The Republic of T.

Just when I think I’ve heard and seen it all, along come the Republican presidential debates. Judging by a couple candidates’ of biggest applause lines, the GOP base is quite enthusiastic about (someone else’s) death, and apparently don’t care who knows it.

The most comes from Ron Paul.

Good for Ron Paul. At least he grabbed some camera time away from "pretty boys" Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. And to his credit, according to the CBS News article linked above, when Wolf Blitzer asked "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?," Paul answered "No." It was the audience who cried out "Yes!"

It’s one thing to cheer someone’s death. It’s another to do it with the camera’s rolling. Did nobody tell them their enthusiasm for "end-of-life non-care" was being broadcast to the world? To borrow a bit from Wanda Sykes, did no one remind them "Sane people are looking at you!"? Or did they just not care?

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I was walking around the office yesterday when one of my coworkers asked me why she’d seen me walking the halls so often. I told her why, and then it occurred to me that I hadn’t told that story here.

I’ve been remiss. I received so many supportive comments when I posted about my chronic knee pain and my frustration with it. I thought I should post some kind of update.

Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

- Mary Schmich

I used to wonder what the phrase above — from Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich’s now famous column meant. I no longer have to wonder.

The knees were not the first to go, in my case. It was the eyes. But the knees now appear to be on their way out. And they are not going quietly.

Actually, it started a while back. Far enough, in fact, that I can’t pinpoint when it started. For a while, the various methods I turned to to treat it worked pretty well. If I took an over-the-counter pain reliever, and wore a knee brace or a less obtrusive band below the kneecaps, it subsided somewhat.

By “it” I mean pain; burning, searing pain around and behind my left and right kneecaps. In my case, it starts when I’m sitting down, especially if I’ve been sitting down for an extended period. Standing up usually relieves it. Putting my feet up also works. But now the various methods I’ve tried have stopped working. Even standing up doesn’t offer as much relief as it used to. Once the pain starts, it’s there for the duration of the day.

That was in April. Three months later, I can definitely say that things have gotten better. Things have changed. I’ve had to make some changes, but all in all things have gotten better. The news is good.

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It seems like many people in Amy’s life who cared about her had also come to the realization that they couldn’t help her until she was ready to accept help. Again, Russell Brand put it better than anyone else.

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.

Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.

Amy’s mother, seeing Amy for the last time just a day before her death, seemed to realize that her daughter’s death “only a matter of time.”

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I think I’m beginning to get Michelle Bachmann, after the whole migraine story.

The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.

“She has terrible migraine headaches. And they put her out of commission for a day or more at a time. They come out of nowhere, and they’re unpredictable,” says an adviser to Bachmann who was involved in her 2010 congressional campaign. “They level her. They put her down. It’s actually sad. It’s very painful.”

Bachmann’s medical condition wouldn’t merit public attention, but for the fact she is running for president. Some close to Bachmann fear she won’t be equal to the stress of the campaign, much less the presidency itself.

No, it’s not what you think.

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In the first post in this series, I noted out that in the “Path to Prosperity” — which Republicans approved unanimously — Rep. Paul Ryan cited Medicaid as one of the biggest drivers of our national debt. The Republican budget formerly known as the Ryan budget, it followed, was all about putting the brakes on “What Drives Our Debt,” as the “scare graph” that drove the point home was titled.

There are at least two problems with Republican’s assertions about Medicaid. Like I said earlier, Medicaid and Medicare are not the problem. They are part of of the bigger problem of skyrocketing health care costs. The problem is, Republican cuts to Medicaid don’t lower health care costs. It increases them.

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Budget-cutting can be a bloody business, depending upon where and how deeply one cuts. It can be a deadly business too. Not for the budget-cutters, though. That’s especially true for Medicaid. To understand that, you need look no further than Arizona.

It was just earlier this year that Arizona was grabbed the spotlight as an example of just how deep GOP lawmakers were willing to cut. Rania Khalek recounts Arizona’s recent history in an Alternet post that reads like a budget cutters’ body count.

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Two years ago I blogged about being one of millions of Americans who has to swallow one of Big Pharma’s bitter pills every morning.

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we’ll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

The vehicle for these deals is patent litigation. When a generic drug is approved to come to market, the maker of the more expensive name-brand drug sues the generic for patent infringement. But instead of a conventional settlement, in which the generic pays the patent-holder to settle the claim that it infringed the patent, the payment goes the other way: the patent-holder pays the maker of the generic, in exchange for a pledge to delay bringing the generic to market. That suggests the patent-holder fears its patent wouldn’t hold up in court, as many don’t. And it runs counter to the intent of the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, which sought to speed the path of generics to market, and to provide a legal framework for these cases.

So common have these deals become lately that they’ve been given a name: pay-for-delay. The approach — a textbook anti-competitive tactic — is worth billions to drug-makers, because it essentially allows them to buy more protection than their patent confers.

While Republicans are touting Medicare/Medicaid cuts that don’t cut health care costs, Sen. Bernie Sander’s has a prescription for Big Pharma that could help everyone’s medicine go — not to mention prescription drug prices — go down.

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In my previous post, I covered what Republicans want to do to Medicaid. In this post, I intend to delve into why Republicans want to gut Medicaid.

Republicans present their budget proposal as a solution to the “problems” of Medicaid and Medicare, which their budget cites as two of the biggest drivers of national debt. But, as I demonstrated in my previous post, Medicaid and Medicare aren’t the problem. They’re part of the much larger problem of rising health care costs — a problem the GOP budget doesn’t solve. (More on that in an upcoming post.)

If Republicans are as intent on ignoring the white-coated elephant in the room, to solve “problem” that exist only in their own minds, that raises an important question; particularly about their plans for Medicaid.

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Stan Collender is right. The NY-26 election special election will change the budget debate. In fact, it already has. Democrat Kath Hochul’s victory over Republican Jane Corwin, in a solidly Republican district, in special election that became a referendum on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal — which Corwin endorsed — turned up the volume on the debate over the Republican plan to “destroy Medicare as we know it.” The Medicare rhetoric will only get louder.

Though we’ll all hear more about the GOP’s dastardly plans for Medicare, we’ll probably hear less about their equally destructive plans for Medicaid. That’s dangerous, because Medicaid is just as important as Medicare, and the GOP’s plans for it could have devastating consequences for millions of Americans.

Forewarned is forearmed. Here’s what you need to know about Medicare and the Ryan/GOP Budget. (more…)

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Republicans. Almost. The mess the GOP finds itself in, after appointing itself to Medicare’s “death panel,” would be laughable if it weren’t also so pathetic.

Especially since it’s a mess of GOP’s own making, and they know it. That’s why Republicans pitched a collective hissy fit when — and this is the beauty part — Newt Gingrich told them the truth.

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I just had an EMG test done on my right arm; something my orthopedist ordered to get a sense of how bad my carpal tunnel is, and then assess options for treatment.

I hope the docs got what they needed from the test. The EMG test itself was an experience I hope never to repeat.
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Well, per yesterday’s post, today was a better day pain-wise. I can’t say it was pain free, and may have to start standing up on the bus in order to ensure things don’t go downhill before I get to work. But, the day I had yesterday gave me an incentive to get

I visited my primary care doc today, to talk to him about pain medication. I also told him about the day that I had yesterday. Basically, it was too painful to sit at my desk. I spend part of the day sitting on the floor of my office, and most of the rest sitting in the lunchroom with my feet in a chair and a laptop on my lap.

The worst part is, once the pain starts it pretty much stays with me all day. Yesterday, I laid on the couch for several hours after the kids went to bed, before the pain subsided.

The doc told me two things. (more…)

What is it with white, male conservatives and Michelle Obama.

File this under, “Not much room to talk.”

Rush Limbaugh called Michelle Obama a hypocrite on his Monday show, saying that, while the First Lady advocates healthy eating, she “doesn’t look like [she] follows her own…dietary advice” and would never be put on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.

Limbaugh was reacting to a report from Colorado which mentioned that Obama ate ribs at a restaurant during her skiing holiday there this past weekend. He said this was evidence of Obama’s hypocrisy around food.

Obama’s campaign to curb obesity and promote healthy eating has become a bête noire for many conservatives, who have cast it as an example of big government overreach. Last week, a controversial cartoon depicted Obama as overweight and binging on hamburgers even as she talked about eating healthy foods.

What follows is almost too easy, and to obvious. Still, it must be done.

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I’ll say it again. When progressives and conservatives talk about jobs, we are not talking about the same thing. Nor do we talk about jobs for the same reasons, it seems. The more I watch the ongoing floor debate in the House, over the nearly 600 amendments to Continuing Resolution (H.R.1) to fund the federal government through September — only one of which was explicitly concerned with jobs — the more obvious this seems.

When Republicans talk about jobs, it’s just another means of remaking our economy to more closely resemble the countries to which we export most of our jobs and from which we import most of our goods.

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I spent most of my two-day sojourn through CPAC covering economic issues at the conference, but I was aware (as were lots of people) about the gay-related controversy around the conference, due to the presence of the gay conservative group GOProud at this year’s conference. (Not to mention their status at sponsors.)

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Those pesky founding fathers. You’d think guys who so long ago shuffled off that old mortal coil would find it harder to surprise us. With them safely dead for so long, you’d think we could easily appropriate and their past and politics in support of our own, without fear of contradiction.

You’d be wrong. It turns out the founding fathers supported socialized medicine.

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During the presidential campaign, Republicans enjoyed poking fun at Obama’s “Yes, We Can,” campaign slogan. Most often they simply restated it as “No, You Can’t.” However, the GOP majority in the House is setting out to exemplify its own slogan: “No, We Can’t.”

The “We” in this case is the same “We” Obama spoke of with his slogan — the collective “We,” encompassing all Americans. “No, We Can’t,” however reflects the GOP’s emphatic belief that when it comes to the challenges we face — from health care to climate change and then some — there’s just nothing we can, or should, do.

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Did you think that, having regained control of the House, the GOP will stop being the "party of No" and start governing, or at least doing something about the challenges facing the country? Think again.

The 112th Congress will not be the "Do Something" Congress that the 111th was. It would be a relief if this turned out to be the "Do Nothing" Congress that the new House "one-week-off-for-every-two-weeks-worked" schedule suggests. Instead, it’s already shaping up to be the "Undo Everything" Congress, working hard to rewind the clock to 2008 or earlier.

Topping the GOP’s "undo list" — right after investigating the New Black Panther Party and asking business which reforms to repeal — is health care reform.

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"Mama Grizzlies" and "refudiate" made the banished words list for 2010, but here’s some news that ought to make Sarah Palin smile. America’s obesity epidemic is proving good for business — the funeral business, that is.

It’s no secret that Americans are battling obesity. …The obesity problem not only affects how we live, but it changes what happens to our bodies when we die … and that has forced the funeral industry to change its business.

Twelve years ago, Cedar Memorial in Cedar Rapids purchased a body lift, capable of raising and lowering bodies and caskets weighing up to 1,000 pounds.

A Cedar Rapids-based company, Mortuary Lift Company, sells the lifts and the lift business is booming. Katie Hill’s company has grown 20 percent a year. Just this year, she sold more than 100 lifts in the United States and abroad. "It started out, you know, selling three machines a year on up, and now we’re actually producing quite a bit," Hill said.

Cedar Memorial president John Linge says larger loved ones also present a challenge for burial. "The funeral industry has had to respond by providing caskets, mausoleum crypts and burial vaults that will accommodate larger individuals." According to Linge, Cedar Memorial plans to add oversized burial crypts to its mausoleum in the next five years, showing that the obesity trend is not likely to end soon.

According to the Casket and Funeral Supply Association of America, oversized caskets may cost 15 to 25% more, but Linge says they help families visualize their loved ones in comfort.

So, why would this make Sarah Palin smile?

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It Won’t Work

Not to pick on Kathleen Parker, but the “narrative” she suggested the Democrats take from midterm elections — “You can’t sell people what they don’t want” — is more likely to end up being the narrative the Republicans take from 2012 — if the president and the Democrats do what they need to do. Karl Rove was half-right when he said voters didn’t toss out the Democrats because are “enraptured with the GOP.” People are angry sure, but the numbers tell a different story.

People are angry not at what the Democrats did after 2008, but what they didn’t do. They didn’t “buy” what the GOP was selling. Like a shopper who ordered one thing and got another, American voters ordered transformative change in 2008 but got the same old transactional politics instead. The midterms of 2010 is their letter or complaint.

Here at Campaign for America’s Future, we just released a voter survey that shows voter fears about the economy and anger at government failure to help middle- working-class families even as Wall Street got bailed out.

Findings include:

• Compared to a candidate who attacked Democrats for the economic stimulus and health care reform, 57 percent of voters said they were much or somewhat more likely to support a candidate with a “made-in-America” campaign message that points out that Republicans have “pledged to support free trade deals and protect tax breaks for companies that send American jobs to India and China.”
• Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that “America is falling behind” in the global economy and that “we need a clear strategy to make things in America, make our economy competitive, and revive America’s middle class.”
• Sixty-nine percent said that “politicians should keep their hands off Social Security and Medicare” as they attempt to address the national deficit.
• A majority opposed the Republican plan to cut $100 billion from domestic spending programs while extending the Bush tax cuts to those earning more than $250,000, while 51 percent said they agreed that those top-end tax cuts should expire and with proposals offered by Democrats to reduce the deficit over time.
• Significant majorities in the poll supported new investments in infrastructure through a national infrastructure bank, a five-year strategy for reviving manufacturing in America

Why stop at one poll?

The GOP is not popular with Americans, nor is its agenda. Poll after poll leading up to the election bear this out. Their approval/favorability ratings were low going into the election, lower than the Democrats in many cases.

This is in the context of low approval ratings for Congress overall. But, as I said in the previous post, The Democrats’ problem is failing to deliver on the agenda Americans voted for in 2008. The Republicans problem is an agenda that remains toxic to most Americans.

Americans offer tepid support for much of the Republican Party’s domestic agenda, including repealing the new healthcare law and extending tax cuts for the wealthy, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

The results suggest Republicans could struggle to pass legislation advancing many of the smaller-government themes that have dominated their campaigns in the midterm elections, even if the party wins control of one or both houses of Congress in November.

In particular, the party appears to risk a backlash from senior citizens, a critical voting bloc that harbors deep skepticism about tinkering with entitlement programs.

The survey is the most comprehensive polling look so far at the major elements of the agenda that key Republicans have been discussing in the weeks leading up to the election.

Not all the news was good for Democrats…

…Still, the poll offered little to suggest that the surge in voter support for Republican candidates, whom analysts project to win major gains this fall, carries over to support for policies championed this fall by Republican leaders in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Kos posted a handy breakdown when the poll came out.

• 29% of Americans support extending all of the Bush tax cuts.
• 32% support repealing the newly passed health care law.
• 33% support replacing Medicare with vouchers.
• 58% support creating Social Security private accounts.
• 46% support amending the Constitution to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants (49 are opposed).
• Fewer than half of Republican respondents favored extending all the Bush tax cuts or replacing Medicare benefits with vouchers.
• Poll respondents continue to disapprove of President Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, 45% to 38%.
• Three-quarters said they could not name the leader of the Republican Party, or that the party does not have a leader.

What do Americans want? Here’s a hint, it’s not what the Republicans campaigned on.

• A September AP poll said that Americans who wish health care reform went further outnumber opponents of health care reform by 2-to-1.
• An October poll by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard university found that six in ten Americans say they want their representatives to fight for more government spending in their districts, to spur job growth.
• That’s compared to 39% who said they want cuts even if it means fewer local jobs. (That’s a flip from 1994, by the way, when 53% wanted their Reps. to fight for cuts, while 42% were on the other side.)
• In the same poll, 50% supported more government spending to boost the economy, while 46% prioritized deficit reduction.
• Not only did voters defeat major anti-tax measures in several states, but an AP poll less than 50 days before the election showed that 54% of Americans favored raising taxes on the highest earners, compare to 44% opposed.
• A Stanford University poll showed that 86% of Americans want government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit.
• And 76% favored government regulating greenhouse gasses in particular.
• Another poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks and designed by Yale researches showed that 77% believe that global warming should be a priority for the president and Congress.
• And 94% believe that developing sources of clean energy should be a priority for the president and Congress.
• Meanwhile, 77% support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

And that’s an overview, because a detailed analysis is more than I have space to do here.

Not of the above adds up to what the GOP was “selling” in this election. But it’s what more Americans “bought” in 2008 than voted in the midterm elections and any number of special elections since.

Parker follows the example of other conservatives who, after every election election since November 2008 have rushed to declare that “the people have spoken.” When voters in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey elected Republicans, they somehow “spoke” louder than those Americans who spoke in 2008. When 45 million fewer vote in 2010 than voted in 2008, “the people have spoken.”

The people spoke in 2008, and have been speaking since then. It’s just that neither party has listened.

The people spoke in 2008, upwards of 130 million of them, compared to 82.5 million in 2010. The numbers above, all from polls taken in the last half of this year, reflect what they voted for then and have wanted since.

From Democrats they got health care reform with no public option; and no fight to defend it; financial reform that left “Too Big To Fail” standing; a stimulus that was too small for the jobs crisis the country faces; a foreclosure prevention program that, in order to avoid helping the “wrong people,” helped almost no one; and no climate/energy legislation, given up without much of a fight.

From the GOP they got an agenda written by and for corporate interests.

The GOP is in an unenviable position. It is constitutionally incapable of delivering what Americans truly want. Meanwhile, the party must content with an extreme right that wants what Republicans cannot deliver without angering a great many Americans.

It won’t work.

The Democrats have a chance to come back if they want it. But they need a plan to finish what the started, and deliver what Americans said they wanted in 2008 and are still waiting for.

Then they have to convince us that they mean it.