Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Congratulations to Karen Handel

Well, there went $60,000,000 dollars :-).

I think if you live outside of the United States would be amazed what happened here recently. We spent about $60,000,000 for a race for a single legislative district in a special by-election. The seat was held by a Republican for many years, and he was appointed to President Trump's administration.

A very good showing by a Democrat in the primary, lead to a run off between a new Democrat and an older Republican for a seat that has been Republican for years. In trying to hand Donald Trump a defeat (a vain attempt as it turned out), Democrats across the United States donated upwards of $23,000,000 dollars to Jon Ossoff.  Republicans individuals donated about $4,000,000 to Karen Handel. In "dark money" - that is outside interested that don't have to say who they are - $18,000,000 was spent on Handel and $4,000,000 spent on Ossoff.

Throwing in other funds, the total spending was near $60 Million dollars. There is something wrong with the US System.

  • For comparison, during the entire 2010 UK election, ALL PARTIES COMBINED spent approximately $38,000,000 (30.4 UK Pounds). (That is the entire election in England cost lest than 2/3s of what this one Congressional race did.)
  • For comparison, that is twice the Gross National Product of the nation of Tuvalu.
  • For comparison, that is more than the Foreign Aid budgets of Slovenia, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Malta.
  • It is also twice as much as what the Susan B Koman Breast Cancer Foundation was able to grant for testing, treatment and research of breast cancer. This is important because:

There is a special place in hell of Karen Handel, it's being kept being kept warm and toasty. Karen Handel's unilateral decision to cut Planned Parenthood - the largest breast cancer screening organizations in the country and one of the only ones available to women with little or no health insurance - nearly destroyed the Susan B. Koman Foundation (link).

Having lost one of my best friends to breast cancer , I was one of those people raising money for research, treatment and discovery via Susan B Koman Foundation. Karen Handel has cost some number of poor women their lives. One is too many, and she is responsible for the deaths of many more than one.

She is now gets to be a vote for TrumpCare. Hazzah.