It is time to get our language under control.

The Republicans don't want to "privatize" Medicare, they want to "profitize" it. The profits will go to our fine friends on Wall Street, who have already done such a great job with the rest of the economy, and will be deducted from the money available for medical care.

What do you call doctors who favor sending money to the bankers instead of the medical profession? Fools and tools.

Shrinking federal government does not shrink political power, but merely transfers it to the economic aristocracy.

It will get worse.

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OT. but Eureka, if you're out there, where did you buy your fruit trees?

Regarding the "adult conversations" we will all be having with our republican brethren regarding Ryan's plan for SS and Medicare, here is my first post on AT last October:

Tired,
I think you have never visited a county poor farm. I have. It was 1947 or 48. My family was in Oklahoma for summer vacation as we were every year. We went to see this old man, Tom, who had been a farm hand all of his life. He had worked for my grandfather when my father was a little boy at the turn of the century. Tom had never married and had no family. In the early years of Social Security, farmers and agricultural workers were not covered so when Tom became unable to work, the county had to take care of him. I still remember the house where we visited him---gray siding that had never seen paint, not a blade of grass in the yard. We climbed the stairs to his second floor bed room. In his room was a narrow bed, a straight chair, and a small table. There was a bare light bulb in the center of the ceiling hanging from a single cord. I can still see the fly specks on the windows.

If you call it socialism that has brought us from that kind of country, then I welcome it. I call it living in a community where we take care of the least of these, our brothers, as well as taking care of each other.

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Anyone ask the smaller local hospitals, if there are any left, in the Delta and Ross' 4th District, when you cut the bottom out of Medicaid. And the proposal for Medicare, will assure that Social Security doesn't run out of money by having seniors die earlier. Way to go! So much for the Republican CHRISTIANS, they would know a real Christian if they tripped over them. Now if we just shutdown their post offices to save more money and then, quit "wasting" money on roads and utilities in the area. If cutting the farm subsidities doesn't kill all the business in the area, Ryan's medical changes will. Boozman may have to get those shots before visiting the 1st and 4th Districts!

Where are the churches on this subject?

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Outlier:
I was raised on a cotton farm in NE Arkansas. I can still remember the horrible, weight heavy, heart-rending poverty the elderly and handicapped endured in rural Arkansas. Their yards were full of junk because they simply hadn't the energy or money to haul it off. The "winder lights" rattled when the wind blew. They rolled Prince Albert cigarettes and spit the extra bits of tobacco onto a lifeless front porch.

Many of our Republican bretheren believe these people were "salt of the earth," "fine examples of being bootstrap tough," or "the basis of what makes our country great." Nope. These people were sick, ill, in need of help and security. And thank god the country stepped in to help them out if they wanted the help.

Many of our Republican brethern do not know the horrors of poverty. But they will, if they continue to push the American people. See Wisconsin.

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Block Grants? Really?

Let me remind the GOP that I've been contributing 7.5% from my paycheck into SS and Medicare since the day I drew my first paycheck. My respective employers have contributed an additional 7.5%.

That's 15% of my annual pay being saved every year, for 45 years for my retirement and medical care. SS and Medicare are not entitlements; you get that GOP and Democrats? Entitlement my arse!

And now we want to set up vouchers or means tests? Yes, SS and Medicare and Medicaid need adjusting not destroyed ...and this is the intent of the GOP.

Until there are serious discussions about government waste and budgeting ...starting with Defense, and the Pentagon ... than this whole mess is just an exercise in futility - might as well try to extract milk from a boars teats.

It’s a darn shame that the bloated and wasteful Industrial War Complex and its corporate Congressional contributors are more important than Grandma.

The GOP will run on "family values" in 2012 ... ya gotta wonder what the good Lord thinks of the antics of the criminals who wrap themselves in the shroud of Jesus and the American flag and then pull the rug out from under” the least amongst us”. I'd pray for their souls, but apparently the GOP doesn't have one. If they read the book they purport to carry with them every day ... there’s a heavy price to pay for this kind of hypocrisy.

The GOP ... Got mine, screw you Grandma!

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Hidden in the details of Ryan's Medicare plan is the gradual increase of Medicare age to 67.

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AtickrightofCenter -- Damn good post! Couldn't agree more!

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Paul Krugman is on point today except for mixing up his "Peanuts" characters. I would add that not only do republican Lucies keep snatching the ball away, they are playing "Calvin ball" because they make up the rules of the game as they go along.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/0…

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Equally on point and perhaps a more important read is Dean Baker at TPM:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/…

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The beginning of the revolution.

Just keep pushing and pushing, then finally when the hoi paloi find out they have been had, the top 1% will find a tipping point into revolution and they will all be so damned surprised that idiots renting homes in trailer parks but rallying for capital gains tax eliminations have caught on and revolted.

Many many many french aristocracy were bewildered and stunned at being led to the guillitine, but they still lost their heads.

The lower classs will find they have been had as soon as there are no jobs and they also find that all the aluminum cans have already been picked up by earlier jobless.

Will they then pick a fight with anyone that doesn't agree on the "exceptionalism" of the greatest country in the history of the world?

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Outlier, I special ordered some from the nursery on 23 north of town, on the left just before the Beaver cutoff. I also picked up a few over at Johnson's (?) where 45 and 12 intersect on the way to Fay. If you know anyone who still has some Arkansas Blacks... all my guys and their suppliers are sold out and I need a couple more?

I see AR Blog still has the republican installed ring in the nose today. Will it ever cease? WHy not call an AR Dem or two or twenty and see if you get any straight answers, signs of leadership or continued capitulation. Ryan's plan is just taking Obama and billionaire Pete Petersons cat food commission, and giving it a bullhorn.

This is is neither new or newsworthy.

We continue to see both party's get away with lumping social security into regular budget discussions - making this seem normal/acceptable says far more than one should need to know. We continue to see Dems enrich the privateers while GOPers yell for more. ANd why shouldn't they... it's been consistently working for decades.

The financial and moral looting continues unabated... all while defense spending gets a pass (including through the shut down kabuki - defense will continue to be funded for the rest of the year in its entirety instead of cut by 85 percent), nearly 50 million on food stamps are ignored, 50k Americans will die without health care this year, 17 to 20 percent of Americans are still unemployed (though more and more are just not counted at all)... millions more underemployed who work for less than they can live on even without health insurance costs. Banksters and Wall Street have speculated/raised our oil prices to triple or more what they would be without them while the fed just keeps giving them trillions in backed up ponzi guarantees and printing billions in QE etc for them fast enough. On top of the 6 or 7 million lost homes due to the foreclosure crisis at least another million families will lose their home rather than receive a cramdown... cramdowns are for banksters only.

If I were going to pen a sci-fi book on how to take down a people, a country without firing a shot, i couldn't come up with a more frightening scenario than what we now face from our own Shock Doctors and our own people who at best moo like a cow arriving at a slaughter house arguing over whether a D or R butcher should cut their throat.

Our system is completely corrupted, the enemy is within both major monied party's.

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I'm losing the will to blog. We've been churning it out for how many years now, and Republicans get more crazy as the country sinks lower into the ooze of constant war, fewer good jobs, less good health care and a fascination with silly TV contests.

I'm thinking moving across the river to Oklahoma, surrounding my shack with a 220 volt electric fence is a good start to a happier life. Get high power ammo for my guns, toss the TVs and the computers, and shoot the shit out of any stranger that gets near my fence.....ohhh that sounds so good! It's giving up while becoming armed and dangerous. Sort of an interesting trade, don't you think?

Becoming better informed and more outspoken has only made mag and I miserable. Americans are too stupid...the downward trajectory is too strong, our country can't be saved.

Without an all out class war with blood in the streets, and lordy we're too lazy for that, the next best thing to do is give up, shop at Wal-Mart, use home remedies when you get sick and leave enough room at the back of the shack next to your garden for a place to bury your dead.

We're going backwards and can't stop it. Forget schooling for the kids, get them ready to work 12 hours per day 6 days per week starting with their 9th birthday. Prepare a speech entitled This Is Your Sweatshop for your womenfolks. Koch Plantation has fewer letters than The United States of America, it will make it easier for our dumbass kids to write where they are imprisoned.

Be mean! Develop a caveman survive at all costs outlook on life! Know you're just a simple tool of the US corporations! Work hard and die quickly when you're too old or sick to work hard! Expect to get nothing out of life but hard work and misery!

Understand that The United Koch Plantation is a war machine 24-7 and that "best country in the world" is merely propaganda! When it hurts too bad TRUST IN JESUS, the message that you'll be OK and you'll get your reward in heaven is also useful corporate propaganda!

Maybe sniffing gasoline back when I cut yards ruined my brain, but is anyone else starting to think that maybe Osama bin Laden mighta been right about America? Terrible thing to think....but I'd have lots of extra time to think at my Oklahoma compound.

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You know, DBI, you're making sense to me. Maybe I shoulda had my shotgun close by last October when a Republican candidate traipsed across my field to where I was stacking brush to ask for my vote. The thought did pass through my mind when I saw this stranger approaching but I figured the ax would do in a pinch. Then decided I didn't need it. Guess I was wrong; he won the seat.
But if life and politics made sense, and it doesn't that I can tell, this will be Paul Ryan's last term. Even Wisconsinites have to see through all the Republican crap by now. I have to keep thinking that just to make it through the next 21 months.

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As we left to go birthday shopping today I saw our neighbor, Mr Jones, who is retired from 47 years in the dairy bidness. Someone correct me if necessary but hasn't that been a truly subsidized industry since 1940s with floor price supports and for many years gubmint bought and distributed their products?

Anyway, Mr Jones who made a decent income thru the years due in part to his hard work coupled with gubmint subsidies, is now, along with wife, staunch Republicans. They're Medicare Republicans. Like me and hundreds of thousands of other Arkies the Jones depend upon Medicare. In fact, we're the largest single voting group with the largest turnout in the entire state.

Mr Jones was doing Spring yard clean up as we drove past. I waved, he waved, I slowed and asked how they made it through our harsh winter? "Ok," said he.
"Did you read the latest proposal from the House financial point leader, Paul Ryan?"
Mr Jones said, "No." From the few visits and doggie walks past their living room window they watch Fox News often. No newspaper arrives at their home across the street.

I related how Congressman Ryan from Wisc is planning to do away with Medicare, give me and Mr and Mrs Jones a little subsidy and tell us to get your own insurance.

"Well, they won't get by with it," says Mr Jones. I said, "Don't be too sure. They've already done some pretty extremist things."

Me and millions of other folks who paid for S.S. and Medicare for 40+ years are hoping Durango's statement yesterday holds true. Doing away with Medicare will be the end of Republicans.

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