Forced to Cover Pregnancy

Another conservative rant because they lose their freedom!  Mr. Gundy misses a few things in his analysis of how medical insurance covering pregnancy is an infringement on freedom:

1.  The United States ranks in the high 20s in so far as infant mortality.  Many women in the United States have babies without anything, at home, with mid-wives or less.  And babies and women die.   You are free to die like a dog in America.

2.  I know, if it is the same Mr. Gundy, that his employer has some of the best insurance on the planet.  Many things are covered.  Co-pays are low.  So, the "burden" that he assumed when his wife was pregnant is far less than others who purchase insurance.   He made up for paying for the birth by having great insurance for everything else.

3.  If it is the same Mr. Gundy, he has NO even passing knowledge of how insurance works.  Risk is shared  with insurance, which drives down individual premiums.  The more insurance that has a pregnancy rider, the more the risk is shared, the lower the individual premium cost.  Mr. Gundy misses this.  By having all insurance cover insurance, we drive down the cost for those who need it.  Simple insurance principles!

4.  The reason 30 million uninsured drive up insurance costs, is because they have to go to the emergency room for treatment, where in some cases they have their babies.  The cost of having a baby has been driven up, precisely because we have not shared the risk on a broader base, and the excess cost is passed along to all medical procedures and costs.

5.  In the season of Christ's birthday, we get yet another plea for "freedom", that had me, me, me all over it.  If I can do it so can you, was almost chanted in Mr. Gundy's piece.  What he misses of course, is that over 30 years ago, when he was graced with a child, that birth cost over 100% less than it does today.  But, this is the land of me, of mine, of screw you....so let the children be born anywhere; like a manger maybe?

What Really is Wrong: Whoopass Stupid!

For the past few days I have followed the reaction to the tragedy in Newtown.  I have endured several Facebook "face offs" with conservatives, who say not to rant, then take off, accusing, denying, defending; etc.  I have heard all sorts of excuses:  mental health deficiencies, federal government, poor parenting, coddling criminals (?), video games; 10 round or more magazines, assault rifles, bazookas; etc.

You will note some of the rants included a grudging admission that the explosion of guns in our culture might contribute to violence, but only as a passing admission.  A whole host of excuses go in front of controlling the sale and distribution of guns.

One consistency comes up again and again:  the smug indifference to fellow human beings.  And, coupled with that, superficial and "easy" answers to complex societal situations.

One genius suggested that bringing corporal punishment back into the classroom would stop the violence.   In short, he said graphically that beatings would teach children to not do violence.

I found it ironic to say the least, that 20 first graders were massacred, and this guy thinks spankings would have helped?   Whoopass stupid!

Then, there was the opportunist who put out a picture of a tee shirt that implied the shootings occurred because we took prayer out of the public schools.  I suppose the shooter would have stopped if the kids prayed.  Whoopass stupid!

Many times the answers suggested belittled teachers (of all things) for the lack of discipline in class.  Now remember, the bad buy broke into the school, killed randomly; killing teachers and staff as well.  So,  some  people took the opportunity to criticize teachers.  I supposed they should have taken the bullets more gracefully?   Whoopass stupid!

Some Conservatives believe, in their souls, in personal responsibility (unless something pertains to them, then Medicare all the way!).  They literally hate their government, want it limited at every turn.  When something bad happens it has to be someones' fault,  and often they turn on the victim.  Remember the Senator candidate who implied that women got raped  because they asked for it with provocative clothing (legitimate rape;  implying there were some rapes that were deserved).

Whoopass stupid!

In summary, what we have is whoopass mean.  That is right, mean and spiteful human beings who always, I mean always, blame, ridicule, and smugly proclaim that their simple minded solutions are the best.

So, in California we have "Three Strikes and You're Out",  state mental hospitals are closed, thanks to that conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, who thought the family should treat their crazy sons and daughters.  Legions of homeless madmen were the sad result.

And today, the NRA finally spoke, and attacked.  That is right, they attacked those who ask that we study violence, and consider cutting back on guns, improve mental health; etc.  He attacked, blaming, defending the culture of violence.

And that is whoopass stupid!

Old Gray Men

Old gray men; we see them everyday on our televisions, on our I-Pads.  They are desperately trying to hold on to the past, to ideas and principles that no longer fit modern America.

They have been wrong countless times, giving us Iraq, a huge deficit, blocking health care reform for years, blocking full rights for women, blocking protections for children, holding back decent treatment of our people for years, screwing up the criminal justice system with a punitive approach that has incarcerated millions of non-violent drug users.  The list is long, the damage is real.

The war on crime, Iraq, destroying gun control, anti-abortion madness; etc., all legacies of gray old men.

They have contributed millions to the NRA, who have cowered our leaders into allowing the nation to be armed with military weapons of mass destruction.

Friday, a mentally disturbed young man, killed 26 in an elementary school of all places, with an assault rifle his mother owned.  His mother bought the weapon (s) and took her mentally disturbed son to the shooting range to evidently sooth his madness.  Nobody said a thing.  People knew he was disturbed, and I assume knew she had guns, all legal, and then he snapped and killed a bunch of kids a few days before Christmas, who were too young to know there is no Santa Claus.

And the old gray men scream, guns not people kill.  And they send more money to the NRA.  And they troop out sayings by Ronald Reagan about personal responsibility.  And we watch as hundreds of thousands are killed by guns, equalling the death toll from WWII every seven years!

Old gray men hate the Affordable Health Care Act.  They push conservative governors to not cooperate with the federal government, while their populations add more poor, untreated children to a  list of suffering and grief.  Old gray men with money, push to actually keep health care away from children because of their selfishness and  their sullenness.  

Most old gray men hate the Affordable Care Act, for reasons they cannot express, but all carry a Medicare Card.

Old selfish gray men.

Old gray men, who are getting meaner everyday; who want our society to be nihilistic,  selfish and hateful.  After Newtown, they are getting their wish; we are a country of fear, of hate, of reactionary selfishness.  Old gray men, even want to secede from the union, sparking yet another Civil War, because a black man was re-elected.  Old gray racist men.

Old gray men remain completely quiet, like the NRA, as we watch babies being buried in Newtown; victims of a crazy man with a machine gun.

And on Facebook, we now begin to read their posts as they come out of hiding, once again stating their absolute right to own guns, any gun.  We read a post about a Congressman in Texas, and other posts, claiming if the teachers would have been armed it would not have happened.

The basic stupidity and lunacy of old gray men advocating arming teachers is unbelievable!   A shoot out in a first grade classroom?    What message does it send children, watching their teacher with a gun on their hip?  The lunacy of gray old men.

The only thing that is good, is that the old gray men will someday expire, and leave us with their legacy of hate, of denial, of stupidity.  By then it will too late.

Old gray men, once again screwing our country up.

Mr. Sowell Please!

So I am reading an article by Thomas Sowell, conservative think-tank scholar and pundit.

He is trying to make the case, yet again, that tax cuts stimulate the economy.  He also is making the case that liberal tax increases harm the economy.

Moreover,  included in his narrative is   reinstating tax cuts,  that were intended to stimulate the economy is regressive,  that all tax revenue is somehow bad for economic growth and vitality.

Amazingly he uses Calvin Coolidge and John F. Kennedy in the same paragraph as examples of lowering taxes to spread prosperity for all.

Is he kidding?  Has he looked at the historical context at all?  In the late 20s, Coolidge completed the “guilded age” massacre of the economy.   Basically the government stayed out of financial matters, no regulation at all was the watchword.  So, the economy merrily continued on, concentrating wealth in the hands of the few, running a Wall Street that became a flash in the pan casino.

Then Oct 1929 hit, and it all fell down. 

Buying stocks on margin, investing the difference, then selling to make money sounds a lot like “flipping houses” in the 2000s;  buying a house on margin, taking out an equity loan, fixing up the house a bit, selling it at a huge profit, paying off the loan with a profit, and then buying two or three more. 

Then 2007 hit and it all fell down.

.

And what fueled that massive speculation?  Tax cuts! 

And, while the revenue for the federal government took a speculative holiday, two wars were started and President Bush spent money like there was no tomorrow.

So, Mr. Sowell, where is there ANY proof that tax cuts stimulate the economy.  All they do is increase rich people’s bank accounts, harm job growth, and create deficits that cut programs that are needed because the ecnonomy has been wrecked by speculation caused by tax cuts.

The United States has the largest defense budget in the world by many times over.  We are spending money like there is no tomorrow, in the “War on Terror” and previously on the “Cold War”.   That is where most of the money goes, so we don’t have the resources to have a decent universal health plan (like all othe other nations in the world have).

That, Mr.Sowell, is where your cut tax madness has led us.

It Takes A Village

First, the pain is unimaginable.  I spent 35 years in schools, in a variety of positions.  I was directly responsible for the safety and security of all children, the concept is called loco parentis, for at least 12 of the 18 years I spent as a school administrator.

After Columbine and 9/11 we all had to develop and implement safety plans, practiced lock downs.  I personally challenged several over the years, took firearms off at least two students, confiscated knives, reacted to stabbings, beatings, and bomb threats.

In short, I was like a cop on the beat.

There were several times when I feared for  my life.

And I patrolled, usually alone, with a walki-talkie as my only defense.

I say that as I think about the Principal, who was killed in Connecticut, probably standing in the way of the shooter.  I say that as I think about the children, all under 11, who the killer "wasted" in an apparent delusional rage.

I say that also as I witness this huge country reduced to a village, by modern communications.  Everyone, either by cable T.V., Facebook, Twitter, satellite radio, FM Radios; etc., was bound together as if the murders occurred right next door.

And we must do something to at least make it harder for madmen to get guns.  It is time, to stop this senseless slaughter.

I saw a chart that shows over 400,000 gun involved deaths in the United States from 2003-2007.

The United States lost 350,000 in World War II.  And, I am not counting injuries by shooting, that far exceeds WWII casualties.

We are enduring the losses of WWII every 5 to seven years or so, during peacetime!

And still, the gun lobby prevails.  Still, we allow internet buying of guns and ammunition with little check.

Michigan, in a footnote to these tragedies, the day before the school murders, passed a law that a person could carry a concealed weapon to school!  It awaits the governor's signature!

Absolutely amazing!  With the dead everywhere, with 40 gun deaths a day, this nation refuses to throttle back its appetite for guns and gun violence.

Tell this to the parents of those kindergartners   and 1st graders who had to go to the morgue to identify their babies, who were shot repeatedly at close range as they screamed and cowered behind their desks.

I have always said gun murders are the act of real cowards.  It takes bravery and personal risk to kill someone with a knife or your bare hands.  A coward stands back and pumps bullets into someone, or for that matter an animal.    How is hunting a sport, when you shoot a deer from 300 yards with an automatic weapon?   It is NOT sport, it is not brave, it is cowardly!  Use a bow and arrow to hunt, in fact restrict it to that.

The NRA has not even acknowledge what happened in Connecticut.  They probably won't.

And here in Redding, the redneck capitol of California, we will see more of those damn bumper stickers, "pry my cold dead fingers from my gun" lunacies.

This nation is sick.  What kind of people are we to stand back and watch school children murdered, Principals shot dead as they try to protect them, while we beat our chests and proclaim absolute gun ownership rights for nut cases?

It takes a village to raise a child.  We are not a village anymore.  

Brown Act/Democracy Goes Down

It took about three minutes.  That is the amount of time a newly elected Tea Party member,  who has just been sworn in to the Redding City Council, took to break the Brown Act.  Three minutes!

There is a majority of Tea Party Patriots  now on the Redding, California City Council.  They have schemed and worked to get 3 out of the 5 positions so now they can exert their radical agenda on our fair city.

For the record, Redding  California has a City Manager Form of City Government.  Already, one of the radical  Teaparty Members, has tried to change the city into a "Charter" City.

"Charter" cities are normally for cities over a million, but what the heck, it was a way for the Tea Party to get power fast over the city.  It didn't work, but took months of staff time and energy, while the City Council was cutting police and fire positions.

Now, the present Vice-Mayor, who conveniently took an all-expense paid trip on a developer's expense account, then was shocked when he was caught, has been appointed over the traditional nominee.

Piously, the Tea Party members say they never talked about this before the meeting.  They would NEVER break the Brown Act, that forbids "meetings before meetings" to 'arrange things'.  Of course, that is exactly what they did.

Within three minutes of being sworn in, a motion was made to appoint a Tea Party collaborator Vice Mayor, and  was passed 3 to 2 with no discussion.  The woman council member was passed over, acutally run over, so the Tea Party could get its way.  This was not the last time this will happen.

But, they didn't arrange it before hand right?   If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.  This was a fix plain and simple.

Ironically, the Tea Party is an anti-democratic  organization in the classical political science definition.  And like all anti-democratic  organizations, open meetings are a natural enemy.

To attain their ends, they use  any means necessary.  They hide behind the Constitution and Law, as "patriots" but resort to stunts like we just saw, all the time.  They are anti-Democracy!

 It is more "convenient" to cut corners, and talk about issues before meetings, rig votes, and the hell with the Brown Act.  The ends of lower taxes and smaller government justify the ends of destroying good government and democracy.

The mark of any anti-democratic movement, is that expediency is always favored over  democratic decision making.  Democracy takes too much time, when there are ideological aims to be met.  The Tea Party seeks to gut city government, cut pensions, end unions, rip into social services, and privatize everything, while lining its pockets with the ultimate corruption that evolves.  That's right, in every anti-democracy  movement, a huge underlying motive is good old fashioned corruption.

Mark this:   The Tea Party majority in Redding will attack the city government at every turn.  They will fire the City Manager, the City Attorney, and many in the city government.  They will seek to privatize all that they can.  They will conspire with developers and will corrupt the present building permit process completely.  They will destroy impartial and fair city government, under the guise of "economies" and will reduce what once was a successful city government to a shadow of what it once was.

And their first step we just saw, running right over the Brown Act to further push their radical agenda.

And who will stop them?  Will you?   Or will we all "go along" as democracy dies in Redding, California.

Tea Party or Me Party?

Today, in our local paper, an editorial was posted lamenting the defeat of a moderate Republican from our city council and the election of a Tea Party member.

The election was extremely close, and a recount was necessary to determine the winner.

In my memory, our city council positions have not been partisan.  Since the advent of the Tea Party, this has dramatically changed.  Now, the Tea Party has taken dead aim at public employees, and run candidates expressly committed to "reform" local government.

Their agenda of "reform" is not hard to discern.

First they oppose all unions of any kind; especially public employee unions.  Second they oppose all public employee pensions.  Third, they seek to privatize as much of the local government as possible; usually with hidden benefactors who stand to profit.  Fourth, they seek to reduce public worker workforces with no consideration of damage to public safety, service; etc.

You get the drift.  Radical anti-government, and anti-democracy forces are at work here.

It reminds me of fascist efforts in Italy and Germany in the 1930s.  The National Socialists began at the local level, literally taking over local and provincial governments on their way to national dominance.

The same thing is going on with the Tea Party.  There is an obvious effort to subvert local city councils, and state legislatures to work their radical will.  They promise reform, but only destroy and in many cases, corrupt the political process.  Many times, the reforms are covers for corruption; manipulating the democratic process to monetarily benefit cronies or  other hidden benefactors.

For example, one of our local tea party city councilmen, was given an all expense trip to Washington D.C., to lobby for a shopping mall, paid for by the developer of the shopping mall!  Amazingly, he saw nothing wrong with this; eventually paying for the trip himself, but never understanding the conflict of interest.

Since the Tea Party brags of its concentration on the Me not the We, such corrupt practices are seen as part of the "free market" approach.  Eventually, this deteriorates into corruption, since no public interest is defined, protected, or appreciated.

The damage is profound.  Everywhere the Tea Party has been ascending, public services, public education, and public safety have suffered.

The problem with ideological fanaticism, it is usually makes for very bad government.

For years, our city was one of the best managed in Northern California.   Now, we have an ideological city council, swinging to the hard right, and our streets have more pot holes, our police department is shrinking, our fire department is shrinking, and our local government is struggling.  And in the background sits the inevitable corruption, just waiting for an opening made possible by fanatical belief that private is better than public.

Public services, governed by democratically elected councils,  were established because of the inevitable corruption that private services bring.  It was done for good reasons!  The Tea Party wants us to go back to the era of private fire departments and police departments paid for by mob bosses.

In the "Old West", usually the local saloon hired the sheriff, who enforced the "Law" to aid the saloon.  We stopped that privatization for good reason.

The Tea Party or the me party; nevertheless, it all works out to bad government for all of us.