Community Roundtable

Within the scientific community there is no debate!  The 12 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998; with 2012 being the hottest on record for the United States.  The Natural Resources Defense Council’s website states that “Climate change is the single biggest environmental and humanitarian crisis of our time.  The Earth’s atmosphere is overloaded with carbon dioxide, which threatens large-scale disruptions in climate with disastrous and costly consequences. We need cleaner energy sources at home and abroad”.  Record heat, droughts, storms and wildfires hit hard in 2012.   The polar ice caps are shrinking and sea levels are rising.     As Arctic ice melts, the earth absorbs more sunlight and gets hotter, affecting the world’s eco-systems.  “Many places in the United States will face water shortages by mid-century”.  Higher food prices and shortages result from droughts and flooding.  Air pollution causes diseases like Asthma.  We have choices: we can continue our pace of carbon emissions or we can aggressively fight misinformation about global warming and slow its pace to give a safer, healthier world to our children.  We can invest in clean energy, green jobs, drive smarter cars, and build better communities and transportation networks. And we must!  President Obama has a plan to cut the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.  The New York Times called the plan “the most far-reaching effort by an American president to address what many experts consider the defining environmental and economic challenge of the 21st century”.  “A small vocal minority of special interests have a vested interest in delaying action on climate change”.  Let’s see, who would want us to burn more coal, oil, and natural gas?  And Yes, I believe that planet Earth is a sphere and I believe in evolution (and creationism; that intelligent design creates and everything evolves).  I bet Harry and Charlie believe the world is flat! And they believe that the Tea Party knows what’s best for America! I also believe in a firewall divide between church and state, for the very reason that the Tea Party demonstrates!

October 1st the online marketplace goes live, opening for business with full information on Illinois’ new healthcare exchange with monthly premium prices and what benefits each plan includes.  “Obamacare” requires that certain benefits be included so more comprehensive plans might be slightly more expensive than existing plans, but most low and mid-income customers will be eligible for tax credits to help offset their costs.  Some will still be eligible for free care through Medicaid.  Consumers need to consider which plans provide the coverage their medical providers accept.  Remember the days before car insurance was mandatory?  The price for uninsured receiving medical attention gets shifted onto people with good health insurance.  Cable and cell phones are not necessities; decent healthcare coverage is.  Confusion or unpopularity associated with this reform stems from lies perpetuated by the Republicans who are beholden to the lobbyists of the AMA, whose graft will be weeded out.  Beware, the Tom, Dick, Harrys and Charlies will tell you that the sky is falling!  Don’t believe them!  …. My 62 year old retired friend, in good health, pays $800 a month for her health insurance coverage; she’ll be glad to pay around half that amount.

Term limits may be the largest grassroots movement in American History.   Polls show that 70 – 83 percent of Americans support term limits.   “Illinois  is under the direction of a state leadership filled with career politicians”, and their combined experience doesn’t seem to lessen the problems our state  continues to face.  Some of us feel that we would like to be represented by fellow citizens with shorter terms as opposed to “professional politicians” with so many loyalties to special interest groups and lobbyists.  Fifteen states in the Union have adopted term limits;  several more states passed that voter initiative, but it was thrown out by their state supreme courts.   “If the public wants term limits, it is the ultimate conflict of interest for elected officials to prevent the states from making the decision on whether their own terms should be limited.”  An Illinois GOP Gubernatorial candidate is planning a campaign to ask voters on the November 2014 ballot to impose term limits on politicians. Where previous efforts have failed, Bruce Rauner plans to propose “other reforms that would change “structural and procedural” workings of the Legislature as well”.   (“In 1994, then state treasurer, Pat Quinn, gathered nearly half a million signatures for an “Eight is Enough” campaign to embody term limits in Illinois’ constitution, which failed because the initiative did not include “structural and procedural” changes to the Legislature”).   “Senator David Vitter (R-LA)  has introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution to limit terms for members of Congress, which may be the only way to make our political system work again.”  I wonder if that proposed amendment will be brought up for a vote.  Even Paul Ryan said this change should be done to the United States Constitution rather than at a state level, where states  can be short-changed in seniority and clout in Congress.  “The 2012 election results showed that voters in red and blue states united in their decisive support of term limits in both small town and statewide referenda.  Eight of the ten largest cities in America adopted term limits for their city councils and for mayor, and thirty-seven states placed term limits on their constitutional officers.”  Voters seemed to want to leave local sheriffs and coroners out from under the limits, however, and I tend to agree.  Our country decided to term-limit the presidency, and I believe there should be limits on our legislators also.  Our United States Congress is in crises!  With the “tide of public dissatisfaction with Congress”, I feel its high time to impose term limits and break the gridlocks.  Let the professional politicians use their expertise and go up the ladder to higher employment positions. They should be highly employable in many fields.  So “yes” for Illinois and “yes” for the country!  In the worlds of Senator Vitter, “may public outcry break the log-jam that has prevented the consideration”.

“This country is only going to be as strong as our next generation.  Those who work hard should have the chance to succeed in the 21st century”, said President Obama, but we need a “better bargain for the middle class”.  With the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, and with more high-tech jobs on the way, “higher education is still the best ticket to upward mobility”.  But watch the ticket price!  We have to stop the graft in so many of our consumer venues, from healthcare to education.  There’s a “crisis in terms of college affordability and student debt; college has never been more expensive.  Over the past three decades, the average tuition at a public four-year college has gone up by more than 250 percent; a typical family’s income has gone up 16 percent.  The average student who borrows money for college now graduates owing more than $26,000; some owe a lot more than that.  The price of not getting a degree lasts a lifetime.”      So yes, I like that President Obama plans to “cap loan payments at 10 percent of monthly income for borrowers who are trying to responsibly manage their federal student loan debt”.  And over the next few years Obama plans to work with Congress to change how federal aid is allocated to colleges.  He’s already changed loan programs, to cut out the banks as middle men, helping student monies go farther than before, and he’s setting up consumer Watchdogs to help students not get ripped off.  Check out one site at StudentAid.gov.  He’s “proposing new major reforms that will shake up the current system, create better incentives for colleges to do more with less, and deliver better value for students and their families”.  He plans to “partner with states to make higher education a higher priority in their budgets, and to ask more of students who are receiving financial aid.  Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio are already offering more funding to colleges that do a better job of preparing students for graduation and a job.  Michigan is rewarding schools that keep tuition increases low”; so some states are already changing their incentive structures.  Obama is “challenging all states to come up with new and innovative ways to fund their colleges in ways that drive better results”.    He wants to see “all the stakeholders in education, the students, parents, businesses, college administrators and professors work on this process”.  “In the face of greater and greater global competition, in a knowledge-based economy, a great education is more important than ever!”

This information and quotes excerpted from the White House transcript (printed in Washington Post, Answer Sheet)  from talk given by President Barack Obama on August 23, 2013  in Buffalo, New York.

The crisis in Syria is a slippery slope; it’s a complex civil war with several militia,  not coordinated, and none of the factions are America-friendly.  Some say that there are no good guys in the fight.  So folks ask, Why U.S.?  Why should we act?  Secretary of State Kerry answered that: “We are the indispensable nation!”   Marco Rubio echoed that sentiment, “We are the most powerful and inspirational country ever”; it’s on us to set the world standard.  President Obama said, “The world looks to us to see what we will do”.  And he stated regarding credibility, “I didn’t set a red line, the world community set the red line”; when 184 countries joined a chemical weapons ban convention in 1925.  Bashar al-Assad’s latest atrocities, killing over 1400 civilians  (426 children) in deadly chemical attacks, scream out for correction!  John Kerry told Senate leaders, who voted and passed the Syria authorization, that “limited, targeted action is in our national security interests — to deter and degrade Assad’s capacity to continue to use chemical weapons with impunity”.   I’m inclined to agree.  The Arab Spring has indeed blossomed with poisonous fruits.     ********************************* And the refugee problem has strained the neighboring countries to their limits, with hundreds of thousands of starving and wounded refugees streaming into Jordan, Egypt, Libya and Turkey.  The Repubs want to continue screaming about the four American diplomats, who lost their lives in Benghazi; those diplomats volunteered knowing they could die in that territory.  There was no conspiracy.  It was American heroes putting themselves in dangerous posts to try to make this world a better place, and “people with minds who hate” that murdered them.  By the way, getting really tired of all the Right-wing trolls who keep taking out of context Hillary Clinton’s statement, “What does it matter now?”  That was in response to a question she was being badgered with, and columnists keep using that phase as if it sums up her total response to the whole Benghazi situation.  It’s so deceitful! ……………… Assad launched a deadly chemical attack on August 21 against rebel-held suburbs in Damascus, and I think many minds were changed from previous opinions on entering this fray, by the images of row upon row of precious DEAD children.  President Obama is gaining support for a targeted strike against some of Assad’s military bases and weapons arsenals.  It would help if we could convince Russia to quit selling chemical weaponry to Syria; and if God would just take all the bad guys up “in a rapture” for the rest of us……………. Of course, it wouldn’t matter at all to the Obama haters, what Obama did or didn’t do, they criticize him either way and try to make justifications for their “minds that hate”.  It would be great if they could give him credit for some of the good things he has done, but of course, they don’t see any.  President Obama is smart to take the question to Congress; let it be on their heads.  They are viewing all the intelligence reports, which we are told, are way better intel than was given for justifying invading Iraq.  And our current administration is NOT talking about putting “boots on the ground” in Syria.  Saudi Arabia has supposedly said they would foot the bill for our action, since we’re their “rent an army”, when other Arabs need to be taken out because Arabs supposedly have a problem with killing other Arabs (that’s the rationale)…………. Well, I say it’s good they will at least pay the bill for the strike they deem necessary in the region!

“One of the ten demands from the March on Washington 50 years ago was for a national minimum wage act that would give all Americans a decent standard of living.  Do you believe the national minimum wage of $7.25 accomplishes that demand?”  No; even our state minimum wage of $8.25 is not sufficient; it’s just wrong for the United States to have a slave labor force!  In the 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.  Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep George Miller (D-Calif) are supporting a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.  The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013  “would increase the hourly minimum wage by 3 incremental increases of $.95 and then index it to inflation, so that as prices rise so would the minimum wage.  It would also raise tipped employee’s wages from $2.13 an hour by increments of $.85  until it reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum wage”.  Members of Congress have voted to increase their salaries 13 times since they set the tipped minimum wage at $2.13  in 1991.  “Raising the minimum wage would help reverse the ongoing erosion of wages that has contributed significantly to the growing income inequality.  It would also provide a modest stimulus to the entire economy, as increased wages would lead to increased consumer spending which would contribute to GDP growth and modest employment gains”, according to the website of Economic Policy Institute. ******* You think this is something that everyone would more or less agree on?  A better standard of living for our own citizens?  For those who are willing to work?  Since the GOP is always talking about how everyone should be more responsible and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?  We gotta be able to afford boots, and rent, and utilities and medicine and food!   Have y’all noticed how little you get with $50 at the grocery store lately?  I have.  You want to buy healthy fruits and vegetables, but they’re expensive!  The GOP in Congress wants  to make big cuts in the federal “food stamp” nutrition program by separating it entirely from the farm bills, even though most farmers don’t agree with that agenda; and some GOP members don’t want the Affordable Care Act (or “Obama-Care”)  funded either, though it is advancing regardless, and will prove to be a great blessing to the multitudes, as our rather-corrupt medical industry gets revamped.   U.S. citizens shouldn’t have to go to Mexico or Canada to get less expensive medicine than they can purchase here!  And we surely shouldn’t have to go to Taiwan or India for a necessary surgery because it costs far less, even with special treatments,  for the insurance companies, than it would in our own country!  I’ll stay here and die if I need a surgery and my insurance carrier doesn’t want to pay for it, cause I’m not going to some country where organ-theft is rampant, because our doctors want to charge exorbitant prices for their services.  Enough is enough!  We the People need to ALL stand together for a better country for ALL of us!  Not just the rich and connected!  I’m for sending less foreign aid to other countries and helping our own citizens (our own sons and daughters and grandkids and neighbors) to have a better standard of living.   The GOP won’t work with Democrats to return interest rates to their previous level, so on 7/1 rates doubled.   According to the New York Times recently, “Congressional Republicans are moving to gut many of President Obama’s top priorities with their sharpest spending cuts in a generation, and a new push to hold government finances hostage unless the President’s signature health care is stripped of money this fall.   They seek to slash environmental protections,  and immigration-reform, and voter rights, and education, and basically anything that helps middle and lower class families, all in their efforts to protect tax breaks for their billionaire backers.  When Congress comes back from recess we’ll see if the reckless budget cuts get implemented, or if there’s just more inaction.  The GOP should really invest more energy in finding a real candidate for the 2016 election; a candidate that has a chance of winning would have to be more “middle-of-the-road” than their tea-party fanatics would embrace.  But I’m pretty sure they won’t take that common-sense approach, and the way will be clear for the DEMs; besides, if Hillary is in the running….no-one else will really have a chance!             She’s just the smartest choice,  and the smartest woman for the job!!   READY FOR HILLARY in 2016!