Friday, September 22, 2006

Donut Holes

>Senior citizens have started to fall into the Medicare prescription drug program's donut hole and they have the Republicans to thank. This means that senior citizens will now have to pay full price for their drugs. For many seniors, they will find that the medications are just too expensive to buy. They will go without their insulin, heart medicine and other important drugs. This is all because Deborah Pryce and the rest of the Republicans created this senior citizen drug plan to benefit their big campaign donors --- the large drug companies. Senior citizens will also find out that the medications have gone up in price in the last few months.

What can be done? Nothing. Why? The Republican controlled White House, Senate, and House of Representatives designed this entire program and as long as the Republicans set the agenda, nothing will change. The only change possible will come on election day when we have the opportunity to throw the Republicans out of office.

>Yesterday, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of Youngstown, gave Americans some important numbers to think about concerning the Bush's Iraq War. The video is from Crooks and Liars. Here is the text of Ryan's speech, also from Crooks and Liars:

...Because this is about 84% of Americans saying that we’re losing the war in Iraq. This is about all of these generals that we’ve been showing night in and night out saying there’s no plan to get out of here; there was a bad plan to get in; there was a bad plan to start with; and there was no plan; bad information; bad intelligence; nothing was right. Look back at everything they said about using the oil for reconstruction money; about being greeted as liberators; about all of this nonsense that we heard before.
This is an opportunity for this administration, Mr. Meek, to try to change the subject. And all of a sudden, we’re talking about a few political prisoners–and it has enormous ramifications–but the bottom line is this: this administration wants to talk about anything but the war or the economy.
They want to change the subject when they get a chance to and now we’ve got this debate about military prisoners and I’m not saying that it’s not important, but my God, you got millions of people living in poverty. You got seniors and you threaten them with their Medicare. And you have 40 million people without health insurance. You have stagnant wages. You have gas prices going up, you have health care going up, you have tuition going up, you have poverty rates going up and you have veterans’ benefits going down. And you want to talk about this little sliver to change the subject?
And you’re coming up with new phrases again, fascism and all of this stuff. $8.4 billion per month; $1.9 billion per week in Iraq; $275 million per day in Iraq; $11.5 million per hour in Iraq. If this is the legacy of the Bush administration, you know what? If I was in the White House, I wouldn’t want that talk about this either.


Let me summarize what Rep. Ryan said:

The War in Iraq is costing us
$8.4 billion per month
$1.9 billion per week
$275 million per day
$11.5 million per hour