It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of barricaded roads and new paths. Maps fade and direction is lost as we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we pass, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Gone are the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
The Washington Post reports that Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is pushing hard to get a provision included that would mandate insurance coverage for remote faith healing. Dial-a-prayer hotlines to which people make calls and (for a fee, of course) arrange for distant intercessory prayers to heal the sick would be reimbursed for this “spiritual health care” to the tune of $20-$40 a faith healing session.
Never mind that in actual scientific trials of distant intercessory prayer, those who received the faith healing “treatments” fared no better than those in a control group who received no such “treatment.” Senator Hatch is working hard to protect coverage for healing practices that don’t actually work, justifying the inclusion of this coverage to “ensure that health-care reform law does not discriminate against any religion.”
Well, hey now. Orrin Hatch would radically expand the purpose of health care insurance to ensuring that, no matter what actually works, any religion’s idea of health care practices will get paid for. This flies in the face of the practice of evidence-based medicine, but what the hey: there’s real opportunity here. Free peyote for everyone! We wouldn’t want to discriminate against any religion, would we? Not unless we want the government to pick and choose which groups’ bogus faith-healing is legitimate and which groups’ bogus faith healing isn’t religiously correct. I mean, that would violate the First Amendment ban on government establishment of religion.
I’ve got a religion in mind: Pastafarianism. If I profess belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, can I get reimbursed for eating pasta? You see, I have received assurance from on high that his Noodly Appendages will rid me of tumors, at least when accompanied with a nice Marinara sauce. When I eat spaghetti with alfredo sauce, my heart disease is cured. Spaghetti with pesto relieves all nervous maladies, because my Pastafarian religion says so. It does because I say it does, and I don’t need to prove it to you — not if Orrin Hatch gets his way, and not if we’re really not going to discriminate against any religion in covering faith healing.
I look forward to receiving my monthly reimbursement checks for trips to the Olive Garden. And at home, free jars of Newman’s Own Arrabiata! Yummy yum yum. Oops, I mean “Amen.”
The following is a list of the Democrats who voted YES on the Stupak Amendment to the House health care bill. The Stupak Amendment prohibits abortion coverage in health care plans; if just one single person gets a partial federal subsidy for a plan, NO ONE in the plan can get coverage for abortions, not even those who pay for the insurance wholly by themselves. These are the Democrats who just voted to restrict women’s access to abortion in America:
They are not simply Democrats of the South. They are Midwestern Democrats, Mountain Democrats, West Coast Democrats, East Coast Democrats, Yankee Democrats. They are Democratic Party politicians from all over.
If you see your Representative on this list, click on their name to get their DC and in-district phone numbers. Then feel free to make a call and tell your Rep. what you think about that vote. That freedom hasn’t been restricted, yet.
The Stupak Amendment to the Democrats’ health care reform bill — an amendment which would force an end to insurance coverage of abortion in any private plan that wants to participate at all in the new federal system — has just passed. Considering that private health insurance companies have extensively supported the creation of this new federal system, that means abortion — a legal procedure — will be massively dropped from private insurance plans, and even people who pay for the insurance out of their own pockets will not be allowed by law to obtain abortion coverage.
According to the roll call vote tally, the amendment passed by a margin of 240-194. 64 Democrats voted for that Amendment. This amendment simply could not have passed without the significant support of congressional Democrats.
How, if at all, does the passage of the Stupak Amendment change your opinion of the health care reform bill?
Earlier this evening, Rep. Steve King of Iowa declared in an already-famous statement that “All Americans have health care. Every single one.”
“All Americans have health care. Every single one.” Doesn’t that sound hunky-dory? We all can get health care treatment! Where?
Steve King was referring to treatment in hospital emergency rooms, which cannot deny people attention on the basis of their ability to pay (although they can and do pursue people for payment). But while emergency rooms must give all patients a health care screening and must treat emergent health care issues, they do not have to provide primary health care coverage. On top of that, they’re gosh-darned expensive, and it’s not the emergency rooms’ fault. Emergency rooms are prepared and staffed to be ready for emergencies, with specialized rooms and specialized equipment and trauma bays and fancy geegaws and the whole nine yards. When non-emergent patients can pay for ER health care with insurance, it’s unnecessarily expensive to health insurance companies, and that rubs off on the rest of our premiums. When non-emergent patients can manage to pay for ER health care and they don’t have health insurance, it’s unnecessarily expensive to those patients. When non-emergent patients can’t manage to pay for ER health care, it’s unnecessarily expensive to hospitals and to the various public budgets that in many ways support hospitals.
Steve King is off his rocker to suggest that it’s a sound health care policy for Americans to rely on emergency rooms for non-emergent health care coverage. The bills resulting from such ER care are huge. And it’s not just me saying that. Just a few moments ago, Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York took to the floor of the House to respond to Steve King and other Republicans who have been making similar arguments this evening. His question about relying on emergency rooms for health care in America was simple:
Who pays those bills? The bill fairy?
Weiner’s point is that we’re already paying a lot of money for health care in America. But it’s bad for patients and it’s bad for budgets to have it structured the way it is now.
Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York just took to the floor of the House this hour to make a prediction. Slaugher spoke regarding the Stupak Amendment to be voted upon soon, an amendment to forbid women in a national health care system from getting health care coverage for abortions — even if they pay for the coverage out of their own pocket.
Slaughter’s prediction:
“I am very concerned about this bill because in my own case (and many of my colleagues’) it means 30 or 40 years of our life is being cancelled out with this amendment. The things that we have fought for, that we are driving now? I am afraid young women, poor women who cannot afford to buy their own insurance policy out of their own pocket, will go back. Back to the back alley. I dread to see that day.”
Look deep and hard at these images and you will find answers to these questions:
How Many Days Left Until the House Judiciary Committee Marks Up H.R. 3845, a Bill to Reauthorize Provisions of the Patriot Act Until 2013, and H.R. 3846, a Bill to Reform the FISA Amendments Act?
How Many Newspaper Articles Have Been Written about H.R. 3845?
I’ll leave you to guess how many newspaper articles have been written about H.R. 3846.
Read David Swanson of After Downing Street, who does an admirably thorough job detailing the media reaction to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement of “cuts” to the military budget. Newspapers and cable news outlets have focused on Gates’ plan to cut funding for the F-22 fighter and the dovish-sounding statement by Gates that “Every defense dollar spent to to overinsure against a remote or diminishing risk … is a dollar not available to take care of our people.” Swanson documents the way that partisan Democratic outlets like the Rachel Maddow Show, Air America and True Majority have heaped praise on the Obama administration for “cutting” the military budget.
Only on occasion, and usually at the end of a news piece, has it been noted that the Obama administration’s proposed military budget is actually higher than before. Some specific programs are being cut, yes, but overall the Obama administration is increasing military spending, not cutting it down to size.
During my walk in to the Inauguration on January 20, 2009 I was accompanied by a journalist from one of the country’s national newspapers. She’d called me in advance and asked to come along, and she ended up right with me on the parade route, ready to interview all the people who didn’t come to demonstrate for the Bill of Rights and actually interviewing the thousands of celebrants who did show up.
As we walked the miles in from Bethesda, Maryland to the National Mall, this journalist and I had a lot of time to chat. When she began describing the editorial meeting in which reporters were assigned to various stories, I asked her about the other protests and demonstrations happening in Washington, DC that day. Take the Arrest Bush protest happening across the street, I said. It was organized by two established activist organizations that might bring in many more people. Why did the newspaper decide not to cover them? Her answer: the subject matter of those protests — war, torture, indefinite detention during the years of the Bush administration — is old. Her editors were tired of covering the same old protests bringing up the same old complaints over and over. My demonstration was being covered, she said, not because it would be bigger but because it provided a new angle.
Both the demonstration I put together and the Arrest Bush protest were dismal failures. A newspaper covered the Oath of Office demonstration because it was new and different, not because it would attract more support. This isn’t a new pattern: in news coverage of anti-war marches, handfuls of counter-demonstrators tend to get prominent billing alongside thousands of marchers as a point of human interest. Is this pattern the right one? Is the job of a journalist to tell new stories, to tell stories that would interest readers, or to cover the bigger stories?
Democrats.com has a full list of all the American papers providing coverage of the story that President George W. Bush has confessed to personally approving a U.S. Government conspiracy to commit torture. Here’s the list as of April 17:
If your newspaper is not on this list, then your newspaper has not covered Bush’s torture conspiracy confession.
Democrats.com is calling for a “Torture News Strike” in which newspaper subscribers cancel subscriptions and specifically mention the reason — the newspaper’s refusal to inform readers of George W. Bush’s torture confession. Remember, these are the same newspapers that about a presidential sex act screamed, “What Will We Tell the Children?” Now confronted with a conspiracy to commit torture that goes to the top of the U.S. Government, the papers mumbling, “Why Should We Tell Anybody?” This is unacceptable.
I fully endorse and support the Torture News Strike, and I encourage you to join. Here’s what to do:
1. Call the circulation department and cancel your subscription to the newspaper. Inform the customer service agent why you've done so.
2. Write, phone, or e-mail the news director/news editor of your newspaper and inform them why you've done so.
3. Write a blog post, or make a myspace post, or create a YouTube video in which you tell the world what you've done.
4. Tell 10 friends about the Torture News Strike and encourage them to follow your example.
By the way, yes, I’ll walk my talk.
I have just canceled my subscription to the New York Times.
On Thursday, the Times dedicated 19 square inches to a photograph of dancing nuns. In the 1990s, the Times dedicated countless pages to coverage of a president’s sex act. But the Times has dedicated not one millimeter to reporting on George W. Bush’s admission that, in his words, “I Approved” a meeting to devise a government policy of near-death drowning and other forms of torture. Mr. Bush’s admission places him at odds with federal law on conspiracy to commit torture. Yet there is not one millimeter of space devoted to this news in the Times. Why? What makes dancing nuns and a sex act more newsworthy than government-sponsored torture?
If you would like to send a similar letter to the editor of the New York Times, I encourage you to write to their e-mail address of letters@nytimes.com. Letters must be 150 words or less, and must include your full name, phone number and address.
[Postscript: Yes, I fully intend to write this issue to the bone. It strikes at the heart of legality, constitutionality, morality, freedom, transparency, domestic policy and foreign policy. 1,000 blog posts will not have the effect of one news article by the New York Times, but I'll continue to do my small bit. I hope, if you think the issue of torture by our American government matters, that you'll do your bit too.]
