Senator John Cornyn seems confused. On Fox News this weekend, he said that giving millions of Americans access to quality, affordable care was totally the same thing as being sentenced to a Soviet prison labor camp.
Yes. You read that correctly.
John Cornyn stated that the Democrats' plan to give all Americans access to health care is the same thing as being sentenced to a Soviet prison labor camp.
Here's the quote (emphasis mine):
It will limit people's choices to, in many cases, to a government-run program like Medicaid which is essentially a health care gulag, because people will not have any choices but to take that poorly performing government plan.
Senator Cornyn seems confused. Perhaps many great works of Russian literature have fallen on his head. Allow me to set the record straight.
Medicaid is NOT the Same Thing as a Prison Labor Camp.
Medicaid is a program that provides low-income and disabled Americans with access to health care.
The Gulag was a system of penal camps, where folks were sentenced without trial for offenses such as unexcused absences from work, petty theft, or anti-government jokes.
Medicaid helps approximately 40 million low-income Americans receive access to medical care.
The Gulag imprisoned over 14 million people in 24 years, with another 6 million receiving deportation and exile from Russia.
60% of nursing home residents and 37% of all live births in the United States are paid for in part or full by Medicaid.
25% of the Gulag's population in the winter of 1941 alone died of starvation.
Receiving Access to Health Care is NOT the Same Thing as Going To Prison Labor Camp.
46 million Americans currently lack insurance coverage.
Imprisonment in the Gulag resulted in meager food rations, inadequate clothing, and (get this!) lack of health care.
Mortality amongst uninsured Americans is up to 2 times higher than it is amongst Americans with private or public insurance.
Mortality in Gulag camps was 4-6 times higher than the average in Russia.
Approximately 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of basic health insurance coverage and access to care.
According to Soviet records, 1,053,829 people died in the labor camps between 1934 and 1953.
So if we really want to make analogies between oppressive political systems and health care, let's make sure that we're pointing our metaphors in the right direction. Now, the experience of an average uninsured American is not the same as the experience of a person sentenced to harsh labor in Siberia. But if John Cornyn does want to make fancy historical references, I'd suggest he compare Stalinist Russia to the health insurance corporations that deny people health care for having acne.
Has the Republican opposition to health reform really fallen to this point? Where it becomes acceptable discourse to equate going to the doctor with going to a prison camp? I don't have much faith in our junior Senator, but even for John Cornyn this is really terrible.
I mean really. We have to explain to our Senator the difference between health care and penal labor camps?
It seems that 30 misogynist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are totally OK with rape, at least where women are concerned. Predictably in yet another routine attempt to serve their corporate masters, (this time the GOP stood by Halliburton) Republicans voted against women and for corporate contempt of rape victims.
Some Republican senators are taking heat for voting against an amendment that would allow employees of military contractors to sue their employers if they are raped at work -- and they want the Democratic senator who wrote the amendment to help them fight off the bad publicity.
In October, 30 Republicans voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would de-fund contractors who prevent their employees from suing if they are raped by co-workers. Since then, those Republicans have faced outrage for what critics say amounts to support for rape.
Instead of standing up to take responsibility for or clarifying their disgraceful votes, Republican cowards are instead attacking Al Franken, blaming him for their votes.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused Franken exploiting the story of Jamie Leigh Jones -- a former KBR employee who says she was locked in a container in Iraq after alleging she was raped by co-workers -- to further his political agenda.
"Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape --and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don't think it's a very constructive thing," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
I guess Franken held a sledge hammer over Cornyn's head and said if he did not vote against the anti-rape amendment Franken would crack it over his head.
"Governor Perry knows it is very easy to second-guess the decisions made of elected representatives, particularly months after the fact," Cornyn said, "and I would just urge him to be careful about that."
He's at it again! John Cornyn, who really hates that the government funds social safety-net programs to help working Americans, has been positioning himself as a "staunch defender" of Medicare in the Senate health reform debate. From his 30-second TV spot that aired around Texas a few weeks back to his comments today, it's clear that Senator Cornyn would rather mislead the people of Texas than help them have access to affordable, quality health care.
CORNYN SAYS: "The question that I have and I--why in the world would you take money out of the Medicare program that is scheduled to go insolvent in 2017 that has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, why would you take almost half a trillion dollars out of Medicare to create yet another entitlement program that no doubt will be -- will have many of the problems that we see now under our current entitlement programs? It just does not make sense if you are guided by the facts. ... Now, some of my colleagues have claimed that these cuts won't hurt patients, but many people, including me, disagree." -- Senate Floor, 12/2/09
But wait! John Cornyn is wrong:
FACT: The Health Reform Bill will extend Medicare solvency by five years. From the AARP, experts on policies impacting folks over 50: "In fact, budget experts say, without cutting guaranteed benefits, both bills shore up the solvency of the Medicare trust fund for five additional years."
FACT: Health Reform Will Enhance Drug Coverage. From the New York Times: "the various reform bills now pending should actually make Medicare better for most beneficiaries - by enhancing their drug coverage, [and] reducing the premiums they pay for drugs and medical care."
FACT: Health Reform will not hurt patients. Again, the AARP is on it: "This bill includes critical priorities for seniors - critical - ensures quality, affordable health coverage options for all Americans, provides and strengthens Medicare for today's seniors and future generations and puts us on a path to improving our long-term health system."
Let's all savor the irony of John Cornyn telling folks to be "guided by the facts" as he stands on the Senate floor and deliberately distorts them. All in a day's work for our junior Senator, I suppose. That leaves us with just one more bullet point:
FACT: John Cornyn would rather see the people of Texas retain our 24% uninsured rate than let a Democratic President pass a successful health reform bill.
Unfortunately for Texas, the Pentagon decided to shift an Army truck building contract from here to Wisconsin. Since 1991, BAE Systems in Sealy has been manufacturing trucks for the U.S. Army.
According to the Houston Chronicle Republican lawmakers and BAE officials were completely unaware of the threat posed by our competitors in Wisconsin.
The Pentagon's decision to shift the production of Army trucks from Texas to Wisconsin after 17 years caught Texas' elected officials by surprise, raising questions about overconfidence, a loss of political clout and the impact of economic incentives provided to the winning company by Wisconsin's Democratic governor.
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry and the 34-member Senate-House delegation are rallying to salvage a deal for BAE Systems that could be worth $2.6 billion and sustain 10,000 direct and indirect jobs around the sprawling truck manufacturing plant in Sealy.
Good luck boys. It's kind of too late to salvage anything, including your humongous egos. If our esteemed Republican lawmakers hadn't been too busy lying to and scaring their constituents at teabagging hate fests this summer and fall, perhaps they would have time to think about the plant in Sealy. And what were those top executives at BAE Systems thinking given the tough times in which we now find ourselves? Companies and academic institutions are engaged in a near dual to the death competition for federal funding.
Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, Kay Bailey Hutchison spewed one whopper after another about the recently passed Senate health care reform bill. KBH spouted the same fear mongering myths as had John Cornyn in his recent newsletter to his so-called constituents. Kay and John's grotesquely misleading talking points are also a clone of what John Culberson (TX7-TeabaggerR) stated in his pricey and slick brochure.
This week alone I have been bombarded by snail mail and electronic mail from my Texas lawmakers mentioned above. Sadly and outrageously, all of the letters and brochures are filled with nothing but fear mongering tactics and blatant lies.
From Hutchison:
After hearing from constituents over the last several months, some members of Congress have now learned that using the term "government plan" elicits a strong negative from voters (because you have been scaring voters about government for years.) so they have now latched onto a new way to describe the same thing: a co-op. Texans should not be confused by this new packaging of the same idea. The co-op is a back door to a government takeover of our health care. (Really? According to whom? You?) The co-op would be started with federal funds, and it remains unclear whether or not taxpayer dollars would be used if the co-ops begin to fail. The Administration has tried to bail out the banking, housing and auto-industry. Would the co-ops be next?
Wow. Let's talk about an exercise in deceitful fear mongering. This is the first time I have heard about a co-op that would replace the public option and would ultimately become single payer health care. This would be a true dream come true for the American people.
But it ain't going to happen.
Because if a single payer, universal health care reform bill had been introduced there is no way in hell that Republican enabling Lieberman and the three sell-out Democrats known as Blue Dogs would have ever in their dreams voted for the Senate HCR Bill. Like Cornyn and Hutchison, Lieberman and the Blue Dogs serve as major pimps and go to bitches for the insurance industry.
Kay Bailey Hutchison should also remind herself that banking, housing and the auto-industry collapsed under her and her Party's watch. Like most Republicans Kay Bailey has always been in favor of dismantling every living regulatory legislation and she has never supported government oversight, transparency nor checks and balances of any sort.
Based on the mail I have read from Senators Hutchison, Cornyn and my U.S. House Rep. John Culberson, it is obvious that the Republicans are repeating the same lies over and over. The cover of Culberson's brochure reads:
HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER
.
The brochure shows a stethoscope lying on a flag draped on top of a building called:
INSURANCE
A couple of Culberson's bullet pointed lies:
2.5% tax on all individuals who do not purchase government run health care.
8% tax on businesses who cannot afford to purchase government run health care.
Notice how the Republicans frequently use the term government run. They do this to attach a negative and fearful meaning of government. The intended message? The evil government will take over one's life and control one's destiny. The Republican Party has spent years demonizing government run anything b/c they'd rather have the sharks, i.e. their cash cow donors, on Wall St.,in corporate America and the insurance industry to remain permanently in the driver seats.
Let's take a peek at Republican and other pimped out lawmakers willingness to enable corporate greed and corruption.
First up, Culberson's lies. His are only the tip of the iceberg.
Hey dude, I am one of your constituents and quite frankly you are full of stupid nonsense. It is stunning to me that you would include me and other progressives in your district among your special interest groups and deluded teabaggers. I'd venture to suggest that you will have an election challenge in the very near future.
According to Culberson's brochure.
The uninsured should 1. don't get sick or 2. if you do, die quickly.
The Democratic leadership bill, H.R. 3962 costs over $1.2 trillion; contains $729.5 billion in new taxes, adds 111 new offices to the government (jobs anyone?); and creates, expands and extends 43 entitlement programs. (There they go again with their entitlement obsession. Apparently the only ones who are entitled to be entitled are Republicans.) Now here is a really huge whopper: The bill also prohibits the sale of private insurance after 2013; cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare; and exempts members of Congress from the public options but no one else.
If Culberson had really read the bill instead of dancing with teabaggers he would have known that his claim about prohibiting private insurance is a bald faced lie. It is outrageous for Culberson to think he can willfully insult the intelligence of so many of his constituents with such stupid nonsense.
What Republicans are not telling us is the fact that HCR will cut the deficit by $127 billion, coverage will be extended to 94% Americans, 31 million more than have coverage today.
What the heck is wrong with that?
Remember those evil doing non-existent WMDs in Iraq? And Iraq's non-existent ties to Al-Qaeda?
The GOP is promoting health care reform as if it is a WMD. It is one that exists only in their heads.
This morning I received the following electronic newsletter from Senator John Cornyn on the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.
Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released his 2,074-page health care bill, which Senate Budget Committee analysis shows will cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion when fully implemented over ten years. (My bold.)
Until we have had a chance to read the full 2,074 page Reid Bill, it's impossible for Americans to fully grasp what the Majority Leader has cooked up behind closed doors. It is my hope that Sen. Reid will afford all Americans the same courtesy that he had: ample time to study the legislation and deliberate the best way to proceed.
Over the second 10 years, CBO projects even greater cost savings--up to $650 billion, with the caveat that after 10 years, their analyses become highly uncertain.
Do you have a problem with saving lives and money, Senator?
This morning when I unfolded the front page of the Houston Chronicle the headline
GOP begins to show signs of resurgence
hit me in the face.
Really? A Republican resurgence?
I guess the fact that much of his N.J. constituency viewed Corzine as arrogant, corrupt and the dude who saddled his constituents with high property taxes while at the same time has strong ties to the thieves of all thieves, Goldman Sachs, had nothing to do with his loss.
And let's ignore the fact that Wall. St. and the financial sector is among the largest employer in the NYC and northern NJ area. Many mid to lower level employees in the financial sector received pink slips when Wall St. crashed. I guess these folks are not in the least bit angry at those who are or were part of the Wall St. establishment.
Earth to GOP obstructionists: incumbents even remotely tied to the Wall St. melt down and the thieving banks are going to get the boot unless Congress does something to regulate and demand transparency from the financial industry.
The once popular New York's former Democrat and now Republican billionaire mayor Bloomberg had to spend millions upon millions of his own money, outspending his opponents 10 to 1 to barely squeak by a win.
And a lackluster candidate in purple Virginia who ran a lackluster campaign in which he fled from a progressive agenda in a state that traditionally votes for a Governor who is not in the same Party as the President, is a sign of a GOP insurgence?
Voters don't vote if candidates fail to excite them. And no matter the party, voters will vote against corrupted and/or lying incumbents. Nor will they vote for a candidate who calls him or herself a progressive or conservative but whose words and deeds show they are anything but. Some Republicans may be able to fool the teabagging crowd and old white Independents with double talk and spin, but this crowd is a mere tiny minority. Just wait until Independents in Va. realize the newly elected governor, who pretended to be a centrist, is really a hard core conservative. Welcome to teabagger land, Indies. Maybe next time you won't be fooled by self-serving liars.
John Cornyn, of course, is gloating all over the place about two the Democratic gubernatorial losses.
These Republican victories clearly demonstrate a strong wave for our candidates in the 2010 midterm elections," said Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
And predictably, good ol' Taliban Pete Sessions is also salivating over the Democratic gubernatorial losses. Check out Matt Glazer's piece over at The Burnt Orange Report.
Usually when you contribute to losing a race that has been controlled by your party since the civil war, you lay low and avoid words like referendum and change. Pete Sessions hasn't read that memo.
Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, lost races in both California (not a surprise) and New York (huge surprise) and yet he is spending his day saying last nights election results are a referendum on the popular Democratic President. The big surprise is Sessions, like Tom Craddick in the State House, is so out of touch, he has directly contributed to helping increase the Democratic majority in Congress.
As mentioned today on the Plum Line, "NRCC chair Pete Sessions's statement says the gubernatorial wins prove independents are "dissatisfied" with Dems and will continue "moving away from them at a rapid pace."
The NRCC and Sessions came out strong against the Republican nominee and for the independent/conservative candidate. Yet, they lost.
Do we extrapolate then that Sessions is unpopular and the people of New York and the Republican Party as a whole made a referendum on the leader of the caucus? No. That is ridiculous.
What it does mean is that the Republican Party is still in total disarray and lost traction in local races and lost ground in Washington D.C. where the battle over health care reform, insurance reform, environmental reforms, clean energy reforms, and many many other initiatives are being fought. Clearly the people of California and New York both want Washington to move forward.
This is a signal that Democrats can continue to win tough races in fragmented parts of the country as long as Sessions, Cornyn, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry can't agree on what their party stands for and what sort of candidate they should field.
Both sides need to use last nights results and learn. 2010 is going to be tough and Democrats will lose seats in the U.S. Senate and House and in local races if the fail to mobilize and turnout. When Democrats can sweep in federal races but lose gubernatorial races perhaps we should stop throwing out buzz words and start asking why.
Why are Pete Sessions and John Cornyn gloating when their jobs just got harder? Why is this a referendum when VA has swapped parties with the President for nearly four decades? Why aren't we comparing Corizine and Bloomberg instead of comparing Obama to the whole Republican Party of New Jersey?
Let's start asking some questions and stop making blind, sound bite assumptions. Oh, and let's get to work for March and November.
Remember reading yesterday about John Cornyn punching at a reporter/blogger's camera? Well, something must have been in our Senators' water yesterday, because Senator Hutchison had a problem with a reporter, too. In some ways, her story falls farther than Cornyn's.
Mike Stark, some may say, blindsided Senator Cornyn to ask him a question. Kay Bailey Hutchison, however, abruptly stalled the journalistic process when she received a question from a reporter she called upon. That reporter, the Dallas Morning News' Todd J. Gillman, relates the story:
Then Hutchison posed for some pictures, and stepped over to a scrum of a dozen or so reporters to take more questions. One asked about net neutrality, a rather complex issue of special to Texas-based AT&T. Hutchison turned to me for the next topic. She really did seem open to taking more questions.
I offered a toss-away to the effect that she has already said she'll leave the Senate soon, any hints yet about timing. No she said. Then, apparently, I crossed a line. Basically, I asked why she feels a need to stay in the Senate while running for governor.
GILLMAN: "Do you have some qualms that a replacement for you will not have essentially the same positions on important issues, to Texas, like cap and trade, like net neutrality, for instance?"
HUTCHISON: "Ok, thank you."
And then, dear readers, she turned abruptly and walked away, leaving a gaggle of journalists dumbstruck.
We had a problem with Senator Cornyn about a crummy policy position he conveyed in his vote. In this anecdote, however, there are no such legislative disputes we have with Kay Bailey Hutchison, but we see a problem here that was prevalent with both our state's Senators in D.C.
Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn each deliberately ignored and impeded the journalistic process. We deserve better from our U.S. Senators.
