Texas to Convert Medicaid To Block Grants And Defund Planned Parenthood

The Texas Legislature approved a bill Monday that would both compel the state to push the Obama administration to convert Texas’ Medicaid program into a block grant and defund Planned Parenthood.

The omnibus health bill also includes a number of other controversial provisions, including plans to save $400 million over the next year by increasing the use of Medicaid managed care.

The legislation now goes to the desk of Gov. Rick Perry, who has been generally supportive of both the Medicaid reforms, as well as anti-abortion language.

When previously asked about Senate Bill 7, Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed would not speak specifically to pending legislation, but did comment on the governor’s broad support for block grants.

Governors like Rick Perry (R-TX), Rick Scott (R-FL), Scott Walker (R-WI) and Haley Barbour (R-MS) are touting block grants — capped allotments of money — as the solution to cut spending on their respect state Medicaid programs. However, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) shows that block grants come with financial risks and costs to the states, as well as cuts to Medicaid eligibility and benefits. Additionally, providing states with block grants for Medicaid would fundamentally change how the program is funded and would ultimately undermine the Affordable Care Act.

Block Grants Fundamentally Change How Medicaid Is Funded

Distressed Oceans Lead To Mass Extinction

Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warned Monday.

Dying coral reefs, biodiversity ravaged by invasive species, expanding open-water "dead zones," toxic algae blooms, the massive depletion of big fish stocks -- all are accelerating, they said in a report compiled during an April meeting in Oxford of 27 of the world's top ocean experts.

New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law

NYTimes: ALBANY — Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the sixth and largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed. Just five states currently permit same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia.

The NY State Senate approval was the final hurdle for the same-sex marriage legislation, which was approved last week by the Democrat-led NY State Assembly. The Republican-controlled state Senate passed the bill by a 33-29 vote. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the measure at 11:55 p.m., and the law will go into effect in 30 days, meaning that same-sex couples could begin marrying in New York by late July.

The marriage bill, whose fate was uncertain until moments before the vote, was approved 33 to 29 in a packed but hushed Senate chamber. Four members of the Republican majority joined all but one Democrat in the Senate in supporting the measure after an intense and emotional campaign aimed at the handful of lawmakers wrestling with a decision that divided their friends, their constituents and sometimes their own homes.

Passage of the NY bill reflects rapidly evolving sentiment about same-sex unions. In 2004, according to a Quinnipiac poll, 37 percent of NY state’s residents supported allowing same-sex couples to wed. This year, 58 percent supported same-sex marriage.

Supporters of the measure described the victory in New York as especially symbolic — and poignant — because NY is considered the home of the "Stonewall movement’s" foundational moment in June 1969. A riot erupted outside the Stonewall Inn, a bar in the West Village, on June 28, 1969 after police raided the tavern frequented by gay patrons. (see history of movement below.)

A huge street party erupted outside the Stonewall Inn Friday night, with celebrants waving rainbow flags and dancing after the historic vote.

Read the rest of the story @ The NYTimes.

History of the Stonewall Movement

The Stonewall Inn was a seedy, mob-owned bar on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, a place where gay men and lesbians could drink and dance among themselves at a time when the city was cracking down hard on gay bars and homosexual life. There had been little protest against the harassment, but a bust at the Stonewall in the early hours of June 28, 1969 — and reports that customers were being beaten by cops — provoked a sympathetic crowd into two days of rioting. The movement was born.

Sen. Sanders: Koch Bros. ‘Want To Destroy Social Security’

YouTube video @ Brave New Foundation

Seeing what he called “an enormous amount of disinformation about Social Security” in the media, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) joined with activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald to produce a video that attempts to explains why.

The video shows how the Koch’s create the myth that Social Security is in crisis by funding prominent think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, pundits on Fox News and CNBC, and politicians like Paul Ryan.)

Sanders claims that campaign contributions and hundreds of millions in think tank funding from billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch help create an “echo chamber” for “misinformation” on the hugely popular federal safety net, like suggesting it is about to go broke or claiming the retirement age must be raised in order to prevent economic collapse.

“Social Security is not going broke,” Sanders insisted. “Social Security has a $2.2 trillion surplus… The Koch brothers want to invest your retirement funds on Wall Street, and you may lose all of your retirement savings when you get old.”

Inside the Koch Brothers' Expensive Echo Chamber by Robert Greenwald @ Huffingtonpost

Documents and interviews unearthed in recent months by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a $28.4 million Koch business that has manufactured 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting Social Security's effectiveness and purpose.

Together, the publications reveal a vast cottage industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, think tanks, academics and elected officials, which have built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.

The Koch brothers' echo chamber has successfully written the messaging for the AARP, a traditional defender of Social Security for all generations, which recently opened the door to cutting benefits.

The Koch echo chamber begins with think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their founding and achievements to Koch backing. These think tanks take their $28.4 million in Koch funding and produce hundreds of position papers distorting the long-term health of Social Security.