Last Call For Jeb's Dead Ringer

Like, zoiks, Scoob! Jeb Bush is talking about d-d-d-d-death panels!

Jeb Bush, defending his efforts to keep alive Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman, when he was governor of Florida, suggested on Friday that patients on Medicare should be required to sign advance directives dictating their care if they become incapacitated. 

A similar proposal by President Obama — that doctors should be paid to advise patients on end-of-life decisions — became a political firestorm in 2009, when Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, claimed that the legislation would give bureaucrats the power to decide if some frail or disabled people were deserving of medical care. The assertion was shown to be false. 

In 2010, Medicare tried to add a regulation that would permit “voluntary advance care planning” during yearly checkups. But after an uproar, President Obama’s administration pushed to drop that provision. 

Mr. Bush’s suggestion that advance directives be required under Medicare showed how much public opinion has shifted on the subject since.

Oh it has, huh. Or maybe, Maggie Haberman, IOKIYAR.

So death panels are now a totally cool thing called “Medicare end-of-life directives.” I’m sure this won’t be the last thing that President Obama proposed and was destroyed by media pissing and moaning that Jebya here will be able to get away with.

Wonder why that is.

Boot Strapped For Cash

While the good news is graduation rates for high school students are increasing, particularly for black and Latino students, those who are dropping out are increasingly doing so to get jobs in order to help their families.

Using data from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, researchers at the Urban Institute found that nearly a third of the 563,000 teenage dropouts left school to work. These 16- to 18-year-olds were disproportionately male and Hispanic, and ended their education either at the beginning of high school or nearing the end. Roughly 75 percent of them are native-born Americans, the new study said. 

Granted, high school graduation rates among Hispanic students has climbed in recent years, with 75 percent receiving a diploma in 2013 compared to 71 percent two years earlier, according to the latest data from the Education Department. Still, young Hispanic men are at high risk of leaving school to work, the Urban Institute study found. 

Six out of 10 of the teenagers identified in the study earned less than $10,000 a year working in restaurants, on construction sites, cleaning buildings, among other things. A third of the kids contribute more than 20 percent of the total annual income of their households, a tenth contributed more than 50 percent, the study said.

It's pretty awful that with Republicans doing everything they can to limit help to the working poor, that we've gotten to the point where a third of high school dropouts are doing so in order to earn money to support their families.  Kids are giving up high school education just to help keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.  We're forcing kids to do that now in the name of "smaller government".

It's shameful, but then again an uneducated workforce is exactly what Republicans want.

Sing A Song Of Slick Pence, Pocket Full Of Lies

Indiana is reportedly looking to spend millions in taxpayer money on rehabilitating its battered image after the disaster that was the Republican-backed "religious freedom" law, and it looks like GOP Gov. Mike Pence could badly use some image consultants himself as his approval ratings have dropped like a rock since the bill's passage.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) has seen a significant drop in his approval rating since signing a widely criticized "religious freedom" law, with one longtime political observer in the state saying the fall is historic for a governor. 

"I've been covering Indiana politics for three decades, and I don't recall a sitting governor experiencing that kind of decline over this short period of time like we've seen here," said Brian Howey, publisher of the widely respected site Howey Politics Indiana. 

A new HPI poll by pollster Christine Matthews of Bellwether Research shows Pence's favorable rating at just 35 percent, and his unfavorable rating at 38 percent. 

In 2013, an HPI poll found Pence faring much better than he is now. Then, he was at a 52 percent favorable rating and a 20 percent unfavorable rating. 

Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the new poll said the "religious freedom" law was unnecessary, compared to just 30 percent who thought it was needed. Another 50 percent said the controversy surrounding the law will have a "negative impact on the economy" even after it "isn't front page news." 

"In the 20 years that HPI has been publishing, and in the polling HPI has conducted since 2008, an Indiana governor has never experienced this kind of survey decline in this short time frame," Howey wrote in his newsletter Thursday.

In other words, Pence is rapidly becoming the Chris Christie of the Midwest (and without the charisma.)  Pence, should he run for re-election, would face a November 2016 vote.  Somehow I'm thinking Indiana Democrats might want to try to get together somebody to oppose him.

How about it, guys?

StupidiNews!

• New figures from human rights groups in Syria find the death toll in that country's civil war has doubled from last year, putting estimates at over 310,000 killed.
• Support for the death penalty in the US has dropped to a 40-year-low according to the latest Pew Research Center survey, down to 56%.
• Chinese journalist Gao Yu has been sentenced to seven years in prison for leaking state secrets to a book publisher in 2014.
• German and Greek officials are beginning to consider what would happen to the eurozone if Greece really did exit the euro currency.
• New Zealand internet mogul Kim Dotcom is in trouble with the law again and could face deportation, this time for driving 150kph in a 50kph zone.