Shortly after I left the Paulist Fathers they launched an initiative geared toward Young Adult Catholics called Busted Halo. They have published a guide to Catholic voting that is worth a look.
Remember, the election is a week from today.
Governor Romney has proven once again that (1) He still doesn’t get it, and (2) There are no limits on his ability to shop for a moral compass.
A few weeks ago the Governor was interviewed on 60 Minutes and, as you might expect, he was asked about health care. Scott Pelley asked him this question: “Do you think the government has a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?” He responded:
Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.
His implication is clear: If you don’t have health insurance you don’t have to worry. Just go to the emergency room and you’ll be taken care of. That’s fine, but it’s just not true. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requires that anyone who comes to a hospital emergency room be provided an examination and needed stabilizing treatment. In other words, if you show up in an emergency room with chest pain, they have to make sure you are stable. In that sense Governor Romney is correct that emergency room has to stop your chest pain.
But they don’t need to stop your heart disease. They only need to stop your symptoms. So what if your symptoms aren’t cardiac? Glad you asked. There is an article in the today’s Los Angeles Times about Jode Towe.
On the surface, he is living the Republican dream. He started a business (as truck driver), but he couldn’t afford to buy health insurance on his own. His only option was to hope he didn’t get sick or injured. Things were going well until he noticed increased fatigue and “something” in the back of his throat. He paid out of pocket to see a doctor, and the results were not good. He’s not sure what is in his throat, but there is at least a chance it’s cancer. A biopsy would be the next logical step but that (and a tonsilectomy) would likely cost $4,000; if there is cancer any treatment would cost thousands of dollars, well beyond Mr. Towe’s ability to pay.
So what if he takes Governor Romney’s advice and go to the emergency room? All they are required to do is stabilize his symptoms (essentially a throat lozenge). Mr. Towe would also be responsible for any charges. In many ways that’s the worst part of Mr. Romney’s advice. If someone goes to the emergency room and can’t afford to pay, the hospital ends up eating the cost, but the hospital can still try to collect the money. They are counting on you mortgaging your house, selling your blood, hitting up your family, etc. If that doesn’t work they turn the case over to a collection agency that trashes your credit score. Nobody wins: the hospital doesn’t get their money and your financial future is compromised.
When the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014, Mr. Towe will be offered affordable health insurance, even with his pre-existing condition. Hopefully he’ll still be around then.
Hopefully Governor Romney won’t have a chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Yes, they are at it again. The Republican Party, or at least one of their members, has once again shown just how tone deaf you can be when you really try. Richard Mourdock is running for Senate from Indiana. He, like all Republicans, needs to prove his anti abortion credentials while giving the illusion of caring about women.
Most of the time it’s easy, until someone asks about favoring abortion of a pregnancy that results from rape. No woman (or any man worth the air he breathes) wants to think about this possibility, and the idea of carrying a child conceived from this act of hate is horrible beyond words.
So what do you do if you need to pander to the far right while appearing to care about women?
You have a few choices. In August Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) was asked this question and this was his response:
Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
All women (and men worth the air they breathe) immediately focused on the most important part of this quotation: legitimate rape. This allows him to respond to a woman impregnated by rape by saying that since this is impossible, you must have consented. It wasn’t a legitimate rape.
To be fair, many Republicans repudiated this, and Mr. Akin lost a great deal of national Republican funding. But it’s worth asking if they did this because they honestly disagree, or if he committed the sin of saying something in public that they all believe in private but dare not say.
OK, fast forward to now. Mr. Mourdock was asked the same question. Here is his answer:
I struggled with it myself for a long time, and I realized that life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.
Really? OK, I’m assuming Mr. Mourdock is a devout Christian and wanted to communicate a belief that God can (and does) create good out of evil. As a Christian I believe this. But as a man worthy of the air I breathe, I can’t believe the callousness of this statement. Does he not get the implications of this statement? Does he not know that if a woman is impregnated by rape (that Todd Akins says can’t happen) she will be told that she has a moral obligation to carry the child to term because God “intended that to happen?”
Vote Republican at your own risk.
Yesterday we got the sad news that Senator George McGovern died at 90 years old. His was a voice of my generation: though he lost badly, he ran for President against Richard Nixon and his wisdom persists.
He was an unabashed liberal in an era where it was often considered a dirty word. He was a gentleman who served in the House of Representatives from 1956 to 1960 and the Senate from 1962 to 1980. He ran for President in large part because he wanted an end to the war in Vietnam. He knew the dangers of war as he served in the USAAF during World War II. On December 15, 1944 while flying a mission over Austria he was struck by shrapnel and nearly killed. He was later awarded the Air Medal.
He came home and devoted himself to public service. He was an example of the best of the Greatest Generation. He opposed the war in Vietnam because, as he said, “I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
OK, here’s my favorite:
Every program that ever helped working people — from rural electrification to Medicare — was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don’t like liberals, I ask, ‘Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!
On that quotation: my thanks to John Sheirer. He writes a blog on Real American Liberal. I needed to make sure the quotation was real and he responded in a matter of hours.
With all the attention given to the Presidential campaign, an important story isn’t getting as much publicity as it should. On October 18, 2012 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down a ruling in the case of Windsor v. US that the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA is unconstitutional.
In 1996 the Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, DOMA. Among other things DOMA prohibits the Internal Revenue Service from recognizing same sex marriages, even if the couple were legally married.
I’m taking the facts of the case from the opinion itself. Edith (Edie) Windsor and Thea Spyer were legally married in Canada in 2007 (though they had been a couple for 44 years). Thea died in 2009 in New York, and had they been a heterosexual couple, Edie would have been classified as the surviving spouse for tax purposes. Because of DOMA their marriage wasn’t recognized by the IRS and Edie owed $363,053 in taxes to inherit Thea’s estate. Under federal tax law, a spouse who dies can leave assets, including the family home, to the other spouse without incurring estate taxes, but because of DOMA Edie was not considered Thea’s spouse and is responsible for those taxes. Edie sued in federal court to return the $363,053, arguing that she was Thea’s spouse; in 2011 New York began allowing same sex marriages and the state recognized their union.
There are many nuances to this case, but essentially the court found that DOMA is “an unprecedented intrusion into an area of traditional state regulation” as the states grant marriage licenses.
Clearly the issue of gay marriage is going to the Supreme Court in either this session or the next. But I have to confess a chuckle over this case as it’s decided on the basis of federal intrusion while the Republican Party consistently reminds us that they are the party to “get government off our backs.” I’m guessing they don’t want government off our backs on this one.
Personal note: DOMA claims to protect traditional marriage. As a heterosexual married man, can anyone tell me how gay marriage threatens my marriage? If so, I’m happy to support DOMA. In the meantime I’m on the side of opposing homophobia.
Football has always been an interest of mine. For as long as I can remember the Washington Redskins were a staple on Sunday TV. My memory goes back to the 1968 season when Otto Graham coached the Redskins to a 5-9 season, and was fired for his troubles.
In the last 44 years I’ve seen countless games and while not all my memories are good, I have to say that the referees have done an outstanding job. They don’t get it right 100% of the time, but it’s pretty close.
This year the NFL locked them out over a labor dispute. It was pretty silly and the lockout had more to do with intimidation than money. The NFL decided that they could employ “replacement referees” and none of us would notice. We did. The replacements came from small colleges and high schools and frankly, they couldn’t keep up. On national TV we saw that it’s not as easy to referee a professional NFL game as it looks.
On September 24th the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks was marred by a call none of us could defend. Suffice it to say that the Packers’ season could go down on this play. The next day the real referees were back in place.
For those of us who favor labor unions this is a good day. Workers with skills who group together with others with the same skills know that management always think that their skills are not as valuable. In truth I’ve never belonged to a union, but I had a job where my boss told me that “any idiot” could do my job. When I quit he hired any idiot. He lasted almost a year and they had to hire two people to replace me.
Look around you. If you think the person who picks your crops or bathes your grandmother in the nursing home, or washes your dishes in your favorite restaurant is unskilled, think again. They may make less money that you, but their labor is every bit as skilled as yours.
You may not notice until they don’t show up for the job, but when they do show up, you should notice. None of us are going to suffer because the real referees weren’t there for the first few weeks of the season, but it should remind us that union workers improve our lives every day.
Vote union.
Last week a video surfaced of Governor Romney speaking at a recent private fundraiser. This is what he said:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
I lifted this quotation from Yahoo; please tell me if it’s not accurate.
Several things trouble me about this quotation, and I’ll list a few here (and perhaps add to it as I think more about it).
OK, so who are these 47%? Good question. Governor Romney acquired this number from the Tax Policy Center; there are those who think it has a liberal bias, but Governor Romney must not as he quotes them. They describe the 47% here:
You can’t read this blog without knowing my political views. But let’s face it: Mitt is choosing the path of pandering to the wealthy. Vote for him at your own risk.
OK, so it’s not a holiday, but on this day in 1787, 225 years ago, 55 delegates gathered to vote on whether or not to approve the document they had spent the summer writing. It passed with 42 votes. You can read an interesting account here.
Most amazing to me is this: while part of the document sets up how our government will run, almost all the amendments limit the power of the government over all of us. Because of the Constitution I can criticize the government (in word and print), worship where I want, be assured of due process of law, and many other things. As a matter of fact, the only amendments that restrict my freedom are the 13th (I can’t own slaves) and the 18th (I can’t buy, sell, or transport alcohol). Of course, the 18th amendment was overturned by the 21st.
Before 1787 there had been few limits on government, but virtually all of them were in place with the consent of the ruler (think about the Magna Carta in 1215). Our Constitution is unique in that the document preceded the leaders. When George Washington took his oath of office on April 30, 1789, he submitted his power to this document. Every one of his successors pledged the same thing. Well done George.
By the way, if you think that it doesn’t have much of an impact now, the recent Supreme Court Case on the Affordable Care Act, National Federation of Independent Business et al. vs. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et. al turned on interpretations of the government’s ability to collect taxes and regulate interstate commerce (Article 1, Section 8).
Happy Birthday, U.S. Constitution.
PS: Happy Birthday, also, Dad. He was born on the 144th anniversary.
For a year or so I’ve been listening to a podcast called Planet Money from National Public Radio. I look forward to listening a few times per week and it’s taught me a great deal about what is happening in the economy.
It’s also become a bit of a political football as President Obama is a follower of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) while Governor Romney is a follower to the economist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992).
Keynes believed that in times of dire economic depression the government needs to pour money into the economy to stimulate it and raise itself out of its troubles. Hayek believed that governments can’t do this effectively and it is better in the long run to allow the economy to fix itself. This rap does an excellent job of explaining their positions.
On this date in 1980 I had an eventful day: I entered the seminary of the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers. I moved from my home in Woodbridge, Va. to Watertown, MA; actually the Stigmatine House of Studies at 229 Watertown St. in Watertown. I transferred from George Mason University to Boston College and changed my major from Government to Philosophy. It was quite a change.
I write this because as I look over the grand sweep of my life (so far) this is a pretty big day. Previous to this I had visions of graduating from George Mason, going to University of Virginia Law School and spending my career as an attorney. By my sophomore year at George Mason I began to understand that this wasn’t going to fulfill me. The idea of switching to becoming a Catholic priest seemed unbelievable, but somehow attractive. I entered the Stigmatine seminary that day convinced that God would take care of me and prevent anything bad from happening.
He did (take care of me) and didn’t (prevent anything bad from happening). But from that day I’ve never seriously thought about becoming a lawyer, and I’ve never thought about a career away from being a public person of faith. Since that day I’ve been a seminarian (with both the Stigmatines and the Paulist Fathers), a priest with the Paulists, a Director of Religious Education (running a CCD or Sunday School program), a Youth Minister (working with teens), a resident manager in a home for teen mothers, and (finally) a hospice chaplain.
When I look back on the person I was 32 years ago I barely recognize myself. On the other hand I recognize I would not be the middle aged man I am today if my younger self hadn’t taken that step on that day, in that place.
I’m also grateful for all the brave men and women who have crossed my path. Not all of them would predict I’d be where I am now, but all of them had a part in who I am now. My thanks.