photo from http://www.beavercountian.com

Nurses and Union Activists Demonstrate Against Medicare Cuts at Rep. Jason Altmire’s Office

Congressman Jason Altmire is a Blue Dog Democrat who has consistently provided decisive votes for the Republican slash and burn social agenda since the 2010 election. The Republican plan to cut Medicare will devastate healthcare services in Beaver County where many elderly and disabled people rely on it. The plan also includes cuts to Social Security.

Progressive Democrats, labor, and community groups are lobbying Altmire to vote against any cuts that would hurt the people of his district. Will he provide the winning vote for the Republicans as he has done this year over and over? Be sure to call and let him know your position.

In one of the largest Congressional districts in the nation, stretching across the rural heartland of eastern Arizona from the Four Corners region to the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, the historic candidacy of Wenona Benally Baldenegro for the Democratic nomination for Congress is marking a new era in Western politics.

For Arizonans exhausted by the extremist Tea Party machinations of freshman Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who many view more dedicated to the Tea Party’s beltway defiance of the Obama administration than the creation of jobs or protecting health care and investments in education, the hands-on rural American experience and Main Street platform ideas of public interest attorney Benally Baldenegro have galvanized a bipartisan campaign across the district’s diverse constituency.

“We’re extremely disappointed in Rep. Gosar,” said Vera Skorupski, a long-time registered Republican from Sedona, Arizona and a campaign supporter of Benally Baldenegro. Citing Gosar’s lack of support for Medicare and health care reform, Skorupski praised Benally Baldenegro for not ignoring the “compassionate conservative” tradition abandoned by “radical” Tea Party activists like Gosar and bringing together Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Raised in the mining town of Kayenta on the Navajo Nation, the Harvard-educated attorney Benally Baldenegro will also become the first female American Indian member of Congress, if elected.

Continue reading Progressive Democrat Runs for Congress in Arizona →

Friends, family mark 100th birthday of a Florin hero

smagagnini@sacbee.com

Published Monday, Jul. 25, 2011

More than 150 relatives, friends and neighbors filled Florin Community Center on Sunday to celebrate a true American war hero.

Bob Fletcher – who officially turns 100 on Tuesday – didn’t see combat in World War II. But he was shot at for being a Japanese sympathizer when he quit his job to save three local Japanese American farms whose owners were sent to internment camps.

Most of Sacramento’s 3,000 Japanese Americans who were shipped off to barbed-wire camps from 1942 to 1945 lost everything – even though most were U.S. citizens. Their farms and homes were stolen or foreclosed on by the banks.

But Fletcher, a UC Davis-trained agricultural inspector, knew many Japanese farmers throughout Northern California and hated to see their hard work and life savings disappear.

“They were the same as everybody else – it was obvious they had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor,” Fletcher said.

At his neighbors’ request, he agreed to work three farms – 90 acres of flame Tokay grapes on Florin-Perkins Road – while the Tsukamotos, Okamotos and Nittas were locked up.

Continue reading An American Hero Celebrates 100th Birthday →

VIGIL IN SUPPORT OF
SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE

MONDAY
JULY 25TH at 3:30
REP ALTMIRE’S OFFICE
2110 McCLEAN STREET, ALIQUIPPA

Service Employees International Union HAVE RECEIVED WORD THAT
ALTMIRE INTENDS TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF
CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE.

LET’S JOIN THEM TOMORROW AT ALTMIRE’S ALIQUIPPA OFFICE.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, July 22, 2011

35 National Disabilities Groups Representing Millions of Americans Urge President Obama & Congress Not to Cut Social Security Benefits

Groups Send Letters Opposing Changes to COLA Formula that Would Result in Significant Benefit Cuts

(Washington, DC) — Two leading disability group coalitions – the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities and the National Disability Leadership Alliance – sent letters to President Obama and to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate recently, urging them to oppose any effort to reduce the Social Security and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) by adopting the chained consumer price index (CPI) formula during debt-ceiling negotiations.

The letters, which were signed by a total of 35 organizations, identified specific and significant cuts to benefits that would occur in programs that people with disabilities greatly depend on – Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income – should the chained CPI be used to calculate the annual COLA. Those cuts are detailed in this fact sheet.

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities letter said: “Although some might describe use of the “chained” CPI as a mere technical change, it will likely have dramatic impacts on current and future Social Security beneficiaries. For a beneficiary receiving the average Disability Insurance benefit, benefits would be cut by $333 per year (2.6%) after 10 years, $692 (5.4%) after 20 years, and $1,710 per year (13.34%) after 50 years. These cuts could be devastating and force people to make terrible life and death choices between paying for a prescription or buying food.”

The National Disability Leadership Alliance letter said: “For many of these citizens, changing the COLA formula this way will mean taking them one step closer to a life below the poverty level. Rather than finding ways to decrease the COLA, our country should increase it to better reflect such realities as the higher out-of-pocket health care costs experienced by people with disabilities and seniors.”

A list of the organizations that signed one or both of the letters is below.

Continue reading Disabilities Groups to Obama: Do not cut Social Security →