Obama: Reagan could not survive in 'radical' GOP

President Barack Obama speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama speaks at The Associated Press luncheon during the ASNE Convention in Washington, Tuesday, April, 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In combative campaign form, President Barack Obama accused Republican leaders on Tuesday of becoming so radical and dangerously rigid that even the late Ronald Reagan, one of their most cherished heroes, could not win a GOP primary if he were running today.

Obama, in a stinging speech to an audience of news executives, had unsparing words for Republicans on Capitol Hill as well as the man he is most likely to face off against in November, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The president depicted the election as a choice between a Democratic candidate who wants to use government to help people succeed and Republicans who would abandon a basic compact with society and let most people struggle at the expense of the rich.

He framed his address around a new House Republican budget plan, saying it represents a bleak, backward "radical vision."

"It is thinly veiled social Darwinism," Obama said to the annual meeting of The Associated Press. "It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who's willing to work for it ... It is a prescription for decline."

Republicans shot back that the president had offered a deeply partisan speech devoid of accountability.

Campaigning outside Milwaukee just before Obama spoke, Romney said that the president "of course will look for someone else to blame." The Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus, said Obama had abandoned his hope-and-change campaign slogan of four years ago. Said Priebus: "All along, he's been a cold, calculating, big-spending politician."

Obama's speech removed any doubt that the general election was under way for the president, despite his professed reluctance to weigh in before Republicans settle on a nominee.

He took a couple of digs at Romney, playing up the Republican presidential front-runner's support for a budget-slashing plan the House has approved.

That plan is doomed to die in the Senate, but Obama held it up as a sign of the disaster that would come if Republicans got their way: poor children not getting food, grandparents unable to afford nursing homes, more airline flights getting canceled and weather forecasts becoming less reliable.

For Obama, it was the latest in a string of efforts to get his message out just as voters were going to the polls to help pick his opponent, this time in primaries Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Romney is on a pace to clinch the nomination by the end of the primary season in June.

By invoking Reagan, a beloved Republican, Obama sought to take GOP charges of Obama extremism and turn them back on the party. He cited a presidential debate in the current campaign in which the entire field of Republican candidates rejected the idea of $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes if that were offered in a debt-reduction deal.

"Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started to get out of control ? that for him to make a deal ? he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases," Obama said. "He could not get through a Republican primary today."

Obama, in fact, managed to mention and associate his thinking with six Republican presidents, from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush.

By contrast, he portrayed today's opposition leadership as abandoning centrist positions and compromise.

"We have to think about our fellow citizens, with whom we share a community," Obama said. "This sense of responsibility to each other and our country, this isn't a partisan feeling. This isn't a Democratic or a Republican idea; it's patriotism."

The House budget proposal is led by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a Romney supporter. It aims to slash the deficit and the size of government while offering sharply lower tax rates in return for eliminating many popular tax breaks. Obama offered a blow-by-blow critique of it, warning his audience at the start to "bear with me."

When he was finished, House Speaker John Boehner said, "The president has resorted to distortions and partisan potshots."

The president also sought to influence media coverage in speaking to publishers and editors from around the country. He said the fact that the two parties are fighting does not mean they are equally to blame, and that Republicans have shown they will not budge.

"This bears on your reporting," Obama told the journalists.

Asked about the fate of his health care reform law, his signature legislative achievement, Obama said his administration was "not spending a whole lot of time planning for contingencies" in the event that the law is struck down. He said he expected the Supreme Court to uphold the law as constitutional because justices "take their responsibilities very seriously."

Making the case for a second term, Obama said the central question of the election will be how to restore security for Americans who work hard and show responsibility.

"That's why I ran in 2008," he said. "It's what my presidency has been about. It's why I'm running again."

___

Associated Press writer Kasie Hunt in Milwaukee contributed to this story.

Associated Press

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Euro unemployment spikes to record 10.8 percent

A woman receives a free meal during a soup kitchen organized by a Greek humanitarian group in Athens' main Syntagma square on Sunday, April 1 2012. Greece's austerity cutbacks have deepened the economic recession, and torn holes in the country's social fabric. Unemployment has hit a record high of 21 percent, and thousands of Greeks depend on church and municipal soup kitchens for sustenance. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

A woman receives a free meal during a soup kitchen organized by a Greek humanitarian group in Athens' main Syntagma square on Sunday, April 1 2012. Greece's austerity cutbacks have deepened the economic recession, and torn holes in the country's social fabric. Unemployment has hit a record high of 21 percent, and thousands of Greeks depend on church and municipal soup kitchens for sustenance. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

A volunteer distributes free meals during a soup kitchen organized by a Greek humanitarian group in Athens' main Syntagma square on Sunday, April 1 2012. Greece's austerity cutbacks have deepened the economic recession, and torn holes in the country's social fabric. Unemployment has hit a record high of 21 percent, and thousands of Greeks depend on church and municipal soup kitchens for sustenance. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

A man eats a meal during a soup kitchen organized by a Greek humanitarian group in Athens' main Syntagma square on Sunday, April 1 2012. Greece's austerity cutbacks have deepened the economic recession, and torn holes in the country's social fabric. Unemployment has hit a record high of 21 percent, and thousands of Greeks depend on church and municipal soup kitchens for sustenance. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

LONDON (AP) ? Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro hit its highest level since the currency was introduced back in 1999, official figures showed Monday, adding to fears that the region is in recession.

Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, said unemployment in the eurozone rose to 10.8 percent in February from 10.7 percent the previous month. The number of unemployed totaled 17.1 million, nearly 1.5 million higher than the same month a year ago. Of the 17 countries in the eurozone, seven countries had unemployment rates of above 10 per cent.

The figures stand in marked contrast to the U.S. ? with an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent ? which has recorded solid increases in the number of people finding work over the past few months.

The eighth straight month of rising unemployment will likely reinforce concerns that the eurozone is in recession just as many countries pursue austerity measures to get a handle on their crippling debt loads.

Spain, whose government announced another raft of austerity measures last Friday, had the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone of 23.6 percent, with youth unemployment ? those under 25 years of age ? standing at 50.5 percent. The lowest rate among the euro countries was Austria's 4.2 percent. Greece, Portugal and Ireland ? the three countries that have already received a debt bailout ? had unemployment rates of 21 percent, 15 percent and 14.7 percent respectively.

With unemployment rising at a time of austerity, consumers have been reluctant to spend and that's been holding back the eurozone economy despite signs of life elsewhere, notably in the U.S. and in emerging markets.

"Soaring unemployment is clearly adding to the pressure on household incomes from aggressive fiscal tightening in the region's periphery," said Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics.

She warned that the situation is likely to get worse and that even in Germany, where unemployment held at 5.7 percent, "survey measures of hiring point to a downturn to come."

Figures earlier indicating a bigger-than-anticipated downturn in manufacturing only added to the gloom surrounding the eurozone economy. Financial information company Markit said its purchasing managers index ? a gauge of business activity ? fell to a three-month low of 47.7 in March from the previous month's 49 ? anything below 50 indicates a contraction.

Markit said Germany and France, the eurozone's two powerhouse economies, saw activity levels deteriorate. France, in particular, fared worse with activity at a 33-month low of 46.7. Only Austria and Ireland saw output increase during the month.

Across the eurozone, Markit said, new orders contracted at a faster rate than in February and that led to further job losses.

The manufacturing sector is vital for Europe's economic growth at a time when many countries are implementing austerity measures to get a handle on their debts.

Following a 0.3 percent quarterly contraction in the eurozone's economy in the fourth quarter of 2011, analysts said the manufacturing data show that the region is more likely to fall back into recession ? technically defined as two quarters of negative growth.

"It looks odds-on that eurozone GDP contracted again in the first quarter of 2012 .... thereby moving into recession," said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight. "And the prospects for the second quarter of 2012 currently hardly look rosy."

Markets across Europe Monday gave up their early gains on the news of the two reports with the Stoxx 50 of leading European shares down 0.2 percent at midday, before rising on news of a better-than-expected monthly Institute for Supply Management survey about the manufacturing sector in the U.S..

Associated Press

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President Obama says US Supreme Court won't take "unprecedented, extraordinary" step of overturning health care law (Washington Bureau)

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From HKUSU Wiki

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Exposure to Traumatic Stress Tied to Heart Inflammation | Psych ...

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on April 2, 2012

In a new study, researchers have determined cumulative traumatic stress exposure is tied to higher levels of heart inflammation among individuals with cardiovascular disease.

Scientists from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco found that the more traumatic stress a patient was exposed to over the course of a lifetime, the greater the chances the patient would have elevated levels of inflammatory markers in his or her bloodstream.

?This may be significant for people with cardiovascular disease, because we know that heart disease patients with higher levels of inflammation tend to have worse outcomes,? said lead author Aoife O?Donovan, PhD.

The study was published in the online journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Researchers followed 979 subjects, age 45 to 90, that had been exposed to traumatic events. All had stable heart disease. The trauma exposure involved either experiencing or witnessing a direct a threat to life or physical integrity.

Investigators measured a number of clinical markers of inflammation that circulate in the bloodstream, and found a direct correlation between degree of lifetime stress exposure and levels of inflammation.

After five years, researchers measured the surviving patients? inflammation markers again, and found that the patients who had originally reported the highest levels of trauma at the beginning of the study still had the highest levels of inflammation.

?Even though we lost some study participants because they died, we still observed the same relationship in those who remained,? O?Donovan said. ?This suggests that it wasn?t just the people who were the most sick at the outset who were driving this effect.?

Senior investigator Beth Cohen, MD, a physician at SFVAMC, emphasized that the effect remained even after the researchers adjusted for psychiatric diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.

?Not everyone who is exposed to trauma develops PTSD,? said Cohen, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF.

?This study emphasizes that traumatic stress can have a long-term negative impact on your health even if you don?t go on to develop PTSD. It also tells us that, as clinicians, we need to think about not just which diagnostic box someone might fit into, but what their lifetime trauma exposure has been.?

Although the study did not probe the potential causes for the link between lifetime stress and inflammation, O?Donovan offered one possible explanation.

?We know that in the aftermath of traumatic stress, people become more sensitive to threats,? she said. ?This is actually pro-survival, because if you?re in a dangerous environment that alertness can help you avoid future harm.?

Unfortunately, people with heightened threat sensitivity may also show increased inflammatory responses. ?What we think is happening is that people with a history of multiple traumatic stress exposures have increased inflammatory response more often and for longer periods, and so inflammation becomes chronically high,? she said.

Cohen noted that ?this is a study of older people, and the cumulative effects that decades of traumatic experiences have on their bodies. If we could intervene with young people,? she said, ?using techniques that we know help fight stress, such as exercise, yoga and other integrative health techniques, it would be interesting to know if we might be able to prevent some of this.?

Study participants were pulled from the UCSF Heart and Soul Study, an ongoing investigation into the link between psychological factors and the risk of heart events and mortality in patients with stable heart disease.

Source: University of California ? San Francisco

APA Reference
Nauert PhD, R. (2012). Exposure to Traumatic Stress Tied to Heart Inflammation. Psych Central. Retrieved on April 2, 2012, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/04/02/exposure-to-traumatic-stress-tied-to-heart-inflammation/36819.html

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How do you rate your literacy about death and dying? ? The ...

Today it seemed fitting to revisit one of most popular blog posts from last year ? a post on death literacy.

Timely because in collaboration with Victoria Spence from Living with our Dead and LifeRites, the finishing touches have been applied to the ?Stir the Pot? event being held in Sydney April 18th. ?Stir the Pot? is part of the first Australian Changemakers Festival being run by ASIX and Steve Lawrence. We had the privilege of working with Steve last year to produce the ?Dying For Change? social innovation event with Charles Leadbeater.

?Stir the Pot? is a night of presentations, provocations & discussion about innovative end of life & after death care practices in Australia.

There is a quiet revolution happening in Australia ? green funerals and Eco ?Garments for the Grave?, funeral ceremonies in public spaces (including parks, surf clubs and art galleries), people are dying at home and families are organising their own funerals (yes! without a funeral director), ethereal ?human rooms? are being designed in palliative care spaces, choirs are singing to the dying,? and ?cooling tables? are enabling families to care directly for their dead at home. Water cremation is even on the way!

Want to know more?

?Stir the Pot? is for practitioners as well as for interested citizens, keen to have more open and deeper conversations about end of life issues and how this aspect of our lives can be better for all involved.

?

?

Most of us only talk about death when we have to.

After all, it?s something most of us know very little about.

Few of us have been present with the dying, or cared for the dying or seen our loved ones ?laid out? after death. Death often takes us by surprise and we find ourselves organising funerals when we are in the midst of numbing and unexpected grief.

So it?s hardly surprising that when death occurs it?s not uncommon for people to describe feeling helpless and uncertain: Who do we call on for help? What?s required when someone is dying or has just died?

I?m fortunate to be involved in a research project at the University of Western Sydney

with Dr Debbie Horsfall and Assoc. Prof Rosemary Leonard. We are looking at the experiences of care networks. We defined ?care network? as the group of friends, family, neighbours and other informal caregivers and supporters who gather around and support the primary caregiver when someone with a terminal illness is being cared for at home. We presented the preliminary results at the Australian and New Zealand Third Sector Conference last month and one of the key findings I presented on was death literacy.

Everything changes, it seems, once you have cared for someone who is dying.

Many people in care networks report that their knowledge and death and dying ?grew? over the time they were part of this care network. It?s clear that they are empowered by what they learnt about the dying process, caring at end-of-life, as well as post-death practices such as keeping a person at home after death, organising funerals and so on. But it doesn?t stop there. Other knowledge is acquired ?as they learnt to navigate the ?system? ? how to organise the in-home medical and nursing care needed, how to ask for and get help (or not!) from friends and family, and how to have conversations about end-of-life decisions.

We called this new knowledge ?death literacy? because what we heard again and again in our focus groups with members of these care networks was people saying ?I never knew? but now I do??

The term Death literacy like Health Literacy acknowledges that knowledge has an impact on well-being.

So while this research brought to life the so called ?ordinary? tasks of caring for people who are dying at home, it also highlighted how much knowledge about death and dying we are losing as a community. This point was amplified this weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald Series: The End, which includes an excellent suite of articles and multimedia presentations about the end of life in Australian Society.

A couple of facts that stand out:

• Intensive care beds and interventions are increasing and more of us are dying surrounded by technology
• By 2030 there will be 8 deaths per 1000 and 10 years later this will be almost 10 per 1000. (it?s currently 6.5 per 1000)

So? Are you death-literate? And if so?

Where have you gained your knowledge of dying from? What knowledge and skills did you learn as a result?

And if not:

Do you know where to get information about caring for a dying loved one?

Do you know what to do if a loved one dies expectedly at home?

If you needed to organise a funeral do you know how?

Who are the friends, family and community that you can call on for support?

Have you discussed your personal wishes about aged-care (in home or not), organ donation, and your advance care directive with family?

At GroundSwell we are interested sharing, promoting and undertaking community programs that are demystifying death and end of life practices. We encourage you to think about how you might develop your knowledge and know-how.

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