Author: Marie2

It was like a miracle.  An answer to the worry of most parents.  No child was left behind because they were poor.  

I’m sure there were the crackpots out there denouncing science and another immunization.  That “government” was taking away the free choice of parents to risk their kid getting polio.  That life and illness were in “god’s” hands and not those of evil scientists. Others denouncing the squandering of public dollars on the children of poor people.  But in the pre-Faux News era, those voices weren’t broadcast 24/7.  People that could have fallen under the spell of such voices were protected from their own irrational thoughts and fears.

Thus, we lined up at schools.  To get that not so painless shot.  The prick that would prevent an illness that could kill or cripple us.      

Maybe the science would have evolved more quickly if government funding had been available.  But that was a no-go for FDR because the rightwing jerkwads of his day would have screamed and hollered that it was a special interest of the President’s.  So, we Marched for Dimes.  And those dimes turned into vaccines for all that were administered by public health employees, agencies, and volunteers.  (There were glitches — there always are; but they don’t change the meta-narrative.)    

Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other medical researchers didn’t become gazillionaires from their medical breakthroughs or live out the remainders of their years in mansions managing their money portfolios.  They continued to work as scientists.  To make the world a safer place:

On April 12, 1955, Edward R. Murrow asked Jonas Salk who owned the patent to the polio vaccine. “Well, the people, I would say,” Salk responded. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
…

As I could have been one of those dead or crippled kids in the next polio outbreak or epidemic, the Salk vaccine came just in time for me and other Boomers.  Science inspired a generation of people that wanted to do good or be miracle workers.  Much of it paid for by public dollars as was the internet.  

Public purpose.  Public support.  Not to line the pockets of “app” derivative developers, venture capitalists (looking for the newest buggy whip), hedge funds killing jobs here to create killing jobs elsewhere, banksters preying on the poorest and most vulnerable, and vice peddlers.  How do we get enough of that back and quickly enough before we destroy the world through unending wars and environmental destruction?      

Doesn’t matter that it’s cosmetic — we live in a superficial world where men ogle fake breasts, women envy photoshopped faces and bodies, and YouTube can make anyone rich and/or famous.

The GOP “big tent:”

Governors:

LA: Jindal – first generation Indian-American
NM: Martinez – Mexican ancestry
NV: Sandoval – Mexican ancestry
SC: Haley – first generation Indian-American

Senators:

FL: Rubio – first generation Cuban-American
SC: Scott – African-American
TX: Cruz – half-first generation Cuban-American

A number equal to that of Democratic Senators considered racial minorities.  The GOP is still behind on the number of women senators compared to Democrats, but they added one in 2014 and Democrats lost one (assuming Landreiu doesn’t lose her run-off).  But they have plenty of half-wit women in elected office just waiting for an open Senate seat.  

House:

UT: Mia Love – first generation Haitian

The GOP Congressional Hispanic Conference is small, but had a net gain of two seats last Tuesday.

The GOP also has a deep bench of younger African-American politicians and Latino politicians  While Democrats/liberals in the peanut gallery worry about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, they might want to be concerned about Sandoval as he’s a far more attractive candidate.

2016 doesn’t look promising for Democrats.  Particularly if they insist upon recycling DLC senior citizens for the top of the ticket.  

 

The following bar graph may be the largest factor in past/present US federal elections.  Not that other factors don’t come into play.

Much food for thought and much to discuss if anyone here is interested in tossing this around.

Elections are complicated and multi-factorial.  But come Wednesday morning everybody has a simple explanation for their wins or losses.  Usually nothing more than beating whatever drum they’ve been beating all along.  And nobody can really prove diddly-squat.

Were the 2014 mid-term elections predominately local or national?  National according to the GOP and all the Democratic candidates that did their best to run from Obama.  But is there evidence for that in the gubernatorial  elections?

First consider those incumbent governors w/o a viable opponent (polling number is RCP average):

CA  – Brown (D) +18.5; actual +17.6
MN – Dayton (I) +7; actual +5.6
NV – Sandoval (R) +25; actual +47  
NM – Martinez (R) +13.3; actual +14.6
NY – Cuomo (D) + 23.3; actual +13.4
OR – Kitzhaber (D) +7.7; actual 5.1
Both Republican governors added to their polling leads and all four Democrats lost ground.  On the west coast, less than a point for Brown, but Kitzhaber lost 2.6 points.  Except late in the race there was an issue with Kitzhaber’s fiancee; so, it’s difficult not to see his drop as anything but a local matter.   NY?  Record low voter turnout.  There didn’t seem to be any GOP wave in MN; so, Dayton’s drop is undefined.

So, how did incumbent Democratic governors fare?

CO – Hickenlooper (I) +0.5; actual +2.9
CT – Malloy (I) +1.7; actual +2.5
IL – Quinn (I) +0.8; actual -4.8
NH – Hassan (I)  +3.5; actual +5.2

Somewhat more as would be expected in close races for all but Quinn, a slight uptick at the very end.  

Open gubernatorial slots with an incumbent Democratic governor:

AR – Ross -8; actual -13.9
MA – Coakley -3.7; actual -1.9
MD –  Brown ++; actual -4.7
RI – Raimondo +4; actual 4.5  (won w/40.8%; Ind 20%)

Coakley and Raimondo got an incumbent party uptick.  But Ross and Brown lost 5.9 or more points.  

Republican Incumbents (w/viable opponents):

AK –  Walker +1.2; actual +1.4; Parnell (I)
FL – Christ +0.6; actual -1.1; Scott (I)
GA – Carter -4.6; actual -8; Deal (I)
KS – Davis +2; actual -3.9; Brownback (I)
ME – Michaud -1.4; actual -4.9; LePage (I) (Michaud led w/Cutler <10%; Cutler final 8.4%)
MI – Schauer -2.0; actual – 4.2 Snyder (I)
PA – Wolf  +11; actual 9.8; Corbett (I)
WI- Burke -2.2; actual -5.7; Walker (I)

Other than Parnell – AK, all of the Republican incumbent governors got that uptick.  Regardless of whether they were projected to win or lose.  Corbett got the least, 1.2% and Brownback got the most, 5.9%.  

Sure looks like a GOP wave – but how did they do that?  None of the Democratic governors or candidates got anywhere near Obama.  And several of the outgoing Democratic governors are leaving with high marks, and of the incumbents, the worst are the Republicans and only two of those lost.

Also consider that an electoral wave cuts below the top of the ballot.  The open Democratic Senate seat in MI was won by the Democrat Peters by over 13%.  And the MN incumbent Democratic Senator, Franken, won by 10.3% (RCP avg. 10%).  OTOH, the “very popular” VA Democratic Senator barely squeaked out a win by 0.8% against Ed (freaking) Gillespie.  (Gotta love VA voters for busting the chops of their “very popular Senators” who are looking to move up to POTUS or VP.)

There is something that all but one of the Democratic gubernatorial losers have in common.  Also shared by  two winners that had final upticks and three winners (all of whom were comfortably ahead) that had final downticks.  But not shared by the other four winners.  Democratic gubernatorial candidates that nationalized their elections didn’t fare well.  Difficult to see how they could have done worse by hugging Obama.  Not that anyone seems to have noticed this.

From The Guardian, How Republican Michael Grimm turned a federal indictment into a ticket back to Congress*

The year had not been kind to him: in January, he threatened to throw a reporter from local TV station NY1 off the balcony of the Capitol rotunda and break him in half “like a boy” after the reporter asked about a federal investigation into fundraising for his 2010 congressional campaign; in April he was indicted on 20 federal charges including fraud, perjury and employing undocumented immigrants
…
And yet on Tuesday night, Grimm stormed to a 55-42 victory over his opponent, Brooklyn Democrat Domenic Recchia.
…

In freaking New York City!  A federal indictment for Chris Christie might just be his ticket to the White House. (Probably won’t work as well for Andrew Cuomo – acting like a Republican isn’t good enough, Andy, gotta have that (R) behind your name.)

South Carolina and Utah want the world to know that they aren’t racists.  

Lindsay Graham was easily re-elected.  Receiving 670,993 votes out of 1,235,851.  Senator Tim Scott (R), African-American and appointed after DeMint’s resignation, was also easily elected to the remainder of DeMint’s term.  Receiving  754,938 votes out of 1,234,777.  How about that – Scott is more popular in SC than Graham.    
Three woman have served in the US House of Representatives from Utah.  All from the 2nd District and elected for a total of eight years. (Reva Beck Bosone (D), Karen Shepherd (D), and Enid Greene.  Utah is now sending its fourth woman ever (first non-white?) to Congress:  

USA Today, Mia Love First Black Republican Woman in Congress.  From Utah!

What makes Love’s election even more interesting and the second reason she makes the IOKIYAR Chronicles was reported three years ago in Mother Jones

Though a child of immigrants, Love has embraced much of her party’s tough stance on immigration. She has implied that she would back deporting the US-born children of illegal immigrants so as not to reward “bad behavior.”

In January 2011, Love told the Deseret News that her parents, Jean Maxime and Marie Bourdeau, came to New York in the 1970s, fleeing poverty and looking for a better life. Love said that her parents immigrated legally, but were forced to leave their two young children behind in Haiti because their visa didn’t allow them to bring the kids.

There was an immigration law in place, however, that would grant the entire family citizenship if Jean Maxine and Mary had a baby in America.  Deseret News:

But there was a deadline.
The law was set to expire on Jan. 1, 1976.
On Dec. 6, 1975, with 25 days to spare, Mia was born in a Brooklyn hospital.
In no time, her older brother and sister were sent for in Haiti and the family was re-united.
Says Mia: “My parents have always told me I was a miracle and our family’s ticket to America.”

How many Latino, Republican men and women were elected or re-elected to governorships and Congress this year?  Democrats counting on demographic changes to save them might want to have a re-think.

*In fairness, it should be noted that Jesse Jackson, Jr. was re-elected when it was known that he was under federal investigation and had been on medical leave for several months.  However, he did resign within days of being re-elected and months before being indicted.

   

In a recent discussion with TarheelDem, he and I sort of disagreed about Teddy Kennedy’s 1980 primary challenge to Jimmy Carter.  In his view, it was Kennedy nostalgia among party elites and a not insignificant portion of the Democratic Party base that led to Teddy’s challenge.  Not an invalid position; although I still think it was more complicated than that.  But it got me to thinking about both an earlier and later time.  How had California after rejecting Nixon for Governor in 1962 ended up with a string of conservative Senators and Governors after that?

Historically, California generally had one liberal and one moderately conservative Senator and usually one Republican and one Democrat.  

Class 1:

Senator Hiram Johnson (R) 1917 – 1945 was by today’s standards liberal.

Knowland(R) 1945-1959, inititally appointed by Governor Earl Warren, was more conservative.

Clair Engle (D) 1959-1964.

Class 3:

From 1933 – 1950 the seat was held by a Democratic.  The last one, Sheridan Downey, morphed during his political career from a progressive liberal to a conservative Democrat.  Rather than face a primary challenge from the left of the party, he dropped out of the 1950 race.  Helen Gahagan Douglas was the Democratic nominee and was smeared by Richard Nixon.  That put two CA Senators in the Republican caucus; both more conservative than their predecessors and Nixon was far more conservative.

Earl Warren also appointed Thomas Kuchel to Nixon’s seat in 1953, and he was subsequently elected and remained in office until 1969.    

The Republican 1958 switcheroo was long considered the most bone-headed move by a CA political party.  Sen. Knowland wanted to be governor and the party prevailed upon incumbent governor Goodwin Knight to run for the Senate.  The thing was that both Warren and Knight were fairly liberal Republicans and in running for governor, it became clear to the electorate that Knowland was far more conservative.  Knowland and Knight both lost.  Pat Brown became governor and Clair Engle senator.  Brown (D), Kuchel (R), and Engle (D) was a good combination for the CA electorate of that time.

Then came 1964.  Kennedy nostalgia among some Democrats set in.  That was somewhat bizarre in that JFK wasn’t a figure in CA politics – and the “native son” had taken the state in the 1960 election even if they rejected him for governor two years later.  It also had a stink of rank and premature opportunism.  Sen. Engle was running for re-election, but he’d been left partially paralyzed from an operation for a brain tumor in the summer of 1963.  He had a primary challenger, State Controller Alan Cranston, and then he had two, Pierre Salinger, JFK’s Press Secretary who had never held elective office.  As his health continued to deteriorate, Engle dropped out of the race.  Salinger won the primary.  Engle died on July 30th at the age of 52.  

What came next was like a mini-foreshadowing of Illinois in 2009.  Earl Warren had appointed two replacement senators.  Both reasonably acceptable to the electorate as replacements for their predecessors – perhaps more because of who had made the appointments than that they were objectively and politically in-line with their predecessors.  Were those appointments political?  Absolutely.  But they were also pragmatic as neither man had any trouble winning subsequent elections.  Warren went on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Rod Blagojevich went to the pokey.

Pat Brown had an open senate seat in the middle of the general election.  The GOP nominee was practically a joke.  It’s anyone’s guess as to how that election would have played out on its own.  But Brown made the unwise decision to put a thumb on the scale by appointing Salinger for the few months remaining of Engle’s term.  George Murphy won in the year of a Democratic landslide.  That also set the stage for another aging Hollywood guy to run for governor two years later and defeat Brown despite his high approval ratings for his job performance.

Murphy proved too much of a joke as Senator and was tossed after one term.  (The other GOP senator was defeated in 1968 by Alan Cranston.)  Murphy was replaced by a man that did win a House seat in 1964 after a mere three years as a CA resident who also had close ties to the Kennedy family.  By 1976, he didn’t fit so well with CA either, particularly not when there was a Democratic governor and another Democratic Senator.  This has remained the “conservative” CA Senate seat ever since.  Filled by Republicans until 1992 when Feinstein took over.

Absent JFK nostalgia, Cranston would have been the Democratic nominee in 1964.  He had a much better chance to beat Murphy, particularly if Brown had refrained from appointing him during the general election.  No Sen. Murphy – would have greatly increased the odds that there would have been no Governor Reagan.

A creepy side note.  Senator Murphy created the Candy Desk (his only Senatorial achievement).  The current keeper of the Candy Desk is Sen. Mark Kirk.

Some small missteps can have large and lasting repercussions.

North Jersery dot com reports Christie/Cuomo Announce Quarantine of Passengers from West Africa.

Not that they have any expertise in medicine, public health, or science, but they do know how to respond toto kneejerk calls from those that are similarly not bound by facts and science.  IOW, the ignorant and the stupid.  Arrogantly so since they think they know better than the collective sciency brainpower of MSF, NIH, CDC, and European health agencies.  

Guinea, Liberia, and Serra Leone need as many trained, temporary health care workers as they can get.  Few will return from their generous volunteer work having been infected with Ebola.  But, gosh darn it, one did and wander among the population when he was asymptomatic and therefore, not contagious.  And in Christie/CuomoLand that means that health care workers returning from West Africa are too stupid and therefore, all of them must be locked up for 21 days.

More could/should be said about this, but I’ve already said most of it in my Ebola diaries and diary comments.  

BTW — where’s the new “Ebola czar?”  
NYTimes: White House Presses States to Reverse Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders

The differences between Obama and Christie/Cuomo may often be difficult to perceive, but sometimes he makes it very easy. For all his faults, he’s not a clueless clown constantly sticking his finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing through the airheads.

The Obama administration has been pushing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their decision ordering all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contact with Ebola patients to be quarantined, an administration official said on Sunday.

…
The decision for mandatory quarantines has not only opened a rift with federal officials, but also between New York City and the state.

…
On Friday night, those carefully laid plans were thrown aside when Mr. Christie and Mr. Cuomo called for a mandatory quarantine of all medical workers returning from West African countries where they worked with Ebola patients.

“The entire city was not informed, even the mayor’s office,” according to a city official involved in New York’s Ebola response. “The mayor was caught unaware.”

“The big picture decision was made in the absence of any deep thinking about what implementing the policy would entail,” the official said.
…

NYTimes Under Pressure, Cuomo Says Ebola Quarantines Will Allow Home Isolation

Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy for all medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday night that people quarantined in New York who do not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.

…

It was the second striking shift in Mr. Cuomo’s public posture on the Ebola crisis in 72 hours; after urging calm Thursday night, then joining Mr. Christie to highlight the risks of lax policy on Friday, Mr. Cuomo on Sunday night appeared to try to stake out a middle ground.

OTOH, Christie boasted today that the nation will soon follow his lead. Dumb and dumber are in their minds Presidential material. (Still hoping that the investigation of the NY/NJ Port Authority take them down and out and spare the rest of us from having to deal with them in 2016.

[Update 3 – Tuesday 10/28/14]

CNN Chris Christie on Ebola policy: ‘We’re not moving an inch’. Stupid and stubborn — qualities that Christie and far too many voters think make him Presidential.

From BBC Ebola crisis: Spanish nurse tests negative for virus

The Spanish nurse who became the first person to contract Ebola outside West Africa has now tested negative for the virus, the Spanish government says,

It had been reported in the past few days that Ms. Romero Ramos seemed to be improving, but testing negative for Ebola is the gold standard for survival.  She will be weak and need rest and care for some time, but a full recovery is in sight.  She has said that she willing to care for Ebola patients in the future.  Survivors appear to have an immunity to the virus.

This is an important clinical case because the time when she could have been infected is shorter (three days) than other well-documented cases AND it’s precisely known when her first symptoms appeared.  The five or six day delay in getting her tested, isolated, and under care was unacceptable.  It may have needlessly prolonged her illness and increased her suffering.  But her battle may have a positive data outcome if her contacts during her symptomatic phase continue to test negative for Ebola until the end of their quarantine/monitoring period.

Good wishes for Ms. Romero Ramos as she continues her recovery and return to good health.

Anyone that has toyed with Magic Number 7 +/- 2, beyond G. A. Miller’s construct, discovers all too quickly, disappointingly, that in some instances it’s +3 and -1, or -1 and +3, or 6 instead of 7, or 8.  And the magic evaporates into magical thinking.  Which is neither.  (Unless one is Joan Didion.)  In the realm of so-called primitive people, the unschooled or ignorant,  the psychologically disturbed, or just a bit kooky.  Magic Number 7 stands alongside Ouji boards, Tarot cards, astrology, and psychics which can be amusing if one appreciates them for what they are, toys.
But, but isn’t seven a special number, and therefore, magical?  More special than one?  Or ten or twelve?  Or pi – now, there’s an irrational number with practical applications.  Nonetheless, seven is a  good number in craps – until it’s a loser.  And seven is the peoples of the world favorite lucky number.  And one of those people might be the head of the IMF, Christine LaGarde.

In the year of Thomas Piketty, we also have the year of magical global economic thinking with power.  Scarier than Ebola.

But I’m sticking with eight plus/minus three as the Ebola incubation period.

The US health care symptom, with all its inherent weaknesses and flaws, can manage an outbreak of Ebola reasonably well.  Except for one not insignificant factor.  The early symptoms of Ebola are sore-throat, headache, low-grade fever, fatigue, and body aches.  Most of which appear if not simultaneously, then in very rapid succession but not in any particular order.  For example,  Will Pooley of the UK:

His first sign of illness was a sore throat. Overnight he developed aches, a headache and felt “pretty rough” but still went to work. That afternoon he was tested and he went home to await the results.

He had himself tested because he was a nurse working with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.  Test results came back positive early the next morning and he was evacuated to the Royal Free hospital in London later that day.  Ten days later he was fully cured and released from the hospital.
Sore throat – headache – low-grade fever – fatigue – body aches.  Not different from what develops from many viruses.  There is only one clinical fact that can be used to help discriminate between other viruses and Malaria and Ebola at this stage and that is recent contact or possible contact with a symptomatic EVD victim.  There have been patients that denied such possible contact and the consequences have been tragic.  USians are more likely to imagine such contact when the possibility is slim to none.  On such high alert, hospitals could be overwhelmed with patients experiencing minor cold or flu symptoms and fearing Ebola.  Getting them in and out of care quickly will be several times more difficult.  The bottleneck will be isolation until test results are completed.  And that could be one to two days.  

Like with the Ebola vaccine and drug treatment research and testing (a huge topic that is far beyond what I can tackle), Tulane researchers race to develop rapid Ebola finger-prick test.    

In June [2014], the National Institutes of Health awarded his team [Tulane] and Corgenix Medical Corp. $2.9 million to develop a rapid diagnostic test that would give health care workers a fast and easy way to test patients for Ebola with a simple finger-stick.

Can we and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have it yesterday?  Or today?  That would be no.

Corgenix CEO Douglass Simpson said that as a reaction to the recent outbreak, the VHFC has shifted most of its efforts to the final phase of activity contemplated by the current NIH grant. Simpson also noted that, contrary to recent reports in the press, Corgenix has not finalized development of the Ebola products. “I want to strongly emphasize that this is a new three-year project, building off work commenced in 2010. We do not currently have an Ebola test nor will we likely have a final one in the near future,” said Simpson. “We understand the critical nature of this virus and are doing everything possible to accelerate efforts to develop reliable and rapid result diagnostic kits in order to be ready for the next outbreak.”

Is there anything else out there?  Could be a long-shot, but sometimes emergencies are the mother of  inventions.  Students Invent Ebola Detection Strips

On the first day of biology class this semester [2014], Emory freshmen Brian Goldstone and Rostam Zafari received a challenge from their professor: develop an experimental test for the Ebola virus for extra credit on a quiz.
Goldstone and Zafari took the challenge to heart and developed the idea for REDS: Rapid Ebola Detection Strips.

An idea that raised over $6,000 on Indigogo to start the project.   Doesn’t appear that they have a proof of concept yet, but they don’t lack for vigor, enthusiasm, and optimism.

They said they hope to have the prototype ready by the end of October and to mass-produce the system by the beginning of next year.

They are now beginning to get more attention

Health experts at other universities see potential and value in REDS.
“I think this is a fantastic breakthrough if the strips have good sensitivity and specificity,” says Michelle Barry, senior dean associate dean for global health at Stanford University. …

A little hope, even if it doesn’t work out, in the midst of a difficult and potentially global health issue.

Update: US Has Test That Can Detect Ebola Virus In Seconds (But It’s Stuck In A Lab).

Researchers at a government lab have developed a minimally invasive test for Ebola that could cut the time it takes to diagnose cases of the lethal virus from days and hours to minutes or even seconds, International Business Times has learned. The Department of Energy, which invented the procedure at its Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, Tennessee, is now scrambling to find a partner to commercialize the technology.
…

Gee — maybe NIH, CDC, and DOE infectious scientists should talk to one another when an epidemic is raging.

In a solicitation-for-contractors document, DOE describes its test as a “rapid, portable viral diagnostic for RNA viruses,” including, specifically, Ebola hemorrhagic fever. RNA viruses are made from genetic material comprising ribonucleic acid. In addition to Ebola, the DOE said the test can quickly detect Hanta, Dengue, West Nile and several other exotic viruses.

Maybe a contractor that can put this on a super fast track will come forward.