The GOP, world’s biggest death panel

Kos had a wonderful observation on what the wingnuts really mean when they say they want freedom from Big Gummint, but I wanted to add a couple of observations.

As the Kos gang noted, the Republicans and teabaggers hate hate hate the gummint in Washington. The wingnuts want to take us back a century, when there was no government protecting us from dirty sooty air, from contaminated water, from dangerous quack medicines, tainted food, asbestos, mercury, lead, unsafe products, epidemics, crooked bankers wiping out our savings, company stores enslaving us; no government aid after hurricanes, floods, and snowstorms which killed hundreds. An era when we began working at age 10 for 12 hour days with no minimum wage; day after day men, women and children were killed or permanently maimed in accidents in unsafe workplaces, with no compensation; no health care, no pension, no nothing. The wingnuts want to take us back to the day when even wealthy white men died younger: then add in the working Americans, women enslaved and denied reproductive rights, Native Americans locked in their concentration camps with their two-bit whiskey, Mexicans treated like criminals no matter where they come from or where they go, old people left to beg or starve, and blacks with no schools or voting rights or protection from beatings and murder.

Three hundred years ago, Thomas Hobbes pointed out that such a life, without government, would be nasty, brutish and – the key word -- short. The things that conservatives and libertarians say they want to do, will cut your lifespan in half, from around 80 to around 40, where life expectancy was a century ago.

The entire conservative movement is one big, um, death panel. Cutting off half your lifespan.

Now let’s sing a very moving song from the Judds:


Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days, sometimes it feels like this worlds gone crazy
Grandpa, take me back to yesterday when the line between right and wrong didn't seem so hazy
Did lovers really fall in love to stay and stand beside each other, come what may
Was a promise really something people kept, not just something they would say
Did families really bow their heads to pray? Did daddies really never go away?
Grandpa, everything is changing fast; we call it progress, but I just don't know
And grandpa, Let's wander back into the past and paint me the picture of long ago
Did lovers really fall in love to stay and stand beside each other come what may
Was a promise really something people kept, not just something they would say and then forget


The Judds sang that in 1987, when the Republicans had already had seven years to shove the flux capacitor up our asses and take us back to the past in Doc Brown’s Delorean. The Judds should have been happy: Reagan’s victorious allies were gaily declaring war on women, blacks, Mexicans, gays, poor people, any pretty much anyone who dared to disagree with them. And giving everybody a wild and crazy tax-cut party that we couldn’t afford. Party on!

So what good old days were the Judds hollering about? World War I, the Depression, the Dust Bowl, World War II, Korea, McCarthyism, witchhunts, the Cold War, the segregation, Vietnam, the Munich massacre, the energy crisis, inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis? How much worse would all of this have been, if we didn’t have effective government, armies, the law, the Constitution, a government-protected free press?

Or are they hearkening back to the golden era when, come what may, rich white men ruled the roost, and everybody else shut up and did what they were told? Is that what attracts them? When white folks greatly outnumbered the undesirables?

A couple of analysts have pointed out that the rightwing dream of a world without government, first espoused by Reagan – “Gee, what would happen if suddenly the government disappeared?” – is perfectly realized in…Somalia. Now, take a closer look at life in Somalia: thugs running around with guns terrorizing everyone else, terrorizing anyone who dares to try to make things better, anybody who resists the thugs. In other words, it’s the tea-bag wingnuts on steroids. And so far, the only good thing to happen in that neighbourhood was when Obama and Big Bad Gummint showed up with the U.S. Navy and shot those pirates right in their fucking heads.

Freedom means nothing unless there is someone there to protect those rights, and as soon as you holler for the police or the army to protect your rights…there’s government again. There is no freedom without government. And you can’t just do it yourself, because the threats to your freedom and your way of life are too big and too powerful.

Even the militia wingnuts running around with their guns saying they’re going to destroy Big Gummint and protect their own rights – what’s the first thing they do? Draw up new maps of America, renaming the cities, organizing themselves into military ranks, committees….lookee there, government! And it’s only a matter of time before they would impose “dues”, and then “taxes”, and then brutalize you and your neighbors more tyrannically than those skeery bureaucrats from Social Security and the post office ever could.

Don’t believe me? Look at what the revolutionaries did in France after they gave King Louis his haircut. Overthrowing the Big Gummint didn’t end the Reign Of Terror, it began the Reign Of Terror.

Or in the immortal words of Pete Townshend, meet the new boss, same as the old boss, just like the pigs in Animal Farm….The conservatives only hate the current government because they don’t control the current government. They lost the election. Which means they’re not freedom fighters: they are merely sore losers. With guns. Kinda like Hitler in the cellar of that beer hall back in the 1920s.

Unfortunately for them, we got a vivid lesson in what happens to us when they run the whole show. They already gave us a revolution, remember? The Reagan Revolution, the Contract with America, the promise that they would make government smaller? And thus, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, skyrocketing levels of government activity, government lies about WMD’s, government murder at Haditha, government torture at Abu Ghuraib, illegal prisons, illegal government wiretaps, nonstop lies and political smears, violent attacks and threats, Katrina, killing health reform and finance reform, jihads against gays and abortion doctors, trampling all over the Constitution, ignoring Congress and the laws they pass, covering up Republican sex scandals, and using Big Bad Gummint as a tool to attack their political enemies with.

So, happily, we can see their bullcrap promises for what they are.

Here are some not-the-same-but-similar insights at --

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/17/858324/-What-Conservatives-Mean-When-They-Say-Libertarian

Women paid to kill women?

Depends on how you look at it.

We have now learned that Wellpoint, the health insurer who "covers" 33 million customers, is not only targeting new breast cancer victims to have their coverage dropped -- they actually paid someone to write a computer software algorithm to do it, to find their victims. They undertook a deliberate program to systematically make it easier to ruin the lives of these women.

So I wonder: were there any women on this software team? And if so, what the hell were they thinking, when they wrote this computer code, expressly aimed at giving those cancer patients the choice between bankruptcy and death?


**UPDATE** -- Wellpoint, caught with their pants down, promised to execute the new requirements on recissions next week.

Also, the retreat away from recissions has now spread to the umbrella insurance organization, AHIP.

Six insurers seek double-digit rate hikes

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2010/04/judge_denies_in.html

No less than six health insurers sought to impose double-digit rate hikes.

Then a judge slapped them down and said "no".

Somebody buy this guy a beer.

Do we need any more proof that the insurers are going to screw us over any way they can, unless Big Bad Gummint brings them under control?

GOP gets its electoral strategy from...Alf Landon

Currently the Republicans are bellowing all sorts of insane threats about how they're going to beat us up and take our lunch money in the 2010 elections.

"We're going to lie to the American people about the Senate bill and tell people you approved the Nebraska deal! Because we can lie faster than you can tell the truth! Muwahahahahahahahaha!"

Their latest threat is that they are going to campaign this year, on repealing the health reform bill.

So here's a history lesson.

In the 1930s FDR passed a really, really controversial social program. The Republicans lied and lied and lied to try to stop it, but they failed in the end. The program: Social Security.

In 1936 Alf Landon ran for president, promising to repeal Social Security.

Landon sustained arguably the worst ass-kicking in electoral history. He won...Vermont and Maine. Eight electoral votes.

GOP: street thugs working for insurance mafiosi

Take a good look at the insurance industry’s zillion dollar campaign of lies and attacks against health reform, the death threats and goon squads intended to silence their enemies, the blatant bribery of members of Congress to water down health reform under the pretense of bipartisanship (all of which the media has tragically failed to expose to the American people).

So, bribes to your friends, threats and violence to your enemies, and lies and scare tactics for everyone else. All to protect a criminal enterprise that steals $600 billion from us every year.

How is the insurance industry distinguishable from a Mafia family?

It’s bigger and more successful, and the goombahs who run it have nicer suits and fewer vowels in their names. That’s pretty much it. Other than that, the insurance industry is simply an organized crime “family” like the Gambinos or the Genoveses.

And the Republican politicians have been demoted to street thugs working for the bosses.

Break heads when the bosses tell ya to, take the bribes and vote like the bosses tell ya to, scare innocent people when the bosses tell ya to.

But we already know that the Republicans were thugs anyway.

And next year these criminals want to take over Congress, and then put the Head Thug in the Oval Office in 2012.

Whee! Can’t wait!

George Bush, King of socialized medicine

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) -- "It was George W. Bush that passed the largest socialized expansion of our government in my lifetime. It was called Medicare Part D prescription drug program. The 10 year period for it was well over a trillion dollars....The price tag [for Obamacare] is now under a trillion. That is over 10 years. That is less money than what George W. Bush passed."

But of course the Republicans were perfectly okay with that. And with Bush's trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich, which he couldn't pay for, and his trillion-dollar war in Iraq, which he didn't have the money to pay for.

Wingnut states have worst health care, would benefit most from reform

http://crooksandliars.com/node/30158


The red states have the worst health care problems.

When we pass health care, the wingnuts will benefit the most, and the blue states will be subsidizing it, just as the blue states already subsidize aid and other federal spending on the red states.

But the wingnuts are too ignorant to see that this is a plan that will be a gigantic net gain for THEM most of all.

Because they are "led" by liars who have whored themselves out to the insurance corporations.

health firm dragged into court for patenting cancer gene

The firm has claimed a patent on the gene which is a precursor for cancer, and used that patent to set up an effective monopoly, so that only that firm can give patients tests. No second opinions, no increased innovation through competition. Savor the irony of Corporate America bitterly resisting the notion of competition from the market.

The firm is also refusing to work with one plaintiff's health insurer, so she can get the tests to confirm increased susceptibility for cancer.

At issue here is not an attempt to patent a discovery, or a technique, or anything of the kind: the firm wants to patent the gene itself -- a human body part. It's like trying to patent the appendix or the gall bladder.

These guys know better. There is a difference between an invention, which can be proprietary, and a discovery, which cannot. Patenting the discovery of a gene is like patenting the discovery of fire or gravity -- complete nonsense.

Another firm has claimed a patent on a gene syndrome which can be a precursor to heart irregularities and sudden death. Because those are areas in which we don't need the quicker answers that market-driven competition would provide, right?

Then there's this:

In the future, genetic tests are likely to involve the analysis of many genes at once, or even of a person’s full set of genes. Some 20 percent of the human genome is already included in patent claims, amounting to thousands of individual genes, says a draft report from the National Institutes of Health. The report warns that “it may be difficult for any one developer to obtain all the needed licenses” to develop the next generations of tests.

So much for the future of medical research...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/health/13patent.html?em

The FDA vs. Cheerios: why this isn't a stupid story

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cfec4710-3f45-11de-ae4f-00144feabdc0.html

The Food and Drug Administration has whacked General Mills for claiming that Cheerios lowers cholesterol and heart-disease risk, essentially portraying Cheerios as a drug. The FDA guy said flat-out: “The packaging clearly carries a drug claim.”

By itself, this is a tempest in a teaspoon.

But what does this tell us about the FDA's current thinking?

There is another product on our shelves, which the FDA could also, quite easily, declare to be a drug. If they did so, they could cripple a billion-dollar industry, and save thousands of lives, and billions in health care costs.

Cigarettes.

Nicotine is unquestionably an addictive drug, and if it were regulated as the drug that it is, the whole industry would be brought to its knees.

Whoa.

Did the Republicans cause the swine flu crisis?

First, let’s look at the GOP response to the swine flu crisis.

They claimed that our Democratic President was trying to exploit the crisis to shove Kathy Sebelius through as HHS Secretary; as a result of the GOP obstruction, both Sebelius’ job and the 14 below hers were empty when the crisis hit.

They insinuated that Democrats cause the flu, because the last outbreak occurred under Carter (by the way, it was Ford).

In Texas they screamed at our Democratic President for federal aid for the crisis, right after denouncing the Democrats for their policies on federal spending and hinting at secession.

They claimed the crisis was caused by thos pesky illegal immigrants that the Democrats let into the country (ignoring the fact that it was Bush who turned Homeland Security into an organizational mess).

And of course they screamed that Democratic federal programs to protect us from pandemics are “porkulus”, and cut it from the budget. The GOP’s response on that issue has been particularly clumsy. Senator Collins bragged about cutting the money on her website, and then hastily erased it. Michael Steele babbled an admission that the GOP cut the pandemic money because they failed to foresee potential crises the way the Democrats did (which exactly is what national leaders are supposed to do): "Did we know this at the time of the vote?....Don't come back and make this link six months after the fact [Mikey, it was just in February, where ya been?]... we don't know what tomorrow holds.....I'm not going to sit here and accept that connection." In other words, they don’t believe in being prepared.

So the Obama answer to the crisis was to, ya know, deal with the crisis. The GOP response to the crisis was to attack the current Democratic president, a former Democratic president, Democrats in general, Democratic spending, and Democratic policies, to include policies which were specifically designed to address the crisis.

As always, the Republican answer to every crisis is...attack Democrats.


Which is why I am compelled to point out that the epidemic began at a contaminated, poorly-monitored farm run by Smithfield Foods, a firm whose long history of environmental and labor violations was abetted by...the Bush administration. Bush’s efforts to gut the USDA, the FDA, and the EPA (and probably the NLRB too) played a pivotal role in making all this happen.

Mmm, yeah, we're going to hear more about this. And it ain't going to help the GOP.

Rick "Secession" Perry shrieks for federal help on swine flu

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-flusider_26tex.ART.State.Edition2.4a91400.html

What was it, nine days ago he was whining that the federal government was so oppressive that Texas should leave the Union?

And wasn't that right after Texas agreed to accept the federal stimulus money that Perry was condemning?

As we know, Republicans have been hypocritically scarfing up federal pork while simultaneously condemning it for years...

http://hellodollyllama.blogspot.com/2009/04/so-teabaggers-hate-big-gummint.html

...So perhaps now is the time to tell Governor Perry:

"Have you learned you lesson, Bullwinkle? Don't bite the hand that feeds you, shitwit. Unless you want us to come in and shut down all those federal facilities in your state -- the Johnson Space Center, Fort Sam Houston, Lackland AFB, the bases at Brooks, Goodfellow, Hood, Corpus Christi, the 800 federal buildings that employ thousands of Texans, the 15 national parks in Texas...."



**UPDATE** -- And now it's time for the GOP to do some 'splainin'. It has been reported that Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano -- darling of the conservatives -- is taking the lead on the swine flu crisis. Why? Because the pus-brained Republicans have been deliberately obstructing the nomination of the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathy Sebelius, to score cheap political points. This is despite the fact that Sebelius has done more than any Democrat in the country to reach out to Republicans. The reward she got for this effort was a hearty "FUCK YOU" from the Republicans she tried to help. So now we face a health crisis without a HHS Secretary. Because the Republicans would rather attack America's Democrats, than attack America's problems. This is why the popularity of the GOP is at a 25-year low.


Also, for those who don't believe Texas has all those parks, but refuse to do the research....

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument
Amistad National Recreation Area
Big Bend National Park
Big Thicket National Preserve
Chamizal National Memorial
Fort Davis National Historic Site
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park
Padre Island National Seashore
Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site
Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River

...plus the four Spanish frontier missions.

There are also recreation areas at the Amistad and Lake Meredith sites.


**UPDATE UPDATE** -- It was the Republicans who blocked the inclusion of Obama's proposal for anti-epidemic money in the stimulus package. They shrieked that it was "pork". Savor the irony.

three sources for swine flu information

The San Antonio newspaper is staying on top of the issue because they have cases there --

http://www.mysanantonio.com/

And this site has good links to people like the CDC and WHO --

http://mashable.com/2009/04/25/track-swine-flu/

And some bits of information on the disease itself --

http://us.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html#cnnSTCOther1

Ready to fight a world war for water?

USA Today reported yesterday that California is heading for its third yeard of drought, with conditions even worse than usual. More fires, more ruined crops, more jobs lost. Water matters.

The coming battles over oil and carbon are only the first salvos in a series of battles that could last centuries, all over resources: water, food and land to grow things on.

People have been fighting over water rights since the age of agriculture. America has had squabbles over water out west for a century; water fights break out in places like Sudan, which feeds Nile water to Egypt.

Eastern Australia’s Murray-Darling basin is drying up. The government is trying to restrict water use. The system could die outright. But in western Australia has iron ore (which China eats up) and tons of water.

Infrastructure is an issue also. Some water systems in the western U.S. are old.

There are ways to conserve water, use stormwater capture, and make manufacturing efforts more water-neutral – Coke is one of the firms giving it a go – but further down the road we will need to look at desalinization. A $300 million desal plant is going up in San Diego, with enough water for 100,000 homes. But much more research is needed because desal is resource-intensive. Costs are dropping but not enough yet: the University of Ottawa is working on a new technique that allegedly would be 6-7 times more efficient than the current systems; GE is working on it too. The process eats energy: Russia is using “co-generation”, exploiting the energy expended in nuclear power generation, to desal the water, and Australia is using co-generation to desal on wind farms. Membrane technology is also worth a look.

Another problem with desalinization is the waste it generates: it’s too hot and too salty for some ecosystems; they are working on ways to put the stuff back in the water without killing everything. Then the biggie: building some sort of viaduct/pipe grid to get the water to the people, which makes it more attractive to live near the coast (good news for China since everyone already lives on the coast there).

Another water issue: as we rely more on fish as a food supply, we’re going to need to lean on certain countries regarding overfishing and pollution.

Air is also a finite resource: not just as a place to dump carbon, but to breathe, obviously. Excessive deforestation needs to stop.

Living space: look at how much luck the Chinese had with population control. Population affects all the other resources – food, energy, water, the works.

More finite resources: food, and land to grow it on. Same methods as with energy: we conserve, we create more sources, and we provide aid where we can.

Agriculture is starting an impressive number of global economic squabbles, and that’s just about food producers selling it, not the hungry getting their hands on it.

The food problem is becoming more acute: in three years global prices almost doubled; the food issue hurts the urban poor the most, and there have been food riots in 30 countries; since it takes 6 pounds of grain to make a pound of protein, the growing Asian appetite for meat will only make things worse.

We may need to abandon some time-worn illusions about growing natural foods on family farms: more commercial agriculture will be needed to deal with investment, supply and delivery chains, marketing, regulations and innovation. Insisting that some peasant farmer grow your food on a family farm is like insisting that your DVD player be built in your neighbor’s Olde Handicrafte Shoppe. Feeding seven billion people cannot be done that way. Meanwhile the EU will need to set aside its anti-Americanism and protectionism and embrace GM foods.

Even food aid can be tricky: it can depress the local market and prices, thus discouraging production and encouraging further dependence, and it can be withheld for political reasons.

Food issues will bring pollution issues to the fore: biocides, fertilizers and water pollution; raising livestock causes the most problems.

All of these resource issues affect each other in ways we are only beginning to understand. Desalination gives us water but devours energy. Ethanol helps with the carbon issue but hurts on the food front. Carbon gives us more energy but hurts us on the air pollution issue. Water affects the food problem.