THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
You had to be heartless if you weren’t impressed with the passion of the young people who took on cowardly politicians who have been bullied by the NRA. For too long, politicians have taken money from The NRA because they are afraid to take a stand.
Having grown up in The Vietnam War era where I saw college students protest a war in Southeast Asia, I see parallels between that era of protest and this one. I have never been prouder of a generation than I have this past weekend when the kids gave it to the man. I use the word loosely when I refer to the REPUBLICAN establishment as "The Man". This time though, "The Man" as the establishment was referred to back in the day is a puny, cowardly man with no guts, no principles but…..a lot of money from The NRA. Plus the right wing Talk Show hosts are now saying the kids are being coached. Callers to shows are whining "Where are there parents?" Maybe if these blowhards used critical thinking they'd figure out that what parents said after Sandy Hook didn't work!
THE REPUBLICAN WEENIE COWARDS
A few things happened that will not surprise you at all concerning gun control and Republicans. A few items of note. Granted it came from the Neanderthals in Florida but here goes.
1. A staff member from Representative Shawn Walker's office stated that the children/students on TV were not really classmates of those killed. But were in fact “actors” who were sent to cause trouble. Again, typical Republican LIES.
2. Marco Rubio took over 3 million dollars from The NRA. Can you imagine him giving in to their pressure? Nope.
3. The Florida state House on Tuesday rejected a ban on many semiautomatic guns and large capacity magazines as dozens of survivors of last week's school shooting headed to the state Capitol to turn their grief into political action. Lawmakers voted down a motion to consider the ban during a session that opened with a prayer for the 17 people killed by a former student last Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The vote in the Republican-dominated body was 36-71.
Stoneman Douglas students in the gallery of the Capitol during the vote appeared stunned,
They should not. This is the reality kids. This is your Republican party telling you your friend’s death don’t matter and neither do you.
Act accordingly.
TRUMP BUDGET AND ENTITLEMENTS
ATTENTION SENIORS, TRUMP’S BUDGET IS COMING FOR YOUR MEDICARE BENEFITS
All those baby boomers who took up the cross of Donald Trump, might find themselves crucified by their great leader. If they aren't on disability or SS yet, they will be in for a big surprise when and if The Trump budget takes effect. Trump released his 2019 budget last week, and it included $266 billion in cuts to Medicare, which provides health insurance to 58 million Americans 65 and older and people with certain disabilities.
Howard Gleckman, a contributor for Forbes, breaks down the proposed changes:
What Trump’s Budget Would Mean For Seniors
— Medicare drug benefit would be restructured to reduce costs for some beneficiaries but raise them for others.“Trump has proposed eliminating cost-sharing for seniors with very high prescription drug costs, but at the same time he’d increase out-of-pocket expenses for many others, especially those who have significant costs but have not quite reached the threshold where medicine would be free ($8,418 this year).”
— A freeze on most funding under the Older Americans Act, which provides money for social and nutrition services for seniors including Meals on Wheels. While the proposal has a small increase for food programs, it would cut funding for disability programs by about 30 percent,
Gets rid of federal block grants that states use to fund programs for seniors.
— A new six-week family leave program would be created. But it would exclude people caring for frail parents or other relatives with disabilities.
“Each time this proposal surfaces, it focuses only on parents of newborns (and sometimes adoptees) but ignores the needs of families caring for aging parents and other relatives with disabilities,” Gleckman writes. “Families are not just parents and babies. There are millions of adult children—usually daughters–who put their paid jobs at risk by taking time off to help frail parents or disabled siblings.”
— The elimination of the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which provides job training to low-income job seekers ages 55 and older.
It’s more of the same from his first budget introduced last year: In his first budget, Trump to struggling seniors: You’ll be on your own
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, wrote this in response to Trump’s FY19 budget proposal: “Despite Donald Trump’s numerous promises during his presidential campaign to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, he proposes to cut all three in his just-released budget. And not just by a little. He proposes cuts of over $1.8 trillion to the three programs. On top of that, he proposes to slash Meals on Wheels, home heating assistance, and other programs on which seniors rely. It is noteworthy that Republicans just passed, for almost the same price tag, a huge tax giveaway to their donors. So that’s the Republican plan: save money by gutting programs for the elderly and transfer the savings to the billionaire class.”
Who gets hurt?
Who gets hurt? Our neighbors, friends, and family.
•Working families who get help from SNAP to put food on the table.
•Elders dependent on Medicare for health care.
•Veterans and displaced workers seeking job training.
•Families applying to HUD for housing assistance.
•Every single person who's paid into Social Security.
•People relying on support for low-income home heating.
(CNN, Forbess, LuLac)
TRUMP BUDGET NIXES PUBLIC BROADCASTING AND BY EXTENSION THE ARTS
Trump's newly 2019 budget again proposes the elimination of funding for the three major entities that award federal funding for public broadcasting and the arts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The $4.4 trillion budget proposal is not much of a surprise to public TV and arts advocates, as Trump's 2018 budget also called for zeroing out such funding. Instead, funding survived, which is a testament to just how much of a wish-list the White House budget really is, as opposed to something that will actually gain traction on Capitol Hill.
The rationale that the White House makes for eliminating the federal funding is that the outlay can be made up for by private donations and grants at the state level.
Private donations? By who? Deadbeats like Trump?
"CPB funding comprises about 15% of the total amount spent on public broadcasting, with the remainder coming from non-federal sources, with many large stations raising an even greater share," the budget states. "This private fundraising has proven durable, negating the need for continued federal subsidies.
"Services such as PBS and NPR, which receive funding from CPB, could make up the shortfall by increasing revenues from corporate sponsors, foundations, and members. In addition, alternatives to PBS and NPR programming have grown substantially since CPB was first established in 1967, greatly reducing the need for publicly-funded programming options," the budget reads.
Yeah I worked in Public TV and radio and membership and funding is very tough to come by. But members do support local community entities both on an individual and corporate basis. The fact that this REPUBLICAN administration thinks that these things can make up the shortfall is ignorant and disgusting. Just like the man whose name this budget bears. (LuLac, CNN)
BEHREN'S SIGNING PARTY A SUCCESS
In the 119th Justin Behren's is making another run at State Representative. He had a wildly successful signing party the otter night (last week) and is poised to take on the Democratic incumbent Gerald Mullery again. From what I hear Mullery had a signing party too but since his campaign never sent any information before or after, oh well.
MEDIA MATTERS
WAGNER-BARTOS BLITZ PENNSYLVANIA’S SUNDAY SHOW CIRCUIT
2018 gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner and his running mate Jeff Bartos (Wagner’s first and only choice for the position) hit Pennsylvania's Sunday political talk show circuit for their first television interviews since each of them received the Republican Party of Pennsylvania’s endorsement. Wagner and Bartos appeared together on “Pennsylvania Newsmakers” and “Face the State,” where they discussed their decision to form a ticket, their agenda to change the status quo in Pennsylvania, and how the campaign has come together thus far. Wagner also appeared on “This Week in Pennsylvania,” where he talked about earning the Republican party’s endorsement and the case against Tom Wolf.
WALN TV
BOLD GOLD COMMUNITY FORUM
Tune in Sunday morning at 6 on 94.3 The Talker; 6:30 on 1400-The Game, NEPA's Fox .Sports Radio and 106.7 fm; and at 7:30 on 105 The River.
ECTV LIVE
ECTV Live can be seen on Comcast channel 19 (61 in some areas) and is aired during the Noon, 6pm and Midnight hours each day of the week. Following Monday's Live program the show will become available on Electric City Television's YouTube channel which can be viewed on your computer.
BUDDY RUMCHEK
Want to hear some great parodies on the news? Tune in to WILK Radio at 6:40 and 8:40 AM on Mondays. As Ralph Cramden used to say, “It’s a laugh riot!”
BOBBY V’S DOO WOP SOCK HOP
SUNDAY NIGHTS!
1960
Our 1960 logo
Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was introduced by Frank Sinatra to Judith Campbell Exner. JFK and Exner had their first sexual encounter on March 7 at Room 1651 of the Plaza Hotel in New York……Laurence Slattery and Lesley Wasley, both volunteers, permitted a team of Australian doctors at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney to administer curare to stop their breathing, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of various forms of artificial respiration. Among the findings were that a drowning victim's head should be placed upright, rather than to the side, to aid breathing……Queen Elizabeth II announced that her future descendants would bear her husband's name as well as her own, creating the surname Mountbatten-Windsor….Sunday became a regular work day in all of Sudan, after the Muslim government in Khartoum decreed that Friday was the uniform day of rest for the entire nation. Previously, provinces in southern Sudan (which had a large Christian minority and a stronger British influence under the rule of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) had Sunday as the day off, while northern Sudan had switched to Friday upon independence in 1956.
André Previn made the first of 51 appearances at Carnegie Hall, playing George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F.
In Pennsylvania four people were killed and five others injured by a pipeline worker turned sniper. Dan Raymond, who lived near Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, shot two county workers who were spreading cinders, then fired from his home at other vehicles until police killed him nine hours later….in Wilkes Barre plans for new parking facilities are discussed and fifty eight years ago the number one song in LuLac land and America was “Theme From A Summer Place” by Percy Faith.