How obnoxious can Republicans get?

“Our leaders have to get a lot tougher, and be quiet. Just please be quiet.  Don’t talk. Please, be quiet. Just be quiet, to the leaders, because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter, and we have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself.”

These are the words of the Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump who evidently does not recall how much of a stink his Republican leaders made about Obama’s “imperial presidency” and how they screamed and moaned every time he issued an executive order to get something done because they refused to do anything about addressing the nation’s problems.

Now just when you think Republicans cannot stoop any lower in their behavior one comes along to drop the decency bar even more.  Here are comments made by John McCain (remember the guy Trump called a “loser.”)

"Barack Obama is directly responsible for it (the Orlando massacre), because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaida went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama's failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies," McCain said.

He made the comment Thursday while Obama was in Orlando consoling the families of those killed in Sunday's attack and some of the survivors.

I sent this to McCain on his official site:

“I am not one of your constituents so I doubt this will be read, but I cannot help wanting to comment on your disgusting and disparaging remarks about President Obama being directly responsible for the tragedy in Orlando.  It seems you Republicans will do anything to denigrate the President.  You obviously have no respect for the office you once aspired to. Shameful.”

 What about the "good guy" with the gun?

Predictably, following the horrendous massacre in Orlando, someone would raise the NRA litany: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” This time it was that darling of the NRA, Presidential Candidate Donald Trump.

At his Atlanta rally on Wednesday, Trump proclaimed that if more people inside that club had pistols on their hips, the carnage may not have been stopped but would have been considerably reduced presumably because good guys with guns would have nailed Omar Mateen just like Wyatt Earp gunned down the Clanton boys at the O.K. Corral.

Of course that makes no logical sense whatsoever.  Then again, not much of what Trump says does.  According to reports, the club was crowded with 200 to 300 people.  It was dark and noisy.  People were dancing, drinking and milling about and it was a scene of chaotic merriment you’d expect in a popular night club.

Omar, who had firearms training, whips out his AR-15 and starts mowing people down.  Then imagine, say, a half dozen untrained, scared to death patrons pulling their Glocks and starting to fire wildly in the direction where they think bad guy is.  Maybe someone might have pulled a lucky shot and hit Omar, however, I think that highly unlikely.  I doubt that untrained, armed patrons would have stopped the carnage and with bullets flying in the dark from multiple sources it most probably would have been worse.  In the chaos, nobody could tell who the bad guy was and the shooting would have gone on and on.  And if the cops showed up and had to confront numerous shooters what would they have done?  Shoot everybody?

Now let’s change the subject slightly.    There actually was a good guy with a gun at the Pulse Nightclub that night.

It was widely reported that a uniformed off-duty police officer was stationed at the entrance to the club and he “engaged” the shooter.

So, if we had a “good guy” at the door—who presumably was well-trained and armed—why didn’t he stop the “bad guy” immediately, before the “bad guy” entered the night club and slaughtered 49 people?

 

I have heard only one subsequent report about the guard on the evening news which made one fleeting reference to the “security guard.”  It went, “the guard engaged the shooter and then retreated into the club.”  Basically, if the report is correct, the supposedly well-trained “good guy”, was not capable of stopping the heavily assault-rifle armed “bad guy” and ran away.  I will reserve judgement on that until more information becomes available.  I would certainly like to hear the media and law enforcement officials comment on that.

As can be expected, the Republicans will do what the NRA tells them and oppose any common sense gun control measures.   For starters, let's ban assault weapons. Period.  There is no reason any American needs a weapon that is designed specifically for armed combatants to kill people.  Stop telling people that American is so bad and so dangerous you “need” a weapon to protect yourself.  Increase scrutiny for gun purchases:  Full background checks; gun purchase denial to anyone who has even the slightest questionable behavior, domestic violence, sex offense, mental illness, no-fly status…anything even minimally negative.

Personally, I would like to see gun registration.  If you have a gun, you register it in your name and take full responsibility for how that gun is used.  (You know, just like a car.)  Of course that will never happen as long as the NRA keeps bullying and buying our politicians.  So, here we go again, let’s wring our hands, shed some tears, make noble statements about our resilience and wait until some other maniac does it again. 

The cancer came back and Obama did nothing to stop it!

Well it happened again.  My cancer came back and President Obama did absolutely nothing to prevent it!   After all, isn’t the President of the United States supposed to keep Americans safe from everything?  The Obama Administration has known about cancer for a long time and only now, in the waning days of his administration, does Obama declare a “moon shot” to cure cancer. Well, Barack, it’s too little, too late for me. 

 

OK, I admit, for a moment I succumbed to being “Republicanized.”  “Republicanization” is the political doctrine that requires you to abandon all rational, logical and realistic thought and blame everything you don’t like on Obama specifically and government in general.  Essentially it means you don’t have to think, just believe everything Donald Trump and Ted Cruz tell you and you’ll be fine.

Since I have just returned from an another all-expense paid stay at a hospital where they cut out another chunk of my lung, postponed my entry to eternity one more time and returned me to the world of political absurdity, I thought it appropriate to discuss just one of the current Presidential campaign political issues:  Universal Health Care.

First a total disclaimer:  I am completely in favor of Universal Health Care for all Americans administered by the Federal Government.  (As Bernie Sanders has told you repeatedly we are the only advanced country in the world that doesn’t do this.)

Second, the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare) while it may not be great, it is not all that bad.  It has helped millions of people get health insurance, and the best the Republicans can do is scream and holler about “train wrecks” and “the worst thing since slavery” without offering any new or better ideas.  (Of course, the Republicans have not had any new idea for nearly four decades.)

Admittedly, I look at this from a different perspective.  It is dear to my heart, or perhaps I should say dear to my lungs.  I have Medicare, the equivalent of Universal Health Care for old people.  If Obama and his administration had had the guts, they would have stood up to the Republicans and established Medicare for all (the public option the Democrats capitulated on).  I can state unequivocally that I have seen Universal Health Care, and it is good.  Without Medicare I would be bankrupt, dead or both. 

Now before my Republican readers go berserk, I have gone to the Trump and Cruz official websites to get first hand their policies on health care.   Cruz does not even have it under the “Issues” tab so I had to research it further.  Essentially, both Trump and Cruz state they will repeal Obamacare, and turn health care over to private industry and “the market economy.”  That is based on the totally absurd principle that encouraging competition between private health insurance companies and establishing “health savings accounts” will give everybody “affordable” health care.  It won’t as many studies have shown.  That’s the way it was before Obamacare and millions were without health insurance because they could not afford it or because the insurance companies simply turned them down since they were too ill to be profitable. 

As one who has had a rather intimate relationship with health care for the last five years I have concluded letting private industry take over health care is a really bad idea.  In simple terms and to put ii very bluntly, the health care industry does not give a rat shit about you no matter how many schmaltzy, soppy advertisements they put on television.  All the health care industry—insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, physical therapy et. al.—cares about is making money.  Period. 

You have seen the studies about how health care costs vary wildly throughout the country for the same things.  Your colonoscopy could cost twice as much depending on where you live.  It’s artificial pricing which attempts to extract the maximum amount of money from Americans who get sick and has nothing to do with “compassion” or “care.”

Now here’s a bit of my own research illustrating how drug companies—in collusion with medical providers—make a fortune on artificially inflated prices.  When I was discharged I was given a prescription for Lidoderm patches.  As a result of my lung surgeries, I have residual nerve damage pain that actually never goes away.  The brand name, prescription patches (Lidoderm) come in packs of 30 and have five per cent lidocaine which is the active ingredient.

If you go to goodrx.com, you will find that those 30 patches will cost you $376.05 at Wal-Mart, $375.41 at Walgreens and $390.23 at Publix.  If you request the generic version, the prices drop to $88.43, $112.39 and 237.45, respectively.  But, if you just buy a 2.7 ounce bottle of Aspercreme, an over the counter topical analgesic, it will cost you $7.49.  Aspercreme contains four percent of the active ingredient lidocaine.  So adding just one percent of lidocaine makes it a prescription that sells for hundreds of dollars. 

In closing I will attempt to explain to the “republicanized” that Universal Health Care is NOT socialized medicine as Trump, Cruz and company would have you believe.   Under Universal Health Care the government if just one great big insurance company.  It collect premiums from the insured and pays the providers for services and supplies rendered.  It is open to everyone.  When the insurance company is a private enterprise it has no interest in the quality of the actual care you receive, it simply wants to turn a profit. 

  

If we had a Universal Health Care system, everybody would pay into the system and everybody would benefit from it because the government has no requirement to make money on your sickness or disease.  Also you would not be paying several hundred dollars for a one per cent increase in an inexpensive active ingredient.