Between The Lines - Elaine Kolb: Medicare Protest (Week Ending June 22, 2012)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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GOP Proposal to Cut $800 Billion from Medicaid Budget Focus of Disability Rights Protest

RealAudio MP3

Posted June 13, 2012

Interview with Elaine Kolb, disability rights activist, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

On April 23, 74 disability rights activists were arrested in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., there to protest the Republican-led House of Representatives' proposed plan to cut $800 billion from the federal Medicaid budget. The protest was part of the disability rights' group ADAPT's My Medicaid Matters Campaign. ADAPT used to stand for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, but with the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in the early 1990s, that battle was largely won. ADAPT now stands for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, emphasizing the need for personal care assistance to help disabled citizens to remain in their own homes and not be institutionalized.

Actor Noah Wyle, a star of the "Falling Skies" TV program, was among the ADAPT activists to be arrested at the April protest. ADAPT says that like Americans of the past, disability activists are practicing nonviolent civil disobedience to prevent the nation from stepping backward toward oppression and segregation.

Elaine Kolb was one of those arrested in the April protest. She uses a wheelchair as a result of a stabbing injury many years ago. This was her 19th arrest since joining ADAPT in 1987. She is also a singer/songwriter whose work focuses on disability rights issues. Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Kolb, who explains why she participated in this latest protest, as she considers what the future may hold for Americans with disabilities.

ELAINE KOLB: This last time, the real focus was on the fact that the Republican budget that they've come up with would absolutely destroy Medicaid, Medicare and a lot of the services that all different kinds of people – but especially people with disabilities – require. This is a pretty big deal, because without Medicaid, most people with disabilities – low-income people with disabilities – will not survive. People will die. It's very simple.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The House Republicans are putting forward many bills they know will never get passed. How much was your demonstration an organizing tactic and how much do you really fear you'll lose these services?

ELAINE KOLB: It's already happening. You see, what most people don't understand is that Medicaid is a buy-in system. There are 50 different Medicaids in this country, because each state gets to decide how much of the federal program they will buy into with matching funds. So everybody has a different formula; some states are a whole lot better than other states, like some states provide dental care, some states don't provide any dental care. Now, theoretically, Medicaid provides dental service in this state, but it's almost impossible to provide a dentist who will take it. So even if you qualify – which is not so easy to do, by the way – then it doesn't mean you're going to get good care. So people are barely surviving, and all the cutbacks haven't even gone into effect – the ones that have already been set up in the different states around the country. So in some areas, for example, whole clinics have been closed, rehabilitation clinics. Rehabilitation clinics are for people with disabilities. Think of the safety net, okay. And what's happening all over the country is they're cutting strands of the safety net. The people that will fall through first are already falling through one by one, but it's by the hundreds and the thousands. If the Republican budget goes through, it will be the millions of people.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Elaine Kolb, that raises a question. How many people with disabilities are there in the U.S.?

ELAINE KOLB: Well, it depends on who cuts the cards, but they say something around 58 million people, and it's a growing percentage. So this is where it gets really, really terrifying.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Why is it terrifying?

ELAINE KOLB: Nursing home care is mandatory – states have to provide nursing home care. Services in the community – home care, personal assistant services, the stuff we're promoting – that's optional. So when the states are trying to balance their budgets, where do you think they make their cuts? Well, yes, they limit or cut back on home care services...or respite care, because a very high percentage of the care that's provided for people with disabilities is provided by spouses or family members. In most states, those people can't receive any payment for providing the services that they do, so in some cases the only way they can actually provide services for their loved one who has a disability is to...in some cases, parents have to, you know, give up their children, because they can't do it anymore. Or people end up going into a nursing home, or in a mental hospital or, you know, there are different kinds of institutions. And a very high percentage are now in prison, or there's other kinds of institutional settings, too, like there are group homes – some are good, some are not so good. There are developmental disability places, I mean there's a range of institutional settings that people end up in.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I imagine over the past ten years a much greater proportion of people with disabilities in this country are veterans.

ELAINE KOLB: Absolutely, but once again, the whole system is so disjointed, and a lot of disabled veterans end up spending years trying to get services, because they haven't been designated as having a disability. There are still people that are dealing with Agent Orange, for example, from the Vietnam War, that were never officially considered to be disabled, so they didn't qualify for services, and of course now what's happening is the very high percentage of soldiers who are coming back who have very severe post-traumatic stress syndrome, and chronic head injuries. It's the same thing here, in this country, but a lot of the people who have those similar sorts of injuries or disabilities are because of the horrible crime and violence in this country – in our homes and on the street.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Does the disability rights movement make common cause with other groups, especially other groups promoting health-related reforms?

ELAINE KOLB: Yes, we try to build coalitions, but unfortunately, it seems most organizations, even if they're considered progressive organizations, are still themselves caught in the old charity approach to disability and really have not recognized that this is a civil rights issue.

Find more information on ADAPT at ADAPT.org.