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Saturday, August 17, 2013

Here's One Reason Why Foreign Aid Really is Not All That Foreign After All.

"Today, most human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the world derive from heterosexual transmission — a fact that is still overlooked by many." [46] "Although AIDS was first defined in homosexual men in the United States and male-to-male sex remains the predominant mode of transmission in most industrialized countries, the predominant mode of transmission worldwide continues to be heterosexual contact (75% of total spread). In the United States, approximately one-third of new diagnoses appear to be related to heterosexual transmission. Male-to-male sexual contact still accounts for more than half of new diagnoses in the U.S. Intravenous drug use contributes to the remaining cases. Because the diagnosis may occur years after infection, it is likely that a higher proportion of recent infections are due to heterosexual transmission." [36] "The predominant mode of adult transmission continues to be unprotected, penetrative heterosexual intercourse (that is, without effective use of a barrier contraceptive).
The presence of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs)– especially those causing ulcers, which are common in most developing countries – facilitates heterosexual transmission." [41] "The World Health Organization estimates that heterosexual transmission has accounted for 75% of the HIV infections in adults world-wide." Globally, 85% of HIV transmission is through heterosexual intercourse. [40] "The major route of HIV transmission worldwide is heterosexual sex, although risk factors vary within and across populations. In many regions of the world, men who have sex with men, injection drug users, and sex workers account for significant proportions of infections." [4]
"Anyone at any age can get HIV/AIDS." [33] "AIDS Diagnoses by Age" [21] Unicef today said it was a "disgrace" that more than 95% of children with Aids around the world were not receiving any treatment. The UN charity, launching a global campaign to highlight the disease's impact on children, said 1,800 were infected with the virus every day. Unicef said that, every minute, a child dies of an Aids-related illness, a child becomes infected with HIV, and four people aged between 15 and 24 become infected. [42] According to estimates from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS [47] and the World Health Organization (WHO), 1.4 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2000. In 2000, an estimated 600,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. More than 1,000 children are newly infected with HIV every day, and of these more than half will die as a result of AIDS because of a lack of access to HIV treatment. At the end of 2009, there were 2.5 million children living with HIV around the world. An estimated 400,000 children became newly infected with HIV in 2009. Of the 1.8 million people who died of AIDS during 2009, one in seven were children. Every hour, around 30 children die as a result of AIDS. [31] Every minute of every day a child under the age of 15 is infected with HIV. 1,400 children die of AIDS each day and more than a half million young lives are claimed by this disease each year. According to the UNAIDS 2006 Report [4] there are 2.3 million children (under the age of 15) living with HIV/AIDS around the world.
AIDS is caused by the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which originated in non-human primates in Sub-Saharan Africa and was transferred to humans during the late 19th or early 20th century. Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. HIV descends from the related simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which infects apes and monkeys in Africa. Most HIV researchers agree that HIV evolved at some point from the closely related Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), and that SIV or HIV (post mutation) was transferred from non-human primates to humans in the recent past (as a type of zoonosis). Two types of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent, is more easily transmitted and is the cause of the vast majority of HIV infections globally. [22] The pandemic strain of HIV-1 is closely related to a virus found in the chimpanzees of the subspecies Pan troglodytes, which lives in the forests of the Central African nations of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo (or Congo-Brazzaville), and Central African Republic. Scientists generally accept that the known strains (or groups) of HIV-1 are most closely related to the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) endemic in wild ape populations of West Central African forests. Particularly, each of the known HIV-1 strains is either closely related to the SIV that infects the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes (SIVcpz), or to the SIV that infects Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), called SIVgor. [8] The pandemic HIV-1 strain (group M or Main) and a very rare strain only found in a few Cameroonian people (group N) are clearly derived from SIVcpz strains endemic in Pan troglodytes chimpanzee populations living in Cameroon. [48]
Another very rare HIV-1 strain (group P) is clearly derived from SIVgor strains of the same country. Finally, the primate ancestor of HIV-1 group O, a strain infecting tens of thousands of people mostly from Cameroon but also from neighboring countries, is still uncertain, but there is evidence that it is either SIVcpz or SIVgor. [9] It is clear that the several HIV-1 and HIV-2 strains descend from SIVcpz, SIVgor, and SIVsmm viruses, and that bush meat practice provides the most plausible venue for cross-species transfer to humans. [9] According to the natural transfer theory (also called 'Hunter Theory' or 'Bush meat Theory'), the "simplest and most plausible explanation for the cross-species transmission" of SIV or HIV (post mutation), the virus was transmitted from an ape or monkey to a human when a hunter or bush meat vendor/handler was bitten or cut while hunting or butchering the animal. [10] The resulting exposure to blood or other bodily fluids of the animal can result in SIV infection. [10] The pandemic HIV-1 group M is most closely related to the SIVcpz collected from the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon (modern East Province) near the Sangha River. [8] Thus, this region is presumably where the virus was first transmitted from chimpanzees to humans. However, reviews of the epidemiological evidence of early HIV-1 infection in stored blood samples, and of old cases of AIDS in Central Africa have led many scientists to believe that HIV-1 group M early human epicenter was probably not in Cameroon, but rather farther south in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more probably in its capital city, Kinshasa. [48] A study published in 2008, analyzing viral sequences recovered from a recently discovered biopsy made in Kinshasa, in 1960, along with previously known sequences, suggested a common ancestor between 1873 and 1933 (with central estimates varying between 1902 and 1921). The earliest known positive identification of the HIV-1 virus comes from the Congo in 1959 and 1960 though genetic studies indicate that it passed into the human population from chimpanzees around fifty years earlier. [44] Some molecular datation studies suggest that HIV-1 group M had its most recent common ancestor (MRCA) (that is, started to spread in the human population) in the early 20th century, probably between 1915 and 1941. [20] Using HIV-1 sequences preserved in human biological samples along with estimates of viral mutation rates, scientists calculate that the jump from chimpanzee to human probably happened during the late 19th or early 20th century, a time of rapid urbanization and colonization in equatorial Africa. There is evidence that humans who participate in bush meat activities, either as hunters or as bush meat vendors, commonly acquire SIV. However, only a few of these infections were able to cause epidemics in humans, and all did so in the late 19th—early 20th century. To explain why HIV became epidemic only by that time, there are several theories, each invoking specific driving factors that may have promoted SIV adaptation to humans, or initial spread: social changes following colonialism, rapid transmission of SIV through unsafe or unsterile injections (that is, injections in which the needle is reused without being sterilized), colonial abuses and unsafe smallpox vaccinations or injections, or prostitution and the concomitant high frequency of genital ulcer diseases (such as syphilis) in nascent colonial cities. [38]
In 1983, two separate research groups led by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier independently declared that a novel retrovirus may have been infecting AIDS patients, and published their findings in the same issue of the journal Science. [7] [28] In May 1983, doctors from Dr. Luc Montagnier's team at the Pasteur Institute in France reported that they had isolated a new retrovirus from lymphoid ganglions that they believed was the cause of AIDS. [7] The virus was later named lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and a sample was sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which was later passed to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). On May 4, 1984, Gallo and his collaborators published a series of four papers in the scientific journal Science demonstrating that a retrovirus they had isolated, called HTLV-III in the belief that the virus was related to the leukemia viruses of Gallo's earlier work, was the cause of AIDS. [14] [26] [27] [29] A French team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, led by Luc Montagnier, had published a paper in Science in 1983, describing a retrovirus they called LAV (lymphadenopathy associated virus), isolated from a patient at risk for AIDS. [7] In May 1984 a team led by Robert Gallo of the United States confirmed the discovery of the virus, but they renamed it human T lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III). [26] In January 1985 a number of more detailed reports were published concerning LAV and HTLV-III, and by March it was clear that the viruses were the same, were from the same source, and were the etiological agent of AIDS. In May 1986, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses ruled that both names should be dropped and a new name, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), be used. [50] In 2008, Together with his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from the Institute Pasteur, Montagnier was awarded one half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the "discovery of human immunodeficiency virus". Harald zur Hausen also shared the Prize for his discovery that human papilloma viruses lead to cervical cancer, but Gallo was left out.
HIV-1 strains are thought to have arrived in the United States from Haiti in the late 1960s or early 1970s. [30] A 2007 study states that a strain of HIV-1 probably moved from Africa to Haiti and then entered the United States around 1969. [30] HIV-1 is believed to have arrived in Haiti from central Africa, possibly through professional contacts with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The current consensus is that HIV was introduced to Haiti by an unknown individual or individuals who contracted it while working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo circa 1966, or from another person who worked there during that time. A mini-epidemic followed, and, circa 1969, yet another unknown individual brought HIV from Haiti to the United States.
Ardoin Antonio, a Jamaican-American shipping clerk who was raised in Haiti, died in New York on June 28, 1959 of Pneumocystis Pneumonia, an AIDS-defining illness.
One of the earliest documented HIV-1 infections was discovered in a preserved blood sample taken in 1959 from a man from Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo). A second early documented HIV-1 infection was discovered in a preserved lymph node biopsy sample taken in 1960 from a woman from Leopoldville, Belgian Congo.
The first confirmed case of AIDS in the United States, a 15-year-old teenage boy who died in 1969. Robert Rayford has since been confirmed as the first documented victim of HIV/AIDS in North America, having died at age 16 in May 1969. In 1969, a 15-year-old African-American male known to medicine as Robert R. died at the St. Louis City Hospital from aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma. Robert Rayford (c. 1953 – May 15 or May 16,1969), sometimes identified as Robert R. due to his age, was an American teenager from Missouri who was the earliest confirmed victim of HIV/AIDS in North America. AIDS was suspected as early as 1984, and in 1987, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine confirmed this, finding HIV-1 in his preserved blood and tissues. Robert had never traveled outside the United States and, indeed, never left the Midwest, and had told doctors that he had never received a blood transfusion. Since Rayford's infection was almost certainly through sexual contact and he had never left the country, it is obvious that he must have received the virus from somebody else already living with it in the United States, meaning that AIDS was present in North America before Robert began showing symptoms in 1966. He also never ventured into cosmopolitan cities such as New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, which were the sites where the HIV-AIDS epidemic was first observed in the United States. He reported having experienced symptoms since 1966.
A Norwegian sailor and truck driver, who was probably infected in Cameroon some time between 1961 and 1965, and died in 1976. In 1976, a Norwegian sailor, with the alias name Arvid Noe, his wife, and his nine-year-old daughter died of AIDS. Arvid Noe (1946 – 1976) is the alias of a Norwegian sailor who is the first person known to have contracted HIV and died from AIDS outside of the United States. He is the second person confirmed to have died from AIDS, after the teenager known as Robert R., from St. Louis, Missouri, in 1969. The sailor had first presented symptoms in 1969, eight years after he first spent time in ports along the West African coastline. Based on research conducted after his death, Noe is believed to have contracted HIV in Cameroon in 1961 or '62, where he was known to have been sexually active with many African women, including prostitutes. Tissues of Noe, his wife and daughter all tested positive for HIV in an epidemiology study in 1988. Tissue samples from the sailor and his wife were tested in 1988 and found to contain HIV-1 (Group O). Noe was infected with HIV-1 group O, which is known to have been prevalent in Cameroon in the early 1960s.
Margrethe P. Rask (1930 – December 12, 1977), better known as Grethe Rask, was a Danish physician and surgeon who practiced medicine in what was then known as Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo). She was likely directly exposed to blood from many Congolese patients, one of who infected her. She died in December 1977. Rask, who died three and a half years prior to AIDS being recognized by the Centers for Disease Control in June 1981, was one of the first non-Africans (along with Arvid Noe) known to have died of AIDS-related causes.
Gaëtan Dugas (French: [ɡaetɑ̃ dyˈɡa]; February 20, 1953 – March 30, 1984) was a Canadian who worked for the national carrier as a flight attendant. Gaëtan Dugas, so-called "Patient Zero", was a flight attendant who had over 2,500 sexual partners across North America. Dugas became notorious as the alleged patient zero for AIDS, though he is now more accurately regarded as one of many highly sexually active men who spread AIDS widely before the disease was identified. [24] A Canadian airline steward named Gaëtan Dugas was referred to as "Patient 0" in an early AIDS study by Dr. William Darrow of the Centers for Disease Control. He was called "Patient Zero" because at least 40 of the 248 people known to be infected by AIDS in 1983 had had sex with him, or with someone who had sexual intercourse with him. At least 40 of the 248 people diagnosed with AIDS by April 1982 were thought to have had sex either with him or with someone who had. Because of this, many people had considered Dugas to be responsible for bringing HIV to North America. This is inaccurate however, as HIV had spread long before Dugas began his career. [30] The vast majority of cases of AIDS outside sub-Saharan Africa can be traced back to that single patient (although numerous unrelated incidents of AIDS among Haitian immigrants to the U.S. were recorded in the early 1980s, and, as evidenced by the case of Robert R., isolated incidents of this infection may have been occurring as early as 1966.) [30] A November 2007 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences dismisses the Patient Zero hypothesis and claims that AIDS transited from Africa to Haiti in 1966 and from Haiti to the United States in 1969. [30]
One of the first high profile victims of AIDS was the American Rock Hudson, a gay actor who had been married and divorced earlier in life, who died on 2 October 1985 having announced that he was suffering from the virus on 25 July that year. It had been diagnosed during 1984. The virus claimed perhaps its most famous victim yet on 24 November 1991, when British rock star Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the band Queen, died from an AIDS related illness having only announced that he was suffering from the illness the previous day. However he had been diagnosed as HIV positive during 1987. One of the first high profile heterosexual victims of the virus was Arthur Ashe, the American tennis player. He was diagnosed as HIV positive on 31 August 1988, having contracted the virus from blood transfusions during heart surgery earlier in the 1980s. Further tests within 24 hours of the initial diagnosis revealed that Ashe had AIDS, but he did not tell the public about his diagnosis until April 1992. He died, aged 49, as a result of the AIDS virus on 6 February 1993.
The original name for what is know as "Human Immunodeficiency Virus" (HIV), which causes "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome" (AIDS) in Humans was "Simian Immunodeficiency Virus" (SIV) [35] which causes [1] "Simian Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" (SAIDS) [34] in wild Chimpanzees [8] (Pan troglodytes) [45] Based on analysis of strains found in four species of monkeys from Bioko Island, which was isolated from the mainland by rising sea levels about 11,000 years ago, it has been concluded that SIV has been present in monkeys and apes for at least 32,000 years, and probably much longer. Prior to 1982, AIDS was known as "Community-Acquired Immune Dysfunction" and to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) as "The 4H Disease" [48] The term AIDS (for acquired immune deficiency syndrome) was proposed at a meeting in Washington, D.C., on July 27, 1982. [37] By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness. The CDC used the term for the first time in September 1982, when it reported that an average of one to two cases of AIDS were being diagnosed in America every day. [19] [49] Michael Gottlieb was the principal author of the first report that appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for June 5, 1981 under the quiet title “Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP)— Los Angeles.” The initial report described emergency rooms in New York City and Los Angeles seeing a rash a number of previously seemingly healthy young men showing up in both places who suddenly began to develop fevers, flu-like symptoms, and rare types of pneumonia, including PCP, rare opportunistic infections and cancers, including Kaposi's sarcoma, and other unusual infections and other rare illnesses which until then had been virtually unheard of among such people, and that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment being reported by doctors in New York and California from 1979-1981. In July of that year, the New York Times reported some bizarre new disease outbreaks of a rare form of cancer, later identified as Kaposi's Sarcoma (a kind of tumor that later became the face of HIV/AIDS), among men in New York and California. Other opportunistic infections accompanied these diagnoses. This report was followed quickly by more series, and within a few months, the basic outline of the epidemic was established. Additional opportunistic complications were soon described, including mycobacterium infections, toxoplasmosis, invasive fungal infections, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Within months, dozens of similar cases had been reported in 23 American states and in the UK, representing the start of a massive and unprecedented epidemic. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name, but it quickly became obvious that all the men were suffering from a common syndrome. Doctors soon discovered a distinctive feature of these cases. All patients presenting with these uncommon illnesses were strangely immunodeficient—their immune systems could not fight off even simple infections. This immune deficiency explained why they were so vulnerable to disease, and many died soon after. Each had abnormal ratios of lymphocyte subgroups and was actively shedding cytomegalovirus. The evidence that the disease was caused by cytomegalovirus, as posited in the early reports, was straightforward: groups with the new immunodeficiency had extremely high rates of infection with cytomegalovirus, a potentially immunosuppressive virus. More than anything else, the men were lacking a specific type of white blood cell, which is essential to a healthy immune system. Normally, people have between 600 and 1,500 "CD4+ cells" (also called T helper cells) in each cubic millimeter of their blood. But the men with the strange new disease typically had very much lower levels. These were conditions not usually found in people with healthy immune systems. The cases were clearly related in time and by population group (initially injecting drug users). No cause of immune deficiency could be found, but it was clearly not inherited. The working definition for AIDS, developed by the Centers for Disease Control, has required just a single revision in the past decade. The latest US AIDS definition was created in 1993. [12] However, cases started to be seen in heterosexuals, drug addicts, and people who received blood transfusions, proving the syndrome knew no boundaries. The risk groups soon included: Haitians, as a group, seemed to be susceptible to this strange malady (Even non-drug-using Haitian heterosexuals got it), suddenly hemophiliacs living outside the usual risk areas, who needed Factor VIII, which was extracted from the whole blood of thousands of donors, came down with the same symptoms (Those with hemophilia are at particular risk for transfusion-related infections, since a single dose of cryoprecipitate contains products from between 1000 and 20,000 donors), infants, female sexual contacts of infected men, prisoners, and Africans. Following the discovery of a number of Haitians with Kaposi's Sarcoma and other AIDS-related conditions, medical journals and books began to claim that AIDS had come from Haiti, and that Haitians were responsible for the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Haitians were added to homosexuals, hemophiliacs and heroin users to make the 'Four-H Club' of groups at high risk of AIDS. These claims were often founded on dubious evidence. Since intravenous drug users were frequent blood donors, for both altruistic and financial reasons, the blood supply was quickly tainted. The first alarm about the safety of the blood supply was sounded in July 1982, with the first reports of the newly described immunodeficiency syndrome among hemophiliacs and injection drug users (IDUs). In January 1983 the CDC reported the first case of heterosexual transmission. In the early years, many numerous possible theories were considered regarding the cause of AIDS, many of which now seem eccentric: the use of "poppers", A case was made for attributing causality to amyl nitrite, a prescription drug, and to isobutyl nitrite, a closely related chemical marketed as a room deodorizer (Both were used as sexual stimulants but were also known immunosuppressive agents), a sophisticated theory developed around the notion that repeated exposure to another's sperm could trigger an immune response resulting in a condition resembling chronic graft-versus-host disease and ultimately opportunistic infections, one prominent dissident has theorized that the disease occurs because of long-term use of recreational drugs and is exacerbated by nucleoside analogues given as treatment, exposure to rare tropical diseases, etc. Each, in its turn, was rejected for lack of substantiating evidence. [46] By 1982, the initial diagnosis had acquired a number of names - In the general press, the incriminating acronym GRID, which stood for Gay Related Immunodeficiency Disease, had been coined [3] ‘gay cancer’, ‘community-acquired immune dysfunction’ and ‘gay compromise syndrome’. [16] The popular press coined “a disease of the “four H club” as it seemed to single out Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users– even though there had been cases among people who did not fall into one of these groups. In the CDC, in search of a name, and looking at the infected communities, AIDS had become "the 4H disease”– homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs and Haitians [48] But that name changed. However, after determining that AIDS was not isolated to the gay community, [43] the term GRID became misleading and AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982. [37] In this new name, scientists were supported by political figures that realized that the term "gay-related" did not accurately describe the demographic that the disease affected. The term AIDS (for acquired immune deficiency syndrome) was proposed in 1982 [37] by researchers concerned with the accuracy of the disease's name. It was not until July at a meeting in Washington, D.C., that the acronym AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was suggested. By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness. [19] The CDC used the term for the first time in September 1982, when it reported that an average of one to two cases of AIDS were being diagnosed in America every day. [49] On April 23, 1984, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary announced at a press conference that the probable cause of AIDS had been discovered: the retrovirus subsequently named human immunodeficiency virus or HIV in 1986. In 1982 Scientists and public health officials grouped together all of these strange new cases and began to use the term "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" – or AIDS for short, to describe the occurrences of opportunistic infections, Kaposi's sarcoma, and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in previously healthy men. In 1982, no-one claimed to know the cause of AIDS, so the first definition was based on the diagnosis of one of 13 rare diseases known to be linked to immune deficiency (including Kaposi's sarcoma and PCP) "occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease". [19] Over the years, the US definition has been refined, as hundreds of thousands of similar cases have been documented, sometimes involving other diseases, but always associated with the same distinctive immune deficiency. Under this definition, someone has AIDS if they have one of 26 specific diseases (28 in children) but no known cause of immune deficiency other than HIV (with some diseases, a positive HIV test is required); or if they have a CD4+ cell count below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood, or less than 14% of all lymphocytes, plus a positive HIV test. The virus was at first named by an international scientific committee. The US government announces their scientist; Dr. Robert Gallo isolates a retrovirus HTLV-III HTLV-III/LAV (human T-cell lymphotropic virus-type III/lymphadenopathy- associated virus). International committees of scientists rename the virus HIV. [46] Nonetheless, doubt about a viral cause persisted until the actual virus was detected, confirmatory studies were performed, and the reports of transmission through blood and blood products became too numerous to ignore. The discovery of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, was made soon after. In some quarters, doubt persists that HIV causes AIDS. Dissident arguments have received attention from the popular media, as well as from scientific journals. And with the rise of the Internet, alternative views have found a much wider audience. Some of their followers are intrigued by conspiracy theories involving sinister drug companies or government persecution of minority groups. Some believe that HIV is a 'conspiracy' or that it is 'man-made'. A recent survey carried out in the US for example, identified a significant number of African Americans who believe HIV was manufactured as part of a biological warfare programme, and designed to wipe out large numbers of black people. Many say this was done under the auspices of the US federal 'Special Cancer Virus Program' (SCVP), possibly with the help of the CIA. [39] Linked in to this theory is the belief that the virus was spread (either deliberately or inadvertently) to thousands of people all over the world through the smallpox inoculation programme. But alternative explanations can also appeal to those diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, who read that their condition might not be fatal, that they shouldn't take toxic drugs, and that unprotected sex poses no risks. Even a few AIDS service organizations have adopted non-HIV viewpoints. It seems likely that new and better evidence, including the obvious benefits of modern drug treatments, has caused many former dissidents to change their minds. The alternative definition of AIDS requires a CD4+ cell count consistently below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood, which cannot be explained by any factor other than HIV (such as cancer, malnutrition, radiation or chemotherapy). While none of these theories can be definitively disproved, the evidence given to back them up is usually based upon supposition and speculation, and ignores the clear link between SIV and HIV or the fact that the virus has been identified in people as far back as 1959. [23] The emotionally-charged culture of blame and prejudice that surrounded HIV and AIDS in the early years meant that it soon became politically difficult to present epidemiological findings in a neutral and objective way. The delay on the part of some in accepting a novel viral cause may appear puzzling now, but investigators may have been intimidated by the enormous implications that a new virus would carry for blood banking, the safety of health care workers, and the overall public health. There was also hesitancy, particularly among those outside the medical community, to acknowledge that the infection could be spread through heterosexual contact. Indeed, many preferred to invoke any but the obvious cause. The spread of the disease in Haiti, for example, was postulated to be a result of voodoo practices rather than heterosexual sex. Today, most human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the world derive from heterosexual transmission — a fact that is still overlooked by many. [15]
What caused the epidemic to spread so suddenly? There are a number of factors that may have contributed to the sudden spread of HIV, most of which occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Travel
Both national and international travel undoubtedly had a major role in the initial spread of HIV. In the US, international travel by young men making the most of the gay sexual revolution of the late 70s and early 80s would certainly have played a large part in taking the virus worldwide. In Africa, the virus would probably have been spread along truck routes and between towns and cities within the continent itself. However, it is quite conceivable that some of the early outbreaks in African nations were not started by Africans infected with the 'original' virus at all, but by people visiting from overseas where the epidemic had been growing too. The process of transmission in a global pandemic is simply too complex to blame on any one group or individual.
Much was made in the early years of the epidemic of a so-called 'Patient Zero' who was the basis of a complex "transmission scenario" compiled by Dr. William Darrow and colleagues at the Centre for Disease Control in the US. This epidemiological study showed how 'Patient O' (mistakenly identified in the press as 'Patient Zero') had given HIV to multiple partners, who then in turn transmitted it to others and rapidly spread the virus to locations all over the world. A journalist, Randy Shilts, subsequently wrote a book based on Darrow's findings, which named Patient Zero as a gay Canadian flight attendant called Gaetan Dugas. For several years, Dugas was vilified as a 'mass spreader' of HIV and the original source of the HIV epidemic among gay men. However, four years after the publication of Shilts' article, Dr. Darrow repudiated his study, admitting its methods were flawed and that Shilts' had misrepresented its conclusions. While Gaetan Dugas was a real person who did eventually die of AIDS, the Patient Zero story was not much more than myth and scaremongering. HIV in the US was to a large degree initially spread by gay men, but this occurred on a huge scale over many years, probably a long time before Dugas even began to travel.
The blood industry
As blood transfusions became a routine part of medical practice; an industry to meet this increased demand for blood began to develop rapidly. In some countries such as the USA, donors were paid to give blood, a policy that often attracted those most desperate for cash; among them intravenous drug users. In the early stages of the epidemic, doctors were unaware of how easily HIV could be spread and blood donations remained unscreened. This blood was then sent worldwide, and unfortunately most people who received infected donations went on to become HIV positive themselves. In the late 1960's hemophiliacs also began to benefit from the blood clotting properties of a product called Factor VIII. However, to produce this coagulant, blood from hundreds of individual donors had to be pooled. This meant that a single donation of HIV+ blood could contaminate a huge batch of Factor VIII. This put thousands of hemophiliacs all over the world at risk of HIV, and many subsequently became infected with the virus.
Drug use
The 1970s saw an increase in the availability of heroin following the Vietnam War and other conflicts in the Middle East, which helped stimulate a growth in intravenous drug use. As a result of sharing unsterilised needles and syringes, HIV was passed on among injecting drug users (IDUs). Due to this repeated practice many IDUs continue to be infected with HIV." [2] Until a vaccine is available, two humble but effective interventions have been shown to limit the horizontal spread of HIV: sex education and the use of condoms that results from it, 72,73 and drug-abuse treatment, including the provision of clean needles. An effective vaccine is not imminent, and most governments are unlikely to initiate frank public discussions about sexual intercourse [13] and injection-drug use, despite the glaring need. To some extent, the disease has continued to spread horizontally because of an unwillingness to use effective control measures, rather than because of the lack of a vaccine or other remedy. [11] AIDS has radically altered the development of drugs. Before the AIDS epidemic, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was often viewed as a remote bureaucracy. With the advent of AIDS and the community that formed around it, numerous innovative approaches were developed to expedite the development of new drugs and patients' access to investigational drugs. The FDA became substantially more efficient: in 1986, the average interval between a drug application and the granting of FDA approval was 34.1 months; by 1999, it had decreased to 12.6 months. [15] Zidovudine [Retrovir] (earlier known as azidothymidine, or AZT) was among the earliest compounds tested and gained FDA approval in 1987 and became the first drug licensed for fighting HIV and for the treatment of AIDS, and began to be used in high doses to treat people infected with HIV. Multiple studies found that AZT reduced opportunistic infections and increased CD4+ cell counts and survival among people with AIDS. [17] In the 1990s, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) first became available, and it fundamentally altered the epidemic in the United States. [46] The 1992 addition of the drug Hivid, the first drug the FDA approved to be used in combination with AZT, marked the beginning of HIV/AIDS combination therapies. Since the mid-1990s, other types of anti-HIV drugs have also been available, including power HIV-fighting drugs called Protease Inhibitors, which were designed specifically to target HIV proteins. Patients with chronic infection who were treated with the protease inhibitor ritonavir had a precipitous drop in HIV RNA level, reflecting an abrupt interruption of high-grade replication of HIV (billions of copies daily). They also had an increase in the CD4 cell count, which revealed the regenerative capacity of the CD4 cell population. The establishment of these two principles profoundly influenced clinicians' subsequent approach to antiviral therapy. [46] It has been found that the use of these different drugs taken together in combination with existing HIV/AIDS drugs, they prove effective in controlling HIV bring much longer-lasting benefits than AZT alone. In the United States, 15 agents have been approved in three classes of drugs: nucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, nonnucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, and protease inhibitors. [18] Numerous large-scale, controlled studies have consistently shown that the right combination of drugs can dramatically reduce incidence of AIDS and death. One drug is better than none, and two is better than one, but a combination of three drugs (from two different classes) is much better still. [25] These new "triple-therapies" give patients and scientists new hope in eliminating HIV/AIDS. Most studies have shown dramatic and durable responses for at least two thirds of patients with minimal previous antiviral exposure who adhere to a regimen of triple-drug therapy. Virologists explain that this is because HIV finds it a lot harder to evolve resistance to several drugs at the same time. With the use of these potent medications, there have been sharp and sustained declines in the incidence of AIDS and in AIDS-related mortality. [46] Modern three-drug combinations reduce the risk of AIDS and death by over 80%. Antiretroviral therapy, alongside treatment for opportunistic infections, is thought to have saved at least three million years of life in the USA alone. [5] The ability of antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission has been demonstrated around the world. In late 1996 data from AIDS Clinical Trials Group study 076 (ACTG 076) made it clear that Retrovir (AZT) used during pregnancy and at the time of delivery drastically reduces transmission of HIV from mother to child. Those findings led to protocols that now drastically reduce transmission from mother to child from 1 in 4 to less than 3%. Following the widespread introduction of these drugs during pregnancy, the number of reported AIDS cases among American children has fallen to around 100 per year, compared to nearly 1,000 per year in the early 1990s. [32]


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Saturday, August 10, 2013

"Tea Party" GOP

I had the so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Baggers" and their so-called quote-end-quote "Republican" "Tea Party", as you say "figured out" within hours of the very first "Tea Bagger/Tea Party" rally, with its shallow, narrow and closed-minded Anti-Choice, Anti-Equality, Anti-Education, Anti-Science, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and bigoted hatred-message. They don't have a leader. They've never had a leader. They'll never have a leader because the so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" has no real, actual policy ideas of its own. Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic extremist radical fanatical bigotry is all they have ever had, and all they will ever have. They are blindly diametrically opposed to every single concept, such as everyone getting public services like the fire department and the minimum wage, which tens of millions of people live on which are the foundation of every society in civilization.
The fact is that there actually is no so-called quote-end-quote “Tea Party”. There is not, and never has been, [and benevolent goddesses-willing, there never will be] a “National Tea Party Electoral Nomination Convention”. No candidate has ever run on the “Tea Party” ticket. There IS no “Tea Party” ticket. Every single so-called quote-end-quote “Tea Party” candidate has run as a REPUBLICAN, on the REPUBLICAN Party Ticket.
And even if, when, goddess-forbid, the “Tea-Party” “movement” does eventually completely entirely take over the Republican caucus in Congress, they will STILL be called It will still be known as the "REPUBLICAN Party”. And the argument could be made that the Tea Party so-called quote-end-quote “movement” first began at the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination Convention. The Faux “News” channel network that tirelessly and relentlessly promoted the FIRST so-called quote-end-quote “Tea-Bagger” rallies endlessly started the so-called quote-end-quote “Tea Party”, non-stop in the summer and fall of 2009.
Ron Paul has run unsuccessfully in every national political campaign of this century
AS A REPUBLICAN. Ron Paul, is, has been, and will be (until he finally, at long last, gets booted out of office) a lifelong member of the REPUBLICAN PARTY (also known as the GOP).
The Faux "News" channel network is the media outlet mouthpiece of the Republican "Te-Party" GOP. The so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" could not have been co-opted by the Republican Party, if the Republican Party STARTED the so-called quote-end-quote "Tea-Party".
The first "Tea Bagger" in the fall of 2009 was composed of racist, homophobic, xenophobic and bigoted radical reactionary fanatics. The so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" could not have been co-opted by racists, if the so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" was racist from its very beginning.
The so-called, quote-end-quote "Tea Party" is not a "Grassroots Movement" in any way, shape or form not by any rationally reasonable definition of the term. It’s not a "movement". It is NOT, allow me to repeat; it is NOT "Grassroots" not y any stretch of the imagination. The so-called, quote-end-quote "Tea Party" WOULD NOT EXIST were it not for the funding by the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers ["Americans For Prosperity"], a former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Dick Armey [Freedom Works], and their endorsement by the long-time media mouthpiece of the Conservative Republican GOP, Faux "News" [owned by the Australian 117th Richest Person in the World and the 19th Richest person in the world, a Prince of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia] and their very own Televangelist, Glenn Beck (the one with the Messianic Martyrdom Complex the size of Alaska). The so-called, quote-end-quote "Tea Party" is NOT a "Grassroots Populist Movement". Populists, by definition, work for the best interests of the average civilian citizen, who in this nation are known as the "middle class". The "Tea Party" has repeatedly demonstrated that they could not care less what about the average person. Because that's not who their "base" is. The people they are directing their every communication at are NOT the "average" civilian citizen their focus is on the most radical, reactionary, fundamentalist extremist fanatics out there on the fringe. These people are not thinkers; they are not scientists, they are not doctors, they are not Nobel laureates, they are not professors, they are not teachers, they are not lawyers, they are not philosophers, they are not authors, they are not journalists. They are not thinkers. They are NOT intellectuals. These people do not think before acting. They do not think after acting either. They act WITHOUT thinking. These are those people who have other people to do their thinking for them. These people do not ACT They React. These people are NOT activists. They are Reactionaries. This is the "base" of the "Tea Party". The "Tea Party’s goal is not to accomplish anything. Their goal is to PREVENT anything from being accomplished. The "Tea Party's goal is not to achieve anything. Their goal is to AVOID anything from being achieved. Their goal is not to get anything done, but to STOP anything getting done. This is because they know that, when nothing gets done, that they will then be able to blame it on those people who tried but failed to achieve anything, rather than on those who prevented anything from getting accomplished. THIS is why they lose. No matter how many electoral victories they might win, they will ALWAYS lose and it is because governing is not about REACTING to what others say and do. It is about getting things DONE. It's not about promising to YOUR people what it is that you WON'T do or why they should NOT pick the "other" guy. It is about KEEPING your promises to ALL of the people, about what you WILL do, and about telling those people why it is that they SHOULD choose you.
The most recent polling says that around about approximately 20-25% (on fifth to one-fourth) of ALL America identify themselves as Republicans. It also shows that the percentage of registered voters who self-identify themselves as being members of the so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" is, and has been sign the "movement" started in 2009, in the SINGLE DIGITS (less than ten percent). The voter turnout in the recent midterm primary elections that have "elected" reactionary fundamentalist extremist Right-wing Neo Conservative radical fanatics has been among the lowest numbers of voters to vote in ANY election Anywhere ever recorded. In EVERY state, the DEMOCRAT who LOST his/her primary received several times MORE votes than did the Republican who WON his/her primary. Ever Congressional election in a district that went to President Obama in the 2008 election has produced a DEMOCRATIC winner coming out victorious.
No "Liberal" Democrat has any reason to "Embarrassed", much less "ashamed" of having voted for the very first African-American President and leader of the free "civilized" western world in our Nation's 300-year history, A leader who has accomplished more to help the least privileged of all our people in just less than two years than his predecessor before him did in order to further the interests of the richest and wealthiest of Americans throughout most of the last decade, including a number of several things which EVERY President for the past Half A Century has attempted, and ultimately Failed to achieve. The 20% of Americans who identify as Conservative Republicans? The less than 10% of those people who currently self-identify as calling themselves the "Tea Party"? That’s a majority all right!
Oh yeah. The Tea Party Republicans just LOVE the Constitution to death [Except, that is, for all of the parts of it that they want to "change", abolish, repeal, or "amend"; such as the First and Fourteenth Amendments].
The So-called quote-end-quote "Republican" "Tea-Party" GOP Political Party's strategy is three-fold:
Step #1.) Get rid of the Organized Labor Unions, the only remaining opposition groups on the Organized Liberal Left standing in the way of Right-Wing Neoconservative cabals such as Dick Armey's "Freedom Works", David H. Koch Petrochemical Pharmaceutical Industries' "Americans For Prosperity", the United States Corporate Industry "Chamber of Commerce", and Karl Rove's "Crossroads GPS".
Step #2.) Utilize "Republican" control of State Legislatures throughout the nation in order to pass into law legislation instituting reactionary radical Photographic-Identification and Documentation requirements in order for citizens to register to vote in Elections (such as requiring College Students to vote in the District in Which their parents live, instead of where they attend school); eliminating poor people without Photo-ID, drivers licenses or passports, elderly senior citizens, and University College Students, three of the main primary demographic groups that have, for many decades, made up the foundational voting base of the Democratic Party.
Step #3.) Uphold the "Citizens United" John Roberts Supreme Court ruling decision, meaning that Corporations can, will, and do spend unprecedented extraordinary quantities of tens of billions of dollars to influence misinformed, easily deceived and easily swayed or persuaded average American citizens to vote against their own best interests, the vast overwhelming majority, very nearly all ([roughly approximately 90% percent]) of which regularly and predictably goes almost exclusively toward supporting "Republican" Candidates and so-called "Tea-Party" Neoconservative legislative issues and Causes.
Is there any mystery at all why racial and ethnic minority population demographics have been voting in vast majorities for "Liberal" Democratic candidates in every single election since the first years of the 1950's? Is it any surprise that vast majorities of racial and ethnic minority demographics have always and will continue to consistently vote for the Democratic Party? Is it any wonder, since the "Conservative" Republican-ruled state of Arizona passed a law requiring it police officers to engage in racial profiling (a "law-enforcement" strategy that has never been shown to work, and has been demonstrated to hinder actual law enforcement) to arrest and detain anyone who appears or looks like they might be of Hispanic origin or ancestry [1] [8] [9] [14] [17] And since Conservatives opposed the Emancipation proclamation to the point of open armed rebellion, the fact the Kentucky's Senator-elect Rand Paul stated repeatedly on live national television news that he would, if given the opportunity, still to this day act to repeal he 1964 civil rights act [4] [10] [11] [12] [13] [19] [22]. That Former Republican Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado proposed in a speech that the real problem with our nation's electoral system process in this country is actually that we no longer use Jim-Crow-Era so-called "civics literacy tests" to keep and prevent minority populations from voting [2] [3] [6] [18] [20] [23] [24] [25] [27] And the Saudi-Royal-family/Australian-billionaire-owned Faux "News Network channel, the mouthpiece for the neoconservative "Tea Party"; urges Republicans to fight to stop and end the affirmative Action education policies that have given tens of millions of young minority citizens a better and more effective education all across the nation for half of a century [5] [7] [15] [16] [21] [26]
A Hispanic Latino in a party that believes that all people from Latin America are inherently wicked and evil and that they are out to insidiously infiltrate and destroy the united states from the within inside out? Maybe not a disgrace to their race but certainly one who betrays their race to those who seek to harm them. A turncoat, to be certain and, if the Republican Tea Party GOP had their way and revoked the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United Sates of America (which states that all people born in America are US citizens) being the descendant of immigrants to this country from elsewhere in the world, he would be ineligible to hold any elected office in the United States Government, or any government in the United States as, with the deletion of the fourteenth amendment, he and tens of millions like him (including yourself, by the way) would automatically have their US citizenship revoked, and would more likely than not be subsequently expedient deported by the very same Republican Tea Party GOP legislators that people very much like yourself have just made the mistake blunder of voting for and electing.
Whether or not the democrats were doing everything everyone hoped they might do to help support homosexual civil rights is irrelevant. The democrats weren't the ones HURTING homosexuals. The democrats were the ones trying and attempting to STOP the people who wanted to hurt homosexuals. They tried to stop the Republican Tea Party GOP. The republicans have been attempting for decades to eliminate and destroy civil rights for homosexuals in this nation and the tea party were the ones saying that homosexuals should be sterilized, or euthanized, because homosexuality is a contagious and terminal plague and homosexuals who voted for the Republican Tea Party GOP this past Tuesday were voting for the very same people who have been trying for decades to destroy them and everything that they might ever want to have or do. EVERYONE who voted for the Republican Tea Party GOP last Tuesday voted for people who are intent of systematically de-constructing the infrastructure that makes up the foundation of our democracy (eliminating the Departments of Education, and Health and Human Services; and privatizing all Hospitals, Police and Fire Departments, and Prisons;
as well as deleting the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, thirteenth, fourteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-fourth amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America) [mind you, The so-called quote-end-quote "Tea Party" is the "people's" party; these are "populist" "constitutional constructionists"]. Democracy only works when people vote for what they actually want. When people start voting AGAINST their own best interests, then democracy stops working.
What possible reason in the wide world of all things sane and rational would President Obama possibly have to NOT run for re-election on his legislative policy record as President once the 2012 elections roll around? President Obama has accomplished as much in the past two years since his inauguration as the last Democratic President managed to get done in two terms and one hell of a lot more than the last THREE Republican Presidents were ever capable of having done in TWENTY cumulative years in the Oval Office of the White House. In just the last twenty short months President Obama has ALSO managed to achieve something which EVERY single President, from both parties, Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative, has tried and FAILED to accomplish throughout the past half-of-a-century (50 years).
The Republican Tea Party GOP minority in Congress (one of whom would be the only even quasi-viable pick to run against the sitting incumbent President two years from now) has not proposed one single piece of legislation, and has used the filibuster (the root term of which comes from the Dutch word for "Pirate") more than any legislature in the 300 year history of our nation's government; and has blocked, voted against, and voted down every single policy put forward by anyone in the government whom is not a so-called, quote-end-quote "Tea Party" Republican, and/or whom has actually been even the tiniest bit interested at all in actually GOVERNING the nation, or in actually getting anything done.
President Obama managed to achieve something that EVERY President, Democrat and Republican, has attempted and failed to accomplish for the past half a century. President Obama has accomplished at least as much in less than two years than the previous Democratic President achieved in two terms, and much more than the last President, his predecessor, managed in eight years. Has President Obama done "enough"? Of course not. No one has EVER done "enough". No one will EVER do "enough". The simple fact is that there ALWAYS has been, and ALWAYS will be, MUCH more left still to do.
No one could EVER do "enough". Nothing anyone does will EVER be "enough. No matter what ANYBODY ever does, there will ALWAYS be someone for whom they did not do "Enough". What I would like to know, from all of those whom are proposing that President Obama be replaced with someone else because he has not done "enough" is: WHO? Who would you replace someone who has NOT done "enough" with whom WILL do "enough". Like it or not, President Obama HAS actually done some real things. To replace someone who has actually DONE things with someone who done NOTHING, simply because you think that the person in question has not done "enough". Is there a rational person in this world to whom that makes even the slightest bit of sense? Has President Obama DONE things? YES. Is what he has done "ENOUGH"? NO. Of course not. But my question is: Who would you replace President Obama with who WOULD do "enough"? Is there anyone out there in this world who could possibly EVER do "enough"? There is always more to do.
  1. Archibold, Randal. “Arizona Enacts Stringent Law On Immigration”. The New York Times. April 23, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html?_r=3&
  2. “At Tea Party Convention, Tancredo Says Obama Elected Due To Lack Of “Civics Literacy Test” Requirement For Voting”. Media Matters For America. February 5, 2010. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/02/05/at-tea-party-convention-tancredo-says-obama-ele/160114
  3. Baker, Kathleen. “Tancredo States Civics Literacy Test Not Racially Biased”. Examiner. February 8, 2010. http://www.examiner.com/article/tancredo-states-civics-literacy-test-not-racially-biased
  4. Balz, Dan and Thompson, Krissah. “Rand Paul Comments About Civil Rights Stir Controversy”. The Washington Post. Friday May 21, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003500.html 
  5. Barr, Andy. “NAACP Weighs Tea Party Resolution”. Politico. December 7, 2010. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39615.html 
  6. Berman, John and Portnoy, Steven. “Tea Party Fireworks: Speaker Rips McCain, Obama, “Cult Of Multiculturalism”. ABC News. February 4, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/tea-party-speaker-tom-tancredo-rips-john-mccain-obama/story?id=9751718 
  7. Beinart, Peter. “Fix Affirmative Action Now”. Newsweek. July 21, 2010. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/21/tea-party-naacp-race-flap-time-for-a-new-kind-of-affirmative-action.html
  8. Blackstone, John. “Will Arizona’s Law Lead To Racial Profiling?”. CBS News. April 26, 2010. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-arizonas-law-lead-to-racial-profiling/ 
  9. Campo-Flores, Arian. “Will Arizona’s New Immigration Law Lead To Racial Profiling?”. Newsweek. April 26, 2010. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/04/26/will-arizona-s-new-immigration-law-lead-to-racial-profiling.html
  10. Cordes, Nancy and Hirschkorn, Phill. “Rand Paul, Jack Conway Face Off In Kentucky Senate Debate”. CBS News. October 4, 2010. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rand-paul-jack-conway-face-off-in-kentucky-senate-debate/ 
  11. Davis, Susan. “Rand Paul Taking Heat For Civil Rights Act Comments”. The Walls Street Journal. May 20, 2010. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/05/20/rand-paul-taking-heat-for-civil-rights-act-comments/ 
  12. Dwyer, Devin and Karl, Jonathan. “Rand Paul Says He’s Being “Trashed Up And Down” by “Democratic Talking Points”. ABC News. May 21, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/2010_Elections/rand-paul-fires-back-critics-civil-rights-act/story?id=10705651 
  13. Feldman, Linda. “Rand Paul: Civil Rights Act Brouhaha Clouds Senate Campaign”. The Christian Science Monitor. May 20, 2010. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/0520/Rand-Paul-Civil-Rights-Act-brouhaha-clouds-Senate-campaign 
  14. Gaynor, Tim and Schwartz, David. “Arizona Passes Tough Illegal Immigration Law”. Reuters. Monday April 19, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/19/us-immigration-usa-arizona-idUSTRE63I6TU20100419 
  15. Godsey, Kristin and Pinkerton, James. “Why Affirmative Action Won’t Die: Republicans, The Courts, And California Have Declared War On It. But Racial Preference Policies Have Two Things Going For Them: Economic Logic—And Lawyers.”. Fortune. November 13, 1995. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1995/11/13/207666/index.htm 
  16.  Jilani, Zaid. “Right Wing Reacts With Rage To First Muslim American Miss USA: “An Odd Form Of Affirmative Action”. Center For American Progress. May 17, 2010.  http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/05/17/97436/right-rage-muslim-usa/ 
  17. Khan, Huma. “Legalizing Racial Profiling? Arizona Immigration Bill Draws Fire”. ABC News. April 22, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/arizona-immigration-bill-draws-fire-nationally-gov-brewer/story?id=10438889 
  18. Maloy, Simon. “Breitbart’s Big Journalism Rallies To Tom “Literacy Test” Tancredo’s Defense”. Media Matters For America. February 12, 2010. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/02/12/breitbarts-big-journalism-rallies-to-tom-litera/160394
  19. “Rand Paul On “Maddow” Defends Criticism Of Civil Rights Act, Says He Would Have Worked To Change Bill (Video)”. The Huffington Post. May 25, 2011.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/rand-paul-tells-maddow-th_n_582872.html
  20. Roth, Zachary. “Tancredo: Obama Elected Because “We Do Not Have A Civics, Literacy Test”. Talking Points Memo. February 5, 2010. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/tancredo-obama-elected-because-we-do-not-have-a-civics-literacy-test 
  21. Smith, Ben. “A Conservative Dismisses Right Wing Black Panther “Fantasies”. Politico. July 16, 2010. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=DD3055BF-18FE-70B2-A836F25EC61EF57A 
  22. Smith, Ben. “Rand Paul Won’t Answer Civil Rights Act Question”. Politico. May 19, 2010.  http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0510/Rand_Paul_wont_answer_Civil_Rights_Act_question.html 
  23. “Tea Party Convention Organizer Defends Tancredo’s “Civics Literacy Test” Comments”. Media Matters For America. February 5, 2010. http://mediamatters.org/video/2010/02/05/tea-party-convention-organizer-defends-tancredo/160132
  24. “Tom Tancredo: Obama Elected Because “We Do Not Have A Civics, Literacy Test” To Vote”. The Huffington Post. May 25, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/tom-tancredo-obama-electe_n_450849.html 
  25. Weigel, David. “Tom Tancredo’s Literacy Test: The Controversy That Wasn’t (Video)”. The Washington Independent. Friday February 5, 2010. http://washingtonindependent.com/75937/tom-tancredos-literacy-test-the-controversy-that-wasnt-video
  26. Weisberg, Jacob. “Republican Revisionism: Conservative Principles Are Very Nice—As Long As They Don’t Get In The Way”. Slate. Sunday December 22, 1996.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/strange_bedfellow/1996/12/republican_revisionism.html 
  27. Zimmerman, Eric. “Tancredo Tells Tea Partiers: Literacy Test For Voters Would Have Stopped Obama”. The Hill. May 2, 2010. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/80005-tancredo-tells-tea-partiers-literacy-test-would-have-stopped-obama

Buffeted

President Obama’s “American Jobs Act”, which was recently effectively killed by the so-called “Republican”s in the House of Representatives, and filibustered by the Teabagging-Partiers in the Senate Minority, contained not only tax breaks for small businesses and the working class, but a leveling of the tax burden (referred to by the Administration as being their “Buffet Rule”) on the wealthiest 1% [the tax increase in question would technically only apply to the top one-fifth to one-half of one percent], who have seen their incomes skyrocket since the trickle-down Reaganomics of the 1980′s, while the working middle class has yet to see a raise in wages for nearly three decades.
Let us just look at the Teabagging Party itself, for an example, shall we?
The Teabagging Party [8] is funded [19] by David and Charles Koch, whose combined personal wealth of $50 Billion Dollars now exceeds that of Warren Buffet by 11 Billion. Over the past three years since 2009, the Koch Brother’s personal wealth has skyrocketed from $32 billion in 2009 to 50 Billion Dollars in 2001. During the same time period, the number of people employed by David and Charles Koch’s wholly privately owned and operated corporation of Koch Petrochemical Industries has dropped from 80,000 in 2008 to 67,000 in 2011. The personal wealth of David and Charles Koch alone is greater than the gross domestic product of the Eastern European nations of Slovenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Iceland, Albania, and Georgia; The Asian countries of Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Macau, Turkmenistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan; The Middle Eastern nations of Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Cyprus, and Bahrain; the African Nations of Tunisia, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Senegal, Namibia, and Republic of Congo; the Central American countries of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Trinidad, Tobago, Honduras, and Jamaica; and the South American Nations of Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Equatorial Guinea.
Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, pays less in taxes to the federal government than the middle-class people, and even the minimum-wage people, who work for his corporation. He, and numerous other multi billionaires and multi-millionaires, are asking, and indeed pleading with, (some would even go so far as to say “begging”) the government to please raise their taxes. If the ones we would be taking the money from are, of their own free will, offering to give it to us, can it still really be called “redistribution”? Or is it merely, once more again as always, the government just doing what the richest people in the country are telling it to do?
President Obama’s “Warren Buffet Rule” [25] has been and is supported by the overwhelmingly vast majority of Americans [28] as the American public has been in favor of raising taxes on the richest Americans for quite some while now [14].
However the statement in response to President Obama’s American Jobs Act of 2011 from the Koch Brothers owned and operated “Americans For Prosperity” Teabagger organization read in part: “We know that decreasing taxation and regulatory burdens on job creators and innovators is the only policy design that has ever lifted people out of poverty, spurred economic growth, and created jobs.” This, of course, as can be expected of teabaggers by this point in time, is demonstrably false [6] as is the claim by the now wholly Teabbagging Party owned and operated so-called “Republican” GOP in Congress that President Obama’s American Jobs act of 2011, and more specifically his “Warren Buffet Rule”, which is supported by even the Wealthy in America [4] amounts what is in their mind, in their own words “class warfare” [27]. But what really makes the “class warfare” over President Obama’s American Jobs Act of 2011 even more, in the words of the Washington Post, “surreal” [20] in addition to the overwhelming majority of Americans in favor of raising taxes on the rich [22] is the fact that not only do most Americans are in support of the bill [1] and want it to be passed [3] but it is, at its core, by its very essence, a very conservative thing to do. [13]

“Obama will propose new taxes on the wealthy, special new taxes for millionaires, and eliminating or scaling back a variety of loopholes and deductions, officials say. About half of the tax savings would come from the expiration next year of the George W. Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy.” [9]

Sixty-four percent of Americans said they believe those making a million dollars or more in taxes should pay more. Thirty percent said taxes on such individuals should not be increased. Democrats were extremely likely to support such an increase (83 percent did so), and independents also supported it, 65 percent to 28 percent. On the other side, 54 percent of Republicans opposed such an increase, while 40 percent supported it. [15]
A Gallup poll [16] released today provides the latest data point in this regard. According to the survey, 66 percent of all Americans favor the idea of raising taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000 in order to pay for the president’s jobs plan, while only 32 percent oppose the idea. By an even larger margin (70-26), Americans favor eliminating tax deductions for some corporations, thus raising their taxes. [21]
According to the latest CBS News/New York Times Poll [11] conducted before the president announced his plan, the public supports increasing taxes in order to help reduce the budget deficit – at least on those with higher incomes. Fifty-six percent of Americans think taxes should be increased on households earning $250,000 a year or higher to help lower the deficit, while 37 percent say taxes should not be raised on those households. There is a partisan divide here with most Democrats and independents in favor of increasing taxes on this group, while 56 percent of Republicans are opposed. Still, support for a hike in taxes was slightly higher back in August on the heels of the debt ceiling agreement – 63 percent of Americans favored raising taxes on households earning $250,000 or more, including 52 percent of Republicans. There is some division within the Republican Party on this issue. Seventy-one percent of Republicans who support the Tea Party movement are opposed to tax hikes on households making $250,000 or more, but among those Republicans who do not support the Tea Party, only 43 percent hold that view. Fifty-two of this group actually supports tax increases on those with higher incomes in order to reduce the deficit. [17]
According to figures released by Bloomberg and The Washington Post on Tuesday [5] eight in 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year. A full 81 percent of Democrats were behind the plan, along with 67 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans. [26]
More than half of Republicans say wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes to bring down the federal budget deficit. Fifty-three percent of self-identified Republicans back an increase in taxes on households making more than $250,000, a sentiment at odds with the party’s presidential candidates, who will meet tonight in a Bloomberg-Washington Post-sponsored debate focused on economic issues. More than two-thirds of all Americans back higher taxes on the rich and even larger numbers think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone, according to a Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll conducted Oct. 6-9. [7] But the president won’t call for any changes in Social Security, officials say, and is seeking less-aggressive changes to Medicare and Medicaid than previously considered. He will propose $320 billion in health-care savings but will not include raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, officials said. [10] Any reduction in Medicare benefits would not begin until 2017, they said. Other cuts in domestic spending would bring the total spending savings to $580 billion. About $1 trillion in savings is also expected from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will pledge to veto any cut in entitlements that does not also include increases in tax revenue. [9]
A CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday also indicates that the public doesn’t want the super committee to propose major changes to Social Security and Medicare or increase taxes on middle class and lower-income Americans. According to the poll, 63 percent say the super committee should call for increased taxes on higher-income Americans and businesses, with 36 percent disagreeing. And by a 57 to 40 percent margin they say the committee’s deficit reduction proposal should include major cuts in domestic spending. But cuts in defense spending get a mixed review: Forty-seven percent would like the committee to include major cuts in military spending, with 53 percent saying no to such cuts. Nearly two-thirds say no to major changes to Social Security and Medicare. And nearly nine in ten don’t want any increase in taxes on middle class and lower-income Americans. [23] The poll also underscored differences between Republican supporters and the rest of the nation on the burden the military should bear in righting the country’s fiscal situation, with 61 percent of party backers opposing defense cuts, while 60 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents support them. [7]
In April of this year, 52 percent were unwilling to have their own taxes raised in order to reduce the deficit, according to a CBS News/New York Times Poll. But in a separate question, 72 percent approved of a tax hike starting in 2013 on households earning $250,000 or more. [17]
More than 8 out of 10 Americans say the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to cut the deficit even as the public strongly opposes higher taxes on middle-income families. [7] Overall, 81 percent of American adults said they believe that even the middle class will be forced to make sacrifices to reduce the nation’s deficit. However, 83 percent of Americans agreed that cutting Social Security should not be an option. Another 82 percent said cutting Medicare should be off the table. [26] Nearly half of those polled approved of income tax increases on discretionary household incomes of $500,000 or more annually, said the poll sponsored by two marketing and publishing companies. For those earning $1 million or more annually, 65 percent of respondents said they would support income tax increases. [24]
A new survey from the Spectrem Group [18] discovered that 68 percent of millionaires support raising taxes on those who make at least one million dollars a year. [12] Republicans often argue that increasing taxes on the wealthy will impact job creation. But the new CBS News poll finds that just 18 percent of Americans agree. More – 25 percent – say the increase will actually help job creation. A slim majority – 51 percent – says it will have little impact. [2] Still, there are mixed signals: Asked the most effective way for the government to get the economy moving, nearly half (47 percent) chose cutting taxes to encourage investment. Fewer – 37 percent – preferred spending more money to create jobs. A majority of Republicans called for tax cuts while a majority of Democrats called for spending to create jobs. [15]


  1. “American Support Obama Jobs Plan, Poll Finds”. The Star Ledger. September 15, 2011. http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2011/09/americans_support_obama_jobs_p.html 
  2. Bartlett, Bruce. “23 Polls Ay People Support Higher Taxes To Reduce Deficit”. Capital Gains and Games. August 10, 2011. http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2341/23-polls-say-people-support-higher-taxes-reduce-deficit 
  3. Browdie, Brian. “President Obama Jobs Plan: More Americans Want Congress To Pass It, Says Gallup Poll”. New York Daily News. Thursday September 15, 2011.  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/president-obama-jobs-plan-americans-congress-pass-gallup-poll-article-1.955163
  4. Callahan, David. “Why The Wealthy Don’t Object To Obama’s “Class Warfare”. Reuters. September 22, 2011. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/09/22/why-the-wealthy-don%E2%80%99t-object-to-obama%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cclass-warfare%E2%80%9D/ 
  5. Clement, Scott. “Poll: Middle Class Pain Necessary, But Widely Unpopular”. The Washington Post. November 10, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-middle-class-pain-necessary-but-widely-unpopular/2011/10/07/gIQAMksvaL_blog.html 
  6. Dorning, Mike. “Job-Killing” Tax Hikes May Not Be So Lethal”. Bloomberg. September 22, 2011. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/jobkilling-tax-hikes-may-not-be-so-lethal-09222011.html 
  7. Dorning, Mike. “Poll: Americans Back Taxing Rich”. Bloomberg. October 11, 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-10/cain-pulls-even-with-romney-on-economy-for-republican-supporters-in-poll.html 
  8. Goldenberg, Suzanne. “Tea Party Movement: Billionaire Koch Brothers Who Helped It Grow”. The Guardian. Wednesday October 13, 2010.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/13/tea-party-billionaire-koch-brothers
  9. Goldfarb, Zachary. “Obama’s Debt-Reduction Plan: $3 Trillion In Savings, Half From New Tax Revenue”. The Washington Post. September 18, 2011.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-new-debt-reduction-plan-to-draw-contrasts-with-republican-vision/2011/09/18/gIQAI9XddK_story.html
  10. Goldfarb, Zachary. “Obama, In New Debt Proposal, Won’t Put Social Security Cuts Back On The Table”. The Washington Post. Thursday September 15, 2011.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-unlikely-to-put-social-security-cuts-back-on-the-table-sources-say/2011/09/14/gIQAsW9LTK_story.html
  11. Hechtkopf, Kevin. “Public Split On Jobs Plan”. CBS News. September 16, 2011.  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamas-approval-rating-drops-to-all-time-low-public-split-on-jobs-plan/
  12. Kephart, Tim. “Majority Of Millionaires Want To Pay More Taxes”. CBS. October 27, 2011.  http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/10/27/majority-of-millionaires-want-to-pay-more-taxes/
  13. McAdams, David. “Buffett Rule” A Tax Reform Republicans Could, Should Support”. The Star Ledger. October 13, 2011. http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2011/09/buffet_rule_a_tax_reform_repub.html 
  14. McCambridge, Ruth. “Polls Show Americans Are In Favor Of Tax Hikes On Rich (As Well As Many Obama Jobs And Deficit Reduction Proposals)”. NonProfit Quarterly. Wednesday September 21, 2011. http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16066%3Apolls-show-americans-are-in-favor-of-tax-hikes-on-rich-as-well-as-many-obama-jobs-and-deficit-reduction-proposals&catid=155%3Anonprofit-newswire&Itemid=986
  15. Montopoli, Brian. “Poll: Most Want Taxes On Millionaires Increased”. CBS News. October 3, 2011. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-most-want-taxes-on-millionaires-increased/ 
  16. Newport, Frank. “American Favor Jobs Plan Proposals, Including Taxing Rich”. Gallup. September 20, 2011. http://www.gallup.com/poll/149567/americans-favor-jobs-plan-proposals-including-taxing-rich.aspx 
  17. Pinto, Jennifer. “Polls Show Most Americans Support Raising Taxes On Wealthy”. CBS News. September 23, 2011. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polls-show-most-americans-support-raising-taxes-on-wealthy/ 
  18. Reyneri, Adriana. “Economic Situation Warrants Tax Hikes, Program Cuts, Say Millionaires”. Spectrem Group. Monday October 24, 2011. http://www.millionairecorner.com/article/economic-situation-warrants-tax-hikes-program-cuts-say-millionaires 
  19. Rich, Frank. “The Billionaires Bankrolling The Tea Party”. The New York Times. August 28, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 
  20. Sargent, Greg. “Our Surreal Debate Over Taxing The Rich”. The Washington Post. September 22, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/our-surreal-debate-over-taxing-the-rich/2011/03/03/gIQAJGkvnK_blog.html 
  21. Schlesinger, Robert. “Poll: Most Americans Support Obama Deficit Plan To Tax Rich”. US News And World Report. September 20, 2011. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/09/20/poll-most-americans-support-obama-deficit-plan-to-tax-rich 
  22. Seligman, Lara. “Gallup: Majority Of Americans Favor Tax Hikes On The Rich”. National Journal. September 21, 2011. http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/gallup-majority-of-americans-favor-tax-hikes-on-the-rich-20110921 
  23. Steinhauser, Paul. “New CNN Poll: Majority Want Tax Increase For Wealthy And Deep Spending Cuts”. CNN. August 10, 2011. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/10/new-cnn-poll-majority-want-tax-increase-for-wealthy-and-deep-spending-cuts/ 
  24. Temple-West, Patrick. “Majority Of Wealthy Support Tax Increases On Millionaires: Poll”. Reuters. December 4, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/majority-of-millionaires-tax-increases_n_994219.html 
  25. Thompson, Derek. “Gallup: Americans Support Obama’s Plan To Spend Now, Tax The Rich Later”. The Atlantic. September 21, 2011.  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/gallup-americans-support-obamas-plan-to-spend-now-tax-the-rich-later/245434/
  26. Webster, Stephen. “Poll: Huge Majority Of Americans Support Taxing The Rich”. The Washington Post. Tuesday October 11, 2011. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/11/poll-huge-majority-of-americans-support-taxing-the-rich/ 
  27. Wolff, Richard. “The Truth About “Class Warfare” In America”. Truthout. Thursday September 22, 2011. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3513:the-truth-about-class-war-in-america 
  28. Zuckerman, Ed. “Poll: American Favor Jobs Plan, Taxing Rich”. Talk Radio News Service. September 21, 2011. http://www.talkradionews.com/opinion/newscommentary/2011/09/21/poll-americans-favor-jobs-plan-taxing-rich.html#.UgXMiGR4YU8