My glitch that I overlooked this draft yesterday.
Related: Monday Globe Has Glitches
See: Survey says more are signing up for Obama health care program
Survey says.... I'm as bad as the computer firms I criticize since I was supposed to fix the glitches yesterday.
"Boehner prodded as Senate passes jobless bill; Some in GOP urging speaker to allow a vote" by David Espo | Associated Press April 08, 2014
WASHINGTON — The bill’s prospects in the House are cloudy at best, given that the Senate vote itself, seven months before congressional elections, capped a bruising three-month struggle....
The bill was the first major piece of legislation Democrats sent to the floor of the Senate when Congress convened early in the year, the linchpin of a broader campaign-season agenda meant to showcase concern for men and women who are doing poorly in an era of economic disparity between rich and poor.
And we ain't buying' it no more 'cause it's just a biannual $hit-$how fooley and diversion before it's back to bu$ine$$ as usual down there. No $en$e and a wa$te of time to even type anymore. It's a $imple trui$m.
In the months since then, the Democrats have alternately pummeled Republicans for holding up passage and made concessions in an effort to gain support from enough GOP lawmakers to overcome a filibuster. Chief among those concessions was an agreement to pay the $9.6 billion cost of the five-month bill by making offsetting spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.
The White House-backed measure would retroactively restore benefits cut off in late December and maintain them through the end of May....
Will it be a lump sum because as soon as it passes the benefits will run out again!
Whatever the bill’s fate in the House, Senate Democrats have taken steps to follow their action with a test vote on a bill to strengthen ‘‘equal pay for equal work’’ laws. That measure includes a provision giving women the right to seek punitive damages in lawsuits in which they allege pay discrimination, a change that Republicans call a gift to trial lawyers who contribute extensively to Democratic campaigns.
Next up in the Democratic attempt to gain ground during the election year will be a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It is currently $7.25 an hour.
That's the only time they ever show up telling you how much better they are. Eight years ago, I believed. Now.... (blog editor frowns)
Underscoring the political backdrop, a little-noticed provision in the jobless-benefits legislation is specifically designed to benefit the long-term unemployed in North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat, faces a stiff challenge for a new term.
I would just like to say how insulted and outraged I am that the unemployed are being used as pawns by the political cla$$ that serves corporate and bu$ine$$ intere$ts.
It would make residents eligible for long-term benefits if the state negotiates an agreement with the Department of Labor. North Carolina residents are currently ineligible because state benefits were reduced below a federal standard.
And all the Repuglicans want in exchange is an oil pipeline.
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Also see: Taking the GOP’s temperature
You know the kind of thermometer being used.
"24 schools to get over $100m in grants; Obama sees funds as an investment in future workers" by Jim Kuhnhenn | Associated Press April 08, 2014
BLADENSBURG, Md. — President Obama on Monday announced more than $100 million in grants for two dozen schools across the country that are helping students gain work experience for what he called the ‘‘in-demand jobs of the future.’’
The money, which comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs, is the result of an executive order Obama signed last year to better prepare high school students for college or for careers.
The very jobs they are preparing you for, kids!
Students are working on ‘‘cooler stuff than when I was in high school,’’ Obama said as he announced the grants before cheering high school students in Washington’s Maryland suburbs....
Oh, that is so not cool!
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Related: Elite colleges choosier than ever
Let's check my chart:
"Doctors’ notes on mental health shared with patients; Policy shift at Beth Israel Deaconess" by Liz Kowalczyk | Globe Staff April 08, 2014
At the end of every workday, psychiatrists, social workers, and other mental health providers write notes describing their patients’ visits. It is where they chronicle paranoid behavior, excessive drinking, or relationship problems. These candid comments often are available to other doctors, but they are rarely shared with patients themselves.
Now, as part of an ongoing effort to make care more transparent, clinicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have begun posting the mental health notes in patients’ electronic medical records, allowing the patients immediate access to the summaries at home....
So they can be hacked?
What do you know, Israel is not “paranoid'’ anymore, they are suffering from “persecutory anxiety.’’
Is that anything like suffering from food insecurity because I'm hungry?
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No glitches, huh?
Related: Nation's top Medicare billers revealed in data
UPDATE: Medicare Advantage cuts less than feared
It's a fustercluck.
"Obama signs measures to help close gender gap in pay" by Peter Baker | New York Times April 09, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama signed two executive measures on Tuesday intended to help close longstanding pay disparities between men and women as Democrats seek to capitalize on their gender-gap advantage at the ballot box in a midterm election year....
And who could $tand in the way of the benevolent dictator doing that among$t the wave of wealth shooting upward during his administration?
The president, as he has in the past, reiterated that it was “an embarrassment” that women on average earn 77 cents for every dollar men make. But he made no mention of a recent study that found that women in his own White House make 88 cents for every dollar men do.
Well, you know, the president lives in his little political bubble of empire and anything that conflicts with the self-delusional perception of the world, well, you know.... it's a hard-working staff, 'kay?
Aides have said that women earn the same salary as men of the same rank but that there are more women in lower-paying jobs — an explanation similar to that often given by private-sector employers.
Some critics have said both of those statistics are misleading because they are averages of all men and women in all jobs, rather than comparisons of men and women in equivalent jobs with equivalent experience. Once such factors are taken into account, they say, the gap is smaller.
Oh, this White House skewed evidence for political purposes and the campaign?
No kidding? Whoduhthunkit?
“We all support equal pay for equal work and know there’s a problem that must be addressed,” said Kirsten Kukowski, national press secretary for the Republican National Committee. “But many are questioning the Democrats’ motives as they continue their dishonesty about the issue and their own gender gap.”
The Senate is set to vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act on Wednesday, and a memo distributed by the Republican National Committee and two other party committees ahead of the vote noted that it was already illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender. It said Democrats “always seem to wait for an election year to push another empty promise.”
Both parties do it! It's part of the show! Schedule meaningless votes to distract and divert the public and frame the campaign with false differences while pa$$ing the legislation to $ati$fy certain interests.
The committees released statistics showing pay gaps in the office staffs of several Democrats up for reelection this year, including Senators Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark R. Warner of Virginia, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.
Ow, backfire!
Obama responded to the critics.
“Some commentators are out there saying that the pay gap doesn’t even exist,” he said. “They say it’s a myth. But it’s not a myth. It’s math.”
And the math says you losing Senate.
The president lambasted Republicans for opposing “any efforts to even the playing field for working families.” He added: “I don’t know why you would resist the idea that women should be paid the same as men and then deny that that’s not always happening out there. If Republicans in Congress want to prove me wrong, if they want to show that in fact they do care about women being paid the same as men, then show me. They can start tomorrow.”
You notice how I stop listening to him after a while?
Neither the executive order he signed or an executive memorandum he issued Tuesday will affect the broad US workforce, but the White House staged a ceremony with the sort of profile usually reserved for a major bill signing.
The political $howman$hip has jumped the $hark!
Aides arranged for Obama to be introduced by Lilly M. Ledbetter, who has become a symbol of the pay gap issue since the Supreme Court ruled that her discrimination case had been filed after the expiration of a statute of limitations. Congress passed a measure named for her changing the deadlines for filing such suits and Obama made it the first bill he signed after taking office.
Related: Boston Globe Knee-$lapper
Yeah, THAT GIRL isn't a symbol because it is all about CLA$$ -- as the agenda-pu$hing whorporate paper of eliti$m and wealth gets each of us at each others throats over chump change by differentials. It's political geniu$!
Ledbetter said the executive order signed by Obama would have made a difference in her case....
Obama said Ledbetter’s case belied the explanations often given for pay differentials.
“You’ll hear all sorts of excuses: ‘Oh, well they’re childbearing and they’re choosing to do this and they’re this and they’re that and they’re the other,’ ” he said.
They are single mothers!
“She was doing the same job, probably doing better. Same job. Working just as hard, probably putting in more hours,” Obama said. “But she was getting systematically paid less.”
Related:
"The administration said insurers could continue charging women more than men."
You going to waive bye-bye to him now, ladies?
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And those pre$$ed-upon $ingle moms?
"Stay-at-home moms rise in reversal of modern family trend" by John McCormick | Bloomberg News April 09, 2014
CHICAGO — American mothers are reversing a historical trend and increasingly staying home, a change driven by demographic, societal, and economic forces, including the worst recession in seven decades....
According to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, the trend follows a decline in stay-at-home mothers recorded in most years from 1970 to 1999, as more women entered the workplace, spurred both by a sense of empowerment and family financial demands.
The recession that produced dramatic job losses kept some mothers out of the workforce as they struggled to find work. Others found it more advantageous to stay home after weighing the cost of child care against wages....
“The majority of mothers would like to be in the workplace,” said D’Vera Cohn, lead author of the report, which used Census and survey data. “There may be a ceiling to how much stay-at-home motherhood can increase.”
The weak economic recovery also has also taken a toll on working men....
Of course, the economy has been rolling along for that top 5 percent, and though the wealthiest philanthropists did not give as much in 2013 as they gave before the Great Recession, a strong stock market and better business climate have continued to concentrate American wealth in the top 1 percent of earners and it's enough to make a recovery on paper.
The sort of mothers portrayed along Wisteria Lane in the ‘‘Desperate Housewives’’ television series are a minority among stay-at-home mothers....
What? I thought those moms were pure AmeriKana.
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Just wondering if you ladies like being a political tool being taken for granted.
Also see: Obama aunt who won fight over asylum dead at age 61
Related: Obama Lied About Living With Illegal Uncle
When doesn't he lie?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Democrats pushed the same legislation the last two election years, 2012 and 2010, only to see Senate Republicans scuttle the measures."
Which plays into the political narrative and all, but let me remind you of this: in 2010, the Democrats still had the filibuster-proof majority (Independent Joe Lieberman the 60th vote) before being turned out by Tea party in 2010.
So what happened? All we got was a crappy health care law.
Also see: At Fort Hood, echoes abound
With Ambien, from what I read.
Related: Fort Hood Flip-Flop
Time for me to start moving my feet.
