Repubs use shotgun approach to kill health reform

Taking a page from Dick Cheney's hunting book -- shooting friends in the face with a shotgun on a bird hunt -- the Republicans can't seem to figure out who are their friends and who are the birds they're trying to shoot.

One of their loudest rants is the wild fantasy of a "Death Panel." Last week, Sarah Palin cited this, calling it "downright evil" that someday her Downs baby might have to go before "Obama's Death Panel," to decide whether his level of productivity makes him worthy of health care.

That can only be a psychotic paranoid reaction or a willful distortion. Probably it's a willful distortion designed to play into the paranoia of the fringe-right.

What this section of the bill actually does is provide for funds to be used for consultation about medical advanced care planning -- the kind that all hospitals already urge patients to have. It's called a living will, and it gives the patient the right to say whether he wants to be resuscitated if there's no chance for recovery, or about when to stop treatment in a terminally ill patient that is only artificially being kept alive.

But this is completely voluntary. It has nothing to do with euthanasia or rationing of treatment. The very purpose is to give the patient the right to say for himself -- in advance -- rather than having family or doctors who don't know what they patient would have wanted. And it would have prevented the debacle of Terry Shiavo, which the Republicans didn't handle very well.

And here's the irony that just was made known today:

This section of the bill was authored by a Republican,
Right to Life Senator from Georgia,

Johnny Isakson.

Medical advance planning has been an interest of his for years; he has co-sponsored two bills previously on the subject.

Isn't it about time for him to step up to the plate and set his fellow Republicans straight? His would be the most effective voice to counter the wild distortions?

Ralph

Spreading the truth about health care reform

Give the Obama administration an A for use of technology. They just established a web site to counter the distortions and spread the truth.

WhiteHouse.gov/RealityCheck — to help you separate fact from fiction and share the truth about health insurance reform. Here's a few of the reality check videos you can find on the site:

• CEA Chair Christina Romer details how health insurance reform will impact small businesses.
• Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes tackles a nasty rumor about euthanasia and clearly describes how reform helps families.
• Matt Flavin, the White House's Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy, clears the air about Veteran's benefits.
• Kavita Patel, M.D., a doctor serving in the White House's Office of Public Engagement, explains that health care rationing is happening right now and how reform gives control back to patients and doctors.
• Bob Kocher, M.D., a doctor serving on the National Economic Council, debunks the myth that health insurance reform will be financed by cutting Medicare benefits.

It's worth looking at if you are confused or need information. Unfortunately, those spreading scare rumors are not interested in the truth; they want to spread lies, because all they want is for Obama's plan to fail. But maybe the scared people will check it out.

Ralph

Krugman praises government's role in recovery

Paul Krugman has been a critic of the economic recovery efforts, his main point being that the stimulus spending was not big enough. Now, with the latest economic indicators pointing in a positive direction, he still says he would have made it bigger; but he's also praising the government for what it did do.

And in doing so, he's taking a swipe at the Republicans who claim that it did too much.

In a New York Times column today, "Averting the Worst," he says:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.

Just to be clear: the economic situation remains terrible, indeed worse than almost anyone thought possible not long ago. . . . And the job market still hasn’t turned around . . . for now, all we have to celebrate are indications that things are getting worse more slowly.

For all that, however, the latest flurry of economic reports suggests that the economy has backed up several paces from the edge of the abyss.

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So what saved us from a full replay of the Great Depression? The answer, almost surely, lies in the very different role played by government.

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The point is that this time, unlike in the 1930s, the government didn’t take a hands-off attitude while much of the banking system collapsed. And that’s another reason we’re not living through Great Depression II. . . .

From the beginning, I argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, was too small. Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis.

Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.

And aren’t you glad that right now the government is being run by people who don’t hate government?

Yes, indeed.

Ralph

God plus oil?

What a combination !!

Dick Cheney's quest for oil and George Bush's quest to carry out God's will. That's what led us to invade Iraq. Protecting us from terrorists had little to do with it. That's just how they sold it to a frightened, gullible Congress and the American people.

Cheney and the NeoCon roadmap to secure Mideast oil has been well documented by fellow blogger Mickey Nardo and others.

Now, I just stumbled upon this article on the website of the Council for Secular Humanism, written by James Haught, editor of the Charleston (WV) Gazette. Some excerpts:

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush
by James A. Haught

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request.
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Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.
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The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5

Well, I'm not sure what to say about this. Like so many things, it could be exaggerated, distorted, taken out of context -- but I doubt it's totally made up. And it doesn't really tell us anything new. But it certainly does fill in a gap. Bush himself, of course, was also an "oil man" and maybe needed no further motive. But he was also a "God man" -- or at least posed as one -- and it would not surprise me if he really did see this as a mission from God.

What a combination !! Cheney's Oil and Bush's God.

And what a result !! More than 4,300 Americans dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, an international reputation in shreds, a country desolated, a population displaced, and $1,000,000,000,000 of our treasury down the drain.

Ralph

A pretty good week

It's been a pretty good week in Washington.

1. Sonya Sotomayor was confirmed by a good solid vote in the Senate.

All Democrats and 9 Republicans voted for her. A few of the Republicans who voted against her may have done so on firmly held principles, but I'm convinced most of the opposition was pure politics -- or at least blinkered thinking that refused to accept the fact that her 17 year record as a federal judge does not show any pattern of bias or "letting her feelings sway her votes."

Instead, the fact that her speeches show that she does have strong feelings and opinions that DO NOT show up as a pattern in her decisions should prove the very opposite to their claim that she cannot put aside her feelings when making decisions.

2. Bill Clinton made a highly successful trip to North Korea to finalize the negotiated release of the two women journalists held captive.

Of course, much behind the scenes work went on ahead of time, and Bill's trip was largely symbolic and requested by the Dear Leader. But it was a small price to pay for their safe return, and the expenses were paid by contributions from his wealthy friends and contributors. No tax payer money went into it, except for the secret service protection that Bill is entitled to as a former president, wherever he goes.

Republicans couldn't resist trying to paint this as a blunder that would set back the (non-existent) nuclear negotiations. That's a load of manure. George Bush set back the negotiations that Clinton had left in place at the end of his term 8 years ago. Six years into Bush's presidency, he had just about crept back from his cowboy, axis-of-evil caper to the place Clinton left things in 2001. Well, not exactly. Apparently N.K. now has nuclear weapons capability that they didn't have in 2001. It happened on Bush's (non)watch.

John Bolton managed to be his usual bull-in-the-china-shop self, proclaiming that it we shouldn't have done it, that it only rewarded Kim Il Jung's bad behavior. Hillary whacked him -- laughing off his comments and putting out the best line of the week: She said, "If President Obama walked on water, he [Bolton] would say that Obama can't swim."

3. The unemployment figures for July were not as bad as expected.

They came in at 9.4% -- an actual drop from the previous month and well below the predicted 9.7%. Some were even worried they would go over 10%. And they may still, but it's the first month that they have actually gone down, rather than up, in this long slide.

It's premature to claim that this marks the turn-around, but it is one more indicator that we are on the right track. That, coupled with the highly popular "cash for clunkers" program that has been so successful that it ran out of money and more was appropriated. It helps the environment but, more important, it has stimulated car-buying and is a major boost to the economy.

4. Now, here, I'm going to be a bit polyanna-ish and try to find the glass half-full. The Republicans have sunk to new depths in their knee-jerk opposition to Obama, and they may have gone so far that the American people will lose what little respect they had left for them.

The raucous and sometimes violent protests at the town hall meetings on health care are so obviously a well-organized plan to kill health care reform. There's mounting evidence that it is in part financed by insurance companies or those connected with them. Couple this with the increasingly dangerous branding of Obama as a racist and a socialist by Glenn Beck, Russ Limbaugh -- and even some Congressmen.

Come on, people. Let's see another drop in the opinions polls to show them this doesn't work.

Ralph

Hiatus ended

Well, that wasn't long.

It took me only a few days to realize that I missed the exercise of having my say, even if it's just for me and a few readers.

Probably won't do this everyday, but I'll try just posting when I have something that has to be said, instead of feeling obligated to put something up every day.

I welcome your comments. I know a few people have tried to post comments and somehow it doesn't work. Unless there's some odd problem, here's how:

At the bottom of the blog you want to comment on, click on "comments."

A window will open; type in your comment;

Then click on "comment as"; a window will drop down, giving you choices. If you have a google account, click on that; if not, you can always sign in with your name and URL; or simply as "anonymous," although please sign your name to the blog so I know who wrote it.

Then when you have selected one of those, click on "Post Comment." That should do it.

If it doesn't work still, please email me and let's figure out what the problem is.

My email is: rroughton@bellsouth.net

And, if you lose that, you can always contact me by clicking on "View my complete profile" to the right of this area. When my profile window opens, look to the left and click on "email."

Ralph

Hiatus

I was out of town for a few days. Now that I'm back, I haven't found any enthusiasm to resume blogging. So I'm going to put it on a hiatus and see what happens. I'm beginning my part-time job as Director of the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute and doing some writing, and that's where my energy is at the moment.

Mostly I have been writing this for myself. It's my way of "having my say" about the day's events in the news, and I can spout off about my favorite causes and gripes.

For those few people who read it and would like for me to let you know if/when I resume, please send me an email at: rroughton@bellsouth.net.

Ralph