Today Is My Birthday
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I've been getting a ton of well-wishes, especially on Facebook. Instead of sending a card or anything, can you consider contributing to any congressional candidate dedicated to passing Medicare-for-All? Personally, I would surely have died without Medicare. You can find 33 Medicare-for-All candidates by clicking the thermometer on the right, both Senate candidates and House candidates. Even if you just want to give one dollar to one candidate... it would be a mitzvah. I know we're all thinking about the presidential race right now, but unless we get some good solid progressives into Congress, we're not going to get the fundamental, transformative change we need. Even if we elect a great president like Bernie or Elizabeth (or a Bernie-Elizabeth ticket), we're going to need more members like Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal and Ted Lieu, AOC, Ayanna Pressley, Andy Levin and Jamie Raskin to pass the kind of progressive agenda the status quo establishment is going to fight ever step of the way to keep from being enacted.Labels: 2020 congressional elections, Medicare For All, Sam Cooke
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 3:00 AM
13 comments
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13 Comments:
Happy birthday Howie. I came to your blog a few months ago after hearing you several times on David Feldman's podcast. I kicked in $20 to Blue America PAC out of appreciation for your efforts on behalf of genuinely progressive candidates. Thanks for the work you do.
Happy 72 dude. Seriously.
"unless we get some good solid progressives into Congress, we're not going to get the fundamental, transformative change we need."
"some"? we would need 225 in the house and 70 in the senate AND the Bernie/Elizabeth ticket before we could get ANY useful fundamental, transformative change.
@5:56, I don't think it takes that many to at least start moving in the right direction. Members of Congress like to keep their seats and they can usually figure out which way the wind is blowing, particularly when people are swamping the phone lines in their offices and demonstrating in public. What we've been missing is a popular President who will use the bully pulpit against members of his own party when necessary. You seem to be advocating giving up since the numbers you're talking about are a pipe dream.
Happy Birthday, Howie. It happens to be mine as well, but I'm a mere 66. I get to spend my day applying for Social Security and Medicare, then worry that the Congress will take them away.
I thus expect that your birthday will go better than mine. So enjoy for both of us, with my compliments.
Happy Birthday Howie!
Great picture.
Keep On Truckin!
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@8:18, you're not applying for Medicare for the first time at 66, are you? I'm 62 and you scared the hell out of me with that, but I just checked and the eligibility age is still 65. The age for "full" Social Security benefits for somebody with my birthdate has been gradually bumped up to 66 1/2, but I'll probably start drawing a slightly reduced monthly amount when I turn 65. Even without allowing for any time value of money, I'd have to live beyond 79 or so for the cumulative payments from the higher monthly amount for starting at age 66 1/2 to catch up for the 18 payments foregone from age 65 to 66 1/2.
Same birthday as Kurt Cobain.
Happy Birthday to you sir.
6:27, you are naïve. nobody cares about calls or emails or letters any more. they care about polls a little. The only "people" they listen to any more are the lobbyists... the ones holding the biggest checks are heard the clearest.
what they all care about is money. And what everyone from Pelosi to just above pramila is that if they talk about, much less PASS useful transformative change, they'll never see another nickel from corporate America.
And in the senate, it goes from scummer down to the one just above Sanders. But the senate requires 60 for cloture... so I figured 70 would be a nice margin of error.
And if after 40 years and especially the cheney/bush, obamanation and trump admins, you do not understand this about your democrap party, then you either just awoke from a 40-year coma or you just don't know shit.
"@8:18, you're not applying for Medicare for the first time at 66, are you?"
Yes I am, 9:08. I was one of the lucky American workers who actually had better-than-average health coverage from my employer and didn't need Medicare yet. Medical professionals would tell me that I had it good, and from what others on different plans told me about their "plans", I had no reason to doubt those accolades.
My coverage under this employer plan will end on Leap Year Day when my retirement becomes official. I am already signed up for Part A, and could yet not do so for Part B until I had a final date of employment. I now have one.
Like you, I was looking at 66 years and 7 months, but according to the SSI website, I'm good as of today for full benefits. I cannot explain the disparity, except that this is all part of the plan to make SSI impossible for those of us who paid into it all of our working lives to reap any benefit from it. After all, the Pentagon needs it far more than we do, right? Can't tax the wealthy who wouldn't feel the loss of a pittance compared to their plush economic entirety.
Despite having had good wages for a long while, retirement is not going to be a picnic for me. My pension is an insult, yet is still better than most workers can expect. The Congress is after my Social Security AND my Medicare, and I chose to pay off my house rather than throw my money away on a 401k which could disappear, as it did for too many in the Great Recession. I will have a fancy shack in which to starve to death in the dark, but at least raindrops won't be fallin' on my head while doing so.
Retirement is a lie promulgated to keep us moving forward in the traces. How much would we do if we knew that at the end the factory made glue out of us? We end up with no quality to our lives, having to resort instead to making the best of our impecunious options for survival. I'm already a veteran shopper at the dollar stones.
I wish you success, 9:08.
Happy Birthday, my darlin' Howie! I made it to 55 after 2 terrible, horrible bad years so now it's a blessing and a curse that I'm around to see if I can see if I can be even MORE of a rebel WITH a cause! (Healthcare for ALL and damnit... ACCESS TOO!). My love to you more today than on most days! Donation made!
Happy 72nd! Tomorrow (2/21) is my birthday - 73. Lucky to made it this far I guess.
I love DWT!
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