’t been direct enough about what they feel are the disastrous consequences of a government shut down on October 17, by speaking of it in less than apocalyptic terms, thus giving those Republicans who think the shut down is no big deal some room to make their case. [Read more…]
A determined assault on women’s health services has been waged vigorously by the religious and the right wing in America, especially on the right to abortion and contraception. While abortion remains technically legal, their strategy has been impose onerous burdens on providers so as to intimidate them or regulate them out of business by imposing rules that make it impossible to operate. Ohio has been particularly vicious in this effort. The Guttmacher Institute keeps track of these state laws. [Read more…]