Brown People Count -- and Other Election 2012 Lessons for Republicans

Early on during election night, even before President Obama was announced the winner, I watched a Fox News pundit soberly realize, as she put it, that Republicans need to realize they can no longer win many races without "brown people" and that they perhaps "overplayed" the whole Obama is a socialist thing.  Gee, you think? 

Grog's Gamut opened my eyes to a few other insightful take-home messages:  1) "All Obama lost from 2008 was Indiana and North Carolina which voted Republican even when Clinton was running in 1992 and 1996, let alone when George W won in 2000 and 2004. So it wasn’t a case of Romney making inroads, but more just getting back what the GOP used to take for granted"; 2) math and science rule; and 3) yes, the electoral map still looks like roadkill if you just look at land mass,

but the margins of victory at the county level may tell the more important story: 

 "Where Obama won big was in the big cities; where Mitt won big was in places that didn’t matter because they were never in play – such as Utah...

In Colorado for example Obama won big in and around Denver and Boulder. In Florida he won the Miami-Dade Country with 62% of the vote – that county had around 829,000 voters, next door in Broward County he won with 67%. It has around 719,000 voters. Together those 2 counties account for nearly 20% of the entire state’s vote.  In Ohio it’s the same story." [Grog's Gamut, 11-7-12]

Grog goes on to point out that radical Republican/Tea Party logic just will not win you votes in national and statewide elections in many states, nor will trying to appeal to (or trying not to piss off) that illogical segment of the population.  I think many Republicans fail to appreciate this. 

In a Facebook conversation I had with some local Republican friends hoopin' and hollin' about Scott Brown's loss to Elizabeth Warren, like they were born and raised in Massachusetts or something, I echoed that theory of flawed TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party logic.  Especially in the MA Senate race, I believe it boiled down to this:  Republicans  underestimated how much people are hurting. People want health care and to not be raped by their credit card companies more than they want tax cuts. Tax cuts aren't bad, but what the hell am I going to do with a tax credit I have to spend money up front to take advantage of if I don't have any money in the first place?

For Mitt Romney's Health Plan, Look to Gov. Jindal

Want to know how Mitt Romney would fix America's healthcare problem?  Just look to how Gov. Bobby Jindal is reforming healthcare in Louisiana: by eliminating it.  If you think I am kidding, look at the Governor's travel schedule.  Louisianians already know that Jindal spends more time with Romney and raising money for him than he does at the state capitol.  Who else would Romney look to for advice other than the Republican-proclaimed healthcare guru?

Every time Jindal and his band of suck-up, "whatever you say, boss" state healthcare administrators have reassured us they are only cutting healthcare costs without sacrificing services, it has turned out to be a boldface lie.  Each time, they and Jindal have known exactly what the plan was all along, then proceeded to tell the public the exact opposite.  

It all started with mental health. Three years ago, the state's Medical Director clearly stated their intent to eliminate inpatient psych services for youths.   Remember New Orleans Adolescent Hospital? Remember how all those beds in New Orleans were moved to the northshore?  Isn't it convenient how NOAH was sold earlier this year just before the state decided publicly announced that Southeast Louisiana Hospital was closing and that those "psych beds" would be relocated back to the southshore?  I put "psych beds" in quotes because even though the state has already moved the patients out of Southeast Louisiana Hospital, it has yet to even identify where those "beds" will ultimately physically exist, which means they don't exist. And they likely never will.  Just like those more abundant outpatient services to replace the shuttered hospital units don't exist -- and in many cases never did. 

Using the loss of federal Medicaid funding as an excuse for decimating the LSU system is, in my estimation, Jindal and Greenstein being less than totally honest, to put it charitably.  The trip down that road has been underway since last summer when Jindal single-handedly and against the will of the legislature, and therefore that of the people, CHOSE to eliminate about $24 million in federal healthcare funds when he CHOSE to veto the renewal of the 4-cent cigarette tax.  The trip continued with the privatization of Medicaid with his brainchild the Bayou Health Program and with giving control of mental health services to the private insurer Magellan which slashed reimbursement rates to providers 30-40% before Jindal even learned of the federal Medicaid funding cuts, which of course led to even deeper cuts.

The latest outcry, which will of course be ignored by Jindal, is against his cuts to the LSU system that stand to cripple the training of future doctors.  Even his handpicked henchmen on LSU's Board of Supervisors weren't aware of the extent of Jindal's destructive plans:

"The shortage came as a surprise to members of the LSU Board of Supervisors, who recently approved a plan to cut $150 million out of operations of seven LSU hospitals in south Louisiana." -The Advocate 10/29/2012

Oh wait. Except they were lying about not knowing.  An article from six days earlier titled, "Medical Plan Caught Up in Cuts to LSU," noted:

"...the LSU budget cuts could jeopardize training programs’ accreditations and standards, threatening medical education in Louisiana and chasing away medical students needed to treat patients in a state that already has issues about access to health care and doctor shortages in rural areas.  LSU leaders and the governor’s health secretary, Bruce Greenstein, say they’re keeping all of that in mind and have graduate medical education at the forefront of their planning." -The Advocate, 10/23/2012

How are you surprised to learn of something you promised a week ago to keep in the forefront of your mind?  Seems to me that Jindal and his yes-men are lying about saving medical education too.  Why would they if they're getting rid of the places those doctors would practice?  

So if you're down with that, then by all means, cast your vote for Romney and roll out the welcome mat for incoming Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services & new Cabinet member Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Mitt, Big Government, and the Deeply Confused Deep (Red) South

People living on the Gulf Coast, especially Louisianians, should be the last ones complaining about big government programs.  D-SNAP, FEMA, NFIP, USACE, National Guard, Road Home Program, etc.  Need I say more?

No I don't.  But I will.

Many local Republicans decry the amount of federal dollars spent on those no-income-tax-paying leeches living off the government dole, those same leeches who Mitt believes will never support him.  What many local Republicans seem unable to recognize, or at least admit, is that they are those leeches.

Source: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/nonpayers.banner.taxfound.jpg

Such folks are either misled, uninformed, or disingenuous.  Either way, if they want the rest of us to start taking them seriously, Republican politicians and their local supporters need to walk their talk.  The ones living in St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines, and St. Tammany need to vote for enough new taxes to cover the full cost of the levees they want.

(Well OK, they don't have to hold that vote now.  We can wait until after they get out of the disaster food stamp line.)

Santorum, Risky Parenting, Heresy, and the Quran

Rick Santorum thinks President Obama is a snob for wanting Americans to go to college.



Santorum wants to create jobs so that people can remake their children in their own image.  While you do want your children to adopt your positive characteristics, everyone knows that trying to make your children grow up to fit some ideal persona that you have in mind for them can be disastrous.  For all of Santorum's questioning of the President's theology, what he just said is heresy.  Our children are made in God's image, not our own.


As for the violence over the military's destruction of the Quran, were these rare collectors' special edition Qurans or something? We apologized.  They do have more copies left, right?  I'm going to need the Afghans to simmer. 

Dardenne or Nungesser?

Last week I went to EngageNOLA's Meet the Candidate event featuring Billy Nungesser, candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Mr. Nungesser's anti-immigration campaign ad "Sleepless in Louisiana" which criticizes his opponent for not protecting Louisianians from having their jobs stolen by illegal immigrants was brought up. A Latina woman born and raised right here in Louisiana explained to Mr. Nungesser that his ad features faces of men who look like her American father and other American relatives. The woman asked Nungesser if he approved that ad. After mentioning the irrelevant fact that a media company hired by his campaign produced the ad, Nungesser responded that, yes, he approved the ad. Nungesser added that running the ad is "just politics."

Mr. Nungesser sees nothing wrong with running an ad filled with ominous images of brown skinned people to convince people to vote for him. He sees nothing wrong with using optics and rhetoric that a hateful person can easily use to support their harassment, or God forbid, violent acts against Americans who look like the stereotypical brown skinned immigrants used in his ad. In fact, commercials and images like these are what make it difficult for us to accept people who look a certain way as "real" Americans.

That is a damn heavy price to pay to just play politics, not to mention very poor judgment on the part of someone who claims he will fight for all Louisianians. Really? Does that include brown Louisianians, Mr. Nungesser?

I truly was undecided going into the event. I left determined to cast my vote for Nungesser's opponent, Jay Dardenne.

Vitter's Balanced Budget Amendment and Other Stupid Ideas

I was pondering this Balanced Budget Amendment idea and kept coming to the conclusion that it would be a horrible way to run the country, and that was before I read The Pelican Institute's post stating: "Despite a balanced budget requirement, Louisiana has still managed to acquire $21 billion more in liabilities than it has assets to offset them."

It was also before I read that Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said: "It is about the most irresponsible action imaginable. It would virtually ensure that an economic downturn would end up as a deep depression, by erasing any real ability of the government to pursue countercyclical fiscal policies and in fact demanding the opposite, at the worst possible time."

I think good ole Norm was getting at what I was thinking. I was thinking: where will Louisiana get federal disaster help the next time a levee or an oil well explodes? Given the state's Republican leaders' non-stop pleading for help cleaning up the oil and making the fisherman financially whole again, we'd be up shit bayou if we need those funds if while operating under a federal Balanced Budget Amendment we have a disaster at a point in the fiscal year when all federal disaster funds have already been allocated.

I emailed Senator Vitter and posed this very question to him when I learned of his refusal to vote for a debt ceiling bill unless it is tied to a Balanced Budget Amendment, but he didn't respond. Which brings me to the point of this post. Why does Senator Vitter keep wasting his time on stupid legislation that even other conservatives consider stupid? We all champion lost causes now and again, but Vitter seems to have made a career out of being on the wrong side of issues, being ineffective, and even worse, being consistently counterproductive.

Concept of the Day: DOUBLE STANDARD

Hey kids! Today's concept is: DOUBLE STANDARD. As in, "The Republicans seem to espouse a double standard when judging private sector and government sector finances."

The piece What's Good Enough for GE is Good Enough for the United States argues the point that S&P's downgrading of the U.S.'s credit rating was widely met with snorts and chuckling. Why?

Still, it’s true that federal debt held by the public has reached 60 percent of GDP, while tax revenues remain around 20 percent of GDP. 60 percent of GDP is a lot! And double, nearly triple, tax revenue! What would we call a company with outstanding debt double or even triple its revenues, and expected to keep the highest bond rating?

We would call it General Electric. As recently as 2007, GE had an S&P rating of AAA with outstanding debt at over three time revenues...

Even Transocean, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig for BP, managed an A- rating prior to the spill, with a debt-revenue ratio similar to what the federal government has now. [J.W. Mason, New Deal 2.0]

We all know the conservative mantra, spouted ad nauseum from our Gret Stet of Looziana to the congressional halls of the Beltway: "Government should be run like a business!" As it turns out, the government is already run like a business. So thank you, Republicans. Your work here is done. You can all step down from your lives of public service now and go home.

Levine Admits Republicans Don't Know Much About Health Care

This is from today's Times-Picayune, page A-6:

"The shortest book in the world is, 'Republicans that I've known and met that know a lot about health care,' " Levine said. "And so there's been a lot of candidates for governor or state legislators from various states who reach out and call and ask, 'What are some of the basics? What are some of the real hot issues from a health policy standpoint?' " [T-P, 7-18-2010]

I guess that explains why Congressional Republicans weren't able to come up with sensible remedies to our nation's health care problems, and why the ones they keep insisting on proposing are often...well...shitty.

The T-P article also offered some insight as to why Levine has overseen the decimation of mental health care services in Louisiana. It seems he might not have known what the hell was going on down here because, like his bossman Bobby, he's been too busy traveling the country instead of doing the job we've paid him six figures to do here at home.

"LA Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine...has been busy doling out policy advice to Republican political candidates around the country,"

"In recent weeks he's written a health care "white paper" for the Republican Governors Association, addressed Republican U.S. House members about the effects of the new health care law on the states, and spent a day in California recently with policy advisers to Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who is running for chief executive of the Golden State." and said he hopes to continue doing so through the 2012 presidential cycle." [T-P, 7-18-2010]

So cut the guy some slack, y'all! He didn't KNOW that our children's psychological well-being was in the terlet. How was he to know? He wasn't even here! So lay off of him, people!

The upshot for Alan is that he has used all of these connections he's been busy cultivating to land a posh private sector job back home in Florida, now that he's done fucking the good people of Louisiana over. Way to go, Al! Best Wishes!

Learn the Jindal Two-Step

Here's how you do the Jindal Double-Talkin' Two-Step:
1) Do something:

[LA Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek said:] “While the governor’s proposed budget does not dedicate state funding to support teacher stipends... [2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

2) Then claim you're not doing the very thing you're doing:

...our Nationally Board Certified Teachers will receive their annual $5,000 stipend through their local school districts.”[2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

To sum up, Jindal and Pastorek would have us believe that even though the Governor hasn't included money for teachers' stipends in his budget like he did last time, he's not the one cutting teachers' stipends because the local school districts have these surpluses they can use to pay the bonus stipends. Unfortunately, the local school districts beg to disagree:

Local school board officials counter that without the traditional annual cost-of-living bump, Jindal’s proposed standstill MFP saddles them with increases in a variety of costs such as health care and retirement... John Dilworth [Superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System] wrote a letter to The Advocate’s editor Thursday challenging the validity of Pastorek’s numbers. He says declines in revenues, such as sales taxes from which the public schools receive much of their money, are being offset by the surplus. Dilworth does not commit to paying the stipends. [2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

If this song-and-dance seem familiar to you, it may be because you remember that Gov. Jindal dispatched his minions to try and pass the same okee-doke routine over on us when they closed NOAH and cut inpatient psych services while claiming that they weren't cutting services at all.

Don't Lie, Jeff Crouere

This fetish that old school local white people have with blaming Moon Landrieu for the fall of New Orleans continues to fascinate me. It is both amusing and sad, and it lives on as displayed by a recent piece by Jeff Crouere.

"Since the beginning of the Moon Landrieu administration, the population of New Orleans has declined by approximately 300,000 people, going from over 600,000 in the early 70’s to just over 300,000 today."[Jeff Crouere, BayouBuzz.com, 1-22-2010]

A quick Google search yields numerous hits showing Census numbers which placed New Orleans' population at 627,525 in 1960 and 593,471 in 1970. The population began its decline before Moon Landrieu took office in 1970 and was already below 600,000 by then. Also, I wasn't even born yet, but I do know that urban decline was a national phenomenon during that time that can hardly be blamed on Moon Landrieu. In addition to New Orleans, a number of cities' populations peaked between 1950 and 1960 followed by a precipitous loss of people since then, among them: San Francisco, Oakland, Birmingham, Mobile, Hartford, New Haven, D.C., Augusta, Savannah, Chicago, Gary, Des Moines, Sioux City, Louisville, Baltimore, Boston...I think you get the point. Jeff Crouere, however, apparently does not.

Faith in Haiti

These don't look like the devil-deal making type of folks Pat Robertson made them out to be. Over the course of history, many Protestants have looked askance at the Catholic religion and our "idolatry"; and I wonder if that sort of thinking is also the source of Pat Robertson's ridiculous statements since Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic. But I tell you this, I and most people I know, regardless of our religions, would choose to have the faith displayed in this video by the people of Haiti any day of the week over that of Pat Robertson's.

Also, as a Katrina survivor, I want people to know that then, just as now and despite the media focus on a "breakdown of society," most people pull together and do not descend into chaos. Please don't mistake anguished pleas for help, whether to God or to the cameraman, as a sign of impending chaos -- especially if you've never found yourself in such a situation. Just hush your mouth, show some compassion, and do something to help even if it's just a prayer or sending a check to get relief on the ground.

Gov. Jindal DOES Care

I've always been pretty tough on Genius Boy Bobby, but maybe I was wrong about him. I cynically assumed the surprise announcement on Monday that he was giving state employees off on New Year's Eve had something to do with budget cuts (a la Nagin's 4-day work week proposal); however, I see now that his decision was completely driven out of concern for us.

He knew how difficult it would have been to work today anyway after being up all night worried sick about whether we're one of the hundreds who won't have a job by the end of next week.

UPDATED - Republican White Men Pretending Being White Doesn't Matter: Irony or Hypocrisy?

When I'm feeling generous, I like to think of this whole brouhaha about Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" quote as ironic, given that it's mostly White conservatives pretending to be shocked that someone's background or ethnicity influences the way s/he thinks. As if their collective objection to affirmative action has absolutely nothing to do with their being White.

On the days I'm feeling less generous and, quite frankly, just plain over the bullshit (most days), I think it nothing less than hypocritical for people like Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to chastise Judge Sotomayor for being prejudiced.

See minute 1:20 for a little background about Sen. Sessions.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What Exactly Are Levine & Jindal Up To?

Everybody and his mama from New Orleans has made it abundantly clear to Baton Rouge that the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital NEEDS to remain open IN NEW ORLEANS, and the legislature even put money back into the budget to keep NOAH open. Then, right after the legislature adjourned, nola.com posts a story that ends with this little tidbit:

The health care restorations include 67 positions at the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the Uptown mental hospital that Jindal had proposed to close in a cost-saving measure. But Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said he will ask Jindal to veto that language, as the money for NOAH would be taken from dollars that are targeted for outpatient mental-health services in the New Orleans area.

True to Times-Picayune form, they run a story that leaves more questions than it answers. How much money is being taken from which programs to keep NOAH open? If Jindal vetoes the language, does the legislation still call for transferring NOAH's beds to Mandeville or is there now no such provision, which would mean we're losing 35 psych beds -- period -- to hell with just relocating them?

Then again, maybe it really doesn't matter because Levine and Jindal have insisted on closing NOAH for months, New Orleans and her citizens and our pleas and evidence to support our need to maintain NOAH's services be damned. Our money is better spent on rescuing private golf courses.

Spin, Lie, or Fraud?

With Jindal's administration continuing to distort reality and turn truth on its head to convince us to support its misplaced priorities, the latest directives from the governor's office can be aptly described by all of the words in the above title. Their latest attempt to convince us that closing N.O. Adolescent Hospital (NOAH) does not amount to a reduction in services took the form of an editorial yesterday in the Times-Picayune written by DHH Secretary Alan Levine.

It is one of the most dishonest opinion pieces I have ever read.

Levine tries to convince us that because the state spent millions expanding community health care services in N.O. that there is no longer as much of a need for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization (which strikes me as a point DHH wouldn't have to keep pushing if they really felt they were not REDUCING services in the N.O. area -- but that's just my crazy, bizarre opinion). True, assertive mental health services were expanded last year under Nicola's Law, according to this T-P article which also points out that there are little data to support the supposition that such services reduce the need for psychiatric hospitalization.

Such services are partly granted through various "waivers" which provide services like home health care aides who help families care for developmentally delayed individuals and those with severe behavioral and emotional problems. Something Levine conspicuously failed to mention, as he touted the hundreds of children and adults now served by last year's increase in mental health funding, is that there are many more on the waiting lists for these services. One family in our clinic has been waiting 5 years for their waiver (a VERY common wait time), yet DHH is cutting the meager funding for the waivers they provide (see page 14 of linked-to document) while simultaneously rejecting stimulus money to save healthcare from budget cuts. Another thing he left out, when saying "fewer than 15% of the referrals from the mental health Emergency Room at University Hospital are referred to NOAH," was the number of referrals that actually refers to. Also, that percentage has probably plummeted since the state already quietly closed an adult psychiatric unit housed at NOAH 2 months ago.

But back to the issue at hand: NOAH. Secretary Levine's reasoning that NOAH can be safely "moved" (DHH's euphemism) because there are more outpatient services now defies not only logic but also common sense for the same reason that having a primary physician in no way means one will never need hospitalization. Family physicians can no more treat heart attacks, strokes, and traumatic brain injury in their offices than can mental health providers treat psychiatric emergencies on comfortable office couches.

Levine insists: "Our proposal does not reduce the number of mental health beds." He forgot to add in New Orleans at the end of that sentence because when you add those 3 words to this new DHH mantra, it translates into: There will be ZERO publicly funded inpatient psychiatric hospital beds for children and adolescents by the time we get through screwing New Orleans, who by the way did not vote for Gov. Jindal...not that our decisions have anything to do with that fact. If you're a master of subtlety and reading between the lines, you might have picked up the slightly different meaning those 3 little words add.

Yup, I can spin with the best of 'em!

As for fraud, I am sad to say that Secretary Levine has intentionally tried to deceive us when he said: "less than 35 percent of the children treated at NOAH are even from New Orleans." There really is no excuse for trying to slide this piece of misleading info into the mix when just a few weeks ago Arnie Fielkow and Shelly Midura exposed DHH Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard for attempting the same act of deceipt at a city council Subcommittee on Mental Health meeting on March 27. Yes, 35% come from Orleans Parish, followed by another 40% or so from Jefferson Parish. I'm willing to bet the ones that also come from St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, Terrebonne, and Lafourche also would not appreciate an even longer drive than they already have to see their hospitalized children.

Honestly, I do not know why the state is putting the entire southshore in such dire straits. I'd ask them, but I doubt they'd tell me the truth anyway.

Are Jindal and Levine Lying About NOAH?

According to a March 24, 2008, LA Department of Health & Hospitals press release, precisely one year ago, Governor Jindal acknowledged a dire mental health crisis in New Orleans:

Jindal said, "The broken pieces in our mental healthcare system affect every Louisianian, but the problem is especially acute in New Orleans. New Orleans officials estimate that the annual suicide rate has more than tripled since Hurricane Katrina...and the World Health Organization estimates that tens of thousands of people in the storm-affect region today have a serious mental illness. We must take a comprehensive approach to address this crisis -- one that incorporates the needs of patients, law enforcement, and the community as a whole."

Said DHH Secretary Levine in the same March 24, 2008 press release:

"The combined impact of these bills and the Governor’s budget represents a sweeping transformation of our mental health system," said Levine. "The mental health system has been neglected, and while it won’t be fixed overnight, this is the kind of commitment one would expect of a reform-minded Governor."

A February 15, 2008, DHH press release announced: "NOAH key to easing mental health crisis in New Orleans," and included this tidbit: “The occupancy rate at NOAH was 96 percent in 2007. These beds are almost always full. Opening up 20 new beds is critical to providing mental health services in the city because it will help to reduce waiting time for patients who require hospitalization.” Yet, just last week, Dr. Levine insisted that there is no dire need for psychiatric beds in New Orleans:

"I keep hearing, 'Where are we going to take these people?' " Levine said. "But the numbers we're seeing, the demand doesn't appear."

And in DHH's own words: "NOAH was the first public mental health inpatient facility to re-open after Katrina within New Orleans and remains at the forefront of providing these vital services to a population in great need. Prior to NOAH’s re-opening, people with mental illnesses were either not treated, were seen and discharged from hospital emergency rooms or were transferred to hospitals elsewhere in the state."

Yet, at the N.O. City Council Mental Health Subcommittee meeting on March 27, 2009, DHH Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard had the audacity to tell us that the proposal to move NOAH across the lake was something that would have been done anyway in the interest of patient care and was a decision not borne of Jindal's desire to rid the budget of anything non-revenue producing (i.e., services for a parish of Democrats who never have and never will donate to his campaign coffers.)

Dear Gov. Jindal, Do The Right Thing

Dear Governor Jindal,

I was so pleased to hear that you understand and are concerned about the link between dropping out of school and ending up in prison, and that you would like to address these problems.

Every year 14,000 high school students drop out of school. Every year we lock up about 14,000 people in our prisons. I don't think that's a coincidence. -Gov. Bobby Jindal on his initiatives to reduce Louisiana's dropout and recidivism rates. [Times Picayune, 1/4/09, p. A-13]

I was not so pleased to read on the very same newspaper page your plans to stave off a projected $341 million budget shortfall by delaying the opening of a mental health crisis center in New Orleans and by canceling plans to add 6 inpatient beds to the N.O. Adolescent Hospital. You should be aware that a recent study shows that children in LA impacted by Hurricane Katrina currently suffer from physical and mental health problems at rates double that of homeless children in New York City.

NY Times 12/5/08:
...41 percent under age 4 had iron-deficiency anemia -- twice the rate for children in New York City's homeless shelters. Anemia, often attributable to poor nutrition, is associated with developmental problems and academic underachievement.

More than half of those ages 6 to 11 had a behavior or learning problem, yet in the East Baton Rouge School District children can wait for as long as two years to be tested for learning disabilities.

...many of the children of Hurricane Katrina are behind in school, acting out and suffering from extraordinarily high rates of illness and mental health problems. Their parents, many still anxious or depressed themselves, are struggling to keep the lights on and the refrigerator stocked.

Governor, these are the children most likely to not finish high school and then end up in jail, and these are the very children that your budget cuts will hurt most. I think that the Obama administration and Congress would be hard-pressed to hand over $450 million for a new Charity hospital to a state that won't even spend $4.25 million to address the dire needs of its own citizens, needs which should have been addressed 3 years ago now.

Show us that you care about your citizens. Let us know whether a man of God would choose $385,040 in pay raises for 6 Cabinet members already making six figures a year over thousands of families who have nowhere else but you to turn to for survival. Six psychiatric inpatient beds at NOAH will cost $250,000.

Governor Jindal, do the right thing this time.

Idiots!

2 doctors weigh in on health reform

From a T-P article on the two new physician congressmen from Louisiana:

Both hope to hear from the president-elect, or his top health aides, so they can advocate for measures that put more emphasis on patient responsibility and free market solutions to Obama's campaign promise to provide coverage to more than 40 million uninsured Americans.

Because that has been working so well for the American people? Honestly, do you know ANYONE who is pleased with the cost and quality of their health insurance or who isn't hassled by her health insurance provider when it really counts (i.e., other than a quick well visit to the doctor)? Do we really need to advocate for more emphasis on free market solutions? Isn't that what we already have? It sounds a lot like Nagin's repopulation plan.

Oh wait. That wasn't a plan at all. Just like this isn't a fucking plan either!!

As for patient responsibility, last I heard, the patients' responsibility to pay for medical treatments not covered by their expensive health insurance is a main cause of personal bankruptcy filings. But Congressmen, you're right. The American people need more bills. It's not like there's a mortgage crisis or rising unemployment or a financial market meltdown or anything!

Now for the piece de resistance:

But Cassidy also spoke about working across party lines to get affordable homeowners insurance to south Louisiana residents ...

"If our workers can't afford to live near the refineries, pipelines and shipyards that serve the entire nation, then our whole national economy suffers, " Cassidy said.

So, healthcare insurance...leave to the market forces. Homeowners insurance...too important to leave to the market forces? Huh? People not being able to afford healthcare insurance...no threat to the economy, but people not being able to afford homeowners insurance in Louisiana...threat to the whole national economy?

What the...?

Idiots, I tell you. Fucking idiots.

We're watching you, Congressmen. We're watching.

Louisiana: Where Progress Comes to Die

This is a map from the NY Times showing the shift in voting between 2004 & 2008. The redder the county, the greater the gain in Republican votes between 2004 & 2008. As usual, we here in LA insist on being 5 minutes and 500 years behind the rest of the nation. Here, things like progressive thought and a greater concern for making sure one's own kids graduate high school as opposed to worrying about whether Joe the Plumber and Joe Six Pack should be allowed to marry are viewed as tools of the liberal elites and Hollywood to destroy America. Funny, I was under the belief that it was the Republicans who slashed levee funding and who rendered FEMA ineffective by placing it within the bureaucratic black hole of the Department of Homeland Security who literally destroyed this part of America. And isn't it still the case that nearly a billion dollars of your Road Home money is going to the Bush administration buddies over at IFC, whilst you remain relegated to a life of toxic trailer trash? And isn't it true that the people most disgusted by "the gays" probably spend the most time thinking about disgusting gay sex? (Tip: If you don't think about it, it won't disgust you! Why ARE you thinking about it so much anyway?)

But I doth digresseth.

A few days ago, some local bloggers were bouncing around idears for turning LA more blue. Not to piss in anyone's cornflakes, but Louisianians haven't been progressive and open to change, even change that benefits us, since France ran this show. An educated populace would help, but that's not a short-term strategy unless you absolutely blitz them with media about particular issues in any given election (e.g., None of your broke asses will ever make $250,000 so chill out with the Obama will raise my taxes hysteria...[or something to that effect]). Judging from the map, it's not just LA. Most of the south, Appalachia, and the midwest are dying to remain about 20 years behind "big city coastal elites." The us-versus-them schema has been so drilled into people's psyche that cultural issues and fear tactics will drive regional politics for several years to come. Democrat strategists yearning for change would be trying to change the minds of people that still will not vote for a Landrieu because Moon hired blacks to work in N.O. City Hall in the 1970s and who have voted Republican (except for Clinton & Carter - two Southern white men) since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and forced them to integrate. Umm...yah, good luck with that one.

Extra, Extra!! White Lady Plays Race Card!

I'll tell you what; white folks is mad!! The Republican ones are, that is. Monday morning, the day after Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Obama for President, I was listening to Castner & Walensky on "Rush Radio" 99.5fm when Walensky went off. She emphatically insisted that there is NO WAY that Powell's endorsement had nothing to do with race, because both men are black. They then went on to bash Powell as never having been a "real" Republican anyway, despite his putting his own reputation on the line with his United Nations speech about Iraq having WMDs. Even after conceeding that yes, Powell was the odd man out in this Bush administration and pushed to the side, Walensky insisted race played a major part in his decision.

AS IF race has nothing to do with her support of McCain-Palin, or that of the other white people who constitute perhaps 80% of their supporters -- and that's a conservative estimate (no pun intended). As if they are above being influenced by the dynamics of race. As if SHE wasn't playing "the race card."

Liebermann broke ranks to endorse McCain, but apparently only white people can do that without race coming into play. Nobody questioned whether Liebermann's decision had to do with race. I'd be curious to know if Walensky and those who think like her have questioned whether the slew of Obama endorsements from white Republicans has to do with race. After all, Obama is as white as he is black.

Now, honestly tell me whites and blacks are not judged by different standards, so I can tell you to go sit your ass down somewhere.