Tea Parties fizzle, Progressives make gains in 2011 election

The “Teabagger” revolution has fizzled out...and we may now see intelligent dialogue.

Last November, the media and Republican strategists were giddy about the Tea Party wins...and Tea Party republicans held the country hostage for the past 11 months due to this “mandate” or swing to the right...as Boehner said, “The American people have spoken!” Too bad he didn't listen.

An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows that at least 60% of the people strongly agree with the ideas of the 99% movement while only 33% agree with the Tea Party ideology. So, now comes this Election in November...and a much larger “wave” with a much larger area of concerns of economic, social and political values:

Labor/worker's Rights:

Ohio voters pushed back on their governor's abhorrent power grab on collective bargaining and public employees by a vote of 61 – 39% vote. “Ohio’s working people successfully fought back against lies pushed by shadowy multi-national corporations and their anonymous front groups that attempted to scapegoat public service employees and everyone they serve by assaulting collective bargaining rights.”, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Keeping democratic voting rights:

Governor Paul LePage(Maine) and his cronies attacked citizen's voting rights by killing same-day registration in the state. The citizens of Maine began a petition campaign which forced a referendum vote and again, the voters won same day registration by a vote of 61 - 39%.

Protecting Reproductive Rights and Birth Control...AKA not enslaving/imprisoning women, just cuz...

Mississippi politicos were trying for the slogan, “We are the most vile and stupidest people in the United States”...or something like that by putting up an amendment to their state constitution that life includes "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or functional equivalent thereof.” If this had passed there were ramifications with in-vitro fertilization, birth contraception, not only abortion. The folks in Mississippi decided that they were not in the business of throwing Mississippi women back to the 19^th century and voted against the measure by a 58 – 42 majority. There had been a big push by the anti-abortion side, they thought that Mississippi was the best testing ground for this garbage and then go on to other states. The people of Mississippi put it where it belonged—in the trash.

Democratic party sweep Kentucky state offices, win in Iowa and New Jersey:

Kentucky, which gave us Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell also gave the state government Democrats in 6 of 7 state offices, including Governor. In fact Governor Steve Beshear was reelected by a 21 point margin.

Iowa allowed Democrats to retain control of their state senate. If Republicans won the special election, they vowed to pass numerous measures, including a ban on same-sex marriage, that had been blocked by Democrats.

And New Jersey? The voters snubbed Gov. Christie's attempt to gain republican control of the state senate...in fact, there are now more Democrats in the senate, giving Christie less power.

Even in Virginia, the takeover of the state Senate by Republicans stalled since there will probably be a recount of at least one senate election with the 2 candidates within 100 votes. Even if the republican wins, that gives the senate 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. Yes the lieutenant governor is republican, but all it takes is one republican to be absent...

Arizona Recall

Russell Pearse, the AZ state senator that pushed the anti-immigrant law SB1070, was defeated by a moderate Republican, Jerry Lewis.

Mr. Pearce was a Republican power and former sheriff's deputy. His personality was well known for being uncompromising and self-righteous. He appeared to be shocked at the outcome of the election, “If being recalled is the price for keeping one’s promises, then so be it,” the now “unemployed” president of the senate declared. Pearce had been a star to the Tea Partiers due to his anit-immigration bills and also several bills to nullify federal laws. He also had been involved in taking “inappropriate” campaign donations . He'd been involved in a scandal surrounding the Fiesta Bowl; Pearce accepted $1,025 in contributions from Fiesta Bowl executives and was accused of illegally accepting gifts in the form of tickets to games and travel(although seen “educational” due to a seminar here and there). He denies the accusations.

Andrei Cherny, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, issued the following statement, “Tonight, mainstream Arizona dealt a bitter blow to extremism. In choosing Greg Stanton as Phoenix’s mayor, in electing Jonathan Rothschild as Tucson’s mayor, and in recalling Senate President Russell Pearce, the voters have launched a new era of responsible leadership.

Progressives and the Democratic Party didn't win everywhere. Virginia got tighter and Tennesse gained some red seats. One of the biggest disappointments was also in Mississippi where a Voter ID law, which has been compared to the old poll tax type legislation and will make it more difficult for seniors, college students, poor and working poor to participate in elections passed by 60 – 40. In Ohio voters approved a referendum on the new health care law, although it was not binding, nor did it mention the health care law by name.

But, all in all, the lesson of this election is clear. The Republican/Tea Party movement went too far, is/was too extreme. It looks like it woke up the citizens and Progressive ideas are winning from Maine to Mississippi. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln may be smiling a bit easier now.

My "Roommates" and other love songs.

Being a patient in the hospital means, at least in some cases, sharing your room with someone you've never met before. And the only criteria I can come up with is that they do try to make sure you are in the room with the same gender...most of my roommates were 20+ years older than me!

And you have to appreciate the constraints that HIPPA has put upon hospitals, with having to ensure medical privacy to patients. So, we have the “curtain” OF SILENCE—put it between the 2 beds and it does nothing to protect the other patient's privacy! I guess we're supposed to feel more private. Actually, “ObamaCare” does more for a patient's privacy by requiring every patient a certain amount of square footage—and this meant at this hospital, some of it is under reconstruction to allow for the requirement—and that many patients will now be in private rooms because of this requirement.

My first roommate was a woman in her 70's. She had suffered 4 strokes in the last couple of years(her sister told me) and I think that's why she was in again. There were many “orders” on her dry erase board so that when staff came in, they could check it, such as, “cannot use straws”...too bad many of the staff didn't actually read the board! I don't mean the nurses or assistants that were on our floor, but the other staff members—physical therapists, occupational therapists, you'd think they'd have those orders in their notes, but I had to tell quite a few that she couldn't do this or that...or I'd just tell them to check the board—the writing was large enough for me to see it from my bed, I'd think they could see it since they were sitting closer! Her daughter would come at night, after work and her sisters would come during the day. She stammered and when she got upset or aggitated, the stammering got worse. On this afternoon, the vampires(aka the labtechs) had come in to either take blood or start a new IV and had really upset the woman. First they were talking above her and not listening to her(they were gossiping about how they were so much better at the job than the nursing staff) and they were hurting her, which in turn made her stammer more, which in turn, made them ignore her more. I finally said, “Can't you understand you're hurting her?” and called the nurse, hoping she would assist or kick them out. She did the latter and found someone else to finish the job. BUT that night, her son came in and was wondering why she was so upset. I told him that it was because of the lab techs aggravting her...he and his girlfriend weren't very happy that I was aware of his mother's health...so he had her moved...with her saying, “nononono”...oh well...

I spent a day or so without anyone else in the room. Then in the evening, another stroke patient was put in with me. She was in her late 80's and a tiny slip of a woman. She was speaking, but would sometimes not be able to recall the word she wanted...although she thought she was saying it right. Her daughter stayed the first night, the next day was Labor Day and she was off work, and she expected one of her relatives to stay the next night...sure. During the day the whole family was there—about 10 of them. The poor woman never got to take a nap or anything. What made it worse was some of these relatives decided she didn't know what they were saying(which she had been answering questions, etc.) or what she was saying...and she got forgotten in the group of people...that night? All of them left, which left her in a very scary spot. She was frightened, crying. The staff finally had one of the assistants sit with her until midnight...the next morning? All she could say was jibberish...I wondered what would have happened if her family had thought about the patient rather than gossiping over her bed.

On that morning, I had my knee surgery—this was where the doctor would find out if I just had a little infection or something really ugly—like MRSA. I was hoping for just a nasty one, rather than ugly. I said good bye to my roommate, because when I got out of surgery, I'd be moving to the ortho ward.

The First Weekend of my hospital stay...

From my ER visit of 6 hours, I'm taken up to the 4^th floor, the “heart patient” unit because of my shortness of breath and lung pain...both of which have disappeared, since I'm in a controlled environment. I have all these sticky “pastie” things stuck to my chest, stomach, and other parts of my anatomy and these are connected to this little box, the size which is a bit larger than a card box. The biggest problem with this stupid thing is that the stickies don't always stay attached so the telemetry department calls the floor and sends someone in to check on the box...this was happening about every 2-3 hours, not much sleep for me!

The nurse in charge of my care when I came in,asked me about my meds and vitamins. Most of it was already in the computer from my last stay, so it was pretty easy, my just saying, “yes” except for vitamins. The last time I was in the hospital was for my knee surgery and the doc didn't want me taking anything that he didn't feel was necessary so I did update the area of vitamins, saying that I took 10,000 I.u. Of Vitamin D3 daily—which is 2 pills at home.

The next morning, the nurse comes in with my meds...and I find out that all they have it 1000 I.u. D3's. Yep, they brought me TEN vitamins! I refused, saying it just wasn't that important. Of course, the orders were never changed and every morning I would refuse those pills and the nurses thought it was pretty funny. The humor on it was lost on me after the third day and I will be checking my bill to see if I was charged for these, I'm sure I will be.

I was lucky enough to get the bed near the window on the 4^th floor and could look out upon the woods that are around Good Sam. The hospital campus backs up into the woods and the view allows me to remember the world outside...and not to jump OUT of the window. But, then, there were the vampires...

The vampires are obviously the blood sucking lab techs who show up in the middle of the night(and are perky! WTF?!?!?!? It's 3:30 a.m. And I haven't been drinking!). On the second night, I had one wake me up at 3:30 a.m. And another wake me up less than an hour later! I tell her that I just had labs. She says, “Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to do your labs at 6 a.m., but I was already on this floor so I checked with the nurse to see if I could get this done.” I asked her, “How about checking with the patient?!?!?!? I'd like to get some sleep—there's a rumour that sleep actually helps in the healing process!” She laughed. I was hooked up to the IV so I couldn't punch her.

I now have at least 3 doctors on my case: the ortho, my GP and infectious diseases maybe looking in, depending on what happens with the knee. He won't be called in unless they have to do surgery which they won't decide until Labor Day. My knee is doing something sort of funny...when I came in, it was swollen and a red around the knee cap and knee...now that redness is spreading to the inside of my leg, but the outside of my knee is now back to its normal color. As the weekend progresses, so does this redness—but as it progresses to the inside of my leg, it does retreat from the knee area...very strange and it does have the doctors and nurses puzzled. The term, “MRSA” was mentioned, but more as an afterthought than the real deal. The cellulitus is not spreading down or up the leg or to any other part of my body. If it was MRSA, it would not be contained to one part of my body. I'm on 500 ML of vancomycin, twice a day—a very strong antibiotic, but after 2 days, it doesn't seem to be having the effect that the doctors wanted. So they order another antibiotic, cy{mumble}cyclin...I just call it kickasscyclin—I'm now getting that for a day or 2 to see how that effects my fevers and swollen knee.

I also meet nicer nurses. The one asked me what I wanted to be my goals and I told her I like to sleep through the night! And, with that, Dawn changed my program....I love Dawn...

I think that some of the antics in the hospital will do better if they are different posts because of the “issues”...the vampires love to talk over the patients, dietary could mess up a wet dream, why am I only paired with patients that are over 70?!?!?!?!?

More to come---------