How out of touch with reality is the GOP?

The GOP recently acknowledged that, among other aspects of their party’s alienation from the American mainstream, they need to modify and change not merely their image, but their appeal to Hispanics, which have largely voted for Democratic candidates.

The irony of their acknowledgment is that they want to do the very thing they’ve demonstrated why and how they’ve alienated themselves from the American mainstream… hire a Mexican to do their work.

As reported in VOXXI, by Grace Flores-Hughes on March 19, 2013, “The Republican National Committee plans to hire political directors from the Hispanic, Asian, African American communities as well as from women’s groups.”
Read her story: “The ambitious coming out of the Republican Party”

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The numbers prove it: The GOP is estranged from America

By Andrew Kohut, Published: March 22

Andrew Kohut is the founding director and former president of the Pew Research Center. He served as president of the Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989.

In my decades of polling, I recall only one moment when a party had been driven as far from the center as the Republican Party has been today.

The outsize influence of hard-line elements in the party base is doing to the GOP what supporters of

Alabama is USA’s 2d most religious state

Alabama also ranks up there in poverty, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, lack of a high school education, spousal abuse, and…

Thank God for Mississippi, eh?

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Gallup: Alabama 2nd most religious state in America

By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com
on February 17, 2013 at 10:51 AM, updated February 17, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Alabama ranked as the nation’s second most religious state in 2012, behind Mississippi and tied with Utah, according to a new survey by Gallup.

The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm found that 56 percent of Alabama residents identified themselves as “very religious” – based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week.

Alabama trailed only Mississippi, its Deep South neighbor, where

Research: Waiting to have sex strengthens relationship

It’s not as if we’ve not heard this before. Our grandmothers, parents and others have known this for years. And, with varying degrees of success, some Christian fundamentalists have preached a gospel of delayed sexual gratification, albeit using a basis of fear – as in asserting that extramarital sexual activity before marriage is a sin against the Almighty, oneself and one’s partner. Whether or not that is the case is not the point in this research. And then, there are those who tacitly encourage all forms of sexual gratification, by asserting that to withhold oneself from sexual pleasure is an emotionally or psychologically damaging activity.

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Couples who wait to have sex last longer in their relationships than those who jump straight into bed together

By James Nye

PUBLISHED: 14:02 EST, 23 December 2012 | UPDATED: 14:02 EST, 23 December 2012

New couples who jump into bed together on the first date do not last as long in relationships as those who wait a new study has revealed.

Using a sample of almost 11,000 unmarried people, Brigham Young University discovered a direct correlation between the length and strength of a partnership and the amount of time they took to have first have sex.

The study showed that those who waited to initiate sexual intimacy were found to have longer and more positive outcomes in their relationships while those who couldn’t help themselves reported that their dalliances struggled to last more than two years.

Couples who wait to get into bed together experience longer lasting relationships than those who do not a new study has found

‘Results suggested that waiting to initiate sexual intimacy in unmarried relationships was generally associated with positive outcomes,’ said the report authored published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.

‘This effect was strongly moderated by relationship length, with individuals who reported early sexual initiation reporting increasingly lower outcomes in relationships of longer than two years.’

The study examined four sexual-timing patterns: Having sex

CDC: Heath Data shows Abortions fall 5%, largest drop in a decade

CDC: Abortions fall 5%, largest drop in a decade

By Michael Muskal
November 21, 2012, 1:41 p.m.

The rate of abortions in the United States fell by 5%, the largest single-year decrease in a decade, researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The decline is outlined in the annual abortion surveillance data for the year 2009, the latest available. It was published on Wednesday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

About 18% of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortion, the CDC noted. Factors from the availability of abortion providers, state laws, the general economy and access to health services including contraception, can

Research: WalMart’s Low Wages Burden Taxpayers

The high cost of low living…

“Walmart’s employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states. Why does this occur? Walmart fails to provide a livable wage and decent healthcare benefits, costing U.S. taxpayers an annual average of $1.02 billion in healthcare costs. This direct public subsidy is being given to offset the failures of an international corporate giant who shouldn’t be shifting part of its labor costs onto the American taxpayers.”

You’re the life of the party, everybody’s host
Still you need somewhere you can hide
All your good time friends
And your farewell to has-beens
Lord knows, just along for the ride

You think you’re a survivor
But boy, you better think twice
No one rides for nothin’
So, step up and pay the price

Dedicated to the GOP & other radical TEApublicans who worship the “almighty” dollar, tax cuts for the über wealthy, and their multinational corporate prophets.

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Hidden Taxpayer Costs

Disclosures of Employers Whose Workers and Their Dependents are Using State Health Insurance Programs

Updated January 18, 2012

Since the mid-20th Century, most Americans have obtained health insurance through workplace-based coverage. In recent years there has been a decline in such coverage caused by a rise in the number of jobs that do not provide coverage at all and growth in the number of workers who decline coverage because it is too expensive.

Faced with the unavailability or unaffordability of health coverage on the job, growing numbers of lower-income workers are turning to taxpayer-funded healthcare programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

This trend is putting an added burden on programs that are already under stress because of fiscal constraints caused by medical inflation and federal cutbacks. Many states are curtailing benefits and tightening eligibility requirements.

It also raises the issue of whether states are being put in a position of subsidizing the cost-cutting measures of private sector employers.

Across the country, policymakers and others concerned about the healthcare system are pressing for disclosure of information on those employers whose workers (and their dependents) end up in taxpayer-funded programs.

The following is a summary of the employer disclosure that has come to light so far. It includes two cases (Massachusetts and Missouri) in which the information was produced as a result of legislation. The other cases involved requests by legislators or reporters. The latter situations have sometimes resulted in data that are incomplete or imprecise, which suggests that only legislatively mandated, systematic disclosure will tell the whole story.

This compilation was originally produced by Good Jobs First as part of its preparation of testimony given before the Maryland legislature on an employer disclosure bill. A version of that testimony can be found here [1].

Alabama
In April 2005 the Mobile Register published an article citing data from the Alabama Medicaid Agency on companies in the state with employees whose children are participating in Medicaid. The newspaper obtained a list from the agency of 63 companies whose employees had 100 or more children in the program as of mid-March 2005. At the top of the list was Wal-Mart, whose employees had 4,700 children in the program. Following it were McDonald’s (1,931), Hardee’s (884) and Burger King (861). The data were similar to information obtained from the same agency by the Montgomery Advertiser two months earlier.

Sources: Sean Reilly, “Medicaid Providing Health Care for Kids of Working Families,” Mobile Register, April 17, 2005 and John Davis and Jannell McGrew, “Health Plans Not Family Friendly,” Montgomery Advertiser, February 22, 2005, p.B6.

Arizona
In July 2005 the state Department of Economic Security issued data on the largest private employers with workers receiving taxpayer-financed medical insurance through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. At the top of the list was Wal-Mart, with about 2,700 workers–or 9.6 percent of its Arizona workforce–participating in the program. It was followed by

Insurance companies increase profits after ObamaCare passed

Brer Fox leapt out of the bushes and strolled over to Brer Rabbit. “Well, well, what have we here?” he asked, grinning an evil grin.

Brer Rabbit gulped. He was stuck fast. He did some fast thinking while Brer Fox rolled about on the road, laughing himself sick over Brer Rabbit’s dilemma.

“I’ve got you this time, Brer Rabbit,” said Brer Fox, jumping up and shaking off the dust. “You’ve sassed me for the very last time. Now I wonder what I should do with you?”

Brer Rabbit’s eyes got very large. “Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

“Maybe I should roast you over a fire and eat you,” mused Brer Fox. “No, that’s too much trouble. Maybe I’ll hang you instead.”

“Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please,” said Brer Rabbit. “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

“If I’m going to hang you, I’ll need some string,” said Brer Fox. “And I don’t have any string handy. But the stream’s not far away, so maybe I’ll drown you instead.”

“Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please,” said Brer Rabbit. “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

“The briar patch, eh?” said Brer Fox. “What a wonderful idea! You’ll be torn into little pieces!”

Grabbing up the tar-covered rabbit, Brer Fox swung him around and around and then flung him head over heels into the briar patch. Brer Rabbit let out such a scream as he fell that all of Brer Fox’s fur stood straight up. Brer Rabbit fell into the briar bushes with a crash and a mighty thump. Then there was silence.

Brer Fox cocked one ear toward the briar patch, listening for whimpers of pain. But he heard nothing. Brer Fox cocked the other ear toward the briar patch, listening for Brer Rabbit’s death rattle. He heard nothing.

Then Brer Fox heard someone calling his name. He turned around and looked up the hill. Brer Rabbit was sitting on a log combing the tar out of his fur with a wood chip and looking smug.

“I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox,” he called. “Born and bred in the briar patch.”

And Brer Rabbit skipped away as merry as a cricket while Brer Fox ground his teeth in rage and went home.

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Insurers Profit From Health Law They Fought Against

By Sarah Frier – Jan 5, 2012

Insurance companies spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the U.S. health-care overhaul, saying it would raise costs and disrupt coverage. Instead, profit margins at the companies widened to levels not seen since before the recession, a Bloomberg Government study shows.

Insurers led by WellPoint Inc. (WLP), the biggest by membership, recorded their highest combined quarterly net income of the past decade after the law was signed in 2010, said Peter Gosselin, the study author and senior health-care analyst for Bloomberg Government. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Managed Health-Care Index rose 36 percent in the period, four times more than the S&P 500.

“The industry that was the loudest, most persistent critic of this law, the industry whose analysts and executives predicted it would suffer immensely because of the law, has thrived,” Gosselin said. “There is a shift to government work under way that is going to represent a fundamental change in their business model.”

Health insurers contributed $86.2 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to oppose the law after Obama administration officials criticized the plans for enriching themselves by raising customer premiums.

“We remain very concerned that

U.S. Senate Investigation: Medtronic Falsified Research to Promote Medication

Has it now become “all about the money”?

Is patient safety, patient care, patient well-being no longer of concern?

It certainly seems that way.

And this, perhaps better than anything else, serves to prove that the “love of money is the root of all evil.”

The reason why, is that people will do anything to get more of the object of their affection, the object of their love. And, because it is an inanimate object, money cannot in return love those who love it. So the relationship is a “one-way love affair,” wherein one party – the human – spends time, energy, effort and emotion to invest affection in a thing that cannot yield an appropriate return.

For when one invests money, one rightfully expects to profit by receiving money in return. Similarly, when one invests time, energy and emotion, one expects to profit by receiving more time, energy and emotion in return. And yet, time, energy and emotion are things inherently absent in money.

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Medtronic Manipulated Bone Product Data, Senators Say

Medtronic Inc. (MDT) ghost-wrote sections of medical papers and paid physician authors hundreds of millions of dollars in “consulting fees” to promote its bone- growth product Infuse, a U.S. Senate investigation found.

Medtronic, the world’s biggest maker of heart-rhythm devices, helped write, edit and shape at least 11 medical journal articles about the product, which is used to spur bone growth after spinal surgery, according to report released today by the Senate Finance Committee.

The doctors and researchers who were the authors of the studies were part of a $210 million consulting and royalty payments program by Minneapolis-based Medtronic and never disclosed their ties or the company’s influence in their papers, the panel said in its report.

“Medtronic’s actions violate the trust patients have in their medical care,” Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and committee chairman, said in a statement. “Medical journal articles should convey an accurate picture of the risks and benefits of drugs and medical devices, but patients are at serious risk when companies distort the facts the way Medtronic has.”

Study Results

Sales of Infuse plunged after The Spine Journal published studies in May 2011 and June 2011 showing

Parachutist to Set Record with Jump from Edge of Outer Space

The previous record of 19 miles was set in 1960 by Colonel Joe Kittinger, United States Air Force (ret.), who held the altitude and speed records since then, when he jumped from a balloon during a research project. He was not labeled a “daredevil” as this man has been.

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October 8, 2012

Daredevil Sets Sight on a 22-Mile Fall

By JOHN TIERNEY

Felix Baumgartner prepared to jump during the first manned test flight over Roswell, N.M., on Monday. (Jay Nemeth/Red Bull, via Associated Press)

ROSWELL, N.M. — Whatever the leap means for mankind, it should definitely be one giant step for a man.

Felix Baumgartner, a professional daredevil, plans to step off a balloon-borne capsule 22 miles above Earth on Tuesday morning and plummet for five and a half minutes until opening his parachute a mile above the New Mexico desert. If all goes as planned, he will do a series of barrel rolls in the near-vacuum of the stratosphere and then plunge headfirst at more than 700 miles per hour, becoming the first sky diver to break the sound barrier.

Mr. Baumgartner, 43, a former Austrian paratrooper who became known as Fearless Felix by leaping off buildings, landmarks and once into a 600-foot cave, said that this was his toughest challenge, because of the complexity involved and because of an unexpected fear he had to overcome: claustrophobia. During five years of training, he started suffering panic attacks when he had to spend hours locked inside the stiff pressurized suit and helmet necessary for survival at the edge of space.

But he persevered with the help of psychological conditioning and a mentor, Joe Kittinger, a retired Air Force colonel who has held the altitude and speed records since 1960, when he jumped 19 miles from a balloon during a research project (after nearly dying in a practice jump). Mr. Kittinger, now 84, will be the only voice on the radio guiding Mr. Baumgartner during the two-hour ascent to the stratosphere.

“Felix trusts me because I know what he’s going through — and I’m the only one who knows what he’s going through,” Mr. Kittinger said on Sunday at the mission-control center here.

And just why would anyone want to go through this? Both men like to stress the science to be learned, but there are, of course, other motives.

“All of my life I have been looking for unique goals, things no one has accomplished,” Mr. Baumgartner said.

Mr. Kittinger knew just what he meant. “From the beginning of mankind, the boys want to go higher, faster, lower,” he said. “It’s a fascinating part of human nature. We’re never satisfied with the status quo.”

Previous attempts to break Mr. Kittinger’s records have

Necessary but Not Sufficient: Why Taxing the Wealthy Can’t Fix the Deficit

NOW OR NEVER | SEPTEMBER 2012

By David Brown, Gabe Horwitz, and David Kendall

In this paper we shatter the myth that taxes on the wealthy can come close to solving our long-term budget problem. We readily acknowledge that raising taxes on top earners is necessary, but it is not sufficient to solve the looming fiscal crisis. And we make clear that if entitlements are left on autopilot, burdensome middle class tax hikes become inevitable.

Even a 50% tax rate on the wealthy can’t fix the deficit.
This is the first in a pair of papers that demonstrate that purely ideological fixes will not sufficiently address our fiscal issues. Our other report, Death by a Thousand Cuts: Why Spending Cuts Alone Won’t Fix the Deficit, proves that a cuts-only strategy cannot solve our budget woes without severely compromising our safety, security, and economic growth. Together, these papers make the case that a big and balanced fiscal package is the preferred way to avoid the fiscal cliff, prevent deficits from exploding in the future, and allow our economy to grow.

To stabilize the debt and create a positive economic climate for U.S. growth, most mainstream economists agree that annual deficits must be reduced to 3% of GDP. The question is: how do we get there?

In order to demonstrate that taxes alone cannot solve our budget woes, we explore three budget scenarios, all of which rely solely on

News for the “Medical Marijuana”/420 crowd: Israeli firm grows “highless” marijuana strain

What if the so-called “medical marijuana” proponents could have their cake, and eat it to?

That is, what if they could have the “benefits” they claim they derive from smoking marijuana, while NOT having its intoxicating effects?

Would they still smoke it?

That would tell the story.

It certainly would.

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What a drag, Israeli firm grows “highless” marijuana

A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. REUTERS-Baz Ratner

By Maayan Lubell SAFED, Israel | Tue Jul 3, 2012 9:48am EDT

(Reuters) – They grow in a secret location in northern Israel. A tall fence, security cameras and an armed guard protect them from criminals. A hint of their sweet-scented blossom carries in the air: rows and rows of cannabis plants, as far as the eye can see.

It is here, at a medical marijuana plantation atop the hills of the Galilee, where researchers say they have developed marijuana that can be used to ease the symptoms of some ailments without getting patients high.

A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. Credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner

“Sometimes the high is not always what they need. Sometimes it is an unwanted side effect. For some of the people it’s not even pleasant,” said Zack Klein, head of development at Tikun Olam, the company that developed the plant.

Cannabis has more than 60 constituents called cannabinoids. THC is perhaps the best known of those, less so for its medical benefits and more for its psychoactive properties that give people a “high” feeling.

A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. Credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner

But cannabis also contains Cannabidiol, or CBD, a substance that some researchers say has