The Service Employees International Union is campaigning to increase retirement security and pushing back against right-wing myths about the true costs of public employee pensions in the wake of more than a year of direct attacks on those pensions by Republicans in the states.

The mission on retirement security:

After working hard and playing by the rules, working people should be able to retire with dignity and security. This is a fundamental part of the American Dream. But the Wall Street-induced housing crisis and stock market crash jeopardized this dream for countless public and private sector workers.

SEIU is promoting three basic policies towards making sure this happens. The first is protecting Social Security by eliminating the cap on taxes for the wealthy, which would extend the funding for the program for many years to come. The second and third parts of the plan deals with private and public pensions:

Our efforts to help deliver retirement security to all include exploring new models for private sector retirement plans that allow workers to set aside wages through a vehicle that provides guaranteed retirement income, as well as strengthening the rules for existing multi-employer and single-employer defined benefit funds to protect their participants.

...

Recent attacks on public pensions and subsequent statewide pension "reforms" jeopardize the retirement security of millions of teachers, police officers, bus drivers, nurses and other public sector workers, many of whom do not receive Social Security. We are committed to addressing this issue with comprehensive solutions. In the last two years alone, public employee unions have negotiated pension solutions that have saved the taxpayers nearly $600 million in California. Our efforts include safeguarding against all forms of cheating or abuse, and ensuring everybody pays their fair share, and all pension fund trustees, staff and service providers adhere to the highest ethical and fiduciary standards, devoid of conflicts of interest.

SEIU also issued a fact sheet that takes on a number of the right-wing myths that are being spread in an attempt to build support for cutting public pensions. The key points:

Oh, it does my heart good to watch Baby Paul schooled in such a direct fashion. This little "debate" on food programs for seniors highlights the Randian "screw you, I've got mine" attitude so well. This video is from a Senate hearing on the Older Americans Act. Here are some highlights:

FRANKEN: Make no mistake, the Older Americans Act saves money. It allows seniors to stay in their homes, who wouldn't otherwise be able to stay in their homes.

PAUL: It's curious that only in Washington DC can you spend two billion dollars and claim that you're saving money. Here's a thought. Perhaps the two billion dollars we spend on OAA, if we subsumed that into another program and didn't spend it, that might be saving money.

So, let me see if I have this right. Baby Paul is saying that by merging OAA with another program but not funding it, there would be savings to the government. Yes, that's what he's saying. Sanders and Franken have an answer for him.

SANDERS: Senator Paul has suggested that only in Washington can people believe that spending money actually saves money. And I think that is the kind of philosophy which results in us spending almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country on earth, because we have millions and millions of Americans who can't get to a doctor on time. Some of them die, some of them become very, very ill. They end up in the emergency room, they end up in the hospital at great cost rather than making sure they have access to a doctor. Maybe it's the same reason why we have more people in jail than any other country on earth including China, tied to the fact that we have the highest poverty rate among children than any other major country on earth.

So the point is, and I think we have a bit of a difference here, I believe -- I think Senator Franken has spoken to the fact -- that prevention, keeping people healthy, taking care of their needs at home does actually save money. And that if you deny those resources, if you leave a senior citizen home today, alone, isolated, confused about medicine, not getting the nutrition they need, you know what happens to that person? That person collapses, that person ends up in an emergency room, that person ends up in a nursing home, at much greater cost to the system.

FRANKEN: Here's my very precise question. Does the Older Americans Act save taxpayers money by allowing seniors to stay in their homes as opposed to going to nursing homes?

MS. GREENLEE: Yes, Senator.

FRANKEN: Thank you.

SANDERS: Senator Paul wanted to make another comment.

PAUL: I appreciate the great and I think very collegial discussion, and we do have different opinions. Some of us believe more in the ability of government to cure problems and some of us believe more in the ability of private charity to cure these problems. I guess what I still find curious though is that if we are saving money with the two billion dollars we spend, perhaps we should give you 20 billion. Is there a limit? Where would we get to, how much money should we give you to save money? So if we spend federal money to save money where is the limit? I think we could reach a point of absurdity. Thank you.

FRANKEN: I think you just did.

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Ryan also said that he would propose changing Medicare, the popular health program for seniors, into what he called a “premium support plan” similar to the Medicare prescription drug program. [...]

Seniors would be able to pick from a list of private plans competing for their business, Ryan said. Seniors would pick the plan of their choosing, and Medicare would subsidize that coverage.

Children, let's stop and think about this for a moment.

Do you know why Medicare was established in the first place? That's right -- because retirees had difficulty getting affordable health insurance due to their higher medical liabilities. And of course, even those who could afford such insurance would find their policies rescinded if their care got too expensive -- in essence, a private-sector death panel.

So we created Medicare! And it has been one of the most successful government programs of the past century, helping countless seniors get quality care without putting themselves into bankruptcy paying for private insurance. And now Paul Ryan wants to turn it into another corporate welfare scam.

As Ezra Klein notes, this is not going to improve care or really even save money:

The current Medicare program would be dissolved and the next generation of seniors would choose from Medicare-certified private plans on an exchange. But that wouldn’t save money. In fact, it would cost money. As the Congressional Budget Office has said (pdf), since Medicare is cheaper than private insurance, beneficiaries will see “higher premiums in the private market for a package of benefits similar to that currently provided by Medicare.” [...]

In both cases, what saves money is not the reform. It’s the cut. For Medicare, the cut is that the government wouldn’t cover the full cost of the private Medicare plans, and the portion they would cover is set to shrink as time goes on.

Hear that, Granny? Your health care is about to be sacrificed at the altar of Aetna and Cigna! I hope you like it!

But hey, not everyone's doing quite so poorly. Take a look at what Charlie Sheen's been up to:

During the show, Sheen smoked cigarettes and answered questions from a master of ceremonies, talking about his marriages, his career and his life with the women he calls his "goddesses."

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Dick Armey is so aggravated with us stupid Americans for liking Social Security that he sat down at his computer and wrote an op-ed trying to talk us all out of it.

Social Security already is the largest tax that most Americans pay. Studies have shown that payroll taxes would need to increase by 50% in order to temporarily save the insolvent program. But what happens when that's not enough? At what point does Social Security become generational theft?

Funny how that savings thing becomes a "tax" unless it's invested in "private" investments, eh?

Americans should ask, if Social Security is such a great program, why is it mandatory? Workers should have the choice about whether they want to remain in the current system or invest in a personal saving retirement account, which would allow them to have complete control over their retirements funds and pass the remaining balance to family members. Let's have Social Security compete against other investment options.

Because that worked so well for everyone who had 401(k) money invested in 2008, right? Imagine the disaster that would have befallen seniors all over the country when their otherwise-reliable pension payment became half of its former self.

Social Security isn't going anywhere, and if I have anything to say about it, the Social Security Retirement Age can stay right where it is. The only tweak they should make is lifting the cap on contributions. In fact, they could lift that cap and drop the rate a percentage point if they wanted. That should ensure solvency through the end of this century or so.

Evidently fed up with Republican stalling on the appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as director of CMS, the Obama administration announced its intention to use a recess appointment to bypass the roadblock.

From the White House blog:

But with the agency facing new responsibilities to protect seniors’ care under the Affordable Care Act, there’s no time to waste with Washington game-playing. That’s why tomorrow the President will use a recess appointment to put Dr. Berwick at the agency’s helm and provide strong leadership for the Medicare program without delay.

Cue Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Betsy McCaughey, who will step forward to say the "death panels" will now become reality. It just drives conservatives crazy to see their worst nightmare -- health care reform -- come to pass, even as opposition to it drops away.

Ezra Klein also points out the foolishness of Republican obstruction with regard to Berwick:

But conservatives are making a serious mistake by forcing the administration to rely on a recess appointment for Berwick. Ultimately, what weakens Berwick weakens them, as Berwick, whether they know it or not, is one of the best friends they could have in the administration. That's because insofar as Berwick is a radical, he's a radical in favor of a patient-centered health-care system -- a position that has traditionally been associated with conservatives, not liberals.

This has escaped notice because political activists don't pay much attention to questions of delivery-system reform. Of the three legs that balance the health-care reform stool -- cost, access and quality -- cost and access have traditionally been at the forefront of the issue, and are both politically polarized topics. Quality, however, is a demilitarized zone: Conservatives aren't for high rates of post-operative infections, and neither are liberals.

The hits keep coming in for Arizona's Tancredo/Buchanan bill. The Mayor of Phoenix is no fan of this legislation and said this on Friday:

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says seniors, kids and out-of-staters should be wary of the Arizona immigration bill signed into law this past week -- warning that it puts them at risk of being arrested.

The law makes illegal immigration a state crime. It gives police the authority to question people about their immigration status and arrest those who cannot show documentation to establish their legal residency.

Gordon, a staunch opponent of the state law, said that means anyone who doesn't carry an Arizona license -- children under 16, seniors who don't drive and people from out of state -- could be "at risk of being arrested and turned over to (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)."

"It tramples civil rights," Gordon told Fox News on Sunday. "Now everyone has to show and prove that they're a legal resident or citizen." The mayor of Arizona's largest city is at odds with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the bill Friday and described the legislation as her state's answer to "decades of inaction and misguided policy" in Washington.

If I thought like Sarah Palin I might say that Arizona was more interested in 'Arresting Grandma' than solving the real immigration problem. Gordon makes good points on FOX because he's talking about demographics in our society that will be out at risk. The elderly are always caught up on the down side of an issue when there are massive changes to laws like this.

Bill Hemmer does his FOX News best by quoting the odious Sheriff Arpaio, who says more people will come to Arizona because the state has become safer. Gordon smacked him around by saying that Arpaio is only making up his own statistics and noted that he's actually under criminal investigation for civil rights violations. Sheriff Arpaio is one of those trusted FOX News sources. I should also include that most of the MSM uses Boss Tweed all the time. And there are plenty of reports in the news now saying that Arizona businesses are very afraid that this law will drive business away.

"Our members are concerned," said Debbie Johnson, president and CEO of the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association, which represents hundreds of hotels, bed and breakfasts and resorts in the state.

"They're hearing from a lot of folks who visit and they're obviously concerned with where this is playing out."

On April 28th he told CNN that he's going to sue Arizona's bill:

Mayor Phil Gordon's planned lawsuit contends Arizona's recently passed immigration law is too vague and unenforceable.

The police will enforce it just fine. I bet taser sales go through the roof and I bet that's one convention that won't be cancelled.

There's something so terribly wrong about this:

Oxford High School, a school in Calhoun County, Ala., prom dress codes are strictly enforced. Some say too strictly. This year, the Anniston Star reports that 25 students were disciplined for violating the prom dress code. The strangest part of the story, though, is that the students were allowed to stay at the prom, but the following week, they had to choose the option of receiving corporal punishment (by paddling) or a three-day suspension.

Keep in mind, these are seniors in high school. While I wouldn't be wearing the dress in the video, I wouldn't view it as too short or too low cut for a prom, but that's almost beside the point.

Dress code or not, if any school principal laid a finger on my high school daughter -- or a paddle, for that matter -- I would yank her out of that school so fast heads would spin. Yes, I know they get around it by saying there's a choice for a 3-day suspension, but I also know that a 3-day suspension can really screw up grades and standing records, especially in one's senior year. My high school sophomore daughter would be mortified at being punished for what she chose to wear to a school dance.

What message does paddling send to students, anyway? I don't see a deterrent effect when 25 kids are cited and punished for clothes their parents let them wear to a formal occasion despite the long-standing paddling policy. It just seems...bizarre.

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In October 2009, here's how Sen. Jay Rockefeller described the Medicare Advantage plans:

"It's a wasteful, inefficient program and always has been," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said at a recent hearing. At its core, Rockefeller added, Medicare Advantage is "stuffing money into the pockets of private insurers, and it doesn't provide any better benefits to anybody."

Yes, the for-profit add-on plans the Republicans pushed through under Bush heavily subsidize services. (So much for "pay as you go," huh?)

A study released yesterday by a major consulting firm found that premiums for Medicare Advantage plans offering medical and prescription-drug coverage jumped 14.2 percent on average in 2010, after an increase of 5.2 percent the previous year. Some 8.5 million elderly and disabled Americans are in the plans, which provide more comprehensive coverage than traditional Medicare, often at lower cost.

Lee Durrwachter, a retired chemical engineer from Grand Marais, Mich., said his premiums more than doubled this year - even though he switched plans to try to save money. "It doesn't bode well," he said. "It's unaffordable."

The Medicare findings are bad news for President Obama and his health-care overhaul that is bogged down in Congress. That is because the higher Medicare Advantage premiums for 2010 followed a cut in government payments to the private plans last year. And the Democratic bills pending in Congress call for even more cuts, which are expected to force many seniors to drop out of what has been a rapidly growing alternative to traditional Medicare.

Republicans have seized on the Medicare Advantage cuts in their campaign to derail the health-care bills, and seniors are listening. Polls show seniors are more skeptical of the legislation than the public as a whole, even though Democrats would also reinforce original Medicare by improving preventive benefits and narrowing the prescription-coverage gap.

Okay, maybe requiring minimum IQs as a standard to run for national office is a bit harsh, but can we at least insist that politicians prove that they are actually human and not some mindless automaton programmed with talking points?

(In the past,) Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who don’t have health care.” She was at it again today on the House floor, arguing that health reform is a greater threat to our country than “any terrorist right now in any country”:

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. … I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room — this very room — and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

Normally, this is where my head makes a very loud thunk against my desk at the stupidity, but instead I just find myself really angry at this illogical fear mongering and ugliness. But what can you expect from a politician ugly enough to call Matthew Shepard's murder "a hoax"?. Obviously her lip service towards valuing life doesn't really mean any living people.

Rep. Foxx, the lives of those 44,000 Americans who die needlessly every year because they do not have insurance is blood on your hands.

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(h/t Heather for video)

On Tuesday's Hardball, during Chris Matthews' "Big Number" segment he made this claim:

The AARP's going out on a bit of a limb by backing efforts for health care reform, so here's proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

How many seniors have canceled their membership in AARP this summer, specifically citing AARP's push for some sort of health care overhaul? 60,000. 60,000 seniors have walked out on AARP this summer over reform. Tonight's big number.

Technically, this number may be accurate and there are those who are dropping their memberships over AARP's support of health care reform, but the story is incomplete. As Media Matters points out, other MSNBC shows have been spinning this story negatively, and, in fact, AARP actually gained 400,000 members and 1.5 million people renewed their memberships during the same time period:

The approximately 60,000 number represents members who specifically cited AARP's stance on the health overhaul debate in canceling their membership between July 1 and mid-August, Nannis said. He said that on average AARP loses some 300,000 members a month, but he couldn't say how many more members had quit for other reasons in that time period.

He said AARP gained some 400,000 new members during the same period and that 1.5 million members renewed their membership. Read on...

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that AARP has seen a net gain of 340,000 members during the health care debate this summer -- which should have been Chris Matthews' Big Number, but that's not sexy enough for him. MSNBC isn't the only source spreading the misleading numbers either -- and CBS got the ball rolling.