Are you tired of the President Obama backlash?

Does the Beck, Limbaugh, Fox news get you down?

Do you need a break from all the right wing propaganda?

Then join Seegar and Pat Swanson & 35 others on a bus trip to the One Nation March in Washington DC  Oct. 2. If you follow Ed Schultz on MSNBC TV, you know he is promoting this rally to counter one promoted by Beck.  Beck claimed 300,000 attended his event although other crowd estimates were as low as 90,000.  Schultz claims he can really get 300,000 progressives!!! If you want to know more about the March click on the following link.

Ed Shultz invites you to come to Washington with the One Nation March.

Several organizations are arranging buses to bring progressives to Washington including the NAACP of Okaloosa County.  They have a tour bus reserved from Eglin Air Force base and room accommodations at the Crown Plaza in Washington.  The plan is to assemble at the Wal-Mart in Crestview on Thursday Midnight September 30. We will motor through the night and arrive at the Hotel late afternoon on Friday.  This will allow for a relaxing dinner and a good nights rest before the bus takes us to the Rally.  Immediately following the Rally we will get back on the bus for the return trip, again driving through the night, expecting to be in Crestview about 6 am Sunday.  Rooms are reserved for double occupancy and the cost per person for bus and room is $210.  Your food expense will be in addition.

So come join us.  Call (850) 301-2095 for more information. You can reserve your seat with an email to Sabu Williams.  You can sign up and pay by going to the Okaloosa NAACP website, using Pay Pal or a Credit Card.  Once at the site, click on "Donation".  You will be able to select the Washington March and fill in the blanks.

You can let the Swansons know you will be joining them by calling (850) 936-8707 or click Here to send an email.

Hey, remember all of that crazy stuff Alan Simpson has said about Social Security that we told you about last week?

Simpson compared Social Security to welfare, saying: "We've reached a point now where [Social Security] is like a milk cow with 310 million tits."

Well, progressives in Congress are fighting back. Can you help?

It's been widely reported that Simpson's "deficit reduction" commission will make Social Security their prime target -- choosing to cut a program that's in surplus and helps the middle class instead of taking on tax cuts for the rich or wasteful military spending.

Ten bold members of Congress just announced a letter to President Obama saying they'll vote against any proposal from Simpson's commission that cuts Social Security. They deserve our support.

Will you help us get 25,000 "citizen signers" of this letter opposing cuts to Social Security by signing it and inviting your friends? Click here.

These bold members of Congress, led by Progressive Caucus Chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), are asking their colleagues to join their letter. Proof that the public is paying attention to this issue will help them immensely.

We'll also inform the media of our growing number of "citizen signers" so Simpson's commission knows that these ten members of Congress are not alone. Sign the letter here.

Simpson's commission is packed with out-of-touch millionaires and corporate types. Any recommendation they make will lack credibility. But we need to make especially clear to Simpson's commission, President Obama, and all of Congress that any proposal to cut Social Security is a non-starter.

Can you join together with progressives in Congress to send this message? Click here to add your name -- then tell your friends.

Thanks for being a bold progressive,

Julia Rosen, Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Forrest Brown, and the rest of the PCCC team

Simple Fact : They’re Coming to Get Your Social Security !

We're Being Conned on Social Security - How We Could Easily Raise Benefits or Allow People to Retire Earlier

Joshua Holland - Alternet

Allow me to take a moment to fix that whole “Social Security crisis” that has everyone in Washington gnashing their teeth. When you see how easily it’s done, you may begin to realize that whenever our elites start chattering about “tax-gaps," they’re almost certainly trying to rip you off -- making a slick grab for something to which you are, ultimately, “entitled.”

But why stop there? Why play defense? After we fix the program, why don’t we increase Social Security benefits? Why not lower the age of retirement? With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, and some economists, like James Galbraith, arguing that at least some of those lost jobs are never to return, why not open up some jobs for the young ‘uns and put a dent in the number of Americans who are out of work? Maybe with more demand for workers, employers would see their way to raising wages a bit, bucking the long-term trend of stagnation that the majority of Americans have endured over the past 30 years. Think about it: if you enter the labor market at age 20, isn’t busting your ass for four decades long enough to merit a dignified retirement? We are a wealthy country -- we can afford it.

According to Bruce Bartlett, in an incredibly typical scare-piece in billionaire granny-basher Pete Peterson’s Fiscal Times, that’s not true. Social Security’s problems are immense. “The 2009 report of Social Security’s trustees,” Bartlett writes, “showed a long-term actuarial deficit in that program of $15 trillion.” That is an almost unimaginably large number, given that the entire annual output of the United States was only $14 trillion last year.

But what does it really mean? Well, it turns out that Bartlett’s not even referring to the dubious 75-year projection of the Social Security “gap.” His terrifyingly big figure actually represents the program’s “shortfall” stretching out to infinity. That’s right-- it’s the program’s “unfunded liability” if everything remains as projected forever, and assuming the earth isn’t destroyed by a moon-sized meteor at some point before forever arrives. (The geeks at the American Academy of Actuaries have suggested that the “infinite horizon” measure is complete nonsense.)

According to the 2010 Social Security Trustees’ report, the 75-year gap is estimated to be $5.4 trillion -- still a big number. But there’s another way to express it: it equals just 0.7 percent of our projected economic output over that same period. That’s less than one penny on the dollar.

So if we, as members of a nominal democracy, want to live in a society where older people aren’t mired in poverty -- it’s estimated that four in 10 would be without Social Security benefits -- then all we have to do to close the gap is increase overall taxes by less than a single percentage point. Problem solved! And we didn’t even require an august commission.

But, we are told, that’s not the case. Fixing it isn’t that simple -- and increasing benefits or dropping the age of eligibility are just crazy ideas -- because we can’t afford any of it. Raising taxes, no matter how modestly, supposedly kills jobs and destroys economies. But ask yourself: where would those jobs go? To Somalia or Papua New Guinea? Our firms compete with companies from other advanced economies, and the United States has one of the lowest tax burdens in the developed world. In 2007, our overall tax burden ranked 26th out of the 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, dubbed the “rich countries club.”

As I write in my forthcoming book, The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy, budgeting comes down to a simple question of priorities. Do we want to live in an America where the elderly are forced to eat cat food? If not, we can pay a bit more in taxes, or bring defense spending in line with other advanced countries or eliminate the cap on payroll taxes so higher earners kick in the same share of their paychecks as everyone else.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the 75-year “Social Security gap” represents the same dollar figure as those Bush tax cuts that were targeted at the top 2 percent of American earners projected over the same period of time. For much of Washington’s cognoscenti, one is an imminent crisis, and the other is something we simply must keep in place in order to retain our economic edge. That should tell you all you need to know about the nature of our Social Security “crisis.”

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. Drop him an email or Follow him on Twitter.

Obama has filled his new 'debt commission' with Wall Street insiders determined to gut Social Security.

A decade of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the fallout from Wall Street's housing bubble have almost tripled U.S. public debt since 2001, from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Big, scary numbers like this, along with carefully timed downgrade warnings from Wall Street's obedient rating agencies and continuing worries about the financial collapse of Greece, Portugal and other nations have changed the political climate in Washington, breathing new life into decades-old schemes to slash Social Security and Medicare entitlements.

And defending Social Security does indeed sound like yesterday's issue — a fight the people won when they defeated Bush's attempt to privatize the system in 2005. Our Social Security program is currently solvent through 2037, while millions of Americans are unemployed, millions more are losing their homes, and still millions more are struggling to meet soaring health insurance costs after watching their retirement accounts dwindle in the financial collapse. Would the entitlement wolves -- primarily Wall Street executives who stand to reap billions from Social Security privatization -- really have the gall to go after Social Security now? In a word, yes. More...