That this Republican strategy might work is what has me so agitated. I am working hard to get Elizabeth Warren elected despite some similar strategies directed against her. Are you so dispirited that you are paralyzed into inaction, or are you doing something to fight this criminal enterprise?

The Boston Globe has the article Elizabeth Warren’s politics rooted in academia. The subhead is “Fueled by original scholarship and singular ambition, Warren’s bold, barbed ascent to the pinnacle of the legal profession shattered tradition. ”

..Warren rose through the mostly male, intensely political world of academia on the strength of her unbridled — to some, off-putting — ambition as well as groundbreaking research that brought her national attention and grant money. Her ability to distill complex concepts into simple ideas and her intense connection to her students brought her student-nominated teaching awards at four of the five law schools where she taught.
.
.
.
However, Baird, the Chicago law professor who was once Warren’s sparring partner, said: “To the extent that people criticize Elizabeth for having sharp elbows, that was at a time where, if you were a woman who didn’t have sharp elbows, you were going to be run over.”

The article is full of details that I found to be very interesting and informative.  You get a little better picture of the whole person than I have seen before.  I am not naive enough to think that I now have the whole picture.

USA Today has the article Obama-Romney-Ryan Medicare debate takes surprising turn.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, running mate Paul Ryan, and other Republicans are stressing $716 billion in cuts to Medicare that are part of President Obama’s health care plan.

That attack has forced Obama and company to play defense, even as they emphasize that Romney and Ryan want to turn Medicare into a voucher program that will cost seniors thousands of dollars a year.

The $716 billion in cuts are aimed not at Medicare recipients, but at health care providers, such as hospitals and medical device makers; they also target what the administration calls waste and inefficiency in Medicare.
.
.
.
Obama aides quickly point out that Ryan included the $716 billion in Medicare reductions in his own budget, though Romney has not; the Republican candidate has vowed to repeal Obamacare in its entirety.

If you saw my August 13, 2012 post, GOP memo: ‘Don’t say entitlement reform’, this turn is no surprise at all.

The memo included a link to a 10-minute, 27-second YouTube video Shields had created in which he discusses a 2011 Nevada special House election Republicans had won. The race, Shields argues in the video, demonstrated how Republicans can successfully fight back against Medicare-centered attacks and “chase” Democrats “off the field on something they want to talk about.”

The video specifies exactly how the Republicans’ snake oil medicine was sold.  They are trying the same technique again.  Let us hope that this Democratic candidate is not asleep at the switch as was the Democratic candidate in Nevada.

In this most recent article:

Ryan said the cuts are hurting nursing homes and Medicare Advantage insurance plans…

Which just proves the point that the government run program is much more efficient than the private insurance run program.  The Medicare Advantage program is something that I use.  It provides a 15% incentive to private insurance companies to take over Medicare responsibilities from the government for anybody who signs up.  If the private insurance companies need a 15% incentive to do what traditional Medicare does without that incentive, it shows you the likelihood that turning over Medicare to private insurance companies will save money.  This Medicare Advantage issue that Ryan points to, when followed to its logical conclusion, shows you that their voucher plan for buying private health insurance will be a total failure.

So why do I use Medicare Advantage, and why am I not annoyed that Obamcare wants to do away with the wasteful incentives?   The private insurance companies use most of the 15% incentive for their own profit, but they include just enough sweeteners to make the plan attractive if you are willing to live with its limitations.  These limitations include restrictions on where I can live and how much vacation time I can take that is away from my principle residence.  It just so happens that our lifestyle in retirement is not affected by these restrictions.  The sweeteners are just enough to make it worthwhile for me, especially since the 15% incentive does not come out of my pocket.  If the government is willing to subsidize my purchase of Medicare Advantage over the money it normally uses for other Medicare clients, then I would be a fool not to take “advantage”.  The government is foolish to waste this money, but if the Republicans insist on it, my vote for Obama just isn’t enough to correct this foolishness.

If the removal of the 15% incentive causes private insurance companies to stop offering Medicare Advantage plans, then I will go back to regular Medicare and buy my own Medicare supplemental insurance.  With the improvements in the economy that will result from Obama’s economic plan, I might even be able to take long vacations in Florida that I would not have been able to take under Medicare Advantage.

Of course, our retirement is one long vacation, just not in Florida.

Talking Points Memo has the article, New Obama TV Ad Attacks Ryan On Abortion Stance.

The Obama campaign released a new TV ad Friday night aimed squarely at turning women off to the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket.

If you can’t win an election with positions that most people favor, then how can you win? (By mountains of propaganda, I suppose. But at least you can try to fight the mountains.)

I have seen a bumper sticker that takes advantage of the misquotation that Romney uses.  Here is an antidote that you can print up and display yourself.

This prints nicely at landscape orientation on legal sizes paper. Click on the above image to view the full sized picture.
The fuller quote is in my previous blog, If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The segment is called Daily Show: Democalypse 2012 – Cockblock the Vote.

A Pennsylvania court upholds a controversial voter I.D. law that affect 9% of the entire state electorate, but that’s the price you pay to prevent something that doesn’t happen.

If your browser has trouble displaying the above video, try the direct link to the video.

So the court in Pennsylvania thinks that a law that was created to get Mitt Romnye elected will be applied in a non-partisan manor. Is English a language this judge speaks at all, ket alone as a first, second, or third language?

We had a nice turnout of Elizabeth Warren supporters to this event. Thanks to Don Fairbrother for organizing the sign holders. Matt Maselli and Seth Nadeau made a lot of phone calls to make sure we had a good turnout.

This ad will be appearing on TV next week.

I wonder how many people in the 99% class would prefer to have the banks running rampant and crashing our economy at will?

Current TV has the article Former Congressman Alan Grayson: ‘Obamacare didn’t reduce a single Medicare benefit’. The video in this link may not play with all browsers.  I did finally get it to work with Google Chrome browser.  In case you cannot play the video, here is the transcript provided by Alan Grayson:

STEPHANIE MILLER: Good morning, former and future [Congressman].

ALAN GRAYSON: Good morning. I couldn’t help but say to myself, “What Nonsense,” when I was listening to your preview [about Republicans defending the Ryan Budget] there. It’s getting to be painful [to see] how they twist and turn and try to rationalize what fundamentally is destroying the Medicare program. That’s what we’re talking about there.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes, but look at how blue [Paul Ryan’s] eyes are.

ALAN GRAYSON: They are going to replace the actual care that you need: the doctors, the x-rays, the chemotherapy. They are going to replace that with a check that they know isn’t enough to pay for all of that, in fact, [one that is] $6,500 short every year. It’s not even close enough to pay for it. It’s as if you went to McDonalds and ordered a hamburger, and instead of handing you a hamburger they handed you a piece of paper that had the word “hamburger” on it. That’s the con job that they are trying to run on America right now.

CHRIS LAVOIE: Oh my God! You are absolutely right. That is a great analogy.

JIM WARD: Mmmm, this paper is delicious.

STEPHANIE MILLER: This isn’t actually a hamburger. I can’t eat it. You know what, former and future [Congressman], I’m so glad you said that. Listen to Romney yesterday:

[Romney Audio Clip]: There’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare. . . .

STEPHANIE MILLER: This is what they are going to keep trying to hammer and Jim you had said this about the amount of money they have to spend to go, “Oh no, no, no, we are the saviors of Medicare and it’s the President [who is trying to destroy it].” Can you explain what the $700 billion is about?

ALAN GRAYSON: “Obamacare” did not reduce a single Medicare benefit for anybody.

STEPHANIE MILLER: That’s right.

ALAN GRAYSON: In fact, what [Obamacare] did was that it closed the donut hole, which means already that seniors pay $600 less each year for their prescription drugs. And by 2014, it will be $1,200 less for every senior who needs any prescription. Not a single benefit was cut. They found other ways to save in the program.

STEPHANIE MILLER: That’s right.

ALAN GRAYSON: And isn’t that what the Republicans are always calling for? They are always calling for more efficiency, less waste, less fraud, less abuse. What [Romney] is describing is the fact that President Obama was able to get $700 billion of waste, fraud and abuse out of the program without changing a single benefit.

JIM WARD: That’s why Romney is pretending not to know what a donut is. He’s trying to avoid the donut hole. I get it now.

ALAN GRAYSON: Maybe he can get Gingrich to come in and explain what a donut is. He certainly knows what a donut is. Or Chris Christie.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Chris Christie. I was going to go there. We almost collided getting to the Chris Christie joke.

ALAN GRAYSON: How pleasant that would have been.

STEPHANIE MILLER: So obviously, you know, you’ve seen all the headlines this morning. Republicans in competitive races distance themselves from Romney’s Medicare plan. So you’re running in Florida. We obviously saw what happened in upstate New York. That was only one race. That is my home district as you know. A Democrat never wins that, and because of Paul Ryan, Kathy Hochul won that seat. What does this mean for people like you in Florida?

ALAN GRAYSON: Well in Florida you have three times the senior vote as the rest of the country does, and seniors are waking up and realizing that, it’s true, the Republicans really do want to take your Social Security money, and hand it over to Wall Street. They really do want to take your Medicare away from you, and destroy that program. All of that is true, and now it’s right in their faces. And, by the way, this exact same Ryan Plan, this exact same Ryan Budget, came up when I was in Congress, in the 111th Congress. The Democrats brought it up for a vote and hardly any Republicans voted for it.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Right.

ALAN GRAYSON: In fact, [Rep. John] Boehner went around and told every conceivable vulnerable Republican, “Don’t vote for that. That’s going to get you lost.” And, in fact, now we’re going to see it happen all over the country. I think, not just at the Presidential level, but at the Senate level, the House level. Every Republican is going to be tarred with that brush.

STEPHANIE MILLER: You know, I was going to say, Alan I don’t know if I’m getting giddy and ahead of myself, but that’s what I feel like. This is a game changer in a bad way for them. I mean were you surprised by this pick?

ALAN GRAYSON: It’s important that we drive the point home. We can’t have weak Democrats nattering, “Well, jeez, maybe Ryan isn’t as good as Simpson-Bowles,” or something like that. No, no, no. No. The Ryan Plan is going to take away your Social Security, your Medicare, your Medicaid. It’s going to throw Grandma from the train.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yep.

ALAN GRAYSON: And that’s what the Democrats have to say every day between now and November 6th.

We can count on at least one Democrat to keep saying that between now and November 6th – to keep exposing the Republicans and their cruel schemes. We can count on Alan Grayson. And with your help, we can count on him after November 6th, too, as a Member of Congress. Click below, and show your support today for a Congressman With Guts.

I don’t really think it is good to fight Republican lies with Democratic fibs.  As I understand it, part of the money that Romney is talking about comes from getting rid of the 15% subsidy that the government gives to private insurers to take over responsibility for the Medicare client.  I suppose you could claim that the Medicare Advantage program will continue, but just without the subsidy.  Will private insurers still participate after the subsidy is removed?  I guess making this claim is similar to Ryan’s claiming that with vouchers, Medicare clients will be able to buy enough insurance on the private market.  They make this claim despite all historical evidence to the contrary.

The New York Times has this brief item from Paul Krugman, Reasonable Republicans?

It’s kind of the “treason never prospers” argument (“for if it prospers, none dare call it treason”); if someone declares that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves, or that printing money when you’re in a liquidity trap isn’t deeply inflationary, or that fear of Obamacare isn’t holding the economy back, he ceases to be considered a member in good standing of the GOP. There are, therefore, no reasonable Republicans on these issues.

It doesn’t take long for Paul Krugman to explain why there are no reasonable Republics.  The above excerpt is a substantial part of the entire article.

Thanks to RichardH for bringing this to my attention.

From World Of Quotes
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
Sir John Harrington Quotes
Source: Of Treason–Epigrams (bk. IV, ep. V)