Who Fears God More? The Iowa 2016 GOP Race Begins

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

24 January 15

his week the 2016 presidential election began in earnest. President Obama launched the themes he believes should shape the election during his State of the Union address. That makes two people who are not running who are shaping the election for the Democrats. The other is the only one with a campaign on the ground in Iowa. A bunch of people got together to kick off the “Run Warren Run” campaign in New Hampshire last weekend, too. And house parties are happening throughout Iowa next weekend. But that’s for another article.

Congress brought up a series of bills, from Keystone to abortion, to set the tone for their campaign. The Republican agenda is summed up in one word: destruction.

Destroy the environment, destroy women’s rights, destroy health care … oh, and fear God.

I’m heading to Iowa next week. I’m wondering if I need a hard hat. Probably not, since they are destroying construction jobs. All they have is a temporary job plan called the Keystone XL pipeline. A Canadian company hires some construction workers for a few months, and once it is built, no more jobs. I guess more oil will be refined on the gulf coast before it is shipped oversees. Oh, and if the pipeline leaks, a clean-up crew will get a temporary job too. Hardly a long term jobs plan.

Thank God I’m not getting there this week. The Iowa Freedom Summit, organized by controversial congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) and Citizens United, is drawing some of those hoping to become the Christian right’s choice for president. Speakers include Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Texas senator Ted Cruz, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former Texas governor Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

I feel sorry for God and pigs. I’m sure they will be castrating pigs and demonstrating how they fear god more than the others. I have visions of them speaking in tongues after eating fried butter on a stick. Yup, I think I would be on the first flight back to DC, if attended that event.

All kidding aside, the gathering could be crucial for many of the candidates who are hoping to unify enough of the state’s Evangelical Christian, Tea Party, and libertarian activists as they seek to be this cycle’s insurgent favorite. The caucuses helped launch Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012 as the conservative alternative.

While nearly every movement conservative will be in attendance, most of the establishment candidates besides Christie are staying away — possibly because of King’s reputation.

I hate to tell these guys, they just gave Christie a big leg up. Iowa Republicans are god fearing, pig castrating, gun toting wackos. Wait, that’s their freshman senator. So distancing yourself from another whacked out Iowa official won’t help you get too many votes in the caucus next year.

We all know Iowa will love Huckabee and Santorum, but maybe they’ll decide that they had their chance already. So let’s look at the others.

Ted Cruz’s strident opposition to Obamacare led in a significant way to the shutdown of the federal government. That may play in the Iowa Caucus but nationally it will hurt him. He benefited from relaxed immigration policies, so his strident anti-immigration stance can be portrayed as hypocrisy. Again, in Iowa that will play – so he is a real threat to win the Iowa Caucus and send the other extreme right-wingers packing.

Governor Chris Christie must be serious to head to Iowa. I don’t know if Iowa Republicans can forgive him for doing his job and working with the president after Hurricane Sandy. Florida Republicans never forgave Charlie Crist for embracing Obama. I have always said that it helps to be the candidate everyone wants to have a beer with. Christie has that going for him.

Rick Perry: another candidate who has been here before and didn’t get it done. Is the former Texas governor going to be one of those guys who just won’t get the message? Give it up already, Ricky.

That brings us to the biggest hypocrite in the Republican field, Dr. Ben Carson. He rails against the welfare state but admits that he grew up eating food purchased with food stamps and got glasses for the first time from a government program. He is polling well, but I am not a believer that he can become a serious contender.

I always wonder why someone who can’t win an election in her state thinks she can become president. Now California is a blue state, so maybe Carly Fiorina can find some support away from the “left coast.” Nah.

That brings us to Scott Walker. The perfect opponent for the Democrats in 2016. Who better to motivate the base? Walker was a lightening rod who breathed life into the labor movement. Scott Walker is a hero to conservatives, but as a symbol of union busting, he would motivate the largest labor effort in a presidential election ever.

So they’e the first out of the gate in Iowa, probably a state that only Christie and Walker can afford to lose. For Carson, Santorum, Huckabee, Cruz, and Perry, a loss in Iowa will likely be the end of the road.

I will arrive in Des Moines on January 31st.

Wait, what am I thinking! Joni Ernst is about to become my senator. I guess I could say I’m on assignment, but then I won’t have any senator. At least next year I will have a vote that counts. Living in Washington DC, I have been taxed without representation.

At least the Iowa Democrats are sane. Tom Harkin was the first presidential candidate I ever worked for. He is from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. A dying wing that I hope one day can be restored.

Scott Galindez co-founded Truthout and will be reporting on the presidential election from Iowa throughout 2015.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

My New Bill: A Swear Jar for the Drug Companies

By Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren for Senate

24 January 15

ver the past 50 years, America’s medical innovations have transformed the health of billions of people around the world.

One way we’ve done that? Blockbuster drugs. Today, about 100 different drugs are used by so many people that each brings in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue. Just 10 drug companies generate more than $100 billion in sales for drugs that treat high cholesterol, diabetes, HIV, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, breast cancer, colon cancer, and leukemia. Those drugs do a huge amount of good, but they also produce huge profits; over the past 20 years, profits for S&P 500 companies have been in the 5-10% range, while profits for the blockbuster drug companies have been in the 18-24% range.

Those very valuable blockbuster drugs don’t just appear overnight as if by magic. They are the end result of generations of huge taxpayer investments, principally through the National Institutes of Health. Drug companies make great contributions, but so do taxpayers. Put simply, the astonishing scientific and financial successes of the pharmaceutical industry have been built on a foundation of taxpayer investment.

With revolutionary new treatments and a giant drug industry built on blockbuster drugs, this should be a moment of great triumph. But in recent years, the American engine of medical innovation has begun to sputter. Why?

• Government funding.

  Congress used to work in a non-political, bipartisan way to expand NIH funding. But instead of increasing the NIH budget at the pace of potential scientific innovation, budget cuts, sequestration, and other pressures mean that the NIH budget over the last decade hasn’t even kept up with the pace of inflation.

• Drug companies.

  Over the last ten years, some of our wealthiest drug companies – the ones with those blockbuster billion-dollar drugs – have found another way to boost profits. In addition to selling life-changing cures, some of these companies are increasingly making money by skirting the law. They’ve been caught defrauding Medicare and Medicaid, withholding critical safety information about their drugs, marketing their drugs for uses they aren’t approved for, and giving doctors kickbacks for writing prescriptions for their drugs.

Between these two problems – shrinking government support for research and increased rule-breaking by companies that have blockbuster drugs – lies a solution: requiring those big-time drug companies that break the law to put more money into funding medical research.

That’s why I’m introducing the Medical Innovation Act to substantially increase federal funding for the National Institutes of Health.

Here’s how it works: Just like the big banks, when blockbuster drug companies break the law, they nearly always enter settlement agreements with the government, rather than going to trial.

Under the proposed Medical Innovation Act, those blockbuster drug companies that wanted to settle legal violations would be required to reinvest a relatively small portion of the profits it they have generated as a result of federal research investments right back into the NIH.

This isn’t a tax. This is simply a condition of settling to avoid a trial in a major case of wrongdoing. If a company never breaks the law, it will never pay the fee. If an accused company goes to trial instead of settling out of court, it will never pay the fee – even if it loses the case. It’s like a swear jar – break the law and pay something forward that benefits everyone.

If this policy had been in place, over the past five years, NIH would have had about six billion more dollars every year to fund thousands of new grants to scientists and universities and research centers around the country. That’s nearly a 20% increase in NIH funding.

The Medical Innovation Act would substantially increase federal support for medical research without increasing the deficit or cutting other critical programs. Sign up now to show your support.

With too many in Congress willing to sit by and watch the NIH starve – and too many in pharmaceutical industry willing to make a quick buck by breaking the law, it’s easy for cynicism to set in – and it’s easy for us to forget the commitments that we’ve all made to each other.

Today we are choking off support for projects that could lead to the next major breakthrough against cancer, heart disease, Ebola, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, or other deadly conditions. We’re starving projects that could transform the lives of our children on the autism spectrum. We’re suffocating breakthrough ideas that would give new hope to those with ALS.

That’s not who we are. We are not a nation that abandons the sick. We are nation of people who invest in each other – because we know that when we work together, we all do better. We’ve done it for generations – and for generations, we have led the world in medical innovation.

It is time to renew our commitment – our commitment to our children, to our parents and to ourselves. I hope you’ll stand with me in this fight.