When Mitch McConnell said his only job once President Obama was elected was to insure the President failed, he was saying he did not believe in the concept of the loyal opposition. This idea underlies every democracy. Your first duty is not to your party, but to your country. Without that, you cannot have government or union. You have only tacit secession.
His words washed over the airwaves and the nation and somehow never seemed to matter much. People shrugged. Well, not all people, but enough.
Now we have the same McConnell attempting to silence Elizabeth Warren for violating Senate decorum for reading a letter from the widow of Martin Luther King which impugns Senator Jeff Sessions as a man who thwarts racial progress. This is the plantation owner acting to silence the slave who attempts to object to his own bondage--the slave has lacked civility and decorum.
Republican Senators have been saying such stuff lately. Senator Cruz claims the American health care system is the best in the world and he does a very un Republican thing by actually attempting to cite evidence: The United States healthcare system does more Cesaeran sections than any of the government run systems in Europe. This, of course, is like claiming the American Army is superior and won a battle because it had more casualties than its enemy. Oh, we must be better soldiers, look how many more of us died on the battlefield! C-sections, of course, should benefit the patients, the mothers and babies born, but all too often, they benefit the obstetrician who wants to get home for dinner or it benefits the hospital which makes more money on C-sections than on vaginal births. In the medical world, among the cognoscenti, high C-section rates are indicators of poor medical care, not good medical care, it's a high casualty rate, not a sign of victory.
Now the Republicans are in charge and Mr. McConnell says he hopes the Democrats will afford the same support for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee as the Republicans had done for Mr. Obama's Supreme court appointments. He pointed to the two justices Obama had appointed who were confirmed but he somehow forgot all about the third appointment Obama sent forward, who the Republicans refused to even consider.
His words washed over the airwaves and the nation and somehow never seemed to matter much. People shrugged. Well, not all people, but enough.
Now we have the same McConnell attempting to silence Elizabeth Warren for violating Senate decorum for reading a letter from the widow of Martin Luther King which impugns Senator Jeff Sessions as a man who thwarts racial progress. This is the plantation owner acting to silence the slave who attempts to object to his own bondage--the slave has lacked civility and decorum.
Republican Senators have been saying such stuff lately. Senator Cruz claims the American health care system is the best in the world and he does a very un Republican thing by actually attempting to cite evidence: The United States healthcare system does more Cesaeran sections than any of the government run systems in Europe. This, of course, is like claiming the American Army is superior and won a battle because it had more casualties than its enemy. Oh, we must be better soldiers, look how many more of us died on the battlefield! C-sections, of course, should benefit the patients, the mothers and babies born, but all too often, they benefit the obstetrician who wants to get home for dinner or it benefits the hospital which makes more money on C-sections than on vaginal births. In the medical world, among the cognoscenti, high C-section rates are indicators of poor medical care, not good medical care, it's a high casualty rate, not a sign of victory.
The other evidence cited by Senator Cruz about American medical superiority is we order more MRI's per capita than the Europeans, which is like saying we have better food than the Europeans if we are willing to pay $100 at MacDonald's for big Big Macs and we consume more Big Macs than anyone else in the world. The fact we over pay for MRI's does not make our system better. The fact we over pay for MRI's ($4,000 in the US vs $75 in Belgium) does mean we have given doctors and hospitals and radiologists huge incentives to order these tests. MRI's are a case study in how the profit motive drives decisions in American medicine. You remember the Republican argument for the importance of the profit motive in medicine, for keeping government out of medicine and making doctors behave more like waiters, eager to please, eager to provide fast, polite service--they will try harder to please when they own the practice. Pretty thought, perhaps, but dead wrong.
If you look at Mr. McConnell's state you see huge, pervasive enthusiasm for Ky-nect, the Kentucky Obamacare program. Overwhelming majorities, over 80% say they love it. For the first time in generations, in memory, people don't have to endure the teeth rotting in their mouths, the heart attack at home rather than care in the hospital, the untreated lung disease. Love it. But oh, how these same voters hate Obamacare. Somehow, Mr. McConnell's fools never got the message that Ky-nect by any other name is still Obamacare. Fact is, in Kentucky, they just could not abide the idea this wonderful thing was provided them by that Black President, who their beloved Senator vowed to oppose, against whom their Senator vowed to lead the insurrection.
Reading about William Tecumseh Sherman, I was struck by his conviction that government can be a force of great benefit, and that without good government, the union cannot survive. The whole idea of a republic, Sherman could see, depended on union. Without union, the states would fly apart and start warring with each other as the nation states of Europe had done. Union, however requires either a willingness to cooperate or a strong hand to coerce cooperation.
Now the Republicans are in charge and Mr. McConnell says he hopes the Democrats will afford the same support for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee as the Republicans had done for Mr. Obama's Supreme court appointments. He pointed to the two justices Obama had appointed who were confirmed but he somehow forgot all about the third appointment Obama sent forward, who the Republicans refused to even consider.
If truth is the first casualty of war, then what have we had with Mr. McConnell and the Republicans in control of Congress these past 6 years?
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