Toxic, Sadistic Laws that Conservatives, the Tea Party and the Right are Ramming up our Asses

Toxic, Sadistic Laws that the Tea Party,the Right and Conservatives Are Trying to Ram down the peoples throats and up the asses of the middle class. Welcome back my friends to the show that NEVER ends.

1.The Anti-Life Pro-Life Act: After anti-abortion Republicans in Congress tried to narrow the legal definition of rape, Nebraska Republican state Sen. Mark Christensen took the assault on women’s rights one step further with a bill to legitimize the murder of abortion providers by classifying such homicides as “justified.”

2. The Let Them Eat Corporate Tax Cuts Act: As poverty rates and hunger have risen, so, too, have corporate profits. The Georgia Legislature’s response? Intensify the inequity with a bill to create a regressive sales tax on food that would then finance a brand new corporate tax cut.

3. The Demoralize the Workforce Act: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker didn’t just threaten to deploy the National Guard against state workers unless they accept big pay and pension cuts. Apparently, that was too Kent State and not enough Ludlow Massacre for him. So he pressed to statutorily bar those workers from ever again collectively bargaining.

4. The Child Labor Act: Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham’s proposal to eliminate child labor laws would allow corporations to employ any kid under 14 and would terminate restrictions on the number of hours that kid can be forced to work. The legislation is proof that when tea party ideologues refer to “the ’50s,” some of them aren’t referring to the 1950s—they are referring to the 1850s.

5. The Obesity and Deficit Encouragement Act: Colorado exemplifies America’s childhood obesity epidemic and its budget crisis. The state’s childhood obesity rate grew at the second-fastest rate in the country, and its $1.2 billion budget gap is threatening the state’s already underfunded schools. Yet, despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that higher soda taxes would drive down obesity, and despite such a levy raising much-needed public revenues, Colorado’s newly Republican House is pushing legislation to create a special budget-busting sales tax exemption exclusively for soda.

6. The Endorsing Your Own Demise Act: Between trying to legalize hunting with hand-thrown spears and pressing to eliminate education requirements for those seeking the office of state superintendent of schools, Montana’s Republican lawmakers are also considering legislation to officially endorse catastrophic global climate change. That’s right, in the face of a Harvard study showing that climate change could destroy Montana’s water supplies, agriculture industries and forests, state Rep. Joe Read’s bill would declare that “global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.”

7. Florida’s Senate Bill 1854 specifies that “Members of the instructional staff of the public schools… shall teach efficiently and faithfully… the following: a thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution.” At first glance this provision does not seem all that questionable. However, the man behind the law is Republican Senator Stephen R. Wise, who has unabashedly claimed he is anti-evolution, wants to have “intelligent design” taught at educational institutions.

The proposed bill is just an extra sneaky method of accomplishing this goal. His claim is that knowledge about creation myths would encourage “critical thinking.” If that’s the case, then I’m advocating that students learn of the Giant Spaghetti Monster and his gloriously gigantic meatballs....mmmmm, meatballs......in your pants.

8. In Utah House Bill 477 was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert. This controversial law amends the state’s open records law to give the government more privacy. As an alteration of the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, the bill requires that “voice mails, instant messages, video chats, and text messages are not records subject to the act, with some exceptions.”

9. In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget is expected to cut aid to cities and towns so drastically that many municipalities are expected to fall into serious financial issues. Gov. Snyder currently advocates a bill that would provide him and his administration the power to declare any town or school district to be in a “financial emergency.” If a town earns such a status, then his administration is allowed to implement an individual to be in charge of that town. Welcome to the state, county, township, city and town of Michigan.

10. Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin—who last year introduced a bill mandating that victims of rape, stalking, harassment, and family violence be reclassified as "accusers", has introduced a 10-page bill that would criminalize miscarriages and make abortion in Georgia completely illegal. Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death. The baby died so now you must die, wifey. An eye for an eye!

11.Florida Republican lawmakers are reviving a proposed constitutional amendment is aimed at allowing Floridians to opt out of a federal requirement that they buy health insurance or face financial penalties. Lawmakers passed a largely identical proposal during the 2010 session, but the Florida Supreme Court blocked it from going on the November ballot because of misleading wording. State Rep. Tom Goodson (R) filed a bill that would “preempt regulation of wage theft to state, except as otherwise provided by federal law,  supersedes any municipal or county ordinance or other local regulation on such subject.”

In other words, if passed, this bill would do away with a Miami-Dade ordinance passed in 2010 that prevents employers from cheating workers out of wages they are owed. Over 3,500 right to work employers have been nailed just in Miami-Dade county.

12. Arizona: A proposed law would let the state actually nullify federal laws that legislators believe are invalid. They must live in Amerika.

13. South Dakota: Any adult 21 or older would have to buy a firearm "for their ordinary self-defense". But government can't make you buy health insurance, that would be unconstitutional!

14. Montana: House Bill 278 would authorize arming citizens' militias against invaders. "Invade Montana and seize the Dental Floss ranches!" is what I always say.

15. New Hampshire: a volunteer "permanent state defense force" would assist with disaster relief and "defend the state against invasion". "Invade Montana New Hampshire and seize the Dental Floss Hampster ranches!" is what I always say.

16. Texas is special with 25 toxic bills : One bill makes it a crime to be in Texas without documents. Another prohibits the State of Texas from issuing birth certificates for children born in Texas to parents where father and mother are undocumented, a violation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Another bill withholds state funds to governmental entities who harbor undocumented persons. This would require every law enforcement officer to stop, detain and identify every person whom the officer suspected of being an undocumented person. Another bill requires schools to document who is legal and who is illegal in each school in Texas. Each child would be required to certify for the school who they are concerning the legal status of each parent. The school would be required to report this information up to the state agency who would handle this reporting system. Another bill would prohibit undocumented persons to file lawsuits in the court. They would also be prohibited from filing counter-claims or cross-claims in court. They could be sued in court, but they could not sue back. Reminds me of South Africa during apartheid. Texas, where stupid really is bigger!

17. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) introduced his 10th Amendment Regulatory Reform Act which would allow state officials to challenge federal regulations before they go into effect.This bill mirrors a bill introduced by Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) It would allow designated state officials to file a legal brief challenging the constitutionality of proposed regulations during the time when they're open for comment. Both bills are in response to health-care reform law.

There are many more bills I have not listed. If you don’t live in one of these states, it’s easy to tell yourself that these bills don’t affect you. But history suggests that what happens in one state is quite often replicated in others—and ultimately, in the nation’s capital. That’s why we should all hope saner minds cut short these bills and laws before they get even more out of control.

Steve

Related articles

• Elected tea-party members brewing some odd legislation in the states (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The states' legislative sadists (salon.com)

We are all Bozo's on this Republican Bus! Republicans Explain Evolution!

Mystical Male Voice: [rumbling sounds] Before the beginning, there was this turtle. And the turtle was alone. And he looked around. And he saw his neighbor, which was his mother, and he lay down on top of his neighbor, [coyote howl] and behold, she bore him in tears, an oak tree, which grew all day, and then fell over, [coyote howl] like a bridge. And low, under the bridge there came a catfish, and he was very big, [coyote howls] and he was walking, [more howls] and he was the biggest he had seen. [starts fading] And so, with the fiery balls of this fish, one of which is the sun, and the other, they called the moon… [sounds end]

Calm Male Narrator: Yes, some uncomplicated peoples still believe this myth. But here in the technical vastness of The Future, we can guess that surely, the past was very different. [begins fading] We can surmise, for instance, that these two great balls… [sounds end]

Echoey Male Voice: We know for certain, for instance, that for some reason, for some time in the beginning, there were hot lumps. Cold and lonely, they whirled noiselessly through the black holes of space [reverb effect here]. These insignificant lumps came together to form the first union, our sun, the heating system. And about this glowing gas bag, rotated the earth, a cats-eye among aggies, [reverb begins to really build] blinking in astonishment across the face… of time. [reverb overwhelmes everything, sounds disappear]

First Male Lecturer: [lecture room noises, voice quiet in the room] Well, we were covered with a molten scum of rocks, bobbing on the surface like rats. Later, when there was less heat, these giant rock groups settled down among the land masses. During this extinct time, our Earth was like a steam-room, and no one, not even man, could get in. [coughs start in audience] However, the oceans and the sewers were simmering with a rich protein stew, and the mountains moved in to surround and protect them. They didn’t know then that living as we know it was already taken over. Thank you. [a round of applause, constant coughs begin]

Second Male Lecturer: [brief rustling of paper] Animals without… backbones… hid from each other, or fell down. Clamosaurs and oysterettes appeared as appetizers. Then came the sponges, which sucked up about 10%… of all life. [more rustling] [clears throat] Hundreds of years later, in the Late Devouring Period, fish became obnoxious. [clears throat] Trailerbikes, chiggerbites, and miskweetoes collided aimlessly in the dense gas. Finally [bit more rustling], tiny, edible plants sprang up in rows, giving birth to generations of insecticides and other small, dying creatures. Thank you. [applause, new rumbling sound sets in]

Male Voice With Throaty Reverb: [some African flutes and drums play] Millions of months passed, and, 28 days later, the moon appeared. This small change was reflected best, perhaps, in the sand dollar, which shrank to almost nothing at the bottom of the pool, where even dumb amphibians, like catfish, laid their eggs in the boiling waters, only to be gobbled up every three minutes by the giant sea orphans and jungle bunnies, which scared everybody. [music begins to build] And so, IN FEAR AND HOT WATER, [music approaches a climax] A REPUBLICAN IS BORN!!!"

Firesign Theater - “The Wall Of Science”

I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus (1971)

WTF Steve?

WTF People Wake up or It's Game Over Man

I often wonder why young Americans did nothing to protest the outrageous criminal regime that had taken control of the United States in 2004.  Where was the resistance? Two illegal wars, a growing police state, and several trillion dollars stolen by criminal bankers from the American people -- why didn't you protest, resist- burn tires in the streets?

Having grown up during the Vietnam War, I was immersed in the protest movement and vibrant anti-war music and culture of the 1960s.  "Lucky Man" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer is a good example of the anti-war music of the time.  I find it odd that there is no similar anti-war movement or music today.  Faced with never-ending wars in the Middle East, today's youth seem completely apathetic and apolitical.

The photo of a summary execution by a South Vietnamese police chief showed the lawlessness of the war.

During those years, the United States was engaged in an undeclared war of aggression in Southeast Asia that nobody really understood.  Every week, the American people saw actual photos from the war in LIFE magazine and could easily see through the deception that we were fighting "communism".   After 8 years of war in Afghanistan and 18 years in Iraq, however, there is no similar photo-journalism of comparable quality coming from the "embedded" journalists covering these wars.  Likewise, there is virtually no anti-war music or protest movement against the criminal wars being fought in our name.

WHY?

The famous photo of Vietnamese children burned with napalm changed U.S. public opinion about the war.

An x-KGB agent said "Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage... in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85 percent is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American [so] that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country."

So when Fox news or any of their Far right pundits spread one of the hate stories, they change the very soul of American reality to the point that is easily manipulated. 

If you announce a big enough lie and will repeat it, then people at the end will believe it" Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler.

I will point out one of many stories for you. 

The constant rant that Obama is not from America. Proof can not dissuade them.  and now, thanks to people like the Fox News, birther's, etc. 1 out of 5 Americans believe that he is Muslim. Twice as many people believe this now than did a year ago. See how it works now?

If you are one that believe he is a Muslim. You will fight hard for what you "know to be true"

If you know he is not a Muslim. These people have two choices. Most likely, you will just sit there with your thumb up your butt. 

Us older people, we have seen this dance and we know the tune, We have stood up against the hysterical crowd before you were born and too long afterwords.

"He can not be president because he will run the government by and for his church!"

"He is controlled by foreign interests."

"A person of that religion can not and should not be president."

Sound familiar?

No, I am not talking about Barrack Obama. These are the reasons given for why John F. Kennedy should not be president because he was Catholic.

Your choice now! sit there and do nothing, we all lose to the rabble. Your freedoms will be taken away one by one as they have been but you have not been concerned to notice. This is how the Nazis took over Germany.

The controlled media today censors and sanitizes the images and information about the wars and the human suffering the aggression has caused to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.  The public is kept in the dark about the true costs of the illegal wars, both human and financial.  Most importantly, the U.S. media keeps powerful images like these from the Vietnam and Iraq wars off the pages of our newspapers.

After nearly 19 years of fighting and bombing Iraqis, very few images of the human cost of the war have been published.  The ones that have been seen are horrible beyond belief and reveal the criminal nature of the war of aggression.

A U.S. Marine killing injured Iraqis in a mosque in Fallujah, November 13, 2004 (NBC/AP)

Cristopher Bollyn's blog pushed me to write this though I do not represent his views.

Steve

Conservative Rightwing Jihad against Health Care Reform

"Tell a lie often enough, and people will believe it."

I don't know of any special interest group that has relied as extensively on lies, deceit, obfuscation, and fear as the Republican/ Right-Wing campaign to defeat healthcare reform in this country.

Tactics so intense and extreme are usually part of a propaganda campaign of one nation against another in a time of war. Indeed, it sounds at times as if the Republican Party and their supporters in the insurance, hospital, and
pharmaceutical industries have declared war on much of the American public and are completely ignoring all of the facts about healthcare.

This is a short list of my hall of shame nominees. Please feel free to add a coment with your choices.

Betsy McCaughey, She is the director of Cantel Medical, a medical device company. a former Republican lieutenant governor of New York, she was the former director of a biotech company called Genta. She’s also a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank funded by some of the biggest pharmaceutical giants in the country.

Ms. McCaughey wrote in an opinion piece that the government would actually tell doctors what procedures they could and couldn’t perform.

Wrong! The legislation specifically says that the council can’t issue requirements or guidelines on treatment or insurance benefits.

The Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short. She claims that the economic recovery package would allow the federal government to eliminate "whatever" it deems to be "unnecessary" health care. and that the sessions would "tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner."

Wrong! The bill actually provides for is voluntary Medicare-funded end-of-life counseling. Medicare will pay for them to sit down with their doctor and discuss their preferences. The sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. said on the House floor that the bill would "Put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."
Investor’s Business Daily published an editorial in which it claimed that H.R. 3200 would make private insurance illegal.

Wrong! New individual, nongroup coverage will have to purchase it through a new health insurance exchange.

Congressman Steve King (R-IA) wrote that passage of the bill will see to it that up to 5.6 million illegal aliens have health insurance.

Wrong! H.R. 3200: Sec 246 — NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS
Then there are the lies and fear mongering from right-wing broadcasts and blogs.

Sarah Palin wrote that Obama death panel that the sick, elderly, disabled, and her Down Syndrome baby will likely succumb to if current healthcare reform is passed.

Sean Hannity, "If you don't have private insurance the year that this bill is passed, you can't get that later on from your employer."

Rush Limbaugh claims that the bill would "Outlaw individual private coverage."

Lies provided in talking points from the Republican National Committee such as, "Democrats are proposing a government controlled health insurance system, which will control care, treatments, medicines and even what doctors a patient may see."

Chris Matthews said "This thing, this provision, that talks about you get to talk about a living will. But it sounds to some people like, you're getting a little ill, all of a sudden somebody shows up at your door like they're a missionary and says "lets talk about how you're going to save the government money and your family the burden of continuing to live." that's the way it hits some people."

Lou Dobbs notions that end-of-life counseling could lead to "euthanasia" and that President Obama said he "doesn't even know what's in" the House health care bill. Dobbs suggests health care reform would deny liver transplants to alcoholics. President Obama and other progressives, claiming or suggesting that they or their policies are "socialist," "fascist" or "un-American." Dobbs claimed Obama policies are "raising new concerns about what many are calling a socialist revolution in prospect -- some say even a risk of totalitarianism."

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said that the House bill would ban individual private health insurance. Obama did not understand the provisions of the bill.

Rush Limbaugh claimed, on July 22, that “there isn’t global warming and there isn’t a health care crisis, but Obama says he’s gotta raise taxes over the private sector to fix both those things.”“The crisis in health care is like the crisis in everything else – manufactured.”

Sean Hannity “I just don’t understand the logic, why you believe that the government can do what the free market had successfully accomplished, which was a health care system that was the envy of the world.”
Wrong! Read this previous posting.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) on the Senate floor said “The health insurance industry is one of the most regulated industries in America,They don’t need to be ‘kept honest’ by the government.” a congressional investigation found that WellPoint’s Blue Cross of California and two other companies saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period.

An ad by the Family Research Council "To think that Planned Parenthood is included in the government-run healthcare plan and spending tax dollars on abortions,""They won't pay for my surgery, but we're forced to pay abortions."

Wrong! The words "Planned Parenthood" and "abortion" don't appear anywhere in the text.

Peter Ferrara, of the anti-tax, anti-government Institute for Policy Innovation, wrote on the National Review last month. "You may want healthcare that your doctor has prescribed for you. But the rationing bureaucracy in Washington that doesn’t even know you, or your doctor, may decide that your doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or that you are too old for the government to pay for your hip replacement to stop the pain, or to get an expensive triple bypass or a pacemaker operation to save your life."

Wrong! Plenty of faceless hacks are denying people care right now; they just work for private insurance companies, not the government, and they're denying care because that helps keep the insurers' profit margins up.

Senator Max Baucus said "Lobbyists just want what's best for America." Baucus also had praise for the drug, insurance and other lobbyists saying: "They really care about our country."

Special Interest Groups and PAC's paid by insurance companies, drug makers, hospitals, device and equipment manufacturers, and even doctors. They all pay lobbyists huge sums of money to convince legislators to maintain the status quo, or to draft legislation in their favor.

Such as Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Healthcare Distribution Management, National Republican Trust PAC, Aetna, American Academy of Family Physicians, National Health Underwriters, Healthsouth Corporation and many more.

Sen. Ben Nelson raised $2,257,165 from the health and insurance sectors. Democratic Rep. Mary Landrieu raised $1,676,353 from the health and insurance sectors. Democratic Rep Ron Wydenraised raised $1,414,911 from the health and insurance sectors.
Independent Joe Lieberma raised $3,593,771 from the health and insurance sectors. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe raised $1,147,630 from the health and insurance sectors. Sen. Susan Collins raised $1,559,446 from the health and insurance sectors.

To these people I say, WTF! I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. You have no sense of decency and I have no respect nor admiration for any of you!

“Not all conservatives are stupid people, but most stupid people are conservatives." J.S. Mill

Steve

The Tail of Two Floridians

Rush Limbaugh Arrested On Drug Charges

West Palm Beach, Florida 05.28.06

Prosecutors' three-year investigation of Mr.Limbaugh of "doctor shopping," or illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions, after learning that he received about 2,000 Oxycontin painkillers ( that works out to 11 pills a day), prescribed by four doctors in six months at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach Mansion. Mr. Limbaugh stated his addiction to painkillers resulted from several years of severe back pain heightened by a botched surgery intended to correct those problems. (This will sound familiar later)

People like Limbaugh should go to jail, says Limbaugh.

"There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods, which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

..We are becoming too tolerant as a society, folks, especially of crime, in too many parts of the country.... This country certainly appears to be tolerant, forgive and forget. I mean, you know as well as I do, you go out and commit the worst murder in the world and you just say you're sorry, people go, "Oh, OK. A little contrition."... People say, "I feel better. He said he's sorry for it." We're becoming too tolerant, folks. "

--Rush Limbaugh TV show (10/5/95)

"I want to let you read along with me a quote from Jerry Colangelo about substance abuse, and I think you'll find that he's very much right…"I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don't buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that."...

-Rush Limbaugh TV show (9/23/93)


"Rush is a great American. I am confident he can overcome any obstacles he faces right now,” George W. Bush
Was quoted in the Washington Post as telling his staff the other day after Limbaugh’s racist comments on ESPN and the first revelations that Rush was an illegal drug user.


Under the terms of the deal with prosecutors called a pretrial diversion, Limbaugh entered a not guilty plea to the charge, spokesman Tony Knight said. “It was all a formality. It’s a concluded deal.”

The radio giant has maintained his innocence throughout the investigation (though he had publicly announced that he was addicted to pain killers).

Under the deal, Mr. Limbaugh also agreed to pay the state $30,000 (.0009 % of his stated yearly salary) to defray the public cost of the investigation and must pay $30 per month for the cost of supervision, during which time he will continue regular drug tests.

Mr. Limbaugh was cleared of the charge. (Are you surprised?)

The second Floridian is Richard Paey, serving a 25-year sentence in Florida, was convicted in 2005 of drug trafficking for possessing a large quantity of prescription narcotics. He says he needed the medicine to alleviate the excruciating pain caused by a car crash and subsequent botched back surgery. (Remember, Mr. Limbaugh used this defense also.)

But Florida officials say he was purchasing too much of the drug for personal use. In an interview, Paey's wife, Linda, said three months of police surveillance revealed no evidence that Paey was selling drugs, but police were able to charge him with drug trafficking anyway, under Florida laws that don't require evidence of actual sale.

When the Paey’s moved to Florida in 1994 because Richards father was dying of cancer there, Linda Paey said her husband found it increasingly difficult to get the medicine he needed. Doctors feared being charged with a crime if they prescribed enough to alleviate his suffering, she said.

"They assumed that ... he was taking too many medicines for one person to take," Linda Paey said. "They thought that he had to be selling."

Paey was arrested in 1997. It took three trials and seven years to convict him of drug trafficking. The first trial ended in a mistrial; the second resulted in a conviction that was thrown out on a legal technicality, and a third produced guilty verdicts on 15 charges of drug trafficking, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, and possession of a controlled substance. Paey was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison in 2004.

Paey was granted a full pardon by Governor Charlie Crist in September of 2007."(See, not all Republicans are rotten Oranges)

"The drug war has gotten so fierce that doctors are afraid (to prescribe properly) and then they drive patients to do crazy things," she said. "How do we, as taxpayers and citizens, justify police around things that should be a public health issue, not a criminal issue?"

Then there is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's daughter, Noelle, whose addictions to prescription drugs and arrests have been highly publicized but have not earned her lengthy prison terms.

WTF kind of double standard is this? Regular folks suffering in pain get persicuted while the powerful get their wrist slapped is what kind it is. Yet you put up with their crap while you or your loved ones suffer!

A personal note:

When my father was dying from brain cancer, a very painful way to die, the nurse would not increase his Moraphine dose even though she could see he was in pain.
The reason given? "It might cause constipation."
He died two days later.

Steve