GOP – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Jews know what Bigotry and Injustice look like!

David Posnett — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 14:50:10 +0000

By Shoshana Hershkowitz:

“I am tired of being gaslit by my government. Seeing an American political party attempt to weaponize my family’s history enrages me in a deeply personal way. The arrogance of the Republican Party trying to tell me what anti-Semitism is, when there are literally two Jewish Republicans in the entire US Congress (2 in the House, zero in the Senate) is astounding.

I’m not much of a statistician, but let’s talk stats for a minute. Only one in six American Jews identifies as Republican. More than 79% of American Jews cast their votes for Democratic candidates in 2018. We voted for Democrats at a higher rate than Evangelical Christians voted for Republicans. So the idea of someone like Senator Steve Daines from Montana purporting to know what a Jewish person like me thinks is preposterous. That dude wouldn’t know what to do with hummus if I handed it to him on the fucking pita itself.

And let’s talk about Israel, since every Republican politician seems to think they know something about it. It seems like they missed some important facts, The reason I’m never going to support a Republican is that they continue to deny the American people what my Israeli family has: universal healthcare, affordable public college, gun safety laws, and paid maternity leave. They don’t get to tell me what Israel’s all about when they don’t even have a clue what its citizens get from their government.

Let’s talk about Israel some more, because Republicans seems to think that’s the only thing Jews care about. Which by the way, is anti Semitic in itself. I’m an American citizen. I care deeply about Israel, but I’m capable of caring about Israel while voting based on what I’d like to see happen in the nation I’m raising my family in. Assuming I vote on one issue and one issue alone insults my intelligence. And since you lump all Jews together, you should remember that Albert Einstein was Jewish. And my guess is that he was not a one issue voter. Neither am I, or most American Jews.

And last but not least, Jews know what bigotry and injustice looks and feels like. So when I see Republicans justify the atrocities against migrants at the border, when I see them practice xenophobia against Muslims, and racism against blacks, I identify with these oppressed groups far more than with the oppressor. Because we’ve been there. I don’t want anyone else to experience it on my watch.

So, in conclusion, I find far more solidarity with #TheSquad, a group of black and brown progressive women, than I ever will with the Republican Party. I’ve already been called a self hating Jew (and much worse) by lots of Pete King and Lee Zeldin supporters. It’s funny how these two members of Congress, who claim to fight anti Semitsm, allow it to flourish on their pages, isn’t it? But that’s the cognitive dissonance of being the party of Trump. And it’s why the Republican Party, try as they might to use people like me as a human shield against the just accusations of bigotry, ain’t never gonna get my vote.”

The G.O.P. Kool-Aid

David Posnett — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 08:13:45 +0000

From The East Hampton Star – letters to the editor

East Hampton, August 13, 2017

Dear David:

Republicans owe America an apology.

Sadly, we have arrived at a point at which the White House, the political crown jewel that the G.O.P. so ardently sought, is in disarray, which has taken down the G.O.P.-led Congress as well.

After making President Obama’s failure its number-one priority (so much so that it became an obsession), the G.O.P. worked hard to get a rich white guy — any rich white guy — to take the mantle of leadership after Mr. Obama. In pursuing its obsession, it abandoned its stated principles and abandoned those it promises to serve.

Republicans refused to negotiate honestly when Democrats spent months seeking Republican support for the Affordable Care Act. Then they tried repeatedly over seven-plus years to take away that health care — not, as it turns out because they had a better idea, but because it was Mr. Obama’s idea. Even worse, for 70-plus years Congress has worked to create, and then perfect (or try to) a safety net that would protect working-class America and the disadvantaged among us from financial and social ruin. The current Republican credo, adhered to from the top of the ticket to its most local echelons, holds dear the destruction of those protections.

Yet, in the last election cycle, all one heard from G.O.P. candidates was the mantra that working-class America had been “forgotten” and only they were the ones capable of repairing this so-called injustice. Decrying the political opposition by fomenting race-based paranoia allowed these candidates to camouflage their real agenda. It is not the furtherance of the “forgotten,” it is the furtherance of unscrupulous greed.

Help the forgotten? Not President Trump. The policies that have actually been implemented by the Trump administration, with the help of a Republican Congress, reflect a disdain for ordinary working-class Americans. Shortly after Mr. Trump took office, he and the G.O.P.-led Congress rejected numerous Obama-era regulations that were actually designed to support workers, including rules barring worker discrimination, rules designed to enhance workers’ wages, and rules enhancing workplace protection, such as barring companies with a history of wage, labor, or workplace safety violations laws from receiving federal contracts. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, the G.O.P. agenda has no intention of protecting the forgotten. Its true colors are shown in its efforts to rip away health care, savage the social safety net, and, in so doing, leaving the forgotten to fend for themselves. Under the G.O.P. agenda, the forgotten will soon be the trampled.

The sad truth behind the G.O.P. camouflage is that millions of hard-working Americans drank the G.O.P. Kool-Aid, believing that the party truly cared for them and would make good on promises to deliver wealth, improve health care, and preserve the all-important safety net protecting these folks. For some, it was hard not to be seduced by Mr. Trump and his G.O.P. cohorts.

However, like everyone else who has succumbed to Mr. Trump’s wiles, these voters too have been had.

And for this, the G.O.P. owes America an apology. And the lesson for voters from all this is that old adage: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Let’s not be fooled again, either in our local elections this year, or next year, when the G.O.P. Congress has to face the music. Trust not the G.O.P. Kool-Aid another time.

Sincerely, BRUCE COLBATH

Are you 64 and making $56,800 a year? Welcome to a $20,500 Trumpcare insurance premium

David Posnett — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 15:15:12 +0000

Posted on Daily Kos

By Joan McCarter

Monday Jun 26, 2017 · 5:37 PM EDT

Popular vote loser Donald Trump freely admits he called the House version of Trumpcare “mean, mean, mean” and also claimed that he wanted a Senate bill that is “generous, kind, with heart.” That’s not what he got with the Senate version of Trumpcare, the “Better Care Act.” In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says it’s just as mean by the numbers, if not more so.

According to their estimates, 15 million people will lose their insurance next year, 2018. An election year. By 2026, 22 million people who are now insured will have lost that insurance. Compared to the Affordable Care Act, “an estimated 49 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.” The biggest hit, as in the House bill, lands on Medicaid.

The largest savings would come from reductions in outlays for Medicaid—spending on the program would decline in 2026 by 26 percent in comparison with what CBO projects under current law—and from changes to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) subsidies for nongroup health insurance. Those savings would be partially offset by the effects of other changes to the ACA’s provisions dealing with insurance coverage: additional spending designed to reduce premiums and a reduction in revenues from repealing penalties on employers who do not offer insurance and on people who do not purchase insurance. […]In later years, other changes in the legislation—lower spending on Medicaid and substantially smaller average subsidies for coverage in the nongroup market—would also lead to increases in the number of people without health insurance.

Keep in mind that “later years” part. This estimate doesn’t go beyond 2026; however the CBO doesn’t think that the so-called “flexibility” for Medicaid that block granting would be for states is all that. Instead, it would be a burden. “With less federal reimbursement for Medicaid, states would need to decide whether to commit more of their own resources to finance the program at current-law levels or to reduce spending by cutting payments to health care providers and health plans, eliminating optional services, restricting eligibility for enrollment through work requirements and other changes, or (to the extent feasible) arriving at more efficient methods for delivering services.” It also projects that post-2026, Medicaid enrollments would continue to fall.

People with individual plans will see “substantial increases in out-of-pocket spending, even though benchmark premiums would decline, on average, in 2020 and later years.” That’s because insurance would pay for a smaller share of benefits. That’s going to be true for “close to half the population, CBO and JCT expect—living in states modifying the EHBs [essential health benefits] using waivers. People who used services or benefits no longer included in the EHBs would experience substantial increases in supplemental premiums or out-of-pocket spending on health care, or would choose to forgo the services.”

In some areas of the country—particularly sparsely populated ones (are you listening Lisa Murkowski)—the CBO foresees a market collapse, the classic death spiral. “Some sparsely populated areas might have no nongroup insurance offered because the reductions in subsidies would lead fewer people to decide to purchase insurance—and markets with few purchasers are less profitable for insurers.”

Yes, this bill is mean, mean, mean. But hey, it’s got lots of tax cuts for the very rich, so expect most Republicans to overlook the other parts.