So I’m shouting. Sue me.
For those who don’t know, Patti is the founder of Soldier’s Angels.
“May no soldier go unloved”
]]>It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”
By voting against it?
Here’s a link for your consideration.
Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude.
P.S.
<sarcasm>yes, I think the GOP is fundamentally opposed to motherhood.</sarcasm>
]]>Oh, and violating 18 USC 2441 carries a maximum death sentence if someone is tortured to death—which has happened.
Thus the practice of “defining torture down”.
]]>More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors’ group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan.
The problem has peaked, with British Columbia and Ontario each sending a record number of women to U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Specifically, 80 B.C. women have been sent to U.S. hospitals since April 1, 2007; in Ontario, 28 have been sent since January of 2007, according to figures from the respective health ministries.
André Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, said the problem is due to bed closings that took place almost a decade ago, the absence of a national birthing initiative and too few staff.
“Neonatologists are very stretched right now,” Dr. Lalonde said in a telephone interview from Ottawa. “We’re so stretched, it’s kind of dangerous.”
<snip>
Philippe Chessex, division head of neonatology for B.C. Women’s Hospital & Health Centre, said every effort is made to avoid out-of-province transfers. Even sick babies who aren’t sent to the U.S. can still face several moves while at home.
“We’re transferring babies across the province, in all directions, to try to find an extra bed for the next potential birth or for any baby already born,” Dr. Chessex said in a telephone interview from Vancouver. “We now have babies who have been transferred up to six times after leaving here before reaching home.”
For parents, the devastating news that their baby is sick due to a malformation, illness or being born prematurely is compounded by the reality that there simply is not a bed available for their infant close to home.
“Whenever a sick baby is born, it’s really a disaster for these families because it was unexpected. And it just puts a terrible stress on them,” Dr. Chessex said. “If they are sent out of country at that moment, it is just unbelievable the kind of pressure that they must go under.”
No one knows that better than Jade Pascoe, of Cranbrook, B.C., who went into labour 15 weeks earlier than her due date. She gave birth on March 29, to Nevin James William Moore, who came into this world weighing 1 pound 10 ounces. “They tried to get me somewhere in Canada,” said Ms. Pascoe, 19. “But there was nowhere to send me.” The hospital where she gave birth does not have a NICU. And when no NICU bed could be located in B.C. or Alberta, her son was sent to a hospital in Spokane, located in eastern Washington.
During that time, doctors, nurses and others took turns using a manual respirator for six hours on the boy, until he arrived by air ambulance at Deaconess Medical Center. He is expected to stay there until July.
Of her son, born at 25 weeks gestation, Ms. Pascoe said: “I didn’t know they came that small.” Though he is not yet stable enough for her to kiss or cuddle, she can touch him. Patrice Sweeny, assistant neonatal intensive-care unit manager at Deaconess Medical Center, said Nevin is on a ventilator and requires a lot of support but he is improving.
“Jade comes in every day and is very devoted and does everything that she can,” Ms. Sweeny said in a telephone interview. “She takes his temperature, changes the diaper. She is as involved with her baby as possible.”
<snip>
Though the province is adding NICU beds, he said that in itself is not the answer. For example, when extra NICU beds were added in Victoria, it took about a year before they were operational due to the difficulty in recruiting a neonatologist.
“You need a highly skilled nurse and you need a neonatologist to help manage the ward and that’s proven challenging,” said Mr. Abbott. He said the province is working with others to find a solution.
The numbers tell the story:
$11.6-million: Amount, in U.S. dollars, British Columbia has spent on prenatal care in the States since April, 2006
$1,700: Average cost per day for a Level III neonatal intensive care bed in B.C.
$5,400: Average cost, in U.S. dollars, for a Level III bed in the States
Now, before the liberals here crow about “look at the price difference!” remember that the average cost is simply what the gov’t pays. It’s in effect a price ceiling. Now, going back to Econ 101, what do price ceilings nearly always do? Did I hear ‘create supply shortages’? That’s right! Health care is a service, and is governed by supply and demand. The U.S. system has issues on this front of course, but one way we’ve responded by lavishly compensating our doctors, so that we attract the best doctors in the world. That’s one contributor to our higher health care costs. Personal anecdote: my wife’s OB/GYN is South African. Our primary care physician is Indian. His resident at this time is Iranian. So was the doctor who operated on my wife’s foot two years ago. His partner is Russian. My kid’s pediatrician is Filipino.
Of course, as noted earlier, the U.S. system has all kinds of inefficiencies which needlessly raises costs. Barriers to competition in health insurance, high malpractice rates, opaque fee schedules (who knows what a visit to the doctor really costs these days?), over-regulation, especially on new technologies and pharmaceuticals, and artificially high demand (people going to the doctor for sniffles because they think it only costs their $30 copay, then complaining when the copay goes to $35). The status quo is not satisfactory, obviously, so why not move towards less regulation, instead of more?
]]>How? I refer you to the “Mexico City Policy”.
In 1984, at a U.N. conference in Mexico City, President Ronald Reagan announced a new policy on abortion. This policy required non-governmental organizations to “‘agree as a condition of their receipt of [U.S.] federal funds’ that they will ‘neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations’.[2] The policy has exceptions for abortions done in response to rape, incest, or life-threatening conditions.[3]”
In 1993, on his first day in office, President Clinton rescinded the Mexico City Policy, freeing a flow of money to abortionists and their advocates around the world. In 2001, President Bush re-instated the MCP, stanching this flow of tax payer dollars to promote world-wide abortions .
It is all but certain that a President Obama, who is avowedly in support of abortion on demand all the way up to and including delivery, will lift this ban on tax payer funded abortions. He will most assuredly do this on day 1 in office, as did President Clinton.
Any who support the right to life should take note of this as well as other pro-abortion positions of Senator Obama. I could never in good conscience support such a man for office. I can’t see how any pro-life person could.
]]>The patrons at Champps in Reston, an upscale restaurant and bar chain, were eating ribs and drinking beer on a recent Saturday when customer Bruce Jackson stood up and made an announcement: He was armed, and so were dozens of other patrons.
In Virginia, gun owners are allowed to carry firearms in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, as long as the restaurant permits it and they carry their weapon openly. Legislation to allow concealed weapons in restaurants serving alcohol passed the General Assembly this year, but was vetoed by Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat.
Now, while I was aware that open carry is legal in VA, I was not aware of the fact that only open carry was legal in establishments serving alcohol.
Maybe I need to get an open carry rig for the Dan Wesson.
]]>A long hot, bitter p*ss in Ronald Reagan’s Face
by slippytoad
Fri May 09, 2008 at 07:46:53 PM PDTEighteen months ago, I relieved myself in Karl Rove’s Cheerios on the morning of a resounding Democratic victory in Congress. It was a great relief because a lot of pent up distress was finally done.
...
Today I come before you after a steady evening’s drinking of vinegar and asparagus, bladder once again swollen and tender, to relieve myself in a different way as we contemplate the REAL closing of a sordid chapter in American Politics.
...
our media had been bought up by a cadre of urinal scrim that are too gruesome for me to even post ghostly artist’s renderings of.
...
Stupid people. That’s the problem. America became the Land of the Stupid.
...
Lazy. Stupid.
Like this stumbling f**kwit: [pic of Ronald Reagan]
...
word is going to go out on these jokers. People will know what to look for. If their kids come around again, some day, we’re going to let them know how severely not welcome they are. Bank on it.
Until then, I’ve got my Reagan toilet bowl decoration, and I’m p*ssing hard into it.
...
Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/9/172734/7304/764/512839
If so inclined, delve into the comments (444 of them) section for the reactions the diary elicited. Quite a few of them are even more ... searching for a word ... OK, heck, I’ll just leave it up to each of you to come up with your own description.
End note:
‘Net Roots’ Event Becomes Democrats’ Other National Convention
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007; Page A04
...
Last year in Las Vegas, the [YearlyKos] conference attracted 1,200 participants, including current Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. This year at the McCormick Place Convention Center near downtown Chicago, more than 1,500 participants are expected, including the entire Democratic congressional leadership and all the Democratic presidential candidates.Tomorrow, on the convention’s busiest day, an “Ask the Leaders” forum in the morning will feature Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who heads the House Democratic Caucus, and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Later in the afternoon, a panel with the Democratic candidates promises to be the highlight of the convention, with Clinton, not exactly the favorite of the progressive crowd, and the rest of the presidential field taking questions.
“Look, the fact all the major presidential candidates are attending means that the Net roots, in a very short time, has earned its seat on the big table,” said Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network, which serves as a bridge between centrist Democrats and progressive bloggers.
...
Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202261.html
So I’m shouting. Sue me.
For those who don’t know, Patti is the founder of Soldier’s Angels.
“May no soldier go unloved”
]]>
...
Forty years ago this month, Paris exploded in left-wing student riots that led to a nationwide general strike. The revolutionary fervor of France’s soixante-huitards (’68ers) spread widely, including to American campuses. If you’re wondering when the Good ‘60s of peace, love and civil rights gave way to the Bad ‘60s of anarchy and violence, May 1968 is as good a historical pivot point as any ... the restless spirit of ‘68 haunts this year’s presidential campaign, especially the White House bid of Mr. Obama, who, having pretty much missed the ‘60s – “Civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by,” he told The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan last year – was supposed to take us beyond those divisive traumas.
It’s not working out that way. His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an unreconstructed ‘60s radical, a fire-breathing disciple of James Cone’s period-piece black liberation theology. Mr. Obama wrote in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about his attraction to the leftist pastor’s church as a vehicle for social change. If black nationalism would uplift the race, he wrote, “then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”
That’s a remarkable admission of a racialized “ends justify the means” morality. It helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to stick with a crackpot like Dr. Wright. It also might explain why an up-and-coming Barack Obama found nothing particularly wrong with rubbing political elbows with Bill Ayers, the Chicago university professor and onetime fugitive member of the revolutionary, communist Weather Underground.
...
[The soixante-huitards] may have failed at revolution, but they succeeded in changing the culture. (A famous soixante-huitard slogan: “Live without limits, and enjoy without restraint.") They did so in large part by, to use the Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s phrase, “marching through the institutions.” Pulpits. Professorships. Publishing and media. And in some cases, politics.
It’s not “guilt by association” to inquire to what extent Mr. Obama – whose moral and political conscience was shaped by his education at elite universities, his street activism and his tutelage at Dr. Wright’s knee – shares the views and assumptions of the soixante-huitards. In terms of style, he’s plainly not one of them. But his deeply liberal voting record marks him as at least a fellow traveler.
...
Mr. Obama’s radical baggage is more politically damaging because it deflates the hope many voters invested in him. He was once the man to deliver American politics from the storm and stress of the ‘60s generation – “Goodbye to all that,” as The Atlantic headlined Mr. Sullivan’s much-read pre-primary encomium to Mr. Obama’s transformational potential.
Not yet, alas. Against his own conscience, the ambitious but insecure young Mr. Obama compromised with the malevolent spirit of ‘68 for the sake of worldly gain. For the consequences are not proving to be as little as he expected.
Said the Devil to Faust: “In the end, you are exactly – what you are.” Yes.