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The sequester and possible cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

  • The White House is poised to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits, but luckily these Democrats are leading the fight to oppose cuts.
  • The petition reads: "Thank you for standing up and not only opposing -- but promising to vote against -- any deal that cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits. You are the true leaders in the fight to save our social safety net."
  • Pastors: It's Time to Speak Out for the Common Good

Matt Lockshin, CREDO Action

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We wanted to give you an update on our fight to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.

Since the fight to raise the debt ceiling in 2011, our country has been made to suffer through a series of completely artificial fiscal crises engineered to make it easier to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- all overwhelmingly popular and extremely successful programs that are vital parts of the social safety net.

Full story...

Related:

Sign the petition, Matt Lockshin, CREDO Action

The petition reads: "Thank you for standing up and not only opposing -- but promising to vote against -- any deal that cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits. You are the true leaders in the fight to save our social safety net."

Pastors: It's Time to Speak Out for the Common Good, Jim Wallis, Sojourners

  • Pastors are not lobbyists, and they shouldn’t be. But when 11 million children of God are trapped in a broken immigration system — or when special interests are dominating the future of the poor and most vulnerable — there are clear moral issues at stake. 
  • Tell Washington to End the Economic Brinksmanship <>

 

 

A Graphic Guide to the Sequester

  • From the budget terms you need to know to how it impacts your state, the best interactives on the looming budget cuts.
  • Sequester Madness: Into The Vast Inane
  • 9 Economic Facts That Will Make Your Head Spin

Christie Thompson, ProPublica

Feb. 28, 2013 | There's been a lot of talk of the looming budget cuts that, without a last-minute deal, must go into effect by 11:59 p.m. ET on March 1. Obama will meet with congressional leaders on Friday to discuss how to avoid the worst consequences of the sequester. 

What is the sequester, and how big is it? Here's our quick graphic guide, from the budget terms you need to know, to how it could impact your home state.

Full story...

 

Related:

9 Economic Facts That Will Make Your Head Spin, Lynn Stuart Parramore, AlterNet

  • Half the population of the U.S. has slipped into poverty or is barely making enough to get by.
  • Jobs v. Loopholes

Sequester Madness: Into The Vast Inane, Campaign for America's Future

  • Conservatives in Congress have detonated an austerity bomb.
  • A Graphic Guide to the Sequester
 

Gun Violence, Massacres, and "Other Developed Countries"

  • We can take away the assault rifles, and I hope we do, but until we develop a real democracy, stop spending all our money on bombs, and eliminate poverty -- all of which can and has been done by many of those "other developed countries" -- the innocent children and adults like Eric Mark and so many others will continue to be killed by "madmen" in "senseless acts of violence." 
  • 5 Things About Guns The UK Could Teach The US

David Rovics, War Is A Crime / OpEdNews

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Lydia Howell

12/22/2012 | One evening in the spring of 1993 I took a bus across San Francisco, leaving the troubled, largely impoverished neighborhood of the Western Addition, populated mostly by the descendents of African slaves, in which I lived (representing, I suppose, the artistic hippie beginnings of the gentrification process which has since pushed most of San Francisco's Black population across the bay). My closest friend at the time was someone I met because we were housemates in a big apartment. He was a tall man with a long, thick red mane and beaming eyes named Eric Mark. A brilliant engineer with a promising career as such who quit his job and became a cab driver in the interest of experiencing life more fully. Eric and I, along with one friend and two of his acquaintances, were headed to the Mission District, another troubled, impoverished neighborhood, this one populated mostly by the refugees from the wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, generally known as "immigrants."

Had we been just a clueless bunch of outsiders maybe we would have been fine, but two members of our party were of Mexican origin, and there was a gang war going on. It was the wee hours of the morning on May 1st and several of us were decorating a nearby abandoned building with political slogans appropriate for International Workers Day, while Eric and Alfredo were keeping watch, ostensibly for cops, on the sidewalk three stories below. A group of kids with a gun pulled up in a car and demanded the contents of Eric and Alfredo's pockets, which were promptly delivered. One young man then pointed his gun at Alfredo, who looked suspiciously Latin but was apparently causing offense because he was dressed entirely in black, which was not either one of the gang colors. Eric stepped in front of the gun, asked the kids what more they wanted now that they had taken their money, and the kid pulled the trigger.

Full story...

 

Related:

5 Things About Guns The UK Could Teach The US, Judy Molland, Care2 Make A Difference

  • Everybody, including the gun control advocates, knows that nothing will change unless the people decide to do the leading. Eventually, the American voters come around. Just ask the suffragists.
  • Special Report | The US Gun Culture: Week of February 10, 2013
  • Push Back Against NRA Lobbyists Now and Feb. 18!

 

Reflections on the Vietnam War: The Things a Warrior Knows

  • We struggle every day to believe in a life that was almost taken away from us. We know that even though we have lost, though parts of our bodies may be missing, though we might not be able to see or feel, we are important men and women with important lessons to teach. 
  • In Pictures: Ron Kovic Today
  • Nick Turse Describes the Real Vietnam War

Ron Kovic, TruthDig

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

Ron Kovic touches a flag-draped mock coffin after taking part in a rally with other anti-war activists outside an armed forces recruitment center in Los Angeles in 2009. AP/Jason Redmond

 

Jan 19, 2013 | There is nothing in the lives of human beings more brutal and terrifying than war, and nothing more important than for those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth.

As the 45th anniversary of my being shot and paralyzed in the Vietnam War approaches, I cannot help but reflect upon those years and the many lessons I have learned. Nearly half a century has passed since I left my house in Massapequa, N.Y., to join the United States Marine Corp and begin an extraordinary journey that led me into a disastrous war that changed my life and others of my generation profoundly and forever. 

Full story...

Related:

In Pictures: Ron Kovic Today, Zuade Kaufman, TruthDig

Jan 18, 2006 | Paralyzed from the chest down by Vietnam War wounds, and confined to a wheelchair for almost 40 years, Ron Kovic stands as a symbol of the brutality of war. He also exemplifies a man’s ability to transform such tragedy into a lifelong pursuit of peace—for himself and his country.

Nick Turse Describes the Real Vietnam War, Bill Moyers, Moyers & company

  • “American culture has never fully come to grips with Vietnam,” Turse tells Bill, referring to “hidden and forbidden histories that just haven’t been fully engaged.”
  • Excerpt: Kill Anything That Moves ~ Nick Turse
  • Have we really learned the lessons of Vietnam?
 

Liberal racial hypocrisy

  • Killing people of color just for being a suspected threat is a total outrage for liberals. Well, sometimes.
  • Just because a president liberals like is calling for targeted killings doesn’t make the policy any less troubling — politically or racially.

Falgunia Sheh, Salon

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Travyon Martin and Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi(Credit: AP/HO, Martin Family Photos/Facebook)

Saturday, February 23, 2013 | Since the reelection of President Obama, liberals have made some bold admissions. Commentators like Touré Neblett of MSNBC’s The Cycle have enthusiastically and repeatedly defended the president’s authority to launch drones against anyone, including American citizens, if he suspects that they are “trying to kill us.”

At no point in his several defenses did Touré reconcile his position with once-popular Constitutional precepts that every person should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and know the charges and evidence against him, and have the right to a fair trial. Neither did he explain why ordinary Americans should suspend their longstanding skepticism of politicians in power or withdraw the demand that the president and Congress be accountable for their actions, especially the taking of someone’s life.

Full story...

Related:

ND school investigating fans in KKK-style hoods, Dirk Lammers, Associated Press / Duluth (MN) News Tribune

  • A North Dakota high school principal says appropriate action is being taken after three students briefly donned Ku Klux Klan-style white robes and hoods Friday night during a state hockey semifinal game.
  • Obama, racial inequality, and national oppression

 

 

Robert Reich | Why Obama Must Meet the Republican Lies Directly

  • The Republicans' austerity economics and trickle-down economics are dangerous, bald-faced lies. 
  • Paul Krugman | Global Austerity 'An Unethical Experimentation On Human Beings'

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog 

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

Monday, February 25, 2013 | The White House apparently believes the best way to strengthen its hand in the upcoming “sequester” showdown with Republicans is to tell Americans how awful the spending cuts will be, and blame Republicans for them.

It won’t work. These tactical messages are getting in the way of the larger truth, which the President must hammer home: The Republicans’ austerity economics and trickle-down economics are dangerous, bald-faced lies.

Full story...

 

Related:

Paul Krugman | Global Austerity 'An Unethical Experimentation On Human Beings' Bonnie Kavoussi, Huffington Post

 

 

 

UK Cardinal O'Brien Steps Down; Won't Attend Conclave

  • Cardinal O'Brien's views have sparked controversy 
  • Why the Cardinal Mahony scandal matters

Sylvia Hui, Associated Press / Rock Hill (SC) Herald

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February 25, 2013 | Cardinal Keith O'Brien had sparked more than his fair share of controversy before stepping down as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh on Monday and announcing he wouldn't take part in the conclave to elect the next pope.

Known for his outspoken stances on abortion, same-sex marriage and flip-flopping on priestly celibacy, Britain's most senior Roman Catholic leader raised eyebrows even before he was named cardinal in 2003.

Full story...

Related:

Why the Cardinal Mahony scandal matters, James Salt, Catholics United <>

  • Help us foster greater accountability within the church by signing our petition demanding Cardinal Roger Mahony stay home during the upcoming papal conclave.
  • If anything, this scandal demonstrates that the future leadership of our church resides with the laity.
  • Here's our petition in Spanish.
  • For more analysis head on over to our blog, Our Daily Thread.

 

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