opinion

Montini: Man with ALS takes down Debbie Lesko

Debbie Lesko couldn’t wait to get away from Ady Barkan, and I don’t blame her.

Barkan represents living (for now) breathing (for now) testimony of Lesko’s hypocrisy, and no one, not even a politician, wants to be confronted with that version of herself.

But there he was.

Barkan suffers from ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, a sinister, progressive, fatal illness. But he’s not going gently.

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Confronting political hypocrisy

Barkan has become a nationwide activist for patient rights and health care reform, and he visited Arizona to support Lesko’s Democratic opponent in the special Congressional District 8 election, physician Hiral Tipirneni, and to confront Lesko for sucking up to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has talked publicly about cutting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Ryan hosted a fundraiser for Lesko.

So, Barkan approached Lesko at a public gathering.

He later tweeted:

In the brief video Barkan asks Lesko, “If I can share with your office today a Washington Post article that says ‘Paul Ryan: Republicans to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in 2018.’ He said it’s his priority. So I’m really scared that you don’t even know that the Republican leadership is proposing this…

Lesko, hemming and hawing, says, “Yeah, well, just a headline doesn’t mean that it’s…”

Beating a hasty retreat...

Barkan says, “I’ll give you the whole article.”

Lesko says she’ll read it, clearly trying to get the hell out of there as fast as she can.

But, in case she missed, it wasn’t “just a headline.”

I’ve quoted that same article myself.

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In it, Ryan says, “We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit. Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”

Republicans are trying to back off that proclamation, now, fearing repercussions in the midterm elections.

After all, who votes for politicians who want to cut those programs?

You?

The art of not suffering fools

The thing is, if enough candidates like Lesko win and Republicans retain control of Congress they’ll get back to Ryan’s plan shortly after the ballots are counted.

It’s simple math for them.

After the Republican-controlled Congress passed the massive tax cut bill benefiting, mostly, the super rich, and putting the country $1 trillion more in debt, Ryan and the Republicans said that to make up for putting the nation in the financial toilet they were going to have to cut “entitlements.” Meaning Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Ady Barkan suffers form ALS, but he doesn't suffer fools or hypocrites. That's why he came to Arizona.

And that's why Lesko couldn’t wait to get away from him.

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