Headlines - Monday October 29

 

I Tom Joad.

 

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GOP Debunked: Obama did not create $5 trillion in new debt

 

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What do you get when you combine hierarchy, bigotry, and self-styled religious self-righteousness?

The publication Thursday of 20 years worth of secret records kept by the Boy Scouts of America reveal a widespread effort by the organization to cover up a scandal involving allegations of sexual abuse against 1,200 scout leaders.

The records, known within the Boy Scouts itself as the "perversion files," cover the years 1965-1985 and detail the names of the alleged perpetrators, their hometowns and other information. The files were results of the organization's own internal investigations into sexual abuse among its leaders and include court documents, newspapers clippings in cases where charges were actually filed and other material....

Like the recent pedophilia scandals involving Penn State University and the Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scout cases involve trusted members of the community who had access to children they were supposed to mentor and to protect, but who instead exploited that access to groom and to molest the most vulnerable of them.

And as with the scandal in the Catholic Church, this story is only beginning to come to light. Samuel Smith says it's time for the feds to consider RICO charges.

 

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"A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals. Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party's or their personal political platform. To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally 'complicit' with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy." - Bishop David Ricken, in a letter published today in the bulletins of over 200 parishes in Wisconsin.

 

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Republican governors and local representatives complain about "government run healthcare," but if they don't get with the program, they may have no healthcare.

According to new findings by the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH), by 2019, safety net hospitals' uncompensated care costs will be $53 billion higher than originally estimated if states don't opt into the voluntary expansion of the Medicaid program under Obamacare.

Safety net hospitals serve areas where, on average, 14.9 percent of the population is uninsured and 32.5 percent of the population relies on government-provided health coverage such as Medicaid. Current Medicaid reimbursements often fall short of the full cost of care, so programs such as federal DSH funding help make up the difference. Obamacare cuts DSH funding in half by 2019 in an effort to reduce national hospital payments — but only because the cuts to safety net hospitals were intended be offset by the vastly expanded pool of newly insured low-income Americans.

In hindsight making the expansion of Medicaid voluntary may not have been ideal, but making it mandatory also may have lead to the entire law being struck down. Because even in its current iteration, the Affordable Care Act survived by a razor-thin margin and ultimately relied on Chief Justice John Roberts having a last-minute change of heart.

With that said, I expect much of the opposition to the expansion of Medicaid will fade away after election season is over, and will almost entirely disappear in 2014 when the remainder of the law comes into effect.

This study, conducted by the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, suggests they simply won't be able to afford not to. And perhaps more importantly, refusing to expand Medicaid will be very bad for business.

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Willard Romney stands by pledge to shut down FEMA - This is the mating call of the sociopaths and the Ayn Rand Society, but I repeat myself.

Ann Romney wants to get rid of public education.

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Josh Whedon imagines a Romney presidency

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Charles Pierce on the Des Moines Register's endorsement of Willard.

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Newt Gingrich: "OK, so why can't people like [Obama deputy campaign manager] Stephanie Cutter get over [Mourdock's rape-is-a-gift-from-God comment]?" 

Why can't Newt just go away?

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Scumneys, already rich off others' sweat, apparently plan to turn money into power

So, who would name their son Tagg? For that matter, who would name their son Mitt? I suppose it doesn't matter what one's name is, provided that one conducts oneself with a modicum of honor. That, it seems, is too much to expect.

Tagg Scumney is a major investor in a company that owns a lot of voting machines in Ohio, a presidential election battleground state. Can you say conflict of interest?

Here's a link outlining the problem. This cries out for an investigation NOW, before the major voting takes place.

And, it gets worse. The Scumney family investment group has been linked to the $8.5 billion Ponzi scheme that got Texas swindler Allen Stanford sent to prison for a 110-year sentence. No Scumneys are under investigation -- well, not in a direct, CRIMINAL way -- but ask some of those who were swindled if that translates into clean hands. The last thing I read about this is that they "aren't cleared."

And it gets worse still. Greg Palast, in The Nation, exposes how the Scumney clan profited, to the tune of $15.3 million, off the auto industry bailout that Mitt Scumney regularly condemns when he's on the campaign trail.

I've seen pond scum like this before, too many times in my life. It's just business, they seem to reason, and that's a totally amoral realm in the eyes of such people. And many people seem to have a perverse admiration for their great mastery of mammon.

Such people make much ado about not smoking or drinking, and they're in church every time the door opens. (They usually wear too much cologne or perfume, perhaps to hide the de facto stench.)

But when it comes to making big loot off other people's toil and misfortune -- in their view, what does one thing have to do with the other?

I think this kind of trashy behavior has even made it to the White House before, and recently. We, the American people, have got a chance to stop it this time, if we will.