If you’re a minority and you’re selected for a job over more qualified
candidates you’re a “token hire.” If you’re a conservative and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a “game changer.”

Black teen pregnancies? A “crisis” in black America .
White teen pregnancies? A “blessed event.”

If you grow up in Hawaii you’re “exotic.”
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you’re the quintessential “American story.”

Similarly, if you name your kid Barack you’re “unpatriotic.”
Name your kid Track, you’re “colorful.”

If you’re a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the
individual you’re “reckless.” A Republican who doesn’t fully vet is a
“maverick.”

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your
organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to
$400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African American voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the
governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you’ve got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia .

If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with
millions of people you are an “arrogant celebrity”. If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are “energizing the
base”.

If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself
and makes his own decisions you are “presumptuous”.
If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute
decisions you refuse to explain, you are a “shoot from the hip”
maverick.

If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are “an elitist-out of touch” with the real America .
if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis , with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.

If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an “empty suit”.
If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an
“experienced executive”.

If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are “extremist”.
If you believe in creationism and don’t believe global warming is man made, you are “strongly principled”.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
If you have been married to the same woman with whom
you’ve been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you’re “risky”.

If you’re a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you’re an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
But if you’re a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you’re spunky.

If you’re a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you “First dog.”
If you’re a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the
right-wing press calls you “beautiful” and “courageous.”

If you kill an endangered species, you’re an excellent hunter.
If you have an abortion you’re not a Christian, you’re a murderer ( forget about if it happen while being date raped.)

If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education,
including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If you’re a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are
encouraged to run for re-election.
If you’re a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has
terminal cancer is to blame.

Finally! I heard a report on NPR this morning and the Obama website confirms that the Democratic presidential campaign is going to ramp up efforts to discuss health care this week. Over the next week Sen. Obama will hold over two dozen events in nine battleground states with health care as a major point of emphasis. There is also a new Obama commercial highlighting the candidates differences on the subject. If you’re looking to get into this spirit and need some lines to use around the water cooler, try these on for size:

• McCain will give you a $5,000 tax break on your health insurance, but only after he has created a brand spanking new tax on the employer’s contribution to your premiums.
• Obama will go after the Wal-Marts of the world that don’t offer health care insurance by adding a payroll tax for these large employers. Small businesses will get a tax credit to encourage them to offer insurance for employees.
• McCain likes to throw around terms like “government run health care,” or “socialized medicine,” or “a government takeover,” but apparently doesn’t actually understand what these mean. Obama has never proposed a plan for a single payer health care system–this, my friends, is socialized government run health care.
• Obama does want to create a National Health Insurance Exchange which offers an array of private insurance options at an affordable rate for those who uninsured through employment. (NB: this and his payroll tax for Wal-Mart is quite a bit like my plan under King for a Day, but more moderate.)
• Obama wants to prevent insurance companies from cherry picking the healthy and denying those with preexisting conditions. It’s a good thing John McCain is of Medicare age, he couldn’t get health insurance under his plan.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions this week in debating health care with co-workers, post a comment at “The Country Doc Report” and I’ll give you some more ammo to take back to the water cooler. Remember, watch out for that socialized medicine line, they try it every time.

The Country Doc

According the US Census Bureau there are 305,290,868 people living in the US.  Imagine the type of stimulus the economy would get if every person living in the US were to receive $200,000.00?  That’s only $611,581,7636.00, much less than $700 billion. 
 
People could keep their homes, pay off their mortgages, put kids through college, buy groceries, gas, clothing, cars, heat, vacations, furniture, tools etc…., save for retirement, buy homes, get off of welfare, kids could save for college, then first homes,
 
I can go on and on.  I am not sure why nobody has proposed this?  Imagine how popular either Obama or McCain would be if they got this to go through?
 
This is really a stimulus plan that makes sense, and would stimulate a very stagnant economy, credit market….  
 
Wallstreet and banks would get the majority of the money, while at the same time really helping the American people.
 
Imagine keeping your home, or paying off a big chunk of your mortgage? 
 
Imagine having no credit card debt? 
 
Imagine saving for retirement, and not having to work until your 80 just to make ends meet.
 
Am I missing something?  Why couldn’t this be done?
 
I think that this idea would spread like wildfire….

Socialized Medicine is Here

It has become as predictable as the annual return of flu season and the August rush of sports physicals.  Mention comprehensive health care form or universal coverage to those on the political right and they label it “socialized medicine” as a means to squelch any further debate.  Little do they realize that this stall tactic has done more to bring about a socialized health care system in the United States than any legislation.

In many places throughout the US, and in particular in underserved locations like the rural community in which I practice, the rolls of patients walking into clinics or being admitted to the hospital with government funded health insurance is outpacing those with private insurance be it employment based or self-paid.  In Grays Harbor County 18 % of the population is Medicare while 28% of the county qualifies as low income Medicaid.  That’s 46% of the population.  Add in another 2-3% that receives health insurance through Indian Health Service and another 2-3% on the military’s Tri-Care plan and the number tops 50%. 

We are fortunate enough in this county that only a little over 13% are completely without any health insurance.  Many regions are certainly much worse off when it comes to this.  But the uninsured receive health care too and while sometimes it is in the office, more often than not, they are driven to the emergency rooms and are admitted to hospitals.  When these folks, who aren’t poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or well off enough to afford health insurance, are unable to pay their bills the result is a higher cost of care for the rest.  Add this 13% of the population to the above tally and we have as many as 65% percent of the population in my rural county that receives their health care at the expense of the general public.  Only 35% of the population has privatized insurance.  Now this is socialized medicine.  It’s here.

This problem is only going to continue.  Many were shocked at last month’s Census Bureau data showed that showed the number of uninsured in this country went down from 47 million to a paltry 45.7 million.  After scratching my head over this for a while I finally saw the drill down of the data and it made more sense. 

Nationally both the uninsured, as well as, those who had private insurance are being are being driven to government funded plans.  As baby boomers approach that magic Medicare age of sixty five there will likely be an even greater upsurge of those with private insurance category moving to government insurance.

Next time a politician mentions “socialized medicine” as an off the cuff counter point to comprehensive health care reform or universal coverage remember that Grays Harbor County is already there and the rest of the country will not be too far behind.

– ML Cohen, MD aka “The Country Doc” Elma, WA    http://thecountrydocreport.wordpress.com

Like it or not, confession Is good for the soul. 

Whether or not you made the personal choice to become a public figure, your gender is irrelevant.  Your private life is over. Period.  End of discussion.  If you choose to go into politics, then this means you have CHOSEN to give up any hope of a private life ever again.  Got it ?  Good.  

Not having a private life means that you CHOOSE to allow anybody and everybody to have the right to talk about you and say anything that pops into their head.  Got a kid with down’s syndrome?  Tough.  Got a pregnant teen?  Tough.  Got a problem with Broccoli ?  Tough.  It’s all grist for the mill, kiddo.  Deal with it or get out of politics.  Don’t have a clue about the constitution or the ideals of the country you claim to want to serve?  Learn it and love it or leave it.

Your career as a politician depends on your being prepared to die for it…so you should probably learn what it is you are promising to preserve, protect and defend.  It is a sacred document that you cannot say has parts which are “useless” or “unimportant”.  Don’t like it ?  Change it.  Otherwise, shut up and get out.  Seriously.

For good or ill, it is unfair to CHOOSE to become a public figure AND expect that nobody should have the RIGHT to talk about something that YOU have CHOSEN to make public.

Public life is a bed that YOU CHOOSE to make so YOU will have to lie in it.  Damning others for talking about news that YOU have CHOSEN to make public is damning them for being human.  If you are running for PUBLIC office, its generally not a good idea to damn the entire species for anything … especially when there really aren’t a lot of other species that vote.

If you are a politician, don’t pull personal tragedy like a gun to excuse your inability to answer questions.  Having a pregnant teen or an experience as a POW may not be a great experience, but using as a distraction for having no ideas, no facts and no clue should be off limits for the press to accept as a valid answer.  To do otherwise damns journalistic integrity into the pits of propaganda.  Anyone who has ever studied journalism should remember “objectivity” being part of their journalism 101 class.  Practice it.

Having a set of family values that throws family out the window anytime it interferes with the money you make by sending children to die in a holy war for oil companies… is hardly something most of us condone.  So if you have those values, stay out of politics.  Truth will out, and it’s never pretty when it does.

The question of judgment may have started with asking about Sen. McCain’s judgment, but as more details emerge about it and the Republican party continues to look the other way, the time has come to ask what the Palin choice says about the entire party’s true value’s ?  You may not like that people are talking about the private lives of public figures, but granddaddy used to say that this is the dog YOU chose to go hunting with.  Or, as Gov. Palin would say … the dog with lipstick.

It’s a shame that the republican party has become so opposed to the teaching of real science that it has ignored the most important fact which both the Holy Bible AND Darwin’s theory of evolution teach  :  genes really do set limits on both physical characteristics and behavior.

Just because Evolution doesn’t have any more place in a church than the bible has in a science classroom does NOT negate this lesson coming from either one.  Why is it important to note this area where both Science and Religion agree?  Because the ancient rule that  Blood will tell affects politics regardless of party :  If you want to know about the parents’ good judgment, look at the judgments’ made by the child and vice versa.

If you have decades of experience doing business as usual, don’t claim to offer change.  It’s such an obvious lie that only a fool would believe you…because everybody knows you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  If you have surrounded yourself with lobbyists and are saying you hate them, my granddaddy would say that you’ve put the fox in charge of the henhouse and are expecting people to believe things will improve…Grandma would put it in a simpler way :  You really need to stop sippin from that still.

Dr. Jennifer Warren

When I was a kid, if a politician…ANY politician had said :

“My spouse was arrested for DUI , my underage daughter is pregnant…and I’m under investigation for suspicion of violating state laws against abuse of power…..”

I can guarantee you that politician’s career would have been OVER. Not ten days, ten minutes or even ten SECONDS from now…but NOW.

Now that we have a Republican who doesn’t believe in teaching kids about safe sex (as it means they might get pregnant)…a woman who thinks the Bible belongs in public classrooms (but not any other religious book… as that might risk a theocracy, right?)….

For some odd reason, it seems that drunk driving, underage sex, unwed motherhood by children and violating the law is suddenly “OK”.

I turn on the tube this morning (to morning joe)…thinking they might be talking about the morality of these positions and what do I see? Joe and his friends sitting around worried about whether or not Pat Buchannen has been called a Nazi. Mind you, none of them DENIED it…they were just angry some unnamed person had said it.

And then, of course…they wondered what was wrong with the country…why everyone had gone so negative in politics. Nobody remembers that…prior to Nixon, Democrats and Republicans alike could disagree without damning each others morality. The policy of hate started with Nixon and has been used with increasing rapidity and tradition by Republicans for over 30 years now. Democrats are used to the name calling and wild accusations. Do the same thing to Republicans, tho…and true or not, they howl as if you’ve committed murder.

So… why is it supposedly so wrong to point out the foibles of one of the most inept and incompetent people ever to rise to public office?

It’s a weird world.

Jennie

“If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck”

Boring speech from Warner. This guy didn’t say anything. Give me SOME RED MEAT!!!

The Dem’s need to start addressing WHY — McCain is wrong for this country. THE DEMOCRATS ARE BLOWING IT!!! Please Hillary Help Us!!!

I just heard Stephanie Miller or one of her callers say that McCain is attacking Obama with stuff that is not true.  However Obama is fighting back with stuff that is fact.  That was followed with Stephanie saying that McCain can’t continue those tactics thru November. 
 
I don’t think he has too continue.  The “Swift Boaters” attacked john kerry during the summer with stuff that was not true.   The news media then continued to to talk about it and some voters accepted it as truth. 
 
McCain probably spent $10,000 on this ad about Paris and Britany The news media’s coverage of that ad basically amounts additional coverage that is free.  Some outlets ahve actually played the ad as news.  Now some polls have Obama behind.  
 
I think Obama and the democrats better follow Karl Rove’s playbook if they want to win big in Novmeber.  Otherwise be prepared to listen to Grandpa McCain the next 4 years.
 
Mel

I turned on the radio to your station at 10pm Sunday, June 1st, 2008. The first thing I heard was a promo teaser with some man saying, “If Hillary thinks that she is an agent of change…blah, blah, blah,….”

I can assure you, as a life long Dem that I will never vote for another inexperienced guy again and that includes BHO. He’ll never win and how the heck we got in this situation is because of sexism. Ha, Ha, Ha. Who you? Sexist?! Not you, not me?! Ha, Ha. Yeah, you. There are a lot more like me. You have a snow ball’s chance in Hell. Thank you.

Goodbye