Mike Pence and the Military

Mike Pence TV commercials all sound like god bless America, all of them have waves of grain, American Flags, etc. Nothing about what he would do or really stands for, etc. Just wants everyone to take his word for it, very very god and country. Well I think he has hit a new low with this type of campaign. His newest ad is about the Indiana National Guard and how proud he is we have the fourth largest guard in the nation. He goes on to say: "When our nation calls, Indiana’s sons and daughters answer. We owe them a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid." He then goes on to say "What makes today's military so special they all volunteered." What makes Mike Pence so special he didn’t. He never served. He never volunteered. As a veteran I don't mind that he never served but I am insulted by the way he using this message to try and show how proud he is. Fellow vets remember this fake support for our troops this fall. A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’ Joe Weingarten Captain United States Air Force 1967-1971

Mitt Romney and the 1800's.

Its July 4th and time to look at what Mr. Romney wants to do to preserve our nation, and I find his best course of action is to go back to the 1800's. I think he would feel very secure in that era. The Tea Party of course wants to go back even further but here are a few notes on Mitt's policies. “The United States is blessed with a cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources,” the Romney campaign site proclaims. “Developing them has been a pathway to prosperity for the nation in the past and offers similar promise for the future.” Yes, the past, the glorious past. Mitt’s hero – 1880’s John D. Rockefeller Speaking of John D. Here are a few of his favorite quotes: “Competition is a sin.” “Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in.” “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” Mitt would like to get rid of regulations on energy after all regulations have held back the US, that is why we not the number one nation in the world. “amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide” We need faster global warming. “open America’s energy reserves for development” Gas reserves are under Geist lets start drilling so what if it ruins our water supply. “support construction of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to the United States” no matter how tarry and impure it is. “prevent over regulation of shale gas development and extraction” with its untested impact on water tables and the very stability of the earth’s crust. The ‘green’ technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace,” the Romney campaign site tells us, “and studies have shown that for every ‘green’ job created there are actually more jobs destroyed.” Don’t waste any time looking for the footnote or link that tells you where these studies are located. Windmills can’t have those ugly windmills dotting the landscape do you think we are Holland? Get rid of unions and go back to the workers paradise of the 1880’s. Let’s see in the 1880’s workers had the benefits of long hours, unsafe factories, no sick leave, what is insurance, no vacation, and the boss was very friendly to you. Mitt wants to go forward with right to work laws which are right to employ and fire at will laws. Did I forget low wages “Too often, unions drive up costs and introduce rigidities that harm competitiveness and frustrate innovation.” After all the unions want to see every factory fail and every worker out of a job. The US didn’t develop all those industries and inventions while unions were around, think of how much more we can do with big profits and more rich people and more poor people. The number union in the cross hairs teacher unions. Education: More and more charter schools with the aim of shutting down public education. Make all schools private with a voucher system that results in a benefit to the rich who sent their kids to private schools by giving them extra money, enhance the religious right by allowing them to set up schools and have the government pay for them, and of course develop warehouse schools for the poor and common people. Poor Horace Mann who in the 1850 developed the “common school” concept for all is watching Mr. Romney turn the clock back to before 1850. Medical care -OMG have medical care for everyone? Do you think we are Modern County? Why that concept is so 21st century we must do everything in our power to step back in time. If you have not worked hard and saved for a heart attack then you should die. Break a leg, two sticks and duck tape should make a good splint. Don’t forget no more sick leave back to the coalmines where your only protection is a bird in a cage. Mitt get us back to the 1800’s you must double your efforts to repeal the health care law. Mitt get working on that. Deep in your heart you know the 1800’s was best. “As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts” I wonder if he has flip-flopped this week after Mr. Roberts the approved the health care law. How dare Mr. Roberts follow law instead of politics.

Before you forward that e-mail check

My wife just got an e-mail telling her because of Obamacare her Medicare Premiums are set to jump to $247 in 2014. It was very real looking e-mail coming from Blue Cross etc. She asked is this true and with a few keystrokes I found out it was far from true. It was another one of the false hate e-mails to strike fear into the people not vote for the President. We are going to see a massive increase of these e-mail as we get closer to the election. I went to www.snopes.com to get to the real story. http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/medicare.asp And guess what Medicare is going to go up in 2014 but to $115.80, and here is another question for you, what was it in 2011 $115.40. So Medicare is going jump but not to $247 is actually an increase of 40 cents over 2011. Now for another story but this one is very real the Republican candidate for Senate in the State of Indiana has said Medicare is unconstitutional, he also said Social Security is Unconstitutional so folks what are you going to do when Richard Mourdock who also said their is no compromise, its my way or the highway, and he works to shut down these programs. What will you do when your Social Security checks stop coming, when your doctor says cash up front. It is time to make sure Mr. Mourdock is not elected. It is time to end the fear factor and find out the truth. It is time not to elected people of extremes to Congress. It does not matter which party, anyone who is that extreme is not interested in the overall welfare of the nation. We don't need more years of deadlock in Congress.

Indiana Republicans and Universal Health Care

In the primary every Republican candidate said they were going to repeal Health Care. One of the favorite arguments is look what is going on in Canada. So here is a short version of an article posted by AARP with a few comments by me. Even if you are a Republican you should be very concerned about health care. A chest pain and not even a heart attack will set you back about $20,000 and that is for only 1-2 days in the hospital. Cancer about $60,000. One very interesting item was getting treatment in a hospital cost more than if you get it at your doctors office. My guess is the overhead at the hospital and part of the overhead are people who don’t have insurance and get “free” care at the hospital they then pass this on to everyone who comes in the door. If we had everyone insurance you no longer would have people just showing up for free care. Hospital bills would drop. How many Canadians come to the US for heath care: .5% for care electively .11% for emergency care* 99.39% stay in Canada for heath care *80% 0f these visits were to emergency rooms while on vacation. A lot of cold Canadians go to Florida during the winter. Are Canadian doctors taking U.S. jobs? Are they coming to the US? The USA has 800,000 physicians and in both 2005 and 2006 just over 120 Canadian physicians came to the USA. But at the same time more US physicians moved to Canada. Canada rations health care; that’s why hip replacements and cataract surgeries happen faster in the United States. Not so says the St Louis Post Dispatch that did a study on Canadian hip replacements and found 63 percent were for people over 65. So the Republican who claim that Canadians can’t get hip replacements is bunk. Wait times are longer in Canada and the answer is yes they are but not because of rationing but rather because of fiscal conservation policy to limit supply. While the US limits care by cost. In a study by Commonwealth Fund of Washington in the US 42% of Americans expressed an opinion they not be able to afford health care if they became seriously ill. About one third of Americans didn’t go to a doctor when sick or fill a prescription or skipped medication because of cost. Then 20% of people who had medical costs have to struggle to pay their bills. So we as a nation are also rationing health care but using cost as that tool. So when someone says we don’t want to be like Canada on health care maybe the answer yes we do. BTW- When someone says the Health Care Bill has death panels the real answer is that those who vote against it are the death panel. If 42 percent can’t afford to see a doctor or get care are we sending them to their death? Sure looks like it. One last note – How many Canadians does it take to screw in a light bulb? – The same as Americans. Then how come they have health care and we don’t.

Smearfest

Smearfest Last night my wife just looked at me and said politics is now a smearfest. First time I had heard that word and I had to wonder if it even was a word, so off to Google I went and to my surprise it is becoming a word. Now on Google it is spelled three ways with preventative medicine. But mixed in were the articles on this new word. Someone named Mark posted one of the better definitions: Sometimes, in the right-wing noise machine, you really need to stretch to spread your smears across as many targets as possible. It calls for a strategy that aims to cast your juvenile insults so broadly that they ensnare any of your perceived enemies within certain proximity. In a way, it’s a conservative approach that allows you to use less tar to tarnish more opponents in one wide swipe. Even Glenn Beck said: “Campaigns are ugly. Watching the way politicians act makes you long for the respect and self-control of the Sopranos.” But lets be totally honest smearfests are not only the work of the right; the left is just as guilty. Lets look at some of the older political smears: Sarah Palin - "Sarah Palin believes God told her to go to war with Iraq!" Rick Perry - 'Noted Homosexual Rick Perry' Barack Obama – Birth Certificate, Secretly a Muslim Global Warming Pink Slime Now these are minor league compared to today’s attacks. Herman Cain - Ginger White and how many others. Ron Paul - Smeared by everyone just because he is Ron Paul. And of course this is not reserved for national campaigns. Here in Indiana at both the state and local level we have a smearfest beyond belief. What is even more amazing is members of their own party are killing each other. Look at Senator Lugar, better yet Google "smearfest Lugar" and see the Trash you get. Even worst is a Congressional race where one candidate in an ad blasts not one but two opponents at the same time making claims that are totally false. And to top it off this is a candidate who moved(?) into the state for the purpose of running for congress. Where are these ads coming from out of state of course, from big Pac’s? The Supreme Court opened the door a few years ago by saying corporations have free speech and can be a person. What happened to “truth and the American way” it appears it has gone for a long walk and lost its way. It seems we prefer a candidate that uses lies and hides what they would do if elected. No wonder the Congress of the United States is no longer effective, the extreme right and left wings are too busy being evil to each other and others to shake hands and work for the common good. There can also be a fun side of Smearfests: Stranded with zombies VS Hazmat Skippy Peanut Butter on a smearfest

Indiana Tax Mistakes - Now a third one.

I just got a note form the State of Indiana that I owed a lot of taxes due to an error on my income tax return. My initial though was this can’t be right they owe me. So out come the tax records and low and behold they forgot to credit a large payment on a 1099. First contract the people, who issued the 1099, yup they sent the money to the state. Needless to say I have written a letter back and enclosed the 1099 they seemed to have misplaced or lost. Then I started to wonder was my money with the 200 million or the 325 million Mr.. Mourdock lost. Seems as if we need a total overhaul of the Treasurers’ office, then again I think we need a total overhaul of the state government. Too many things like this keep happening in this state. Of course it will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to find my money and issue my refund.

Mitch and Mitt Team

Mitch Daniels former head of the Office of Budget Management under President Bush and now Governor of the State of Indiana has found out the state accounting office made two small account errors of over $500,000,000.00. Ops

Today I found out that Mitt Romney has a Swiss Bank Account. I guess he doesn’t believe in the United States banking system.

So we have a Governor who can’t add and a Governor, who wants to be President who doesn’t trust his own country. Does Mitch have a Swiss bank account? Is Mitt getting ready to run overseas?

By the way – Warren Buffett was asked if he has a Swiss bank account, his response was “No, there are plenty of good banks in the United States”

Maybe Mitch is still thinking of running for Vice-President, what a great team. The Mitt and Mitch team - great campaign slogan "Just trust us with your money"

Just to set the record straight, I do not have a Swiss bank account.