Steve's Politics Blog

The Fight Back Against Todd Akin – Help Place VoteVets’ McCaskill Ad is the web page to go to in order to support the placement of the following ad:

Claire currently sits on four? Senate Committees, including Armed Services, Commerce, HSGAC and Aging. From those committees, she’s taken on: accountability and transparency, earmark reform, increased independence for Inspectors General (IG) that act as federal auditors, credit card regulations, security improvements to foreign repair stations that service our domestic aircraft, reforms to the reverse mortgage industry, consumer protections, and full benefits and resources for our brave veterans.

This is an excellent ad that just makes the positive case for Claire McCaskill. It just ignores her opponent, which is what he deserves. Of course if you want to beat some other Republican over the head, references to Akin are just great.

I sent an email to Joe Martin, the Mr. Boffo cartoon’s author.

I am sure you will get many emails from all the various towns around the country called Podunk.

Here is a link to Podunk Cemetery, on Podunk Rd, just off the Podunk Pike. This is in Brookfield, Massachusetts.

Here is a link to the East Brookfield web site.

“In 1673 a significant portion of the plantation became the town of Brookfield, which then included the villages of West Brookfield, North Brookfield, East Brookfield and Podunk. ”

DonF sent me a link to the article A Tea Partier Decided To Pick A Fight With A Foreign President.

Michael D. Higgins (who was elected president of Ireland last year) is fed up with over-the-top Tea Party rhetoric, and he isn’t afraid to show it. Listen to him call out radio host Michael Graham on everything from health care to foreign policy. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one.

This man must have learned something about filibuster when he lived in the USA.

The following is from an email I received from the campaign.

Somerville, MA – Republican Scott Brown’s votes and views on issues important to women and their families have been in the spotlight over the last few days – and he doesn’t like it one bit.

Under fire by consumer advocate and U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren for his support of the national Republican agenda, Scott Brown sent a very clear message of his own:

“I don’t need Professor Warren talking, or speaking, or commenting on my votes.”

Warren released the following statement today:

“Scott Brown voted against equal pay for equal work. I’m going to keep talking about that.

“Scott Brown voted for the Blunt amendment to limit women’s access to birth control. I’m going to keep talking about that.

“Scott Brown supports Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan – Mitt Romney who says he wants to end Planned Parenthood and Paul Ryan who cosponsored legislation to outlaw birth control pills. You can bet I’m going to keep talking about that so the people of Massachusetts know Scott Brown’s record and where he stands — with his Republican Party against the interests of women and families in the commonwealth.

“Women and their families in Massachusetts are going to keep talking, speaking and commenting on his votes and his support for the Romney-Ryan ticket because Brown’s election could hand the Senate to the Republicans and enable them to implement their radical agenda.

“Scott Browns votes are on the record. His work to put Romney-Ryan in the White House and to put Republicans in control of the Senate is on the record. He has made it clear that he is part of a Republican Agenda that is harmful to women and that protects Wall Street and the big banks while it leaves working families to pick up the tab.”

Here a political sign you might want to use on this upcoming Labor Day weekend.

I wonder what is going through the minds of Republicans when they do celebrate labor day. If you have any insights, let me know.

Here is a radio ad from Elizabeth Warren.

Todd Akin’s comments in Missouri were not just one extreme candidate in Missouri – it’s part of a Republican pattern.

No matter what your personal feelings are about Scott Brown, we just cannot let the Republicans gain control of the U.S. Senate. Vote locally, but think strategically.

The Boston Globe has published the story Majority opposes Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan from Bloomberg News.

House Republicans twice have approved legislation sponsored by Ryan to convert Medicare to a voucher program. The plan would rely on competition among private insurers to hold down health care costs.

I wrote the following letter to the editor of The Boston Globe.

I pity the reporter who had to write “House Republicans twice have approved legislation sponsored by Ryan to convert Medicare to a voucher program.  The plan would rely on competition among private insurers to hold down health care costs.”  A fit of rolling on the floor laughing is not a pleasant sight to see.

Is there anyone alive today or who has read any history who understands why Medicare was invented?  As I recall it, Medicare was needed because it was just about impossible for people over 65 to get private health insurance at a reasonable price.  That was decades ago.  Has anything changed that would make us think that reverting to that era would be an improvement?

Considering our history of astronomically rising health care costs under the current private insurance market for those under 65, why would we assume that having more of the same would produce radically different results?  30% of the current costs for health care already go to private insurance companies with no health benefits to the public at all.

I am surprised that we cannot hear the collective roar of laughter from all over the country  when Republicans make such obviously silly proposals.  Yet, as much as 38% of those between 18 and 49 don’t get the joke.

Maybe the ROTFL isn’t so bad, but to see LMAO may be traumatic.

The following video was suggested by EricK.

After it is over, you may stand up and cheer if you are so inclined.

The New York Times has the article Patients Would Pay More if Romney Restores Medicare Savings, Analysts Say.

Some of the wording in this article had me confused, but the bottom line is that Romney’s false claims about what Obama has done to Medicare revolve around Medicare Advantage as I have been saying in many blog posts.

But Medicare Advantage, which was created 15 years ago in the hope that private-market competition for beneficiaries would result in lower prices, has consistently cost more than standard Medicare — costs that Medicare beneficiaries must help subsidize through their premiums.

The reductions for Medicare Advantage providers are “a matter of basic fairness because they’ve been overpaid for years,” Ms. Moon said. As for beneficiaries, she added, “they’re guaranteed basic Medicare benefits. They may lose some extra benefits they may have been getting, but in effect you’re saying some of the windfall benefits may go away.”

“The bottom line,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, which Mr. Ryan leads, “is that Romney is proposing to take more money from seniors in higher premiums and co-pays and hand it over to private insurance companies and other providers in the Medicare system.”

As a subscriber to Medicare Advantage since I turned 65 about 3 years ago, I have always realized that it was a waste of government money to subsidize insurance companies this way, but if we were paying for it anyway, I might as well use it.  I won’t be sorry to see it go, especially if the savings in my Medicare premiums allow me to buy the miniscule extra benefits on my own.