Pay to Play Is Alive and Well At The Washington Post
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html
Just when you think they can’t sink any lower, they find a way.
Lets Quit Turning Kids Into Freaks
Jon & Kate Plus Eight , the Duggars or the other one I can’t remember; not to mention the 700 pound teenager, the little girl who is a “mermaid”, little people children and others that seem to be the mainstay of the TLC network brings shame to all who participate.
The photo above is of the Dionne quintuplets who were the first live quintuplets born in the 1930’s. Their’s is a cautionary tale. They were born in Canada to a poor farmer couple who already had children. Canada in it’s wisdom decided to take the children away to “help” them. Canada built the quints a compound staffed with nurses and one partriculary slime-ball pediatrician named Dr. Defoe. It is difficult to discribe how these little girls were exploited. People lined up for miles to get a glimpse of the quints “at play”, “eating their meals” “saying their prayers” etc.. Their appearence in advertising was bartered without their approval for cars, syrup, oatmeal, washing machines and just about anything else you can imagine. Dr. Defoe went on with his own product lines, living off the girls for the rest of his life. Canada gave the girls back to their parents when they were about nine and their parents continued where Canada left off but not as successfully. Maybe it was just that the girls hit that “awkward” age when they weren’t very marketable anymore. Of course, the Dionne quintuplets had sad and miserable adulthoods. The message was pretty clear, their worth was dependent on being a “set” and being young.
This brings us to the present, Jon & Kate, Duggars etc, and especially TLC who is most complicit in exploiting children, are acting no differently than Canada, that farmer couple and Dr. Defoe. The kids on this “network” thinks it is normal to have a camera shoved in their face at every turn, to see your parent’s lives and yours on the internet and US magazine. Your family vacations turned into “product placement” is the norm. The exploitation of these kids has made this network. I for one will no long be a part of this. I will not watch the big “news” tonight on Jon & Kate, or anything else on TLC. The electronic carnival and side-show that is TLC, is harmful to children.
The Bob McDonnell That I Knew In The General Assembly
(Bob McDonnell would like to keep it fuzzy)
Sex Law Is No Judging Criteria
The Daily Press, January 16, 2003
7505 Warwick Blvd, Newport News, VA 23607
Email: letters@dailypress.com
By Jim Spencer
Got together with the wife last weekend. We thought we were expressing our love for each other in the privacy of our bedroom. But according to the Code of Virginia, there’s always a chance we committed a Class 6 felony.
I wanted Virginia Beach Republican Del. Bob McDonnell, chairman of the House of Delegates courts committee, to know that, because he might want to send the prude police to investigate.
McDonnell, a man considering a run for Virginia attorney general, apparently has decided to warm up by appointing himself head of Virginia’s new Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
If you thought such overbearing minions of morality existed only among Afghan extremists, think again. Taliban Bob says Newport News Circuit Judge Verbena Askew may not be fit for reappointment to the bench if she ever violated the state’s crimes-against-nature law.
Revelations of a sex-harassment accusation against Askew by a former female official at the Newport News Drug Court spurred Taliban Bob to this moral high ground. Doesn’t matter that an investigator found “little, if any, credible evidence to support the allegations and substantial credible evidence to support the denial.” Doesn’t matter that the accusation—even if true—never involved allegations of touching or kissing, much less anything carnal.
Taliban Bob, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School and a darling of Robertson’s Christian Coalition, assumes that the harassment claim might mean that Askew might be a lesbian. And if she is, McDonnell says, she may not be judicial material. Then, he defends his bigotry by hiding behind the crimes-against-nature law.
Well, here’s what part of that law says:
It says that if you engage in oral sex—in a heterosexual or homosexual relationship—you commit a Class 6 felony, even if you’re consenting adults.
What’s that I hear, gentle reader?
You’re disgusted and uncomfortable with me talking about the deepest, most intimate details of people’s personal lives?
How do you think Askew feels?
Taliban Bob opened this Pandora’s box. So blame him, not me. If Virginia’s moronic, outdated and unenforceable crimes-against-nature law is the standard by which Taliban Bob wants to judge judges, he certainly will have no problem applying the same standard to every one of the judges he is about to recommend for reappointment. Let’s get ‘em all in and make sure they never had oral sex or anal sex or sex with animals or sex with relatives.
Taliban Bob also will want to check all the new judges he’s about to appoint.
And, oh yeah, he’ll definitely want to put the question of crimes against nature to himself and his brothers and sisters in the state legislature.
So let’s schedule a big, old public hearing at the state Capitol in Richmond after the holier-than-you Republicans get through railroading Askew out of her job. The man who would be attorney general obviously believes we need to get our leaders on the record about their sex habits and preferences.
Step on up to the mike, senators and delegates. Let’s see who’s fit to serve. We’re all waiting to hear.
You go first, Taliban Bob.
Ever violated the crimes-against-nature law?
“Not that I can recall,” McDonnell told a reporter Tuesday.
Sorry about that, Bob. But you know what? Your prudery and your homophobia say a lot more about your character than Verbena Askew’s.
- Jim Spencer may be reached at 247-4731 or by e-mail at jlspencer@dailypress.com
h/t to NLS
We Did It!
Now comes the really exciting part.
I also congratulate Jody Wagner on her win.
24 Hours
If we do everything we can in the next 24 hours Creigh Deeds will be our next Governor! Also please support Mike Signer for Lt. Governor.
Majority of Personal Bankruptcies Due To Out Of Control Medical Bills
From the Oxdown Gazette blog and Jim White
(in full)
Medical Bills Lead To 62% Of Personal Bankruptcies; 75% Of Those Have Health Insurance
With Congress in the midst of discussing health care reform, Reuters provides us with results from a very timely study:
Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
But the stunning result is that the bankruptcies come primarily from families with health insurance:
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
The study noted that it is not just the poor who are affected:
“Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations.”
A Harvard researcher and advocate for single-payer health care offers a perspective on these results:
“Unless you’re Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.
“For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection,” he added.
These grim results are not just from a single study. Here is the abstract from a similar study from last year:
About 57 million Americans were in families with problems paying medical bills in 2007–an increase of 14 million people since 2003, according to a new national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Problems paying medical bills increased for both nonelderly insured and uninsured people. Although the rate of medical bill problems is much higher for uninsured people, most people with medical bill problems–42.5 million–had insurance coverage. About 2.2 million people with medical bill problems were in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of their medical bills, and a much larger number reported other financial consequences, such as problems paying for other
When will Congress confront the fact that the health insurance industry exists to make money for itself, rather than to deliver health care? The Reuters article points out that many health insurance companies disappear just when they are needed most:
“Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year,” the report reads.
The solution? More from the article:
“We need to rethink health reform,” Woolhandler said. “Covering the uninsured isn’t enough.
“Only single-payer national health insurance can make universal, comprehensive coverage affordable by saving the hundreds of billions we now waste on insurance overhead and bureaucracy.”
Think of the health care that could be delivered by the hundreds of billions of dollars now going to health insurance fat cats and their bureaucracy. Call your Congressperson today to demand single-payer health care for everyone.
[It should be noted that the study in the Reuters article covers the years 2001-2007, ending before the worst of the real estate mortgage crisis.]
Return to: Medical Bills Lead To 62% Of Personal Bankruptcies; 75% Of Those Have Health Insurance
I Believe Good Guys Can Finish First
I endorse Creigh Deeds for Governor
I’ve known Creigh since 1991. We worked together in the House of Delegates, State Senate and crisscrossed the Commonwealth together in 2005. He is one of the most authentic people I know in politics. Creigh is no creation of consultants. He has a 100% pro-choice voting record, high marks from teacher groups (highest of the three running) and understands the needs of middle income families all across Virginia. I hope you will support Creigh Deeds on June 9th.
More Than A Three Day Holiday
I glanced on my Facebook page this morning and saw everyone was excited about the three day holiday. There was talk of hiking, BBQ’s, the beach etc. All are fine endeavors but I can’t help feeling we have lost the real idea of Memorial Day. I remember as a little girl, our family piling into the car, driving out to the cemetary to put flowers on the graves of veterans and members of our own family who had died. It was rather a solemn holiday. It was a day of remembering sacrifice of those who had gone before us, particularly those who laid down their lives in service to our country. I kind of miss that holiday.
Thank You Sen. Webb For Standing Up Against Usrury
At least we have one Senator in Virginia who is willing to tell credit card companies and banks (after we bailed their chestnuts out of the fire) that they can’t take us for a ride on interest rates http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/politics/14cards.html?_r=1 .
It is not as though our other Senator hadn’t had experience with the issue of loan sharking companies. When he served as governor, the move to allow pay-day lenders in Virginia was afoot. Rather than veto the bill, despite strong warnings from consumer groups, he allowed the legislation to go through unscathed. Virginians have been trying to undo this rotten legislation ever since.
What good is a Democratic majority if they can’t stand up to the banksters? As Sen. Dick Durbin was quoted in speaking of the the US Senate and their relationships with banks, “They own this place”. . It is a fair question to ask who owns your representatives and senators.
