Alliance for Retired Americans sends joint letter to President urging him to protect Social Security

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Becci

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:
We write you as the national officers and the presidents of the state chapters of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a national organization of four million members dedicated to securing a better quality of life for all Americans in retirement. We believe that you have the opportunity to renew the nation’s commitment to the Social Security program during the State of the Union Address next week.

Mr. President, Social Security, which just celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2010, is the nation’s premier social insurance program. It has provided economic security for millions of Americans of all ages across the last 75 years. From the nation’s youngest, who have lost a parent, to the oldest, who live in retirement, Social Security has been a constant, positive force in our nation’s life. Now, Social Security benefits go to nearly one in four American households.

Without the guaranteed benefits of the program, nearly half of older and disabled Americans would live in poverty. No other program, funded entirely by worker and employer contributions and without government funds, has had such a long lasting positive impact on American life. We are concerned, Mr. President, that many in Washington will try to take advantage of the nation’s current debt situation and cause permanent damage to the Social Security program.

As the Co-Chairs of the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform recently pointed out, the Social Security program has not contributed at all to the nation’s debt. While we disagree with many of the Co-Chairs’ Social Security recommendations, such as raising the retirement age and cutting benefits for current and future retirees, the fact remains that the current debt situation should not be a political cover for attacking the Social Security program. We strongly urge you to resist such efforts.

We urge you to speak forcefully in favor of a strengthened Social Security program. We recognize that long term efforts will be necessary to keep the program financially sound as well as being able to provide benefits that are adequate to maintain a dignified quality of life. However, the debate over the current debt situation is not the forum for debating the future of Social Security. We applaud your leadership on vital issues such as health care reform which has benefited our members. We believe you are now in a position to demonstrate that same leadership on behalf of the Social Security program.

Sincerely,

Barbara J. Easterling, President

Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer

Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director

Douglas Hart, President
Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans

Nan Brasmer, President
California Alliance for Retired Americans

Vivian Stovall, President
Colorado Alliance for Retired Americans

Cal Bunnell, President
Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans

Tony Fransetta, President
Florida Alliance for Retired Americans

Kenny Bradford, President
Georgia Alliance for Retired Americans

Al Hamai, President
Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans

Barbara Franklin, President
Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans

Elmer Blankenship, President
Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans

Don Rowen, President
Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans

Mike Vivirito, President
Maryland/DC Alliance for Retired Americans

Dan Mikel, President
Minnesota Alliance for Retired Americans

David R. Meinell, President
Missouri Alliance for Retired Americans

Mike Owens, President
Missouri Alliance for Ret Americans Ed Fund

Bob Biel, President
Nebraska Alliance for Retired Americans

Scott Watts, President
Nevada Alliance for Retired Americans

Charlie Balban, President
New Hampshire Alliance for Retired Americans

Barbara Pardo, President
New Mexico Alliance for Retired Americans

Jim Wood, President
New York Alliance for Retired Americans

John Newman, President
North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans

Dave Friesner, President
Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans

Jerry Morris, President
Oregon Alliance for Retired Americans

Jean Friday, President
Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans

John Pernorio, President
Rhode Island Alliance for Retired Americans

Julie Harbin, President
South Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans

Shane Fox, President
Texas Alliance for Retired Americans

John Bloch, President
Vermont Alliance for Retired Americans

Mike Warren, President
Washington Alliance for Retired Americans

Sterling Ball, President
West Virginia Alliance for Retired Americans

Leon Burzynski, President
Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans

MLK Day 2011

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Becci

For more photos, click here.

Galas usher in new administration

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Becci

Peasants and corporate fat cats mingled at the 2011 Inhogural Ball Jan. 12 at The Big Apple in downtown Columbia, enjoying cake, Kool-Aid and tunes by The Trickle Downs, while across town celebrants paid $250 to rub elbows at Nikki Haley’s $600,000 Inaugural Ball.

“The Inhogural,” snorted host Col. Hamton Pigney, “was a big, fat success! The highlight, of course, was the surprise appearance of Sarah Palin, who had a little something to do with getting our new governor elected. We were thrilled.”

The galas usher in a new administration for the Palmetto State. If the governor stays true to her campaign promises, the coming years will be very, very good for big business. What they hold for the rest of us remains to be seen.

For more photos, click here.

Listen to Col. Hampton Pigney on the radio.

Don’t miss the largest gala of the year!

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Becci

A Celebration of the Rich Getting Richer

“This is a great day for the wealthy citizens of this state,” said Col. Hambone Pigney, a sponsor of the Jan. 12 Inhogural Ball. “We have a governor who understands how poor people are dragging down our economy.”

“The Inhogural Ball offers those of us at the top an opportunity to show our appreciation to the workers for voting against their own interests,” snorted Pigney, CEO of the I Got Mine Company.

Pigney, who made 821 times more than the workers in his factory, laughed all the way to the bank when asked about slashing his workers’ benefits. “It’s grand being in the 1 percent of Americans that holds nearly half of the country’s wealth.”

Chairwoman of the Race To The Bottom Committee Ms. Ima Ripoff said, “We’ve managed to keep wages flat for the last 30 years. With Gov.-elect Haley declaring war on unions, we expect to drive wages down to Third World levels.”

Pigney and Ripoff chortled with unbridled glee at the new administration’s plans to cut government services as well as taxes. Ripoff noted, “South Carolina’s 44 percent discount on capital gains kept nearly a quarter-billion dollars in the pockets of my rich friends. The more we have, the more we can trickle down on the peasants.”

The Inhogural Ball will be held 7-9pm, Jan. 12, at the Big Apple in Columbia. The gala is $10 for those making less than $200,000 a year; free to those making more.

The evening’s entertainment includes sketches by Members of The Idle Rich (a Trustus improv troupe) and speechifying by special guests. Dance to live music by The Trickle Downs, and have your tea (party) leaves read by the beguiling Lady Christine.

Dress is Black-tie or peasant-casual. (For costume needs, see Hip-Wa-Zee in Columbia’s 5 Points.) Cake, Kool-Aid and other beverages provided by generous corporate donations.

For more information, call the SC Progressive Network at 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.

See story in Columbia’s Free Times.

SC Progressive Network part of emerging coalition preparing for looming budget crisis

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Becci

Jan. 8, 10am-1pm

SCEA Building, 421 Zimalcrest Dr, Columbia

A coalition of labor, faith and community organizations – including the SC Progressive Network – are holding the second annual ‘Ties that Bind’ conference, a chance to build a shared agenda of policies that can make a difference in the lives of everyday South Carolinians.

This year, our focus is on the state budget. With record-breaking shortfalls, the debate is sure to be contentious. But budgets are moral documents. They reflect our shared values and our commitment to each other and to our communities.

Learn more or register online. It’s free.

Protest the celebration of the Lost Cause

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Becci

The Sons of Confederate Veterans are celebrating the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s secession from the Union and the start of the Civil War by holding a $100-a-ticket “Secession Ball” on Dec. 20 in Charleston.

The NAACP and allies will protest the event by holding a candlelight vigil followed by a meeting and viewing of part of film Birth of a Nation. Park at the Emanuel AME Church at 110 Calhoun St.; please arrive by 4:15pm. The vigil will take place at 4:30pm at the Gaillard Auditorium. For details, call 843-813-3363.

A preview of the ball? SC Sen. Glenn McConnell with re-enactors at the National Federation of Republican Women’s Conference in September.

Haley assembles a team to stop unions

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Becci

by Harvey Elwood
Orangeburg, SC

One of the areas that most concerns people today is the economy and where we are headed. With unemployment high and more and more Americans having to work later in life to earn a living, perhaps it’s time to re-examine why some Americans are still able to retire early and make way for the next generation to step into the positions they leave behind.

It’s not unusual today to find people still working well into their late 60s and early 70s, even after they are eligible for Social Security.

On the other side, many other Americans don’t have to wait on Social Security, they aren’t too worried about it, and they are able to retire and enjoy life long before they need to rely on it. Some have parttime jobs, even though they still enjoy a full pension at age 40. These folks work just to stay active.

Meanwhile, some people aren’t even looking for work. They are simply enjoying life on their own terms.

These factors, of course, depend on where they worked, for whom they worked, and whether they had a pension plan that allowed them the pleasure of early retirement. In some cases, whether or not they belonged to a union played a role in their ability to leave the workforce before 65.

Last week, I read in the papers that Gov.-elect Nikki Haley is already putting up a fight against working people and the unions that represent them. Haley has asked a lawyer, Catherine Templeton, to head the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. Haley did so not to help the working men and women of South Carolina but to better represent the business interests of our state.

“I couldn’t be more excited to have Catherine Templeton on our team,” Haley said. “Catherine understands that LLR’s mission should be to serve the businesses and taxpayers of our state. She’s taken on unions and knows our state’s right-to-work status makes us more competitive.”

Haley apparently wants Templeton to keep the employees at Boeing from unionizing. Prior to Boeing’s announcement that it was moving its Dreamliner plant to North Charleston, its employees here voted to disband their union. Haley apparently believes Boeing’s employees hope to reunionize.

It’s also interesting to note that Haley has tapped former BMW spokesman and government liaison Bobby Hitt to be commerce secretary. Hitt, a former editor with The State newspaper, is undoubtedly capable of spinning a story to convince the public that unions are bad for the people. And when his job in the Haley administration is over, he will most likely return to a very lucrative business salary and package deal, but I could be wrong.

Hopefully, newspapers across the state will open up a fair-and-balanced dialogue about unions so that the people will be better informed about the issue in its entirety.

Life is not about lawyers, government, or businesses. It’s about the working men and women of America. Without business, where would any of us be — but if it was not for the people, where would business be?

It’s about time the people knew and fully understood both sides of this important debate. After all, public opinion is often shaped by ideas from the public at-large, and sometimes government is persuaded to follow that opinion, especially when the number of people supporting it is large enough.

We should ask ourselves these questions: Are unions still good for America? Should the employees of Boeing be allowed to unionize?

When it comes to these matters, we the people should have the final say, not Haley and her team.

Harvey Elwood Jr. of Orangeburg is a retired educator of government. Educated in South Carolina and New York, he served in local and state government and taught in South Carolina and New York at the secondary and collegiate levels. He may be reached by e-mail at helwood38@hotmail.com.

New study debunks research suggesting abortion causes mental health problems

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Becci

Studies claiming to find a relationship between abortion and subsequent mental health problems often suffer from serious methodological limitations that invalidate their conclusions. In a new analysis, Julia Steinberg, of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Lawrence Finer, of the Guttmacher Institute show that the findings of a 2009 study by Priscilla Coleman et al—which claimed that women who had reported an abortion were at an increased risk of several anxiety, mood and substance use disorders, compared with women who had never had an abortion—are not replicable.

Steinberg and Finer’s analysis, just published online in Social Science & Medicine, examined the same dataset as Coleman et al. (the National Comorbidity Survey) and found that in every case, the proportions of women experiencing mental health problems reported by Coleman were much larger, sometimes more than five times as large, as Steinberg and Finer’s results. The Coleman findings were also inconsistent with several other published studies using the same dataset and sample.

“We were unable to reproduce the most basic tabulations of Coleman and colleagues,” says Steinberg, postdoctoral fellow at UCSF. “Moreover, their findings were logically inconsistent with other published research—for example, they found higher rates of depression in the last month than other studies found during respondents’ entire lifetimes. This suggests that their results are substantially inflated.”

“Antiabortion activists have relied on questionable science in their efforts to push inclusion of the concept of ‘post-abortion syndrome’ in both clinical practice and law,” says Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute. “Our inability to replicate the findings of the Coleman study makes it clear that research claiming to find relationships between abortion and poor mental health indicators should be subjected to close scrutiny.”

Steinberg and Finer also examined other well-established risk factors for post pregnancy mental health problems, such as preexisting mental health disorders and sexual or physical violence before the abortion, and found that women who had had multiple abortions were more likely to have experienced these risk factors prior to the abortion than women who had had one or no abortions. Once they controlled for these factors, they found no significant relationship between abortion history and subsequent mood or anxiety disorders. These findings support the view that previous mental health status, and not abortion experience per se, is the strongest predictor of post-abortion mental health.

Bumpy road ahead for America’s seniors

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Becci

By Becci Robbins
SC Alliance for Retired Americans

For advocates working to protect the health and well-being of America’s seniors, the recent failure of the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to muster the votes to send its proposal to Congress was a relief, although that’s likely to be short-lived. The proposal included cuts to Medicare and Social Security, as well as raising the retirement age to 69, a move that would hit hardest those with physically demanding jobs.

Such disregard for older Americans is unbecoming of such a wealthy nation. But it’s no surprise, as the report echoes the larger problem of Congress choosing at every turn to promote the interests of Wall Street over Main Street. Sadly, US Rep. John Spratt, who served on the Commission and supported the proposal, betrayed the retirees in the 5th District who helped keep him in office 28 years.

It was a missed opportunity. As Chairman of the Budget Committee, Congressman Spratt knows better than most that Social Security has not added a dime to the deficit and shouldn’t be used to fix a problem it didn’t create. He could have opposed the proposal as a parting gift to his constituents — and to inspire his Democrat colleagues to stand for the Party’s core values of protecting the least of us. Instead, he squandered his key vote to appease the Washington establishment.

While the report was DOA, lawmakers and pundits say it provides a road map out of the deficit ditch. Seniors would do well to buckle up for what promises to be a bumpy ride. Just Friday, amid talk of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, Congress rejected a one-time $250 payment to retirees who, for the second year in a row, have been denied a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA).

That’s not being fiscally responsible. It’s being morally bankrupt.

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