What, Mitt’s the son of a welfare queen? Too perfect.

For the record, I need to say this:

1) there is nothing wrong with a family needing social support during hard times. Period.

2) there is nothing wrong (and it’s the American dream, to boot!) with working hard and making good money.

Just so you know.

Here’s Mitt’s mom trying to explain why her husband, who was perceived as too rich and out of touch with people, really did understand. And she’s making a good point, I want to be flat out about that. It’s just IRONIC AS HELL given the GOP’s hate-filled rhetoric about “welfare handouts” and etc.

Mitt’s dad a refugee on welfare

Of, by, and for the people

The United States of America is a social contract, yes it really is, all you libertarian types who are getting ready to blow a gasket. It says so right in our Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it so much more succinctly and coherently:

government of the people, by the people, for the people

Our government is not just composed OF us and conducted BY us. It is FOR us, it operates on our behalf, for our benefit and “general welfare”.

Here is a people of the United States:

That is my daughter Emily, who is an adult with Down syndrome. She is one of the people you the People govern FOR. She is a dependent upon we the People, as many of us (probably most of us, should we live long enough) will be at one time in our lives.

One of the ways You the People govern FOR this people here, the one in the picture: you provide Medicaid waiver coverage for her, so that she can have a place in her community and not in some institution somewhere. Thank you. Because of Medicaid, families like mine can keep their adult children at home living ordinary lives, and still continue to work (in other words, contribute taxes to the same pool you do).

The Romney/Ryan platform specifies a reduction in Medicaid spending in a huge way:

Under Ryan’s plan, the federal share of Medicaid spending would decline about $800 billion over 10 years as the program becomes a block grant indexed for inflation and population growth. States would have more flexibility over who is covered and what benefits are offered. The block grant would start in 2013. Ryan and his supporters say turning to block grants would both save the federal government money and give states flexibility in who they cover and what benefits are provided. “States will no longer be shackled by federal determined program requirements and enrollment criteria,” his plan says.

Look back up at that picture. Right now, Virginia considers Emily to be “entitled” to Medicaid benefits. That is because federal law (“we the people”) say she is.

There is nothing to stop Virginia from deciding she’s not entitled, if the Ryan proposal becomes law. Neither will states have to cover your grandma’s nursing home stay, if she spends all her money and is destitute and in need of nursing home placement. Good luck with that. Right now, federal law (“we the people”) REQUIRES grandma’s care to be covered by Medicaid, if she is destitute. But hey. Let’s redefine who we govern for.

This is what President Clinton was talking about when he raised the alarm last night in his speech: Medicaid is the absolute bedrock entitlement for the poor, elderly, young, and disabled in this country, the “People” that “we” govern “for”.

Now, folks, this is serious, because it gets worse. And you won’t be laughing when I finish telling you this. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming 10 years. Of course, that’s going to really hurt a lot of poor kids.But that’s not all. A lot of folks don’t know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors who are eligible for Medicaid. 

It’s going to end Medicare as we know it. And a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities, including  a lot of middle-class families whose kids have Down’s syndrome or autism or other severe conditions. And, honestly, just think about it. If that happens, I don’t know what those families are going to do. So I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to do everything I can to see that it doesn’t happen. We can’t let it happen. We can’t.

Stop this insanity! Stop trying to give the uber-rich and corporations the benefit of tax cuts  and throwing our Emilys in the sewer. If there’s not enough money for EVERYTHING, then raise taxes on the rich before you kick grandma out of bed.

Crabby Old Broad, AKA “Emily’s Mom”

Rallying around a willful distortion

I’m having a hard time figuring out why it’s OK that the Republicans built their entire convention on a willful distortion of President Obama’s words about infrastructure and public education? “We Built It” is–as everyone knows, wink wink–a coded message to the anti-Obama crowd, referring to the line taken out of context in Obama’s speech in Roanoke in June in which he did not say what the Republicans say he said (got that?) but HERE’S THE THING:

Everyone already knows he didn’t mean what they say he meant, and nobody on the Republican side cares.

Why? Why does no one try to stop the nonsense and insert some substance into the anti-Obama campaign? Oh, perhaps I’ve answered my own question: they have nothing of substance to put in place of distortion. Their entire campaign seems, at this point, to consist of defeating Obama by any means, no matter how despicable.

Got it.

I don’t know. I am just appalled at the rabid disdain for truth pouring out of the far-right, and it appears the far-right fearmongers are in charge of the Republican party. If Romney’s such a hard-ass boss who knows how to run a business and because of that he’s qualified to run our country, then how can he put this kind of display on for the world to see? “We Built This”. If you’re the boss, you’re responsible for that theme. Shame on you, Mitt.

PS: I don’t watch political ads, but I came across these transcripts tonight and I believe they sink to a new low.