Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 01, 2020

America today


Just saw this on Facebook. This hospital is in Hamburg, Iowa, just down I-29 from Omaha.

This is what we've come to in a country that, day by day, is looking more and more like some sort of Third World failed state. In no way do I think this is the biblical End of Days, but one has to wonder whether this might be the beginning of the end for the United States, which no longer can take care of its own -- even those who take care of us when we're desperately ill.

There will be a reckoning when this is over. If there isn't, that would be worse, I fear.

If you can help out the doctors and nurses of Hamburg, which has had much to suffer in the last year, please do.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Louisiana swamp gas . . . or weapons of ass destruction

The Louisiana Legislature's latest round of budget negotiations has prompted the return of what is becoming an annual tug-of-war match between funding TOPS and funding state health care services.

The House Appropriations Committee on Monday advanced its version of a $27 billion state budget to begin July 1 featuring full funding for the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarships and deep cuts to safety-net hospitals and other programs that serve the poor and disabled.

"This is a process," House Appropriations Vice Chair Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, said during the committee's hearing on House Bill 1. "There are other steps we'll be going through."

HB1 is scheduled to hit the House floor on Thursday, where it is certain to generate additional debate over where the brunt of nearly $650 million in cuts should land. Lawmakers haven't ruled out the idea of holding yet another special session to try to close all or part of the remaining "fiscal cliff" the state faces when temporary tax measures expire June 30, but they can't take up most revenue-raising measures during the regular session and current budgeting process. . . . 
"In rushing to pass amendments out, the House Appropriations Committee proved what we’ve been saying all along – there simply isn’t a way to fashion a budget that adequately funds our state’s pressing needs," Edwards said in a statement. "TOPS is absolutely a priority and should be fully funded, but so should higher education institutions, health care for our seniors and those with disabilities, funding for medical schools in Shreveport and New Orleans, and our partner hospitals. Now we can see that it’s not possible to do that without replacing more of the revenue that is expiring."

The move to prioritize funding for TOPS, which is wildly popular among middle class and more affluent families, mirrors recent actions from the Appropriations Committee, which gets the first bite at the state budget under state law.

Rep. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, said he worried about the ripple effect cuts to the state's safety-net hospital partners would have. Several of those operators have already said they will walk away from the agreements, threatening the shuttering of hospitals across the state, if their funding is drastically reduced to the levels that have been proposed.

"We have health care providers in the state of Louisiana making tough decisions," Carter said. "I'm a big believer in both education and health care, but I certainly don't want to risk closing any hospital."

Several Democrats also questioned the plan to fund TOPS while cutting general funding for college and university campuses.

It didn't take jetliners flying into New York skyscrapers.

It certainly didn't take any declaration of war.

All it took was Bashar al-Assad dropping a chlorine (and perhaps sarin) gas bomb onto a Damascus neighborhood and killing 40-odd people in the latest outrageous act of Syria's long and bloody civil war. For that, the combined forces of the United States, France and Great Britain launched 100-something missiles into a country with which we weren't at war, at least not legally.

What, then, shall we do with Louisiana?

I doubt it could be argued that Louisiana politicians have not killed -- and will not kill -- any fewer than a Syrian gas attack every few weeks, if not days, by starving every social safety-net program on the books, all because their constituents have no more interest than Cain in being their brother's keeper. As we know from Genesis, Cain had no interest in being Abel's keeper because he had already killed him.

Artistic tradition pictures the jealous Cain slaying with the jawbone of an ass, as Samson later in scripture did away with the Philistines. In Louisiana, it's asses jawboning who mow down the poor, the disabled and the sick with their votes and their callous neglect. If the House committee's will becomes budgetary law, what little cash the state has on hand will fully fund a popular welfare program that overwhelmingly benefits the adult children of middle-class white people.

The poor and the ill, then, will be left to be their own damned keeper. Should be interesting to see how well Grandma shifts for herself when she's wheeled to the curb after the Medicaid money stops but her nursing-home tab doesn't.

The white children of white parents with ample green will have their tuition to crumbling state universities (which aren't being funded) paid in full with taxpayers' dollars.  The state Department of Health would be starved to the point where virtually every public-private "safety net" hospital closes its doors.

Meantime, medical education virtually would end in Louisiana.
“So of $346-million available, you want to spend $246-million of it for this, leaving $100-million for everything else?” [Rep. Walt] Leger [D-New Orleans] asked. “You believe $246-million is best spent in these ways?”
“I do,” [Rep. Franklin] Foil [R-Baton Rouge] replied. “We had a lot of ground to make up, since the executive budget had zero dollars spent on TOPS.”

“Isn’t this message giving students false hope, because the full body isn’t likely to maintain this in lieu of funding other programs?” Leger pressed. “You’re okay getting a positive news story today, even if it ultimately will prove to be fake news?”

“My commitment is to students,” Foil answered.

“What about the Department of Health?” Leger asked.

“What about it?” Foil fired back.

“You’re aware that department is taking biggest cuts? And you still believe it is more valuable to fund TOPS?” Leger asked, incredulously.
“Your district includes a substantial constituency that is on Medicaid, doesn’t it, Rep. Foil?” Rep. Pat Smith [D-Baton Rouge] asked. “But you’re willing to fully fund TOPS to benefit a different socio-economic group in your district, instead?”

“I think this helps everyone, in every district,” Foil replied. “We are clearly short on revenue, and even if we were to take all of the money available and give it to the Department of Health, they would still have a shortfall.”
“Yet your amendment fully funds TOPS to the detriment of all the other programs in the state: disabilities waivers, nursing homes, public-private partner hospitals, graduate medical education,” Leger said. “It’s a trap, forcing us Democrats to say we either support TOPS or we don’t. That’s a false choice, and it will really end up being nothing more than a comment about what we would like to do.”

“We are already on notice that the public-private partner hospitals will be closing,” Rep. Gary Carter (D-New Orleans) chimed in. “We say ‘we fund our priorities.’ Your amendment makes TOPS a greater priority than health care.”

“I believe we will find funding as we go through this process,” Foil insisted.

“That’s pie in the sky,” Pat Smith told him, bluntly. “You’re perfectly aware there is no guarantee to raise additional revenue. Some 20 members of this body won’t vote for any new revenue under any circumstances. What this ends up saying is that we only want to fund a program for kids doing well in school, but not the schools they go to, and not the hospitals.”
BREAKING NEWS . . . Louisiana to poor, sick and higher ed: Drop dead.

Breaking news? That's old news. It's also today's news, tomorrow's news, next year's news and your grandkids' news.

In this era of concussive enforcement of the Geneva Conventions and international human-rights charters, here's the news I eagerly await:

As a proportional and just response to unacceptable violations of civilized norms, I await news that sea- and air-launched cruise missiles from the combined armed forces of the United States and sundry NATO allies have sent a message to America's own pariah state. And that the Louisiana Capitol Complex now looks a lot like some of the sadder parts of north Baton Rouge.

Right is right, after all, and rogue regimes must be put on notice that certain red lines must not be crossed. Even in the reddest of states.

We're all in agreement on that, am I right? Am I right?

Hello?

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Get the hip boots and clothespins -- it's kinda deep in here

http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/ricketts-budget-plan-would-end-state-funding-to-health-clinics/article_2dbefe26-f4ca-11e7-8beb-3fb9246c159d.html
Today's Omaha World-Herald

“Nebraska is a pro-life state, and the state’s budget should reflect those values.”

Says the state's Republican governor in the latest Orwellian smoke signal he's trying to blow up our collective butts.

It's just bullshit. Bullshit so fragrant it could have come from America's bullshitter-in-chief, Donald J. Trump.

The state's budget under Gov. Pete Ricketts and his predecessor NEVER has reflected pro-life values, from wasting $50 grand in a botched attempt to illegally acquire execution drugs to cutting services for the disabled to (for a time) banning government-funded prenatal care for undocumented women (which actually increased both abortions and birth defects).

A pro-life state doesn't waste money on maintaining the death penalty, money that could go toward caring for "the least of these." A pro-life state doesn't have cops so ignorant of how to deal with unarmed but unruly mentally ill people that they end up tasing and beating them to death.

A pro-life state doesn't elevate to the governorship a rich-boy Dr. Evil impersonator who has no clue about governing apart from throwing his fortune behind initiatives repealing the unicameral's abolition of the death penalty and electing GOP legislators in his own misanthropic image.

SO DON'T HAND ME this hoary old horse hockey about "pro-life values" just because the dominant political party merely is foursquare for getting infants out of the womb just so it can find ways to abort the poorest ones by other means at a future date.

http://www.omaha.com/news/legislature/ricketts-announces-million-in-budget-vetoes-we-don-t-have/article_ba36577c-39aa-11e7-85bd-6f2370ce493e.html
Omaha World-Herald, May 2017
"Pro-life" is not some political zero-sum proposition. Pro-life is affirming that somebody doesn't have to die for somebody else to flourish. A pro-life state isn't just against abortion, but also is for helping women through hard times and bad situations in a way that affirms the life of both mother and child.

A "PRO-LIFE STATE"  fights hammer-and-tongs against poverty, and it guarantees every resident adequate health care. And a pro-life state doesn't skimp on funding for education at any level.

A pro-life state -- the kind the governor is talking about -- is all about the ironic air quotes, and it elects right-wing bullshit artists like Pete Ricketts to spout self-serving, self-righteous bromides as he kicks the poor and the inconvenient to the curb. To be aborted postnatally when nobody is looking.

No, you can't say Nebraska is pro-life. You sure as hell can say that Pete Ricketts is pro-death.

This isn't brain surgery (which I'm sure Ricketts wouldn't want state money going for, either). Don't pay for abortions . . . and don't use abortion as an excuse to cut health-care funding while simultaneously scoring cheap political points with the booboisie.

What a tool is our Gov. Evil.

Friday, May 05, 2017

Tempting the whirlwind in Jesusland?


Good, white, Jesus-lovin' people in Louisiana -- which clearly loves dead Confederates much more than live children and poor people -- are quick to tell you this is a Christian nation.

They'll tell you how the gays and the liberals and the politically correct are ruining this nation. They'd be quick to tell you how nothing's more important than family.

And then they'll go out and vote for the scoundrels who -- when they're not picking their pockets after yelling "Look! Welfare Cadillac! Baby mama with an EBT card! -- will construct budgets that savage the poor and the sick as they deconstruct civil society and the infrastructure of self-government bit by bit by bit. Year after year after year.


Louisiana State Capitol
This, because it's in the Bible (somewhere in the back) that the good, white, Jesus-lovin' people of Louisiana are absolutely entitled to another new pickup truck or another goddamned bass boat, but under no circumstances are obligated to pay one more penny in taxes. No matter what.

Our schools are crumbling. No new taxes.

Our roads are worse. No new taxes.

Our state universities have been savaged by budget cuts, people are laughing at us . . . and you don't want to know what people are wading through in the basement of LSU's library.

Does any of that affect football?
No, not at LSU -- that's self-supporting.


No new taxes.

Our social services and our health-care system have been cut to the bone. Actually, we had to remove a leg and a few fingers as well. If we cut any more, lots of people will die -- especially the disabled.  Blame Obamacare! No new taxes.

THE LATEST chapter of The State That Cut Off Its Nose Because It Already Cut the Budget for Soap and That Smelly Stuff That Goes Under Its Arms is told in the pages of today's edition of The Advocate in Baton Rouge:
The Louisiana House has agreed to a nearly $29 billion spending plan that has full funding for TOPS scholarships in the coming year but doesn't fund the state agencies that oversee health and social services to the levels that leaders say is needed to pay for critical programs.

House Bill 1 now heads to the Senate, where it will likely be changed in the coming weeks as lawmakers work to reach an agreement on the budget that begins July 1.

(snip)
Huey P. Long's grave, state capitol
During the course of the debate, House Democrats had pushed back on areas that affect health care, prisons and social services, including foster care, but there was little movement.

"It's a transparent attempt to cut the budget deeply and hide those facts by telling the Division of Administration to do the dirty work," said House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans.

After the Appropriations Committee had advanced its spending plan earlier in the week, leaders in Gov. John Bel Edwards decried the proposal as "draconian," "gruesome" and "a nonstarter."

Edwards, himself, said Thursday after the entire House approved the budget in a mostly party-line 63-40 vote that he was looking forward to working with the Senate to craft a more bipartisan proposal. He said the House Republican-backed measure is "flawed" one that "would send us tumbling backwards."

"We can't move Louisiana forward if we're standing still," Edwards said. "Their budget guts health care, children’s services and veteran services to levels that endanger the health and welfare of the people of Louisiana. When politicians craft policies without the input of the experts in a field, you know you’re getting a bad deal, and that’s how this budget was drafted."
Edwards had originally recommended a budget that boosted the Department of Health by an additional $235 million to fund optional and behavioral programs. Part of that money originally meant for LDH was then shifted to fund the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, a scholarship program for Louisiana high schoolers who attend college in state.
TOPS was funded at about 70 percent in the current year's budget.

Edwards, a Democrat, had listed TOPS as his No. 1 priority for funding if the Legislature agreed to tax proposals that would generate more revenue.

Edwards administration has argued that the funding levels offered in the House budget proposal would threaten the state's compliance with federal orders regarding behavioral health services and cut the number of psychiatric beds; eliminate jobs that deal with child welfare; and lead to furloughs for some prison inmates.

"This impacts people's lives," said Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin. "This is life or death."
HOW DOES one describe this budget, this approach to governance in a state whose day job appears to be protecting old statues of dead traitors and slavers, and whose hobby seems to be steamrolling the disabled, the sick and the poor? Many of whom, by the way, happen to be the descendants of those slaves victimized by the memorialized dead traitors.

How's this for a start?

Despicable. Wicked. Depraved. Blasphemous. A budget from the bowels of hell in a state bucking to become hell on earth.

"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written."


I think that covers it.

Do you remember what various fundamentalists -- notably TV preacher John Hagee -- and others said about Katrina being punishment from God, because New Orleans?

Assume for a moment that's how God rolls -- that He's still in the business of Large-Scale Smiting. Assume also that Jesus, who is God, meant every word He said about "blessed are the poor," "suffer not the little children" and "whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Assume the Lord was making a point central to His plan of salvation -- and the nature of good and evil -- when He related the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

FINALLY, let us assume that the Savior of the World, the Creator of the Universe, wasn't shitting people in Matthew 25:31-46:

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Gov. Huey P. Long

FOR THE SAKE of argument, what if we're accountable not only for what we do individually, but also the governments and societies we craft through our individual actions, activism and votes? What if those political entities, states and nations also are subject to divine scrutiny and divine judgment?

Louisianians -- particularly the white, conservative ones -- are fond of telling the world how God-fearing they are. One can assume a great many of them are quite well-pleased with the Republican-imposed budget bill now headed to the Senate. Because taxes, big gummint and leeches sucking at the taxpayers' teat.

How do they square the circle of loving what Jesus clearly hates? How do they so embrace the laundry list of ways to torture the poor, the halt and the sick (while devoting the savings from that to benefiting the rich and middle class) -- quite literally all those things that holy scripture devotes so much space telling us Jesus so hated.

God-fearing? I'm not so sure the South -- Louisiana -- is even Christ-haunted anymore.

And what if the crazy preachers and doomsayers are right about "acts of God" really being acts of God's wrath?

According to that model, New Orleans got drowned and 1,577 Louisianians killed because of gays, trannies and titty bars. What the hell do you think God will do to the Gret Stet because of this? Or, for that matter, this?

Lord, have mercy . . . because my home state surely has none.

At least quit telling us it's raining


Rep. Don Bacon
Congressman, Nebraska 2nd District
Reichstag
Washington, Greater Trumpian Reich

Dear Rep. Bacon:

Your vote is as despicable as your claims are Orwellian. In addition, voting on a measure such as this without a Congressional Budget Office analysis and score is absolutely irresponsible and reckless.

In other words, since you seem incapable of *not* pissing down our legs, at least quit telling us it's raining policy blessings from heaven.

Sincerely,

A Voter Who's More
Sentient Than You Think

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Posted through my tears

1grace  noun \ˈgrās\

1
a unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
b :  a virtue coming from God
c :  a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace 

http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/ashley-picco-memorial-fund/260229#

I know -- having been the recipient of it a time or a thousand -- grace when I see it.

Oftentimes, grace is the strength God sends you when you are at the end of your own. Sometimes, grace is beauty that descends upon you -- beauty that is not of this world. The video above is the first that begets the second.

Imagine that your pregnant wife dies in her sleep. Imagine that this occurs months before her due date. Imagine that your little son is born of your dead wife via an emergency C-section. Where would you find the strength to do what we see here and do it so beautifully?

One place.


http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/ashley-picco-memorial-fund/260229#
THERE have been times when I have summoned the strength, strength that was not my own, to endure what I might find unendurable and react to it in a manner not of my own nature. Still, I cannot imagine serenading my dying infant son after losing my pregnant wife -- or at least I can't imagine doing so without collapsing into sobs.

The singing father is Chris Picco of Loma Linda, Calif. His wife was Ashley Picco. Their son is Lennon James Picco. Lennon James died in his father's arms the day after this video was shot.

People often wonder where God is when things go horribly and unjustly wrong. The answer is that God is standing beside you, holding you up if you'll let Him. It's a beautiful thing, as you can see above.

If you'd like to help God out in holding up Chris Picco as he endures the unendurable, you can do so here.

Here, too.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Pay for this. Why? None of your business


Planned Parenthood is absolutely right. Generally speaking, whether you're on The Pill or whatever is none of my business.

I really don't want to know.


If you're expecting me to pay for your contraception, however -- particularly if doing so causes me to bankroll what my religion defines as explicitly sinful -- that makes it my business, and the sex-obsessed cultural left cannot accept that it can't have it both ways. The Constitution may give you the right to ostensibly consequence-free screwing, but it doesn't give the state the right to put a gun to some others' heads and force them to violate their sacred conscience to bankroll what they believe is morally -- and mortally -- wrong.


When that freedom of conscience is eradicated, every other freedom we possess will go with it -- including, eventually, your freedom to have sex to your heart's desire, whether you want it to end in a child or not. If your enthusiasm for contraception isn't your boss' business, it's not the state's either. If you have the state making it your boss' business -- at least as far as funding it is concerned -- it has just become Big Brother's business in spades, and that violation of "privacy" won't end well for you or for anyone else,

HEALTH CARE in general is another matter. That's everyone's business, and society has a vested interest in not having people drop dead for lack of it. Thus, we try to provide maximum access to medical care while attempting to construct firewalls between the state and your human rights -- and dignity.

That is the morally correct, and practically smart, thing to do.

It's a trade-off that we fervently hope doesn't blow up in our liberty loving faces. On the other hand, forcing some individuals to violate their conscience to protect other individuals from the logical consequences of unfettered intercourse is neither fair nor sustainable from a human-rights perspective.

Again, you can't have it both ways. I'd suggest that Planned Parenthood declare victory and stop emoting patently illogical claptrap.

No one is going to croak because Hobby Lobby -- or the Catholic Church, for that matter -- doesn't pay for her birth-control pills. But if the perpetually alarmed folks at Planned Parenthood (or those folks who love them) want to provide that stuff for free, knock yourselves out.

It's a free country. For now.

Friday, May 02, 2014

And you thought Obamacare was dumb


Because "inefficiency."

Because "bloated state government."

Because budget.

Because privatization.

Because because because because all these things, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal -- who's so smart he wants to run your country . . . because he's done such a bang-up job in his state -- decided to strap the jet engine of free enterprise to a creaky charity hospital system and let "privatization" do that voodoo that it do for the benefit of his cronies of poor people and taxpayers alike.

Eight . . . seven . . . ignition sequence started . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . we have . . . uh . . . this story from The Associated Press.
Federal officials on Friday (May 2) rejected financing plans by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration on deals to privatize six state-run hospitals, a decision that threatens contracts that already have been used to turn over hospital management.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, notified the state health department that it refused to sign off on the plans. The agency said the agreements don't meet federal guidelines governing how Medicaid dollars can be spent.
"To maintain the fiscal integrity of the Medicaid program, CMS is unable to approve the state plan amendment request made by Louisiana," the federal agency said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to work with the state to ensure Louisianans receive high quality Medicaid coverage."

The decision was a significant blow to the Jindal administration and could create massive upheaval in the state's budget. The budget was balanced this year assuming that hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding would flow into the hospitals.
Jindal didn't wait for federal approval before he shifted management, so the hospitals are now operating under financing plans that have been rejected.

The rejections involved plans for LSU-run hospitals in New Orleans, Lafayette, Houma, Lake Charles, Shreveport and Monroe.

Privatization deals for the New Orleans, Lafayette and Houma hospitals took effect in June, and the Shreveport and Monroe facilities have been under outside management since October. The Lake Charles hospital was closed, its services shifted to a nearby private hospital.
It wasn't immediately clear how the Jindal administration would respond. CMS gave the state health department 60 days to file an appeal of its decision.
THE ABOVE dramatization of the 1995 Darwin Awards winner's crowing achievement, as it turns out, is a depiction of an urban legend from Arizona that fooled everybody, including the Darwin judges. That just will make it all the awesomer when Mike and Carol's bastard son "Bobby" finally does it, not with a '67 Impala, but with an entire freakin' STATE!

That crater in the side of Tejas is gonna be absoeffinlutely epic!

Friday, October 11, 2013

Let them eat squat


Marie Antoinette infamously said "Let them eat cake" when the French people had no bread, and then she lost her head.

Now, in the third year of America's tea-party hostage crisis, the guillotined queen of France ain't looking so bad. At least she didn't personally thrust the hungry masses into pauperism, and at least she offered them cake as an option.

For the Republicans' whack-job wing, otherwise known as the tea party, that's not nearly Darwinian enough. With the ongoing government shutdown it brought upon us -- not to mention the sovereign default and resulting financial carnage it would like to serve for the next course -- tea partiers in Congress seek to create the poor whom they would sacrifice to the god of natural selection.

This brings us to the plight of rangers and civilian workers at Grand Canyon National Park, as reported by The Los Angeles Times:
Patrick Dotson was in crisis mode. The Grand Canyon Community Church pastor had just emailed a state food bank with an unlikely request: Rush food to one of the world's seven natural wonders.

Then came the knock on the door. A U.S. Park Service ranger asked whether Dotson could expand the small food pantry that was being run out of the church's garage. "He said, 'We've got families struggling here. How can we make this bigger?'" Dotson said.

The U.S. government shutdown has turned a prestigious national park where millions come each year to relax and recreate into a realm of high anxiety. Hundreds of employees are stranded without work or pay, prompting the donation of hundreds of boxes of food for families that have nowhere else to turn.

About 2,200 people remain inside the isolated Arizona park, 1,800 of them employees of private concessions that make the place run — the people who change the hotel room sheets, serve the meals, sell the gift shop mementos. Many are entry-level, minimum-wage workers with families who live paycheck to paycheck.

And while concessionaires are offering free rent and meals to those out of work, dependents often do not qualify. Families who rent apartments and send their children to a school near the park's famous South Rim have been left to their own devices, forced to rely on savings and fast-emptying supplies.

The result: Dotson's food pantry, which normally serves a dozen families a year, now has its hands full. The impromptu pantry has been moved to a community hall, where volunteers distribute boxes containing rice, beans, peanut butter and tuna.

Dotson requested the assistance of Phoenix-based St. Mary's Food Bank last week when he noticed that donated food at the church was quickly disappearing. He knew things would worsen as Washington's standoff dragged on.

Wednesday brought news that future handouts would contain perishable items such as lettuce and other vegetables, sending a buzz through the park, said Sarah Stuckey, a spokeswoman for St. Mary's.

"It's just a very strange situation for all of us inside the park," Dotson said. "There's a lot of nervousness here. People are worried. They're asking, 'How long is this going to last?'"
HOW LONG is this going to last -- this reign of congressional terrorists? How long will we live with the threat of "Give us what we demand, or we'll wreck the government, victimize the marginalized and blow up the economy"?

My fear is that the U.S. Constitution is unequal to the task of excising a fairly elected cancer from our body politic. That was John Adams' fear, too:
But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
MORALITY and religion are passé in postmodern America, some of the still-religious are bat-shit crazy for the tea-party terrorists, and "avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness" have become the ultimate public-private partnership today.

We're drowning in all that and Honey Boo Boo, too. We elected the bat-shit bastards who threaten to be the end of us. And short of a Latin American-style military coup, it beats me how we get out of the fine political mess we've fashioned for ourselves.

It just may be that we have to lie -- fitfully and uncomfortably -- in the bed we've made.

The good news, however, is that the United States has been this divided before -- faced down an existential threat from radicalized, extortionist lawmakers before -- and we're still here. We found a way to remove the malignant tumor from the heart of our national fabric.

The bad news is that about 625,000 Americans died in the process.

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Looking in the mirror and seeing Congress


Charles P. Pierce cuts loose on Congress on The Politics Blog in Esquire today.

Why? Because somebody had to.
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.

We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.

We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.
THIS IS WHAT we've come to. Government by terrorism -- or extortion, if you want to be polite about it. I don't.

Right now, the Republicans are applying the tactics of your average al-Qaida cell, blackmailer, extortionist or neighborhood thug to the art (and I use that word loosely) of governance, such as it is today. The difference is in degree, not principle.

If they don't get their way -- if Obamacare isn't done away with -- somebody's gonna get hurt. Better yet, everybody's gonna get hurt.

When I was in college, America was enraged and frustrated by a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days. Now we have government by hostage crisis, and it's been going on for almost three years. It has become "the new normal."

Worse, we did this. We. Did. This. We elected these ayatollahs in blue suits. They do exactly what their pollsters tell them we want them to do.

We have exactly the government we deserve.

Half of us want to sacrifice the concept of a sustainable society to whatever the hell our inner spoiled, horny brat tells us is hip and happenin' at the moment. We've decided that we're cooler and smarter than the fossils who preceded us, and we're going to do what we want, when we want, and the future can go to hell.

Consequences are for squares. Or bigots. Whatever.

MEANTIME, half of us have decided that the entire concept of commonweal is a communist plot. We ask the question that Cain asked of the Almighty in Genesis -- "Am I my brother's keeper?" -- then unhesitatingly answer it ourselves with a resounding "Hell, no!"

Abel was a loser anyway.

This half of us is smarter and better than Those People, and we're going to do what we want, when we want, and our neighbor can go to hell.

This is the country that elected this bunch. One party is as bad as the other, in general, but today is the jihadis . . . er, the GOP's . . . day.

Both approaches to civic deviance have left us where we stand today, which is on the edge of the abyss, stomping the precipice with one foot as we dangle the other over oblivion. I wonder how that will work out for us.

Maybe we'd just as well live for today . . . because tomorrow is going to be a real bitch.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

'Without a doubt . . .' karma's a bitch


Boy, oh, boy, did
CNN blow it on the Supreme Court's ruling on the health-care reform law.

I consider this -- along with the cable network's collapsing prime-time ratings -- to totally validate the concept of karma. The universe could have forgiven one Anderson Cooper-Kathy Griffin pairing on New Year's Eve, but not two. And especially not annual ones.

"But without a doubt, the individual mandate, which has been the polarizing centerpiece of the political and policy debate over health care, the justices throwing that out is a direct blow to the president of the United States," said CNN's John King, "a direct blow to his Democratic Party, and this is a victory, if you will, for conservatives."

NOTE: NSFW language at video's end

And karma, as we all know, is a bitch.

"Wow, that's a dramatic moment," to quote Wolf Blitzer as he enthused on hearing the initial, horribly wrong word from reporter Kate Bolduan.

Oh . . .
Fox News Channel got it spectacularly wrong this morning, too. Karma has been busy.

Be good, people. Is what I'm saying.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The smoking lamp is off

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The black eye the Pillsbury Doughmagogue got Wednesday from the Nebraska Legislature means that babies will live.

That Medicaid money will be saved.

And that, here in this beautiful corner of the Great Plains, the founders' words mean a little more than they did the day before.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Not white men. Not Anglo-Saxon men. Not American men.

All men . . . and women. And children in the womb.

ONCE AGAIN in this state, future American citizens in the wombs of their mothers -- whether those mothers be poor, undocumented or both -- won't be regarded by the state as throwaway stepchildren of a lesser god. No thanks to our petulant and Mexican-baiting governor, Dave Heineman, who consistently has seen feeding on the bottom as a sure path to coming out on top.

God don't sleep, and this time neither did the unicameral, which ended its session with multiple political bitch slaps for the Doughmagogue. The
Omaha World-Herald was there for the festivities:
Teary-eyed supporters predicted Wednesday that the Legislature's decision to restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants will result in fewer newborns with birth defects and fewer expenses for intensive care stays and delivery room complications.

“For the women, it means they won't have to worry anymore. They can come and get care,” said Andrea Skolkin of South Omaha's One World Community Health Center.

Lawmakers voted 30-16 to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of Legislative Bill 599.

The governor predicted that the 2012 legislative session will be remembered most for providing free health care for illegal residents while allowing cities to raise sales taxes on legal residents — referring to the lawmakers' override of another veto.

“I strongly disagree with their decisions,” Heineman said in a prepared statement. “Providing preferential treatment to illegals while increasing taxes on legal Nebraska citizens is misguided, misplaced and inappropriate.”

The vote on the prenatal care bill came at the end of the session's last day, providing an emotional finale to what has been a rough-and-tumble session.

“I like soft landings,” said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature. “We had to foam the runways this year. But any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”


(snip)

A similar prenatal care bill was withdrawn from the agenda two years ago, lacking enough votes to pass. This year, a new estimate of the expected fiscal impact of providing the care placed the state's annual cost at about $560,000.

That was less than the cost to taxpayers and hospitals for just two cases of extended neonatal intensive care for babies born to women lacking prenatal care. One case cost more than $800,000.

Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, a leading supporter of LB 599, said charities and private donations cannot be counted on to finance the care.

Clinics in Omaha and Columbus reported dramatic increases in the number of women seeking free prenatal care, but also several cases of women skipping the care or coming in too late to address early developing problems in their babies. Health professionals have said that for every $1 invested in prenatal care, savings of up to $4 is expected.

“Fiscally, this makes sense,” Flood said. “This is an innocent child in the middle of a red-hot debate about immigration.”

Despite lobbying by Heineman and other foes of the bill, only one previous supporter — Sen. Tom Seiler of Hastings — switched from supporting the measure to opposing the override.