Everybody has the right to education. It's a basic right. Everybody has the right to housing. It's a basic right. Everyone has the right to food. It's a basic right.

In the United States we don't acknowledge any of those things as rights. Franklin Roosevelt tried to get them into the Constitution of the United States back in the early 1940s with his second Bill of Rights proposal, but the Republicans would have nothing to do with that. He wasn't able to get it passed or even get any serious traction for the thing. So we continue to slide into third world poverty while countries that have embraced democratic socialism become very, very successful.

So let's look at what's going on here in the United States. Paul Ryan basically just came out and said, "hey, we've got ours of the tax cuts, oh you guys, tough luck." His specific words were "We have to fix health care if we're going to get away from this debt crisis," which were tweeted out by Fox News. And you know when Paul Ryan says fix health care, what he means is chop a half a billion dollars out of Medicare so that everybody on Medicare is going to have to start paying an extra hundred bucks a month for their Medicare or is going to have to start paying a hundred dollars as a copay every time they visit a doctor or is going to have to start paying more for their drugs. And/or blow up Obamacare and do away with Medicaid.

So Joan McCarter over at Daily Kos notes...

"A second grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School, 38-year-old Heather Holland, died Sunday due to complications of the flu.

In addition to a classroom of second graders, Holland left behind husband Frank Holland, a 10-year-old daughter, and a 7-year-old son.

Holland fell ill about a week ago and planned to pick up flu medication but felt the $116 copay was too high, her husband said."

This is from WeatherfordDemocrat.com.

As Joan McCarter writes,

"She died from the flu because she needed the $116 for her kids. Which is how it should be in Paul Ryan's world. Although the adherent of Ayn Rand would probably say she should have spent the money on the medicine and let her kids fend for themselves. They're 7 and 10, they could get jobs, right?"

Meanwhile Nancy Altman writing over at Slate.com, "Republicans Are Killing Social Security One Tiny Service Cut at a Time", points out Marco Rubio just before Christmas told us that the Republicans in the House and Senate were going to go after Social Security and here's how they're doing it.

-Thom


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