Register to Vote, Yo!

You need to get information from your state's election Web site, but you can find that at the United States Election Assistance Commission site. Just click on your state.

OR! You can use the National Mail Voter Registration Form.

If you live in Massachusetts, here is the Elections Division site.

The deadline to register to vote in Massachusetts for the November 6, 2012, State Election and Presidential Election is this Wednesday, October 17, 2012.

Print out the form, sign it and mail it in by Wednesday! Get it done!

I bring up Massachusetts because there's a big Senate race going on.

Current Republican Senator Scott Brown cosponsored a bill that would allow employers to deny coverage for birth control. (I urged him not to in a letter but he said it was a matter of "religious freedom" for the employers. No religious freedom for the employees it would seem.)

He voted to allow insurance companies to charge higher rates to women and treat pregnancy as a preexisting condition.

He also voted to defund Planned Parenthood which provides access to preventive health care for women including breast and cervical cancer screenings.

He has votes against three of President Obama's jobs bills and against equal pay.

He voted for tax breaks for billionaires and Big Oil.

No matter what I've written to him, the response is essentially the same: Thanks so much for contacting me. I'm not going to do that because I don't represent you. I plan to keep big business and the right wing happy.

We need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and not just for MA's sake. If Brown gets re-elected, he could be the deciding vote in the Senate.

Elizabeth Warren is in it for the people, not corporations. She believes in equal pay for equal work, marriage equality, leveling the playing field, ... Read more on the Issues section of her site.

"Women also must have the full range of reproductive health care options available to them. This includes access to contraception, maternity and newborn care, and safe abortion services. ...A woman should be able to seek guidance from people she trusts, including her doctor and her priest, pastor, rabbi or other religious leader, without interference from the government."

It's the last bit that gets me: "without interference from the government." Yes!