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Karen Sandness

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 14 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 08/23/12 at 10:46 pm in response to Why today's seniors should object to the dissolution of Medicare

even at the same rates, would help balance its accounts. The reason Medicare is in trouble is that it covers ONLY the oldest, sickest Americans, which is why private insurance companies were refusing to cover this age group in the 1960s.

If Medicare were opened up to younger, healthier people, even the many unemployed and under-employed 50+ crowd, those new enrollees would use many fewer services than than those over 65.

Medicare is a popular program. If Obama had been a good...

Posted on 08/21/12 at 06:38 pm in response to Disabled and elderly voters face new hurdles at polls

I keep hearing about "voter fraud" from right-wing commentators, but they never state how they learned of it, where it occurred, when it occurred, or how many people were involved.

They sound increasingly like the guy who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who was collecting welfare checks from three different states.

Posted on 08/20/12 at 05:58 pm in response to Mayors Rybak, Coleman blast Photo ID as needless expense in tight times

Got any proof for that statement? What is the name of the person who told you that "thousands of illegal immigrants" voted? Is that person an election official or someone else who would have reason to know? Did that person turn in any of the alleged "illegal voters"? What are the names of some of these illegal immigrants who supposedly voted? Where did they vote? If you know about these illegal immigrants, why didn't you call La Migra on them?

Posted on 08/20/12 at 12:32 pm in response to Flurry of photo ID laws tied to conservative ALEC group

There's a reason that the Republicans want to make it difficult for seniors to vote. They're the ones who remember most clearly what life was like before Reaganomics. They're the ones who recall that the War on Poverty actually did reduce poverty until local powers-that-were pressured their pet Congressional representatives and senators to gut those programs. Some older voters--fewer all the time, though--even have "before" and "after" memories of the New Deal.

When my late mother was...

Posted on 08/20/12 at 05:53 pm in response to Flurry of photo ID laws tied to conservative ALEC group

How was the polling question stated? "Do you favor a voter ID law to prevent all the fraudulent votes cast in Minnesota by millions of illegal immigrants, felons, and people who go from precinct to precinct so they can vote twice?" Slant it like that, and you'd probably get a reflexive "yes" from a lot of people, until they stopped and realize that there aren't "millions" of illegal immigrants and felons in Minnesota.

I bet that the percentage of Minnesotans in favor of Voter ID would...

Posted on 08/16/12 at 06:06 pm in response to Jefferson Morley finds the roots of American politics in an 1835 snowstorm

Anyone who looks objectively at the evidence and thinks that Barack Obama is a "leftist," much less a "socialist" or a "Marxist," must be guided by something other than the evidence.

A real leftist would not have agreed to follow G.W. Bush's plan to bail out the banks with no strings attached.

A real leftist would have at the very least placed stringent conditions on the bailout, including firing of the top officials, a ban on bonuses until the banks were solvent, and...

Posted on 08/10/12 at 08:43 pm in response to Neighborhood ‘walkability’ a big deal now, even though it’s tricky to measure

The one thing that bothers me about biking in Minneapolis is the number of people who ride on narrow congested streets when there are parallel, nearly traffic-free streets just a block on either side. Hennepin between Lake and Franklin is especially bad in this respect, and when I drive on it, cyclists who take up half the lane make me either slow to a crawl and hold up traffic or risk slipping over into the opposing lane to pass them.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for cycling, although...

Posted on 08/10/12 at 08:53 pm in response to Shelter report: Romney's little welfare princesses

I often see conservatives in online forums repeating lies about the poor, including complaints that "hardworking taxpayers" have to support "people who spend their whole lives on welfare." The corollary is that only "people sucking from the government teat" vote Democratic.

I've even seen people express the wish that they could quit their jobs and go on welfare so they could sit around all day.

A friend of mine who lost her job at age 57 and never worked full-time again used...

Posted on 08/09/12 at 10:03 pm in response to From the front row: A recap of the Supreme Court argument over the voter ID amendment, and why it matters

The changed title is indeed the more accurate title. Why don't the Republicans want the voters to know the full ramifications of a "yes" vote?

If the aim of the ballot measure is to prevent non-citizens from voting and to prevent people from voting outside their own precinct, then there is no *existing* ID that covers both concerns. A driver's license does not prove citizenship, and a passport or birth certificate does not prove one's current address.

Meeting both concerns...

Posted on 08/09/12 at 12:22 am in response to Six reasons why Obama will win re-election

Not all the people with "Obama derangement syndrome" are old. If you look at some of the comments on Democratic Facebook pages, you'll see racial epithets and taunts like "Go back where you came from" from fairly young people. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're just echoing what they've heard the adults around them say and that they'll grow up and eventually see some of the world outside their suburb or small town.

There are a lot of people in this country...