All 67 Florida Election Supervisors Suspend Governor Rick Scott's Voter Purge

On Thursday, the Justice Department demanded Florida Governor Rick Scott end his extensive purge of registered voters from the rolls because it was in violation of federal law. Scott still hasn’t formally responded but his county election supervisors have already taken action.
The Palm Beach Post reports:

Florida elections supervisors said Friday they will discontinue a state-directed effort to remove names from county voter rolls because they believe the state data is flawed and because the U.S. Department of Justice has said the process violates federal voting laws...
The Justice Department letter and mistakes that the 67 county elections supervisors have found in the state list make the scrub undoable, said Martin County Elections Supervisor Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections…
Ron Labasky, the association’s general counsel, sent a memo to the 67 supervisors Friday telling them to stop processing the list.
“I recommend that Supervisors of Elections cease any further action until the issues raised by the Department of Justice are resolved between the parties or by a Court,” Labasky wrote.

Previously, the State of Florida indicated they intended to accelerate the purge. Florida has until June 6 to respond to the Justice Department.
Originally published on ThinkProgress

All 67 Florida Election Supervisors Suspend Governor Rick Scott's Voter Purge

Ending Social Security As We Know It

The RADICAL REPUBLICANS want to take us back to the early 1800s before there was Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Dsiability Insurance, Aid To Families With Dependent Children, Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamps, Pension Plans, Child Labor Laws, and a 40 Hour Work Week. They want the worker to live and die in poverty, to live in misery, in plain, in illness until they meet death.

The Constitution says that “the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… general Welfare of the United States.” But I noticed that when you quoted this section on page 116, you left “general welfare” out and put an ellipsis in its place. Progressives would say that “general welfare” includes things like Social Security or Medicare—that it gives the government the flexibility to tackle more than just the basic responsibilities laid out explicitly in our founding document. What does “general welfare” mean to you? [PERRY:] I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that’s what those states decided to do. So in your view those things fall outside of general welfare. But what falls inside of it? What did the Founders mean by “general welfare”? [PERRY:] I don’t know if I’m going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant. But you just said what you thought they didn’t mean by general welfare. So isn’t it fair to ask what they did mean? It’s in the Constitution. [Silence.]

The Social Security Act was past in 1935 and signed into law by then President Franklin D., Roosevelt to help a dispread nation sunk deep into the "GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE 1930s." Europe had long had a safety-net to help its citizens who were too old to work, the disabled, and families with dependent children.

Why is privatizing Social Security such a turkey? Because retirees shouldn't have to depend on the market's vagaries for survival money. More than half of married couples over 65 and 72% of singles get more than half their income from Social Security, according to the Social Security Administration. For 20% of 65-and-up couples and 41% of singles, Social Security is 90% or more of their income. That isn't projected to change.

Prizating Social Security will put many seniors and the disabled on the streets living in poverty homeless. Furthermore, the economy will tail spin downward into a deep depression. To destroy these will destroy democracy in the United Stated, and small businbess will disapear.

Karen Handel, Right Wing VP of Komen Quits Over Planned Parenthood Flap « elmsprogressivemedia

A big mistake to end funding for Planned Parenthood by Cure Breast-Cancer Charity; this is a Right-Wing attack on women rights.


Karen Handel, Right Wing VP of Komen Quits Over Planned Parenthood Flap « elmsprogressivemedia

Quadriplegic Undocumented Immigrant Dies In Mexico After Being Deported From His Hospital Bed

n August 2010, Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, an undocumented construction worker in Chicago, fell 20 feet off a building while on the job and was paralyzed from the neck down. Unable to pay his own medical expenses, he was deported back to Mexico on December 22, 2010.

But he never made it home. Instead, he was left to languish at a small Mexican hospital that was unequipped to handle his needs. UPI reports that Ojeda died on New Year’s Day:

A young man returned to Mexico by a Chicago-area hospital after a construction injury that paralyzed him from the neck down has died, officials say.

Advocates say Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, 21, spent months in a small hospital in Mexico that did not have the facilities to care for a quadriplegic, the Chicago Tribune reported. [...]

“He never even made it to his home,” said Jesus Vargas, a friend in Chicago. “He was always in the hospital stuck to the machine that helped him breathe.”

Ojeda, who was working illegally in the United States, was treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., after a 20-foot fall paralyzed him. The hospital transferred him to Mexico three days before Christmas in 2010.

Ojeda’s deportation followed a heated battle between the hospital and immigration advocates. He was transferred to a Mexican hospital in an air ambulance despite protests from Ojeda and his family that the move would jeopardize his health.

In light of his death, the Chicago hospital that treated him has said it will reexamine its policies for treating international patients.

Ojeda told the Chicago Tribune last February that he feared returning to Mexico because he “need[ed] a lot of things they don’t have.” Tragically, his fears turned out to be all too real.

Tags:

• Immigration
• Mexico

Quadriplegic Undocumented Immigrant Dies In Mexico After Being Deported From His Hospital Bed