Uninsured Rate Going up for Republicans Only, not Democrats!!! Wow, Gov. Kasich makes Ohioans Work for Free to earn Medicaid Insurance!!!

I want everyone to health care, everyone!!! Where every doctor is your doctor, and every hospital is your hospital. But, I am enjoying Trump voters getting their just desserts:

After years of decline, new data suggests that America's uninsured rate is back on the rise.

The nonprofit Commonwealth Fund released new data Monday showing that the uninsured rate rose in the first few months of this year, rising from 12.7 percent at the end of 2016 to 15.5 percent in the first three months of 2018 ... Trump administration actions seem to be hurting the exact same people who put the president in office. One of the findings was that the uninsured rate rose only for Republicans, not Democrats.

Remember this story from just a few days ago:

The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public Schools: “One of the ways I think that they try to avoid a populist backlash is by lowering everybody’s expectations of what we have a right to demand as citizens. 

Work without pay for Your Health Care? Wow, talk about corporate servitude! While Scott Walker jacks up the work requirement for food stamps to nosebleed levels (30hrs) so he can force people into low wage jobs, Ohio's Gov. John Kasich is blunter about his intentions:

      “Ohio Seeks To Impose New Medicaid Work Requirements”: Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) officially submitted a request to force the roughly 700,000 people enrolled in the state’s Medicaid expansion to prove they’re working at least 80 hours per month. If the waiver is approved, Ohioans unable to find work would have to get placed with an organization in their county and work without pay to earn the value of their health care benefits.” The waiver may violate ... the Fair Labor Standards Act.

 Ya think? Tell me more about Ohio's plan for indentured servitude:

“If an individual isn’t working, they are sent to the county, and the county places them in different ‘work experience’ sites — usually a local charity or non-profit where they would do clerical work,” McGarvey explained. “They don’t get paid by the organization they’re placed at; they’re just earning enough to meet their benefits requirement. If you do the math, it doesn’t come out anywhere close to the minimum wage. It’s closer to $2 to 3 an hour.”

It's Official...again: Republican Terrorists running not just Wisconsin, but Country!!! Oh, and Kasich betrays Party in opposing Gerrymandering.

Who can forget this morsel of truth spewed by Wisconsin's cranky imp, Robin Vos: 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has apologized for using the term “terrorists” to describe three Republican senators ... In a WISN-TV interview on Upfront with Mike Gousha, Vos blasted Chris Kapenga,Steve Nass, and Duey Stroebel, for making what Vos called a “backroom deal.”

Vos: "Frankly I wish Gov. Walker had not negotiated with terrorists, I think that's a bad way to operate the legislature..."

Mike Gousha: "Terrorists, you called them rogue Senators and terrorist..."

Vos: "That's what they are."

Boehner calls House Republican Terrorist: What didn't get a lot of press, was a similar comparison made by former House Speaker John Boehner:

Boehner was ruthlessly frank with his Tim Alberta interviewer, in offering assessments of himself and his former colleagues...:

“(Rep. Jim) Jordan was a terrorist as a legislator going back to his days in the Ohio House and Senate. A terrorist. A legislative terrorist.”

Vos Swears at John Kasich for his Opposition to a Gerrymandered Wisconsin, and "betraying his Party:" This is just more fun stuff that I wish had made it into the Supreme Court arguments over Wisconsin's partisan gerrymandered districts, because this is Vos' open admission that yes, it was a political power grab, not actual constituent representation. WHA:

Kasich was preparing to deliver a speech to statehouse speakers from across the country when Vos "amicably approached the governor and then swore at him for adding his name to a Supreme Court brief opposing Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin."

"Vos accused Kasich of betraying his party," the magazine reported.Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos confirmed Thursday he confronted Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich over Kasich's support for a lawsuit that could overturn Wisconsin's Republican-drawn legislative map.

It's a profile of Kasich by New York Magazine, that reflects badly, again, on how radical right-wing politics has gotten in Wisconsin.

GOP Debate Crowd hates protecting Americans from Wall Street Banks.

Nothing says "moral bankruptcy" more than the Republican audiences booing over the idea we would protect retirees life savings from another Wall Street Banks collapse. Have we become so cold and callous we now value "philosophical concerns" - small government and deregulation - that we're okay with plunging Americans into poverty due to greed and irresponsible Wall St. banks?

Apparently yes. Business Insider took a look at pollster Frank Luntz's crowd reaction to Gov. John Kasich's defense of saving families from losing it all, especially for something as bizarre as "philosophical concerns:"

Kasich aggressively defended his position that he would bail out banks in the event of a potential financial collapse. Kasich was interrupted by a booing audience after he criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) …

“When a bank is going under and people are going to lose their life savings, you don’t say you have to deal with philosophical concerns. Philosophy doesn’t work when you run something.”

It wasn't just audience members who didn't seem to appreciate Kasich's message: Veteran pollster Frank Luntz said that Kasich registered the "lowest score ever" in his focus group.

Truly jaw dropping. But Cruz and Carly Fiorina seemed to care more about the closing of smaller banks than recovering the public's money. Just a reminder; those smaller banks closed because of their own risky loans; and because Americans made a consumer decision to go elsewhere, like their local credit unions. The banks burned us and the public acted accordingly.

Scott Walker's phony "Clinton worked with Republicans" story not going away...ever.

An interesting thing happened on last Friday's Week in Review, on WPR's morning show.

In response to Obama's use of executive orders, former Lt. Governor Margaret Farrow blurted out the same completely manufactured answer as Scott Walker, when he praised Bill Clinton for working with majority Republicans instead of going it alone as the imperial president. Coincidence? No, memorized. Here's the audio:



Farrow was also wrong about the Democrats not trying to move immigration "down the road" when they had control of the senate and house. Republicans never count their use of the filibuster:

DREAM Act: Perhaps the most consequential blocked bill in 2009 and 2010 was the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were children when they immigrated, provided they serve in the military or go to college. It was blocked twice, once as an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that was paired with repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and once as part of the banal-sounding Removal Clarification Act of 2010. It had already passed the House, so if not for the filibuster, it would be law.

Check out that now infamous moment where fellow Republican, possible presidential candidate and former congressman Gov. John Kasich corrected Walker in no uncertain terms.  From the Republican Governors Association panel, a few clips of Kasich insisting on solutions, not division:



Walker's can't get out of "divide and conquer" mode.

Special thanks to WPR reporter Shawn Johnson. 

Gov. John Kasich catches Scott Walker in Lie, schools him on Common Core and Medicaid Expansion.

Ohio Governor John Kasich shut Scott Walker down. 

As it turns out, Kasich is not a dictatorial authoritarian like Scott Walker, Rick Perry or Bobby Jindal, who all looked decidedly fringe with their positions on immigration, Common Core and ObamaCare.  

Kasich was always a very partisan congressman, who later as governor, angered Ohioans with dramatic changes to collective bargaining like Scott Walker. But after reading the following debate and take-down by Kasich of Walker, it's a relief to see at least one adult in the room learned a big lesson from the resulting public protests.

Even better, Kasich caught Scott Walker making things ups again, this time about Bill Clinton's relationship with congress. Oops, Kasich was there, and that kicked off this amazing back-and-forth that's worth reading. Yahoo News: 

The Republican governor of Ohio John Kasich and Wisconsin Scott Walker were seated onstage at the opening plenary session of the Republican Governors Association annual conference. Call it a dry run for the primary debates. Kasich, a wily 62-year-old former congressman, demonstratively disputed Walker’s retelling of political history.

Walker, the 47-year-old conservative star, was arguing that President Barack Obama is more hostile toward congressional Republicans than President Bill Clinton was during the '90s, teeing up a critique of Obama’s plans to issue an executive order on immigration this week. Walker said, “Clinton did not say the Republicans in Congress aren't going to work with me so I’m going to do an executive order. He sat down with them.”

Here's where Walker got schooled by Kasich, a congressman at the time:

Kasich snapped almost matter-of-factly. “No, he shut the government — the government got shut down first.” And then the two men began to talk over each other.

“There was tremendous animosity,” Kasich said, almost yelling, to remind the younger Walker that he, Kasich, had been there himself as a member of Congress.

“It wasn’t —” Walker tried to get out before Kasich cut him off.

“Scott, it was!” Kasich said. “I’ll tell you, when you’re sitting around and we’ve got Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole at each other over a shutdown, it wasn’t easy either. My only point is, I don’t like what [Obama’s] doing, but what I will say: This is emblematic of where we’re going forward as a country. I mean, are we going to deal with the real problems of health care, the real problem of immigration, the real problem of a divided country? If we had not got the Clinton people to the table to negotiate … we would never have balanced the budget. Nothing gets fixed without some bipartisan support. You can’t do it without bipartisan support.”

Kasich had suckered Walker into a discussion: 

“You gotta be careful with the rhetoric, because you get too far out on that and people don’t want to deal.” On granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants: “I am not closed to it. You know why? Everybody in this country needs to feel like they have an opportunity.”

On Common Core educational standards: 

“We’re not doing well in the world. If we’re not careful the Googles and PayPals will be invented somewhere else. … I do think we have to have good standards. I don’t see that this is Obamacore. … The idea that kids in Iowa, kids in California, kids in Ohio, there ought to be a higher level of achievement? I’m completely for that. I think it makes sense. … It is purely local control.”

On expanding Medicaid in Ohio: 

“Ronald Reagan expanded Medicaid, OK? Because he said there were people that were left out. We have seen stabilizing of people in our emergency rooms. Do you understand that when people can’t get comprehensive health care they get sicker and end up in the emergency room, and guess who pays for it? We do.”

Ohio Gov. Kasich expands Medicaid with trick that bypasses none too happy Republican Legislature.

Republicans are nasty. It looks like Gov. John Kasich just bypassed his Republican legislature. Funny when there dirty little tricks are used against them.  

An Ohio board has voted to accept $2.5 billion in federal funds to expand its Medicaid program. “Together with the General Assembly we’ve improved both the quality of care

from Medicaid and its value for taxpayers," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said. 

The Columbus Dispatch describe what happened next: With the Republican-controlled legislature declining to approve the expansion, [Kasich]  instead sought the expansion on his own from the federal government and went to the seven-member Controlling Board for approval to spend the money.

To help ensure the request got the needed votes, Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, this morning replaced Rep. Cliff Rosenberger of Clarksville with McGregor, a moderate, term-limited Republican who had said he would vote for the measure.

This might not be the end of the story: Some Ohio House Republicans are prepared to sue the Kasich administration for moving forward on the Medicaid expansion after they did not approve the program. But, at least for the moment, Ohio is the 26th state (and fourth controlled by a Repubilcan governor) to sign onto the Obamacare program.

Leaders? Job Creators? Tax Cutting Republican Governors get the big "F"

Shouldn't we be focusing on the records of all these highly touted Republicans governors mentioned as presidential contenders?

It looks like we’re seeing similar patterns of “job creation” between governors like Scott Walker (45th), John Kasich (27) and Chris Christie (47). See if this isn't a case of déjà vu all over again:

Citybeat: The “economic miracle” often touted by Gov. John Kasich is not really happening.

The right-leaning Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, which supports little government intervention in the economy, released the March “Ohio by the Numbers” report, (which) pointed out the state lost 16,800 private sector jobs in February, ranks No. 27 in the nation for private sector job growth since January 2010 and ranks No. 47 for private sector job growth since January 1990.

Policy Matters’ March report was similarly harsh:  “…growth leveled off in the second half of 2012, and the reported zigzag of the last two months means that Ohio has only added 2,700 jobs over the past year, growing at a very weak 0.1 percent … it is clear that the 2005 tax cuts did not bring about the promised job growth. There is no reason to think that further tax cuts will, either.”

Instead, Policy Matters has focused on austerity, which led to the public sector job cuts outlined in Policy Matters’ March report: “A private-sector gain of 16,900 jobs has been nearly erased by the 14,200 jobs lost in the public sector. Most of those public job losses happened at the local level.”

 And what of Gov. Chris Christie? Bloomberg had this: 

Jobs have emerged as a potential weakness for Christie. An April 10 Rutgers-Eagleton poll (showed) only 42 percent were positive about his handling of employment and the economy. New Jersey’s failure to keep up with its neighbors has Christie defending his job-creation policies, which include tax cuts and less business regulation. New Jersey was one of seven states whose economy shrank in 2011. It ranked 47th in terms of growth in its gross domestic product, according to U.S. Commerce Department statistics.