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Attacking Costello on Medicare

Really?  Attacking him for backing a popular program against creating a voucher system that wouldn’t pay enough for actual insurance for the elderly is the best the RNCC can do?

I mean, unindicted co-conspirator Jerry Costello?  And they attack on a plan where he is likely with 70 percent of his constituents?

They have to actually come up with a candidate to run against him given last cycle they ran a contestant in the RFT’s Ask a Cougar columnist contest.  Seriously.

What is Mediscare?

Mediscare is a tried and true campaign tactic since the 1960s to charge your opponent with wanting to cut Medicare.  Not do away with it, but make some cut–either significant or not.  For example, Republicans tried it out in 2010 because the Obama health care plan forced some cuts largely by reducing costs–it was still a cut.  It’s fair game and all, but it has made making some reforms hard to pull off at different times and Medicare does need to reduce the increas in costs to stay fully funded.

That said, the issues with Medicare are pretty much the same with all health insurance. If you don’t reduce the rate of increase in costs, everyone is going to go broke trying to pay for it. There are even 70 year old people that still pay a lot of money towards health insurance. If you are one of them, you should Get rates on life insurance for seniors over 70. This will help you pay less and less or even nothing. This insurance is great and everyone accepts this kind of insurance.

To make clear to the dunderheads in DC this isn’t what is happening with Paul Ryan’s ‘plan.’  Ryan is seeking to cut taxes on the wealthy, keep the deficit high, and end Medicare as we know it by instead providing a $14,000 subsidy for the elderly to go out and seek healthcare on their own.

The problem being that the elderly are far harder to insure because they are more likely to have higher costs.  The reason we started Medicare was because medical care was becoming more expensive and the elderly couldn’t realistically afford insurance because of the risks associated with age.  Insurance companies like to make money and they aren’t going to insure the elderly without a pretty expensive policy to cover likely costs.  $14,000 isn’t going to do it.

Ending the program and providing a too small subsidy for a group of people largely on fixed incomes is what the proposal is–it would end Medicare as we know it and not provide adequate resources for a population that cannot obtain reasonably priced insurance.  It’s not Mediscare, it’s reality.  And it’s very, very unpopular for very good reasons.  People understand this issue because they have older relatives and they understand they will eventually be in that position.

Medicare needs some reform on costs, and probably more revenue.  However, it’s continued existence shouldn’t be in question because that’s what the public wants and is willing to pay for as a country.  DC pundits who declare we need to fix Medicare and that Democrats are somehow obstructing the process miss the most basic element of reality in the discussion. One side isn’t trying to reform it, they are trying to end it for the benefit of tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy and not even balancing the budget.

Who would support this?  Complete cranks.

When One Throws His Soulmate Under the Bus

Just to give full credit here, I’m mostly following Msjournalist AKA Susan Berger who is doing a great job on the trial.  Here’s the latest:

Msjournalist Susan Berger
Patti is my soulmate. We share everything “I don’t want to get her in trouble here but she was part of the discussions.”#Blagojevich
One might see that as innocent, or with Rod Blagojevich one might assume he’s thinking–throw a shiny ball under the bus!

Blagojevich Tries To Introduce Evidence Judge Ruled Against

And it isn’t going well for him…

Blagojevich has long thought:

A) The Rules Don’t Apply To HIm

B) He Can Talk Himself Out of Anything

Federal Judges tend to have a dim view of such characters and Zagel is not putting up with any of it. Zagel will tolerate a certain level of meandering , but he’s not tolerating violating his rulings which, as a lawyer, Blagojevich should understand.  At this point Zagel just told Blagojevich’s attorneys there is no more discussion because their client is going to obey him which one has to believe the next step is a warning for contempt and then contempt.

Analysis of New Districts at Kos

They have put together analysis of the new Districts though a few spots are missing votes.  They use Obama 2008 numbers and then the 2010 numbers for Quinn, Giannoulias, and Kelly.  It’s a good job of describing the Districts and such, though I think they are overconfident in some of the downstate Districts like 17 where they wanted more Dems for 13.

 

Overall it illustrates that if you take 2008 as the best case scenario and 2010 as the worst, you see how the map makes sense and is about as good as it could be for Democrats.  I strengthens my contention that we see 12 reliably though not entirely safe Dem seats and another one that is a potential swing seat in Il 13.

18, 16, 15, 14, and 6 are Safe Republican.

When Prepubescent Boys Take Over the News

Andrew Breitbart has turned a small hack into a Congressman’s account into a conspiracy theory being covered by actual news networks including CNN.  Go check the front page of Daily Caller or Breitbart’s sites and see the nonsense.  We can only assume  we will be subject to photoshop analysis of Weiner’s crotch and the crotch in the picture.  One might wonder what would cause someone to do such work….not that there’s anything wrong with that….unless you are a conservative hack.

 

You see, it’s funny because Weiner’s name is like you know Weiner and the picture  was of a weiner.
Back in the real world, we get the reaction from the woman the photo was directed at on Twitter and who is being harassed by prepubescent conservative hacks.

 

Friday evening I logged onto Twitter to find that I had about a dozen new mentions in less than an hour, which is a rare occurrence. When I checked one of the posts that I had been tagged in I saw that it was a picture that had supposedly been tweeted to me by Congressman Anthony Weiner.

The account that these tweets were sent from was familiar to me; this person had harassed me many times after the Congressman followed me on Twitter a month or so ago. Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the Congressman and harassing his supporters.

Annoyed, I responded with something along the lines of “are you f***ing kidding me?” and “I’ve never seen this. You people are sick.” I blocked their accounts, made my page private, and let the matter drop, expecting them to eventually do the same.

Within about an hour, however, I realized that I had grossly underestimated the severity of the situation that I had somehow become a part of.

The last 36 hours have been the most confusing, anxiety-ridden hours of my life. I’ve watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I’ve ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.

My friends have received phone calls from people claiming to be old friends of mine, attempting to obtain my contact information. My siblings have received tweets that are similar in nature. I began taking steps, though not quickly enough, to remove as much personal information from the Internet as possible.

Not because I “was exposed as Weiner’s mistress” or because I “was responsible for the hack,” as Gawker has suggested. I removed my information because I, believe it or not, do not enjoy being harassed or being the reason that my loved ones are targets of harassment.

I have seen myself labeled as the “Femme Fatale of Weinergate,” “Anthony Weiner’s 21-year-old coed mistress” and “the self-proclaimed girlfriend of Anthony Weiner.”

All of this is so outlandish that I don’t know whether to be pissed off or amused, quite frankly. This is the reality of sharing information online in the 21st century. Things that I never imagined people would care about are now being plastered all over blog sites, including pictures of me from when I was 17 and tweets that have been taken completely out of context. I tweeted once (it was reported that I said it twice) that “I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to.”

I am a 21-year-old college student from Seattle. I have never met Congressman Weiner, though I am a fan. I go to school in Bellingham where I spend all of my time; I’ve never been to New York or to DC. The point I am trying to make is that, contrary to the impression that I apparently gave from my tweet, I am not his girlfriend. Nor am I the wife, girlfriend or mistress of Barack Obama, Ray Allen or Cristiano Ronaldo, despite the fact that I have made similar assertions about them via Twitter.

There have never been any inappropriate exchanges between Anthony Weiner and myself, including the tweet/picture in question, which had apparently been deleted before it reached me. I cannot answer the questions that I do not have the answers to. I am not sure whether or not this letter will alleviate any future harassment. I also do not have a clear understanding as to how or why exactly I am involved in this fiasco. I do know that my life has been seriously impacted by speculation and faulty allegations. My reputation has been called into question by those who lack the character to report the facts.

There is a special place in hell for these assholes and it involves their daughters being subjected to this kind of bullshit.  CNN had the head clown on today.  Nothing like standards.