Tag Archives: Heritage Foundation

Tell your representative to show leadership and pass immigration reform now!

I’ve learned a powerful lesson in my years of organizing: you get what you ask for. With countless activists like you making calls, joining rallies and marches, and even risking arrest to ask for nothing less than a fair pathway to citizenship as part of immigration reform legislation, all we need now is for our representatives in the House to come forward and lead on the issue.

While our communities show true courage, our legislators in the House of Representatives are hiding. They are choosing political theater over working together to fix our broken immigration system. They are hiding from our demands for bold action to keep our families together.

It’s time the House followed our lead. We’re sending postcards directly to Congressional offices with images of our communities showing real leadership and a message demanding action. Send your representative a clear message: “Real leaders don’t hide. Pass immigration reform in 2013.”

We elect our members of Congress to lead, yet the House has failed to do so by refusing to take action. We must remind them that, as representatives of the people, they answer to us — and we challenge them to model the bravery and leadership that thousands are demonstrating in the streets every day by passing immigration reform this year.

We are closer now than we have ever been to passing real reform, and our representatives need to know that we aren’t backing down. Send your message now: step up and lead on immigration reform! Click here to send a postcard.

Standing strong,

Marissa Graciosa
Reform Immigration FOR America

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Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare

09/25/2013 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

Health Care and the ACA ~~ Originally posted on 8/22/13

the Progress Report

In less than 6 weeks, millions of Americans will have the chance to sign up for quality, affordable health coverage for the very first time. Progressives are doing everything possible to educate Americans about the law and push back on the never-ending conservative misinformation campaign against Obamacare. Conservatives are, well, trying anything and everything in order to try and derail the law at the very last minute.

(Things are not going very well for conservatives.)

Here’s a roundup of the very latest Obamacare news:

Pro-Obamacare protesters confront Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at town hall: Multiple pro-Obamacare protesters confronted the Tea Party senator at the Dallas stop of Heritage Action’s tour promoting a government shutdown over Obamacare. The town hall slid further downhill from there when Cruz’s father took the stage, railed against Socialism, said “Sarah Palin was right,” and warned of the dangers of death panels. Even Republicans have called this strategy and tour “political suicide” for the GOP.Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry is quietly lobbying the Obama administration for $100 MILLION in Obamacare funding.

Tea Party group calls on Congressional staffers to “burn their Obamacare cards: FreedomWorks, a right-wing group that has helped fuel opposition to health reform and other progressive policies since the earliest days of the Obama presidency, is currently engaged in a cynical effort to dissuade young people and others of securing affordable coverage under Obamacare, which it is offensively likening to Vietnam war opponents who burned their draft cards.A GOP amendment to Obamacare requires Congressional staffers to receive their health coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces starting next year and now FreedomWorks says it hopes they forego their health coverage and instead pay a fine, though the group concedes “everyone should do whatever’s best for them and their families.” We assume most Hill staffers (including Republicans), like most Americans, will prefer the security of health coverage.

More GOP congressmen concede they will help their constituents enroll in Obamacare: While Republicans remain united in their irrational opposition to Obamacare, even some vocal conservatives are now conceding that they will help their constituents find out about their rights, responsibilities, and new benefits under the law.

Two more states announce affordable premiums: Colorado and Montana became just the latest states to announce that their residents will find affordable premiums when they go to sign up for coverage offered through the new marketplaces that will be opening on October 1. Indeed, the growth in overall health care costs has slowed remarkably since Obamacare passed, contrary to fearmongering from many of the law’s opponents.

GOP civil war escalates: Republicans are locked in an all-out civil war over whether or not to shut down the government over Obamacare (which even Republicans concede won’t actually stop the law but will harm millions of Americans and the economy).Heritage Action is currently on a national tour to fan the shutdown flames, with former Tea Party Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), now the president of the Heritage Foundation, going so far as to tell a town hall audience that any Republicans who are afraid of shutting down the government ought to be “replaced.” To that end, his group and others are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads going after Republicans.

For the latest news, be sure and check out ThinkProgress health.

~ my 2cents ...

Is your member of Congress afraid of Regulatory agencies

09/04/2013 Nativegrl77

just another rant …

What we need are MORE Regulatory agencies doing their jobs … period

If you hear the noise, the fear mongering coming from Teapublicans you might want to laugh first, tilt your head to the side then furrow your brow and ask where were you when the reports came in that we were losing 750,000 jobs month after month, that several financial institutions crashed due to some big time corruption.

Unfortunately, knowing job creators are sitting on trillions of dollars due to what they call “excessive regulation” and “uncertainty” in a time when lack of it created our financial crisis is quite offensive as some Americans continue to lose homes, jobs and health care. The fact is that members of Congress actually needs to invest in their fellow Americans. It is not lost on me that Teapublican members of Congress have conveniently forgotten about the Bush agency parties, drilling permits approved of with tankers that probably were just on the edge of being technically safe. How remarkable is it to hear the current nonsense about the Keystone XL pipeline after all that happened and was exposed during the BP spill is a lesson in what members of Congress will do say and push when their personal investments are involved. It is obvious they have forgotten what led up to the Massey Mine disaster as well.

Fact is, there are things that need strict guidelines, most parents want Clean Air, Clean Water and not only affordable health care but some of us would actually pay a smidge more to make sure that food, flights and anything else that seems too big to handle for an individual can be by the Government and not privatized. If Teapublicans believe privatization is the only way to create more jobs remember; that it also means your cost for services may go up which folks are complaining about now … right; an increase in insurance premiums could be just a start. I like having firefighters, cleared roads, police, the EPA and FEMA and most thing it is worth paying the Government to act for everyone, not just a select few. I will not forget the man who failed to pay his protection fee which resulted in his house burning down; that is what privatization does. I expect the Government to be our children’s watchdog for their health, our future and corrupt regulators need not apply. While the Heritage Foundation is the Teapublicans training ground with quite different attitude about regulations, it is my contention that the Heritage Foundation opinion should not be driving what Republicans in Congress say do or vote.

Yet, folks and organizations like the Grover Norquist’s and the Heritage Foundation just do not understand that they only represent a small percentage of voters and after having read the article it definitely sounded like the Heritage Foundation would love to go around the voter if they could. I find it almost amusing to read how conservative groups rationalize their feelings about regulations. The Heritage Foundation subscribes to wanting a new society. That should scare us all. Then again, it just sheds light on how out of touch the Heritage group is and if this is the meme being pushed on members of Congress who are not only supposed to be working for the People paid by “We the People”, it is truly a sad example of what being a member of Congress means.

I totally get Capitalism. We all strive to be self-sufficient. I just happen to believe it should be with a lower case c, which includes small businesses, and those who aspire to get ahead not just or only for big Corporations who more often than not seem to send opportunities and jobs overseas to avoid regulations .

The featured picture Is called “Faces” taken from the National Museum of African American History and Culture article

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Burning Down the House

08/21/2013 Nativegrl77

Will GOP Obstructionism Hand the House to Democrats?

The Progress Report

As we’ve been discussing, the Republican Party is in the midst of a meltdown over Obamacare. The party is united in its irrational opposition to the law’s offer of health security to millions of Americans; however, the GOP is nevertheless engaged in an all-out civil war over whether or not to shut down the government in a last ditch effort to try and derail the law.

(Ironically, even Republicans admit that shutting down the government won’t actually stop Obamacare from moving forward.)

Dozens and dozens of Congressional Republicans have signed onto letters advocating a government shutdown over Obamacare.

Yesterday, Heritage Action began a national pro-government shutdown tour that NPR reports even Republicans think means “political suicide” for the party. The former Tea Party Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), now the president of the Heritage Foundation, told a town hall audience that any Republicans who are afraid of shutting down the government ought to be “replaced.”

DeMint may get his wish, sort of. Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Ruy Teixeira, an expert in political demography, explains how the GOP’s “coordinated campaign to alienate anyone interested in functional governance” could hand Democrats control of the House of Representatives in 2014.

Teixeira’s analysis is a bit of a longread for this space, but it’s worth it:

Why are Republicans so freaked out?

At this point, they have a good chance — perhaps around 50-50 — of picking up enough seats to take the Senate, while Democrats’ chances of picking up the 17 seats they need to regain control of the House look considerably smaller than that. And yet, as one Politico story put it, “it is almost impossible to find an establishment Republican in town who’s not downright morose about the 2013 that has been and is about to be.”

Politico suggests the reason for the glumness is fear about the political fallout from the GOP’s unyielding, nihilistic approach to governance on issues like Obamacare and the debt ceiling. That problem may be far worse than they imagine. A close scrutiny of the data reveals several demographic weak points that the current wave of Republican crazy could activate, leading to the outcome they dread the most: Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

Start with minorities. It’s not well-known, but Republicans in 2010 benefited not only from relatively low minority turnout (standard for an off-year election) but also from relatively low minority support for Democratic candidates. Emphasis here is on the relative: minority support for House Democrats in 2010 was 73-25 — high, but below the 77-22 margin that minorities averaged in the three off-year elections that preceded 2010. If minorities snap back to 77-22 Democratic support as a consequence of Republican misbehavior, and the expected 2 percentage point increase in the share of minority voters from population trends emerges, then the Republican 6.8 percentage point margin in 2010 will be immediately sliced in half. And if the minority vote goes even stronger for the Democrats, reaching 2012 levels, that would eliminate about three-quarters of the Republicans’ 2010 advantage all on its own.

Another demographic problem for the GOP comes from a more surprising quarter: seniors. As Erica Seifert of Democracy Corps noted in a recent memo:

There’s something going on with seniors: It is now strikingly clear that they have turned sharply against the GOP. This is apparent in seniors’ party affiliation and vote intention, in their views on the Republican Party and its leaders, and in their surprising positions on jobs, health care, retirement security, investment economics, and the other big issues that will likely define the 2014 midterm elections.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare. To voters from the center right to the far left, the GOP is now defined by resistance, intolerance, intransigence, and economics that would make even the Robber Barons blush. We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.

It is therefore quite plausible that the GOP will benefit far less from senior support in 2014 than in 2010. If the senior share of voters returns to normal levels (19 percent) and the Republican margin among this group drops to its post-2000 average (6 points, about where it is right now in the Democracy Corps polls) that would take care of the rest of the GOP margin from 2010, getting the Democrats slightly past the break-even point in the popular vote.

Of course, given the well-known GOP advantage in translating seats to votes, Democrats probably need to do substantially better than breaking even to attain a majority in the House. That won’t be easy, but there are certainly potential avenues to shift the 2014 House vote even farther in Democrats’ direction. There is the youth vote, for example, which was relatively poor for the Democrats in 2010 (55-42) and could certainly improve, as well as possibly turn out in larger numbers. The latter could also be true of the minority vote, whose projected 2 point increase in voter share, is due solely to population increase. If relative minority turnout is better in 2014 than 2010, then there will be an even larger increase in minority vote share over 2010, pushing the Democrats’ margin farther toward what they need to take the House.

Make no mistake about it: the Democrats face an uphill climb. But the possibilities outlined above inch closer to reality every day the GOP continues its coordinated campaign to alienate anyone interested in functional governance.

BOTTOM LINE: If Republicans shut down the government over Obamacare or their demands for more damaging austerity, they might get to personally experience repeal and replace after all.