Too Much on My Plate

I really have a lot on my plate right now. I am chair of the Celebration Committee for the Independence Ministerial Association and spent an hour this morning helping to plan the Community Thanksgiving Service. Plus, I am co-chair of the Restoration Studies Symposium for next April and we are trying to locate a keynote speaker for that event and waiting for the submissions of papers. My first choice Bart Erhman was not available so now we are contacting Steven Patterson. I have my class reunion this weekend and then I have this wedding on Saturday the 25th.

Oh my! How on earth do I get myself in these positions?

Tonight we will watch the last debate between Obama and McCain. We watched an excellent PBS special on Frontline last night about the two of them.

Tuesday Busyness

This morning I got up at six and fixed Bob some sausage and eggs, with toast. I was going to be gone most of the day with one activity or another. I got my hair done at 9:15 and then went to the market to pick up a few things I will need for dinner Thursday evening when Cyndi and Jeff come for dinner to discuss once again their plans for their wedding on the 25th.

After that, I had an 11:00 board meeting of the Montgomery County Medical Clinic. It was a long meeting and we didn't break up until 1:00. But we worked on our policy statement.

Then I came on home. My sister had a problem with our bank and I went up there and weeded that out.

My brother-in-law approached me at church day before yesterday to tell me that my sister has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. She had had a CAT scan and a PET scan and it appeared that the right side of her brain, where cognitive activity should be, had very little activity there. Phyllis is my only sister so between my brother-in-law and myself, we will be caring for my sister as the disease progresses.

Privatizing Medicare

I see how McCain intends to "fix" Medicare. He will privatize it and pass the program on to private insurance companies.

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently admitted he would cut $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next ten years to finance his health care plan. McCain's proposed cuts echo former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's 1995 effort to cut $270 billion, or 14 percent, from projected Medicare spending over seven years and force millions of elderly recipients into managed health care programs or HMOs. As Gingrich admitted, "We don't want to get rid of it [traditional Medicare] in round one because we don't think it's politically smart." "But we believe that it's going to wither on the vine because we think [seniors] are going to leave it voluntarily," he added. Despite McCain's career-long support for limiting Medicare benefits and eligibility, the campaign, is denying that its financing mechanism would undermine benefits. Appearing on CNN, McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin implied that "McCain would save money in the federal health programs" by focusing on preventive care and weeding out $1.3 trillion worth of inefficiency and fraud. Nonetheless, a Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) analysis of the senator's proposed cuts finds that McCain would also undermine Medicare and Medicaid benefits and eligibility and would force those with private insurance plans to pay more for health coverage out of pocket.

CUTS IN MEDICARE: To achieve his goal of cutting Medicare by 13 percent over 10 years, McCain will have to limit growth in enrollment and medical price inflation to 4.5 percent annually. To maintain the current operations of the existing Medicare program, however, a growth rate of at least 7.1 percent is needed over the next 10 years to cover the 2.7 percent average annual growth in enrollment and a projected rate of medical price inflation of 4.4 percent. Absent another change in his plan, McCain would have to reduce Medicare eligibility, reduce benefits, and/or increase cost-sharing. Either approach would jeopardize the benefits of existing beneficiaries and severely limit the program from accepting new enrollees.

CUTS IN MEDICAID: Assuming McCain's proposed cuts are proportionally divided between the two programs, McCain would also slash Medicaid spending by 13 percent over 10 years. McCain's cuts would limit Medicaid growth to 5.5 percent annually -- a six percent growth rate barely keeps up with medical inflation and enrollment growth -- and would likely yield a parallel cut in state funding. As a result, McCain's plan would result in a total reduction in Medicaid spending of $738 billion over 10 years, more than the cost of providing benefits for all Medicaid beneficiaries for two years. These cuts will likely cascade into the State Children's Health Insurance Program the federal program that covers millions of children who otherwise would not have access to health insurance.

COSTS SHIFT TO PRIVATE INSURANCE: If the government's support of public programs fall, those with private insurance will end up paying more as health care providers shift costs to private payers. Low payment rates in the public market will lead health care providers to pursue higher payments from the private market. As CAPAF Senior Fellow Peter Harbage points out, this cost shift represents a "hidden tax" on Americans with private insurance. Private payers will pay higher premiums and deductibles in order to make-up for McCain's radical cuts to public programs and would also finance more expensive emergency room care for individuals who are no longer covered by Medicaid. A 2005 study by Professor Ken Thorpe of Emory University concluded that cost-shifting nationally accounts for 8.5 percent of premiums. Unfortunately, McCain's proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will only increase the "hidden tax" on millions of Americans."

We all know about how efficient private insurers are. The cost to the retirees would skyrocket even worse than it now does. For instance, my supplement insurance has gone from $87.00 when I was 65 to $144.10 now that I'm 72. Next year, as it always does, it will go up again. I have no health problems and take no medications but still my cost goes up each year. What on earth would those of us on a fixed income do when every Social Security raise is eaten up with Medicare and insurance raises already?

Living the Questions

Bob and I went to our Living the Questions group last evening and had a good meal and a lively discussion afterward. Then we began to discuss the political situation. I told them about an article I had read a couple of weeks ago after a friend of mine whose husband is stationed in Alaska with the Northern Command told me about the deployment of combat troops into Georgia and Alabama prior to the elections.

Here is the information I found.

On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade -- which means three to four thousand warriors -- somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia (some are actually at Fort Stewart, Georgia) and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is 'crowd control' as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology 'module package' as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.

According to Amnesty International, more than 300 people in the United States have died since 2001 as the result of being Tasered by law enforcement authorities. According to the first reports, the mission includes subduing 'unruly individuals.' After an outcry, more recent statements from military spokesmen have backed off from identifying those tasks as being the ones the troops will be charged with. Why worry about the deployment of troops in our nation?

First, the founding generation set a bright line to keep military from policing our streets in 1807 because they knew from their own experience how easily military forces -- King George's -- could subdue civilian society. The First Brigade is Bush's force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, a reporter interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.

We should not have to remind ourselves that these scenarios are unlikely to understand that this power is dangerous. Antoon himself calls the deployment 'ominous.' Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.

This reporter I am quoting was phoned recently by Monica Bicking, a young, well-scrubbed Midwesterner who is one of eight perfectly ordinary young Americans charged as 'terrorists' under the Minnesota Patriot act after being arrested at the RNC.

I learned only this week that there is little good footage of the RNC brutality because police demanded the cameras of reporters or exposed their film. Some of the footage we have, showing random unprompted mass arrests, was buried in the ground
by a protester so it could survive.

Police forces have become more violent toward civilians due to resources as well as pressure from Homeland Security money and personnel. Prior to this summer's conventions, $50 million was sent to both Denver and St. Paul, much of which was used to arm and train police to act against citizens.

In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens' law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed.

The Bush administration has unilaterally decided to defy federal laws that have kept the military off our streets since 1807, almost since the birth of this nation: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 expanded the president's authority to deploy troops within the United States. The people raised a hue and cry -- and this power was then substantially limited by a new provision in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. But Bush signaled, with a signing statement, that he would not recognize these new limitations. We may be called unpatriotic for fearing these soldiers on our streets. We should see through this. Our military are indeed brave and overwhelmingly decent. And, as I note, they can be prosecuted for refusing to follow orders. But history -- and the Zimbardo experiments, and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo -- has taught us clearly that decent kids under duress and following strict orders can do appalling things. Our men and women in uniform over there have followed many orders that are still giving them PTSD and nightmares at home.

Air Force Colonel Antoon notes further:

I am not a constitutional scholar. But history, which we as Americans ignore at our own peril, clearly suggests that martial law trumps civil law. As I said, and as you have written, I believe we are in great peril if we have American troops who have been trained to "destroy the enemy ... in close combat" patrolling American streets. Posse Comitatus is essential because American soldiers are not trained for such things as civil disobedience -- they are trained to kill. The US military "Warrior's Creed" clearly states: "I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. One only need look at the events in 1970 when the National Guard was called on to the campus of Kent State University. These soldiers instinctively did what they had been trained to do: kill.

President Bush has not called out a small National Guard unit. He has mobilized a battle hardened army brigade. President Bush's signing statement to dismiss the law of Posse Comitatus is gravely ominous.

If you think this is not legitimate, folks, just look around the internet. The Huffington Post presented this story.

I am leery of this entire situation....especially at election time. yes, it will be an interesting election. I hope my fears are unfounded.

The picture above was taken at the Republican National Committee and is a seventeen year old boy during a peaceful protest. According to his mother he was brutally beaten by police following the taking of this picture.

Planting Pansies

My daughter brought me three flats of pansies this morning at church and I spent the afternoon planting them in the front of my house and took these pictures.

The service went fine. Since the theme today was Plea for Peace, I talked about the recent Peace Colloquy I attended with my friends. Everyone seemed to be interested.

My son and his girlfriend left this morning. Her daughter called last evening and said she had the flu and couldn't take care of her two little boys, age six and three so he took her back to his house, a three hour drive, where she will leave him and then drive three more hours back to her home in Ricker,Arkansaw. He is pressing her to either move in with him or marry and they have only dated a month. She is resisting rushing into something and I don't blame her. He needs to be patient. It won't happen though and she will run away as fast as she can. he scares them all off.

Blog Mess Up

For some reason my blog has messed up big time and even though I have gone back and tried to rearrange my elements, it still has them all down the left of the page. Does anyone have a clue how to get the page back the way I had it with the page elements on the right?

I went to the layout area and redid it in hopes of getting it back the way it was with the pictures and the page elements on the right side instead of below the posts on the blog. But even though I saved it correctly, it still only shows up correctly when I hit "search blog"

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Scott and His Friend

Last night, Scott and his new girl friend came to visit. She is really a nice woman. We both like her a lot but he is ready for a permanent relationship and she is very cautious. She wants him to slow down and take some time. He, on the other hand is tired of being alone and wants more.

They stayed up late with us last night and visited and visited. I fixed breakfast for all of us this morning and later, fixed lunch. Now they have gone out to see his sister, Leslie, and will have dinner at John's Kitchen in Independence this evening with them. Bob and I have Bob's 60th class reunion this evening so this will give John and Leslie a chance to see what they think of her.

She lives three hours from Scott so he is concerned that constant travel every weekend to date will ruin both their cars. I told him that months ago...that he needed to find girls to date nearer to where he lives. But although these young people want your advice, they seldom take it.

This will be interesting.