born live love die

Bill Donahue is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.  This is what the esteemed Mr. Donahue has to say about priests and pedophilia:

The rash of stories about priestly sexual abuse in Europe, especially in Ireland and Germany, has put many Catholics on the defensive. They should not be. While sexual molestation of any kind is always indefensible, the politics surrounding this story is also indefensible.  Employers from every walk of life, in both the U.S. and Europe, have long handled cases of alleged sex abuse by employees as an internal matter. Rarely have employers called the cops, and none was required to do so.  (my emphasis)

None was required to call the cops?  If you have knowledge of a felony and you don’t report it, that is a not crime.  You are not required, under penalty of law, to report crimes you know to have occurred.  But isn’t there a moral obligation?

Oh, I get it.

Here is the new motto of the Catholic Church: WWJRO

Who Would Jesus Rat Out?

I don’t know Peggy Noonen, but I want someone to shut her up.  She just made the argument that government was too big too over burdened to be able to administer the new parts of the health care bill.

What a crock.

She was lying earlier by saying that 74% of the population don’t like the health care bill.

We deserve better than this.

Matt Taibbi gets his rant on.  Titled “The Catholic Church is a Criminal Enterprise”

Anyone who’s interested in losing his lunch should read the above-mentionedblog entry by New York archbishop Timothy Dolan in defense of Pope Benedict; the archbishop’s incredibly pompous and self-pitying rant is some of the most depraved horseshit I’ve ever seen on the internet, which is saying a lot.  One expects professional slimeballs like the public relations department of Goldman Sachs to pull out the “Well, we weren’t the only thieves!” argument when accused of financial malfeasance. But I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read through Dolan’s retort and it dawned on me that he was actually going to use the “We weren’t the only child molesters!” excuse.

The problem of wide spread child molestation in the Catholic church first came to light around 35 years ago.  It is still happening and the Catholic church is still covering up for it.

We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.

Two questions:

1. Why do they molest?
2. Why do we not give them the full Virginia McMartin treatment?

I think the first answer is molesters become priests because that is where the kids are.  Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks.  He is supposed to have said that he did it because that is where the money was.  We do not give them the full McMartin treatment because the Catholic church has good lawyers and the lawyers are really connected.

But I think Matt has a point:

We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.

The idea that men will not want to have sex is a foolish idea.  At several hundred million sperm per ejaculate, men are designed to have sex.

Somewhere underneath all of this there is a root story that has to do with celibacy. The celibate status of its priests is basically the Catholic church’s last market advantage in the Christian religion racket, but human beings are not designed to be celibate and so problems naturally arise among the population of priests forced to live that terrible lifestyle. Just as it refuses to change its insane and criminal stance on birth control and condoms, the church refuses to change its horrifically cruel policy about priestly celibacy. That’s because it quite correctly perceives that should it begin to dispense with the irrational precepts of its belief system, it would lose its appeal as an ancient purveyor of magical-mystery bullshit and become just a bigger, better-financed, and infinitely more depressing version of a Tony Robbins self-help program.

Therefore it must cling to its miserable celibacy in order to keep its sordid business scheme going; and if clinging to its miserable celibacy means having to look the other way while children are serially molested by its sexually stunted and tortured employees, well, so be it.

Matt is right.  This is religibusiness.  The product they sell is self-satisfaction.  But it only works if you can believe that it is not connected to this mortal plane.

It is time for them to be regulated just like any other business.

The blog of the Speaker of the House has a run down of the pieces of the healthcare reform bill that are immediately available.  I’d like to see what the Republicans have to say about this.

IF YOU ARE A SMALL BUSINESSES OWNER:

SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS—Offers tax credits to small businesses to make employee coverage more affordable. Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available. Effective beginning for calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2014, small business tax credits will cover 50 percent of premiums.)

IF YOU ARE A SENIOR:

BEGINS TO CLOSE THE MEDICARE PART D DONUT HOLE—Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010. Effective for calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2011, institutes a 50% discount on brand-name drugs in the donut hole; also completely closes the donut hole by 2020.)

FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER MEDICARE—Eliminates co-payments for preventive services and exempts preventive services from deductibles under the Medicare program. Effective beginning January 1, 2011.

HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES—Creates a temporary re-insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64. Effective 90 days after enactment.

IF YOU HAVE PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE:

NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS—Prohibits health plans from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, this prohibition would apply to adults as well.)

NO RESCISSIONS—Bans health plans from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Effective 6 months after enactment.

NO LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Prohibits health plans from placing lifetime caps on coverage. Effective 6 months after enactment.

NO RESTRICTIVE ANNUAL LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Tightly restricts new plans’ use of annual limits to ensure access to needed care. These tight restrictions will be defined by HHS. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, the use of any annual limits would be prohibited for all plans.)

FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER NEW PLANS—Requires new private plans to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment.

NEW, INDEPENDENT APPEALS PROCESS FOR NEW PLANS—Ensures consumers in new plans have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal decisions. Effective 6 months after enactment.

MORE FOR YOUR PREMIUM DOLLAR—Requires plans to put more of your premiums into your care, and less into profits, CEO pay, etc. This medical loss ratio requires plans in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of premiums on medical services, and plans in the large group market to spend 85 percent. Insurers that don’t meet these thresholds must provide rebates to policyholders. Effective on January 1, 2011.

NO DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SALARY—Prohibits new group health plans from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that have the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees. Effective 6 months after enactment.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE:

IMMEDIATE HELP FOR THE UNINSURED WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS(INTERIM HIGH-RISK POOL)—Provides immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition – through a temporary high-risk pool – until the Exchanges up and running in 2014. Effective 90 days after enactment. (Beginning in 2014, health plans are banned from discriminating against all people with pre-existing conditions, so high-risk pools would phase out).

EXTENDING COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 26TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE – Requires health plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice. Effective 6 months after enactment.

GENERAL REFORMS:

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS—Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly doubling the number of patients served over the next 5 years. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.

MORE PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS—Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals. Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.

HEALTH INSURANCE CONSUMER ASSISTANCE—Provides aid to states to establish offices of health insurance consumer assistance to help consumers file complaints and appeals. Effective beginning in FY 2010.

A NEW, VOLUNTARY, PUBLIC LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE PROGRAM—Creates a long-term care insurance program to be financed by voluntary payroll deductions to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled. Effective on January 1, 2011.

The white conservative Republicans thought they could push Obama around. But one has taken off his perception distorting optics and has this to say:

President Obama possesses a certain kind of strength, which I had underestimated. His reserve is not passionless. During the health-care debate, Obama has been tenacious, even ruthless. Following the Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, he reacted with anger and ambition, not conciliation. He rejected a “skinny bill” out of hand. He was willing to employ and defend any method — budget gimmicks, special deals, procedural tricks — to achieve his goal. His methods were flexible — the legislation violates some of his own campaign pledges on health-care reform, including the imposition of an individual mandate — but his determination was firm. When push came to shove, he shoved.

Yeah, he shoved. Get used to it.

The politics of health reform is nearly as complex as the legislation itself. To have raised this issue first — before a serious emphasis on job creation and economic growth — still seems a serious mistake.

It was a mistake only to those who wanted Obama to fail.  Small businesses, where short term job growth happens more frequently, were being squeezed by health care costs.  Large businesses, where long term job growth happens more frequently, where hamstrung by union contracts stipulating certain types of medical coverage.  Changes needed to be made and making plans to deal with the swamp of job loss without doing something about the alligators of medical insurance cost was not going to work.

Yet passing this ambitious reform on a party-line vote by questionable tactics may also lead to political disaster. Headed into a midterm election, Obama has managed to alienate many senior citizens, concerned that cuts in their Medicare will be used to finance someone else’s entitlement, and many independents, whose general disgust with the political process has been reinforced.

What a bunch of bad writing.  It ‘may’ lead to a Democratic victory also.  Yes, it was a party line vote because Republicans have been obstructionist to the extreme.  Yes, people have become more disgusted with the political process because Republicans have sought to make it more disgusting.  If Obama lost through this process, Republicans lost more.

The immediate political judgment on Obama is likely to be harsh. The historical judgment is, by nature, uncertain. Obama can (correctly) comfort himself that he has altered the health-care debate in America forever. When Republicans eventually return to power, they will attempt to modify the package through the introduction of more market-oriented elements. They will not attempt to abolish health-care reform. What Republican would want to campaign on a return to the exclusion of insurance coverage because of preexisting conditions? Obama has created legislative facts on the ground that will shape every future health-care debate.

This is bad writing and would get reproving marks from first year teacher in high school.  The first sentence “The immediate political judgment on Obama is likely to be harsh” is made and then is not supported.  I am just an engineer, but hell, even I try not to do that.  Let me try in the next paragraph:

For the immediate political judgement on President Obama to be harsh, he must be perceived as someone who forsook his role as a leader and pursued his agenda only for personal and political gain.  The question that would drive that assessment would be something like this: “When Obama decided to reform health care, do you think that Obama was more interested in his political legacy or was trying to help people?”  The answer to that question is measured by how it effects the lives of the people.  and the answer is simple.  Between now and election day in November, there will be enough elements of immediate relief for the people that either they will either benefit or know someone who benefited from the relief.  The immediate political judgement of which Mr. Gerson speaks exists only in the echo chamber that is the conventional wisdom among the chattering classes in Washington, not in the lives of ordinary Americans who are beset by rising health insurance costs and predatory practices.  President Obama is not talking about political gain and has given every indication that he would rather be a good one term president than a two term president who merely pays lip service to policy changes while perpetuating the status quo.  The immediate political judgement on President Obama may be harsh in Washington DC, but not in the rest of the country.

President Obama continues to be seen more favorably than any other politician in the country, and Republicans have no one who can dent that popularity.  Palin?  A clown.  Romney?  Obama just got a health care plan passed that looked a lot like the one Romney passed when he was the governor of Massachusetts.  Newt?  Heh.  One of the white benchwarmers in House or Senate, panting in ambition for the bit time?  Get real.

Obama got game.  Get used to it.

I love my brother, but I am tired of it.  I am tired of trying not to upset him.  He is a conservative Republican Christian, as is most of the rest of my birth family.  We can’t seem to discuss anything political peaceably.  He is older than me and there has been a history of miscommunications between us.  I became an atheist when I was 16.  He tried to convert me back for a while and I wasn’t having any.  I never told him he was a weak thinker for thinking the things that he does; I tried to use logic to demonstrate what I thought and how it was more consistent than what I previously believed.

I remember once when I came back to the States from Germany for another brother’s wedding.  We were in the car on the way to the wedding and my older brother was pontificating about something that had religious overtones and I interjected that there was no absolute evil.  My brother shouted me down angrily, saying “Yes there is!  It is the Satan, and God is the absolute good.”  I didn’t respond (to the best of my memory).  It didn’t seem like it was worth getting into a beef with him.

Over the years, we have had a chancy relationship.  After Barack Hussein Obama was elected, I wrote him an email titled “I just voted for Obama”

This is a good day for America.  We are probably on different sides on this election, but I think we have a chance to correct the policies of the last eight years that have doubled the national debt.

Peace, Dan

another one titled “A banker’s story”

A banker goes canvassing for Obama: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1103/p09s02-coop.html

–Dan

and a third, “I didn’t vote for Obama today”, a cut and paste from somewhere.

I have a confession to make.

I did not vote for Barack Obama today.

I’ve openly supported Obama since March.  But I didn’t vote for him today.

I wanted to vote for Ronald Woods. He was my algebra teacher at Clark Junior High in East St. Louis, IL.  He died 15 years ago when his truck skidded head-first into a utility pole.  He spent many a day teaching us many things besides the Pythagorean Theorem.  He taught us about Medgar Evers, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis and many other civil rights figures who get lost in the shadow cast by Martin Luther King, Jr.

But I didn’t vote for Mr. Woods.

I wanted to vote for Willie Mae Cross. She owned and operated Crossroads Preparatory Academy for almost 30 years, educating and empowering thousands of kids before her death in 2003.  I was her first student.  She gave me my first job, teaching chess and math concepts to kids in grades K-4 in her summer program.  She was always there for advice, cheer and consolation.  Ms. Cross, in her own way, taught me more about walking in faith than anyone else I ever knew.

But I didn’t vote for Ms. Cross.

I wanted to vote for Arthur Mells Jackson, Sr. and Jr. Jackson Senior was a Latin professor.  He has a gifted school named for him in my hometown.  Jackson Junior was the pre-eminent physician in my hometown for over 30 years.  He has a heliport named for him at a hospital in my hometown.  They were my great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively.

But I didn’t vote for Prof. Jackson or Dr. Jackson.

I wanted to vote for A.B. Palmer. She was a leading civil rights figure in Shreveport, Louisiana, where my mother grew up and where I still have dozens of family members.  She was a strong-willed woman who earned the grudging respect of the town’s leaders because she never, ever backed down from anyone and always gave better than she got.  She lived to the ripe old age of 99, and has a community center named for her in Shreveport.

But I didn’t vote for Mrs. Palmer.

I wanted to vote for these people, who did not live to see a day where a Black man would appear on their ballots on a crisp November morning.

In the end, though, I realized that I could not vote for them any more than I could vote for Obama himself.

So who did I vote for?

No one.

I didn’t vote.  Not for President, anyway.

Oh, I went to the voting booth.  I signed, was given my stub, and was walked over to a voting machine.  I cast votes for statewide races and a state referendum on water and sewer improvements.

I stood there, and I thought about all of these people, who influenced my life so greatly.  But I didn’t vote for who would be the 44th President of the United States.

When my ballot was complete, except for the top line, I finally decided who I was going to vote for – and then decided to let him vote for me.  I reached down, picked him up, and told him to find Obama’s name on the screen and touch it.

And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Oh, the vote will be recorded as mine.  But I didn’t cast it.

Then again, the person who actually pressed the Obama box and the red “vote” button was the person I was really voting for all along.

It made the months of donating, phonebanking, canvassing, door hanger distributing, sign posting, blogging, arguing and persuading so much sweeter.

So, no, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama.  I voted for a boy who now has every reason to believe he, too, can grow up to be anything he wants…even President.

– Boyd Reed

I didn’t hear from him.  Several days later, I got an email that basically asked me not to email him anything political anymore.  I won’t quote it here, because I haven’t asked his permission.  He quoted Moses talking to the tribes of Israel before going into the Promised Land.  He indicated that he had not read these emails and said that for several years, he thought that I hand been trying to draw him into a conversation about things so I could ridicule his beliefs.  I responded:

Well, Ron, maybe you don’t understand me and I don’t understand you.  I have had a political orientation for all of my adult life. I volunteered in a Congressional race, Mark Carr, in 1972, at age 17.  Politics, of the conservative, Republican variety were a staple in the house in which I grew up.  I can remember John saying, at the dinner table, that if Martin Luther King ever showed up in Holland, he would shoot him, calling him a “black son of a bitch”.  That talk wasn’t the norm at our house, but “None Dare Call It Treason” was.  For the record, I think that John was influenced by guys at work; I don’t think he actively thought about doing violence.

Two of the three things I sent to you were human stories that made me cry.  One was a written by a guy who went into to voting booth and recalled the people who had made a difference in his life.  He didn’t vote for Obama, his five year old son did.  He voted for his son.  I tried to put myself in his shoes and it was emotionally overwhelming.  The other story was the about a guy who is white, conservative, a banker, and who, at his wife’s prodding, went canvassing for Obama.  He acknowledges that his taxes will go up under Obama.  He talked about two white people, he and his wife, going into a housing project and what he found there.  There was no condescension on his part, no liberal guilt.  He is someone who loves America and that was his story.  I put myself in his shoes and his humility and openness touched me.  The third thing was a simple message that I had voted and why I voted the way I did.  If I had received that email, I would probably have responded with a message about who I voted for and why.

I have been puzzled by your reaction for the last 24 hours.  One of the books in my library is “The Genius of The People” about the writing of the Constitution.  People of wildly disparate views were able to come together and form a  government.  They did it by being willing to listen to the other side.  You and I may have different views, but I am always willing to listen.

I didn’t cry on Tuesday night.  I was at a party and when Obama gave his speech in Chicago, there were a lot of people crying.  I didn’t.  My thoughts were, “Okay, let’s go.  Debt, deficit, two wars, financial crisis.  Let’s go.”  GM is set to run out of cash in the middle of next year.  That’s a problem.  For example, anyone who steps up and says that the biggest problem facing the country is gay marriage is not someone I would treat seriously.  I’ll listen, but be sceptical.  Banning gay marriage isn’t going to solve any of the real problems we face today.

As for ridicule and culpability, I don’t know where your comments about that come from.

And that is the way I left it.  I was not going to talk politics to him.

But a couple of weeks ago, he sent me an email.

Increasing the minimum wage was meant to raise the living standards of millions of Americans holding unskilled, entry level positions.  But it may have led to the elimination of 550,000 jobs — opening the possibility that such wage levels should be revised, suggests a new study from Ball State University.  A study of part-time workers monitored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1999 to 2009 found that raising the minimum wage to its current level of $7.25 during the recent recession caused some businesses to scale back on filling vacant positions or eliminate jobs altogether, says Michael J. Hicks, director of Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER).

I responded:

I don’t know about the this report.  I note that it begins with a qualifier, ‘may have led’.  I would like to see the data that correlates minimum wage to job loss.  In an economic downturn, there are a lot of forces at work and the data would have to show an dependent relationship between minimum wage increases and job loss, to the exclusion of all other independent variables.  I don’t have the data, but the skeptic in me things that the probability of such a relationship is low.

I went on to talk about the general questions of capitalism and noted that capitalism would not survive without the altruism of individuals, and socialism/communism would not survive with the greed of individuals.

I saw an article this morning on Juan Cole’s blog about Iranian doctors helping a town in Mississippi.

Iran is an interesting country.  There are those in our political/government structure who want war with Iran.  There are those who assure us that the Iranian people like Americans, it is just their theocratic government that is a problem.  Because I don’t know any Iranians directly (although I have in the past) I don’t have all the facts, but I thought this was interesting.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6962844.ece

But with Congress acrimoniously debating the reform of healthcare, it is to Iran that one of America’s poorest communities is turning to try to resolve its own health crisis.  A US doctor and a development consultant visited Iran in May to study a primary healthcare system that has cut infant mortality by more than two-thirds since the Islamic revolution in 1979.  Then, in October, five top Iranian doctors, including a senior official at the health ministry in Tehran, were quietly brought to Mississippi to advise on how the system could be implemented there.  The Mississippi Delta has some of the worst health statistics in the country, including infant mortality rates for non-whites at Third World levels.

I think if more Iranians came over here and saw that we are not the Great Satan, then went back to Iran and spread the word, maybe we could find a way to resolve these nuclear issues peacefully.  But I don’t know.

My brother responded:

I really have no desire to discuss health care.  Or a country that denies the Holocaust and wants to obliterate Israel.

I started to write a response to soft shoe it, but then I heard Rush Limbaugh say about Democratic members of the House and Senate, “We  need to defeat these bastards.  We need to wipe them out.”  I thought about what my brother would say about that and I knew he would not speak against them.  He has not ever done so in the past when I have tried to get him to say that this sort of speech is wrong.  I thought about John Lewis getting called a n*gger while walking to the House.  Would he call that wrong?  What is wrong to him?  I don’t know.

And I got tired of it.

I wrote: Have it  your way.

I can’t help it. I say “President Barack Obama” aloud, and I get giddy.

Northern Iowa University knocked off one of the storied basketball teams in the NCAA tournament, Kansas.  Northern Iowa was led by guard Ali Farokhmanesh.  Ali hit a three to close out UNLV in the first round and dropped five of the last six points on Kansas.

I like it that sports fans all over the country can say “Farokhmanesh”.  That’s a good American name.

I love America.

Health care is about helping out people without health care.  Poor people.

Republicans tend to think that people who are poor are morally deficient.  They don’t have the guts to pull themselves up by their boot straps.  They spend all their money on booze, drugs and big televisions.

Ezra Klein breaks it down.

Jon Cohn spent part of Saturday wandering through the patches of protesters on Capitol Hill. What surprised him, however, was that the protests seemed less about health-care reform than about redistribution itself. To the protesters, Jon says, health-care reform is “about having their money taken for the sake of somebody else’s security. When they hear stories of people left bankrupt or sick because of uninsurance, they are more likely to see a lack of personal responsibility and virtue than a lack of good fortune.”

I see this a lot in my inbox, too. So it’s worth taking a moment to talk about whom health-care reform is really meant to help. There are three major subsidies operating in the health-care system. The first, and most obvious, is Medicare, which covers the elderly. Then there’s Medicaid, which covers some of the very poor. But then there’s the one that people normally forget: The tax break for employer-sponsored health-care insurance. At $250 billion a year, it’s much more expensive than health-care reform, and it subsidizes people with good jobs that offer health-care benefits.

These Republicans should go back and read Matthew 7:3 again.  They get upset by the cost of helping poor people get health care, but overlook the benefits of tax deductible employer provided health insurance.

James Fallows, take it away:

Update #2: At 5:00pm, Fox’s Greta van Susteren tells us that the vote is still “too close to call.” I’m expecting next to hear from Baghdad Bob.