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Captain Courageous (Largely Outsourced To Mr. Pierce)

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Charles Pierce said it all about what Trump and his acting (of course) Navy Secretary did to the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

The Roosevelt, you’ll recall is the aircraft carrier that suffered a coronavirus outbreak while on deployment. It is essentially impossible able to isolate infectious patients on naval vessel.  US carriers are huge–the Roosevelt is 335 meters long (inevitably: more than three football fields), but it’s full of stuff, and there’s not actually that much space to put people, especially folks who need to be kept well away from everyone else.

Its captain, Brett Crozier, asked, then begged his superiors for permission to get the sick sailors off his ship, and to quarantine the carrier for the time necessary to ensure that the infection would not sweep through his whole crew, inevitably killing some of them.

Captain Courageous (Largely Outsourced To Mr. Pierce

Pierce quotes the letter Crozier wrote to command:

This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors…Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure…This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.

Nothing happened until Crozier’s letter leaked to The San Francisco Chronicle. (It’s not now and may never be known who leaked it; possibly Crozier himself.) Once that letter became public, two things followed. As Pierce writes,

Almost immediately, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly acted like any acting secretary of anything in this administration* can be expected to act. He initially refused Crozier’s request and then, when the public heat came down, he allowed the afflicted member of the crew to be brought ashore. Then, on Thursday, he relieved Crozier of his command.

Modly’s explanation is a masterpiece of Trumpian malign weaselry:

Captain Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with COVID breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally…(Pierce’s emphasis.)

There’s not much to add. Adam and others on this blob more closely connected to the military than me can chime in, but I’m quite sure that there is no way Crozier didn’t understand what would follow from his decision to protect his crew.  A career on the fast track to flag rank is now dead.

Crozier is the kind of leader I would want if  I or anyone I cared about had to go into harm’s way.  His subordinates agree.

Donald Trump does not:

A Navy commander’s written alarms about a coronavirus outbreak aboard his aircraft carrier “looked terrible,” President Donald Trump said Saturday, as he praised military leaders who removed the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s top officer from his post.

A) I hope that military voters take note.  And B):  That Trump and his criminal, and criminally incompetent administration have made a ritual sacrifice of Captain Crozier is not just an act of petty and petulant vengeance.  It measurably weakens US national defense.

We cannot rid ourselves of these malignancies a moment too soon.

Image: J. W. M. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838.

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What a Day It Was

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I really hate to concentrate on Trump, but let’s just tally up his day yesterday.

In Dayton, no press were allowed in the hospital, but that didn’t stop the Trumpers from creating a campaign ad style video that the stablest genius tweeted out today. He also lied about Sherrod Brown and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley’s comments on his visit to the hospital (he said they criticized him, when they actually said it was nice that he had comforted victims).

When Trump went to El Paso yesterday, none of the victims who were still hospitalized met with him, and when he met the staff, this happened:

This guy just keeps getting worse.

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Moscow Mitch Is Still A Class Act

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If I were advising McGrath I’d say that any tweet that mentions Mitch without calling him “Moscow Mitch” is a missed opportunity. That nickname clearly gets under his skin, so we should keep using it.

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As Close to Nothing As Humanly Possible

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Andrew Cuomo, who campaigned on legalizing marijuana, couldn’t get it done with a majority Democratic legislature (for the first time in a long time). Instead, we get a tepid glass of Cuomo-aide:

The new law will reduce the penalty for unlawful possession of marijuana to a violation punishable by fine, and remove criminal penalties for possession of any amount of marijuana under two ounces.

And why didn’t this year’s effort pass? Fucking Cuomo wanted a slush fund:

According to the Times, some progressive legislators want to commit marijuana revenue to communities that have been most negatively impacted by the war on drugs. But Cuomo has resisted those proposals, instead favoring legislative language that would give the executive branch — and the governor — more control over what to do with cannabis revenue.

On the bright side, after Cuomo was primaried by Cynthia Nixon, we aren’t hearing any more discussion about a run for President–hell, he’s about the only white male Democrat who isn’t running. I guess we have to take our satisfaction in the little things when it comes to this useless asshole, because he sure can’t deliver anything big.

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Schaden, meet Freude

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Everything the Shitgibbon touches turns to…well, merde:

Late last year, in a Miami conference room, a consultant for President Trump’s company said business at his prized 643-room Doral resort was in sharp decline.

At Doral, which Trump has listed in federal disclosures as his biggest moneymaker hotel, room rates, banquets, golf and overall revenue were all down since 2015. In two years, the resort’s net operating income — a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid — had fallen by 69 percent.

But what about that Trump economic boom? Alas:

Even in a vigorous economy, the property was missing the Trump Organization’s internal business targets; for instance, the club expected to take in $85 million in revenue in 2017 but took in just $75 million.

And what could be the reason that a venerable, once-much-admired, landmark property would do so poorly?

“They are severely underperforming” other resorts in the area, tax consultant Jessica Vachiratevanurak told a Miami-Dade County official in a bid to lower the property’s tax bill. The reason, she said: “There is some negative connotation that is associated with the brand.”

I have never met Ms. Vachiratevarunak, but I already admire her greatly. That last line? Olympic-level shade.

The WaPo article linked above is full of similar delights:

On one recent weekday in Miami, the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort and Spa — a top competitor of Doral’s — was bustling with families eating dinner and children playing in the pool.

A few miles away, Trump’s Doral was shining, spotless and heavily branded. The Trump name was on chocolate bars ($5) and shot glasses ($10), and even on the paper inserts at the bottom of the bathroom wastebaskets.

But it was also much quieter.

Carl Goldstein — a retired butcher, visiting as part of a Passover tour group — had the lobby almost to himself.

It turns out that racism and viciousness drive away sponsors and guests? Whodathunkit?

TL:DR Incompetent grifter’s grift cracks.

This thread…it is open.

Image: Jan Steen, Dancing Peasants at an Inn, 1646

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He Has Reached Rock Bottom, And Has Started To Dig*

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In case you had any question as to just how skeevy — more, how fundamentally grotesque — was and is Roy Moore, here’s his reasoning on why sodomizing a child does not constitute “forcible rape”:

The Alabama Supreme Court had the opportunity to hear the case of one Eric Lemont Higdon, a man accused and convicted of two sodomy charges due to sexual assault against a four-year-old at Mama’s Place Christian Academy in Clay, Alabama.

 

Higdon had been convicted of both sex with a child under twelve years old, statutory rape, and of “first-degree sodomy by forcible compulsion” which requires that the victim face a threat, overt or implied, of  “serious physical injury.” That second forcible rape charge was overturned on appeal, and the question that Moore and his fellow state supreme court justices faced was whether that appellate decision was correct.  Almost all of the court had no problem working that one out:

Eight of the nine justices on the panel found that the appeals court had erred. Their legal logic was such that a 17-year-old’s sexual assault of a four-year-old was enough to produce in the mind of the four-year-old, an “implied threat of serious physical injury.”  The decision was reversed and remanded and Higdon’s conviction was reinstated.

Who dissented? That godly man Moore, of course:

“Because there was no evidence in this case of an implied threat of serious physical injury…or of an implied threat of death, Higdon cannot be convicted of sodomy in the first degree “by forcible compulsion.”

Four Years Old.

No implication of serious physical injury when a seventeen year old assaults a pre-schooler.  I wanted to put that last more bluntly, but I can’t. My stomach turns itself into a Klein bottle when I try.

What kind of man do you have to be to conceive of the scene between that youth and that little child and see no threat?

Roy Moore is not who we thought he was.  He’s much, much worse — and anyone who rises to his defense shares in his stain.

*From this time-honored list of British military fitness reports.  My favorite has always been “I would not breed from this Officer” — which, according to my uncle, a career man in the Royal Artillery, was known to refer to a fellow from a Guards regiment.  Posh don’t mean smart.

Image:  Diego Velasquez, Las Meninas, 1656-7.

This picture is not, perhaps, precisely on point with this post, but it knows the chords and is, in any case, a simply magnificent painting.

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A Setback For Hobby Lobby’s Bible Museum

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Hobby Lobby today agreed to forfeit thousands (yes, thousands) of cuneiform tablets and clay seals (bullae), along with 144 cylinder seals and $3 million dollars to the United States Government in a civil suit. The artifacts most likely were looted from Iraq and smuggled into the US as “tile samples” via the UAE. Removing artifacts from archaelogical sites removes them from their historical context and makes them largely unusable for understanding the past. The money from their sales often goes to organizations like ISIS.

According to the complaint and stipulated statement of facts filed with the court, in or around 2009, Hobby Lobby began to assemble a collection of historically significant manuscripts, antiquities and other cultural materials. In connection with this effort, Hobby Lobby’s president and a consultant traveled to the UAE in July 2010 to inspect a large number of cuneiform tablets and other antiquities being offered for sale (the “Artifacts”). Cuneiform is an ancient system of writing on clay tablets that was used in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.

In October 2010, an expert on cultural property law retained by Hobby Lobby warned the company that the acquisition of cultural property likely from Iraq, including cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals, carries a risk that such objects may have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq. The expert also advised Hobby Lobby to review its collection of antiquities for any objects of Iraqi origin and to verify that their country of origin was properly declared at the time of importation into the United States. The expert warned Hobby Lobby that an improper declaration of country of origin for cultural property could lead to seizure and forfeiture of the artifacts by CBP.

Notwithstanding these warnings, in December 2010, Hobby Lobby executed an agreement to purchase over 5,500 Artifacts, comprised of cuneiform tablets and bricks, clay bullae and cylinder seals, for $1.6 million. The acquisition of the Artifacts was fraught with red flags. For example, Hobby Lobby received conflicting information where the Artifacts had been stored prior to the inspection in the UAE. Further, when the Artifacts were presented for inspection to Hobby Lobby’s president and consultant in July 2010, they were displayed informally. In addition, Hobby Lobby representatives had not met or communicated with the dealer who purportedly owned the Artifacts, nor did they pay him for the Artifacts. Rather, following instructions from another dealer, Hobby Lobby wired payment for the Artifacts to seven personal bank accounts held in the names of other individuals.

Hobby Lobby’s religion is so strong, though, that they can’t pay for insurance that would allow women to have contraceptives.

 

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Immigrants Get the Job Done*

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The AP reports that the Trump regime floated a proposal to activate 100K National Guard troops to round up undocumented immigrants.

The Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.

Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the AP report was “100 percent not true” and “irresponsible.” ”There is no effort at all to utilize the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants,” he said.

The denial issued by the slab of Spam with eyes that Melissa McCarthy occasionally impersonates on SNL isn’t very convincing since the Trump regime, from its titular head on down, lie all the time. And AP has a memo.

Valued commenter Ajabu had an idea for a response to the so-called president’s constant fear-mongering about immigrants: a photo array featuring select immigrants and “real Americans.” He edited a ton of photos that illustrate the foolishness of Trump’s “ooga-booga” act. Here’s a sample:

Dennis Hastert, Real American
Khizr Khan, Immigrant
Ted Kaczynski, Real American
Albert Einstein, Immigrant

I think I’ll make this a recurring feature until I run out of photos from the cache Ajabu sent, rather than just publishing the whole array in one fell swoop. Sadly, I’m confident we’ll have many more opportunities to respond to scaremongering on immigration in the coming months.

*Yes, I know this is a line from “Hamilton.” I’m still not joining your stupid cult! :)

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Surprisingly, it’s the whining that’s hardest to bear…

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Like virtually everyone who isn’t a Nazi frog, dimwitted MAGA-mark or Bible-humping hypocrite, I’m appalled by the terrible actions the Trump regime is taking in its first week, such as dismantling the ACA (effectively murdering tens of thousands of people yearly), the anti-science gag rules and data dumps, the anti-choice hysterics that will hamstring humanitarian aid delivery, the DAPL reversal, etc.

There’s also the blatant quid pro quo and grift — donors and family members put into jobs for which they’re not remotely qualified, and sleazy, corrupt James Comey gaining job security the day after he showed up at the White House to literally receive kisses and hugs from his Godfather as well as that bloated entity’s most meaningful compliment: “He’s become more famous than me!”

But the ceaseless whining and demands for validation are somehow even more galling than watching the country morph into a conniving cocksplat’s kleptocracy of the incompetent. Mouth of Shitgibbon Kellyanne Conway was on the grievance tour, first lamenting the unfair coverage of the Trump White House to impartial millionaire media figure / Trump-tuggie specialist Sean Hannity yesterday:

Hannity spoke to Trump counsel Kellyanne Conway about the press’ “presumptive negativity” toward the Trump administration, and how they plan on countering irresponsible and reckless reporting.

“It would be nice to see people show respect for the office of the president and its current occupant,” Conway said. “Give him a chance to do right by the American people.”

She said if reporters are being “political hacks,” then the Trump team has a right to call that out.

“This White House and the media are going to share joint custody of this nation for eight years,” Conway said. “We ought to be able to figure out how to co-parent and mutually coexist.”

Two things: first, the gelatinous orange shit-stain who launched his political career with a racist, crackpot campaign to hound a sitting president about his birth certificate doesn’t get to whine about respect for the fucking office and its current occupant. They need to just stop that shit right now.

Second thing: one can rightly say many terrible things about the people of the United States, but we are most definitely not the minor children born of an unholy hate-fuck between the Trump White House and the infotainment industry. It is at once insulting, alarming and unsurprising that the Trump people see us that way. We have much to do to disabuse them of that notion.

The Sore Winner Tour’s next stop was to Fox & Friends this morning, where Conway regaled that odious threesome with tales of how unfair the Women’s March was because it engaged in “diatribe” instead of “dialogue.” She said women’s concerns would be addressed in “due time.” She also pre-whined about the expected coverage of the upcoming annual “March for Life” event.

Again, two things: First, women are half the population of this country, and Conway’s boss is the most despised new president in the history of polling, in part due to his long and extremely well-documented history of being a slimy sexist creep. So “due time” is right fucking now.

Second, the annual fetus fetishists’ Parade of the Busybodies will be microscopic compared to the Women’s March — hell, even Trump’s pathetic inauguration crowd will exceed it. The coverage won’t be as extensive, but it will definitely be more than the event warrants.

To echo Kay in the morning thread, these people really need to get over their neediness and go about the business of running the country into the ground without the constant whining.

Just last night, Trump lied to a congressional delegation about losing the popular vote because of millions of “illegals” flooded the polls. Why can’t that repugnant orange snowflake accept that he lost the popular vote and move the fuck on already?

I could bear watching these venal, grasping assholes ruin the country if they’d just stop demanding my respect and love. They haven’t earned it. They don’t have it. They never will have it. They should just shut the fuck up about it. It’s pathological.

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Virtual Groping

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virtual-grope

Does this surprise anyone?

When developer Aaron Stanton first heard that a woman had been groped while playing his virtual reality game, his heart sank.

The woman, Jordan Belamire, was shooting zombies alongside strangers in QuiVr when another player virtually rubbed her chest and shoved his “hand” toward her virtual crotch.

“Our first response was, ‘Let’s make sure this never happens again,'” Stanton told CNNMoney.
Stanton reached out to me after I wrote about Belamire’s experience on Monday.

I received many angry emails in response to my story. I was told I was a feminist who knew nothing about QuiVr; that it was impossible to assault someone in that particular game, or more generally, in the virtual world. I was more than curious to hear what Stanton had to say.

Stanton, whose day job is in software development, told me those attacks were “absolutely incorrect.” What happened to Belamire (a pseudonym) was possible in QuiVr and in other virtual reality games too. It’s up to developers to create controls to make players feel safe inside the world that they’ve brought to life, he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Stanton and QuiVr creator Jonathan Schenker published an op-ed in Upload VR.

In it, they suggest that developers band together to create a universal “power gesture” to combat harassment in virtual reality, essentially a “safe word” in the form of a motion that would give the player special powers to protect themselves. “We need to offer tools that give players better controls, not simply better ways to hide.”

Kudos to the developers for taking this seriously, and may I suggest that the “special powers” include the ability to pluck the virtual groper’s virtual twig and two berries off and display them as a trophy?

I’m not a gamer; I’ve played a few zombie apocalypse games to placate the teens. I’ve wowed my old grandma by convincing her to experience virtual reality via Google Cardboard. I probably won’t live long enough to see consumer VR resemble the Holodeck on Star Trek TNG.

But if it does, one of the highest and best uses of it would be to give us all an opportunity to walk around in each other’s shoes — to serve as the “ultimate empathy device,” as Sheryl Sandberg said in the linked article. That might be more valuable than building robots that make Mrs. Glenn Reynolds redundant.

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The Best People

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There is this guy.  He’s running for president.  He himself is not particularly experienced at most (all) of what a president does, but we’re not to worry.

Why not?

Because he’s not the detail guy.  He’s the big picture guy, the boss.  He hires the folks who lift and tote.

But that’s OK.

Why?

Because:

“My motto is ‘Hire the best people…”  (Donald Trump: Think Big, 2007).

And now, let us savor:

Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign chief is registered to vote in a key swing state at an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws.

Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development….

John_Sell_Cotman_-_Ruined_House_-_Google_Art_Project

Election officials in Miami-Dade make clear to prospective voters that they are required to actually live in the county and to use their home address in election paperwork. “You must reside in Miami-Dade County,” their website states. It adds: “When you register to vote, an actual residence address is required by law.” A county spokeswoman did not respond to questions relating to Bannon’s situation.

Three neighbors said the house where Bannon is currently registered to vote had been abandoned for three months. When the Guardian visited the property on Thursday a large window in the front aspect was missing. A soiled curtain was blowing through it. The driveway was a mess of tree branches and mud.

Bannon never appeared at the house, according to the neighbors.

What’s most striking is that this apparent prima facie  voter fraud — while the more likely to get Bannon into actual legal difficulties — is in a moral sense the lesser of two scandals that have dropped over the last twenty four hours.  Because we’ve also learned this:

Stephen K. Bannon, the new CEO of the Donald Trump campaign, was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness following an incident in early January 1996, though the case was ultimately dismissed, according to a police report and court documents.

That witness:

The Santa Monica, Calif., police report says that Bannon’s then-wife claimed he pulled at her neck and wrist during an altercation over their finances, and an officer reported witnessing red marks on her neck and wrist to bolster her account. Bannon also reportedly smashed the phone when she tried to call the police.

The details get uglier:

Bannon then got his lawyer on the case, who allegedly “threatened” Piccard and told her she “would have no money [and] no way to support the children” if the case went to trial.

Bannon then told Piccard to skip town.

He said “that if I wasn’t in town they couldn’t serve me and I wouldn’t have to go to court,” she claimed in the document.

Piccard left for two weeks before Bannon’s attorney said she could return, according to the declaration.

“Because I was not present at the trial, the case was dismissed,” she said in the documents.

That second quote is from The New York Post. That would be the Rupert Murdoch-owned Post, which is an added twist to this tale.  What is the true state of Trump-Murdoch relations?

But leave aside that kind of political inside baseball.  The most compelling element to the story of Bannon’s thuggery is that it is an unexpected, deep look into his character.  Through it we can discover what kind of person Donald Trump — a major party nominee for President, with a genuine, non-zero chance of achieving that office — thinks is one of  “the best people.”

It ain’t pretty.  The Post‘s coverage continues:

Bannon had allegedly also earlier told Picccard, who was then his girlfriend and the expectant mother of their twin girls, that he would only agree to marry her if the kids were “normal.”

He married her on April 14, 1995, three days before the twins were born.

George_Romney_-_Mother_and_Child_-_Google_Art_Project_(2220591)

Worst of all — at least it seems to me — Bannon is a man who would do this:

Piccard alleged in another document that Bannon believed in corporal punishment for the girls, even though he rarely saw them.

She cited as one example that Bannon allegedly spanked one of his toddler daughters to try to stop her from hitting her head against the crib.

Piccard claimed that when she intervened, he exploded, calling her “f—ing crazy” and saying if he hadn’t been interrupted, “she wouldn’t be banging her head anymore.”

Beating any adult is reprehensible.  Whacking on a child, a toddler? (And no, I don’t think “spanking” in this context is likely to have been a gentle swat on the bum.)  There are special circles of hell for those folks.

I left out the last half of the Trump quote at top.  In full, it reads “My motto is ‘Hire the best people, and don’t trust them.’”

As none should him.

Images:  John Sell Cotman, Ruined House,  betw. 1807 and 1810.

George Romney, Mother and Child, undated, before 1802.

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Ooooo! Oooo! I know! I know! Call on me! Call on me!

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silly sully

Why? Because he’s a hysterical, pants-soiling drama bear? Let’s not forget, this is the same Sully who, after President Obama had a subpar debate performance in 2012, covered himself with beagle shit and ran through the streets of D.C. bellowing doom and woe (okay, only in my imagination, but it’s just a slight exaggeration!).

And Sully likes Obama. He hates Hillary Clinton, with such an irrational intensity that it’s as if he thinks she’s the evil harpy who personally circumcised him with a rusty teaspoon in a squalid NHS clinic. So of course he’s sure she’s going to lose to Trump, though Sully says he’ll vote for Clinton if there’s no palatable third party alternative.

[An aside: before all you puling BernieBabies show up in comments to shriek about how much Hillary sucks, we get it! You hate her! Go read the Sullivan interview — you’ll get a righteous stiffy, and maybe you’ll forget to crap all over the comments section.]

There was also something in the Slate interview that reminded me of Adam’s post last night. If you haven’t read Adam’s post yet, do. You won’t enjoy it as it is a compendium of the slime extruded on Twitter by pro-Trump, anti-Semitic creepy-crawlies who emerged when a journalist turned over a rock. Horrifying.

But anyhoo, the Slate article addressed the incident Adam talks about and also a headline at the Trump-friendly Breitbart site earlier this week that refers to Bill Kristol as a “Renegade Jew.” Now, it’s important to bear three things in mind when considering the Breitbart headline:

1) Kristol is a loathsome piece of shit
2) Breitbart is a flophouse for unemployable wingnut morons rather than a legitimate media organization
3) The person who called Kristol a “Renegade Jew,” David Horowitz, is himself Jewish (and a nasty wingnut hysteric of the WND variety)

But all that said — damn. As Michelle Goldberg notes, “the Trump campaign has been associated with white nationalism and a resurgence of raw, violently threatening anti-Semitism. Breitbart’s headline suggests that the Jew baiting popular on pro-Trump social media feeds is creeping toward the mainstream.”

That’s scary shit. Several weeks ago on a thread here, I expressed a thought I’ve heard many fellow American liberals express since Trump clinched the GOP nomination, something along the lines that the fact that Trump will top a major party ticket makes me ashamed even though I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life.

A commenter (I’ve forgotten who — sorry) replied that one advantage she enjoyed as someone who was raised by African American parents was never having to feel ashamed about something a white fool like Trump does. I don’t think I replied — didn’t know what to say.

Because honestly, it never occurred to me for a second to be ashamed because Trump is a fellow white person; rather, I felt shame as an American, that such a vile, bigoted dunce had captured the nomination of one of only two relevant political parties in my country.

That’s an aspect of white privilege, no doubt — the freedom from feeling any responsibility for what some random white shithead does, the certainty that it doesn’t reflect in any way on me. But as this white nationalist aspect of the Trump campaign asserts itself, I do feel a special responsibility to respond to it, as an American of the WASP variety.

I’m not sure how, aside from doing everything I possibly can to help elect Hillary Clinton. Maybe grab the lapels of fellow Saltine-American friends, relatives and neighbors who say they might vote for Trump and shake some sense into them? I don’t know.

But I do feel responsible. And more determined than ever.

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Exploit Your Children Well

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As a former foster mom (of four Sudanese teenaged refugees aka “Lost Boys”), I know it’s possible to use the foster parent stipend to help pay your mortgage or other household expenses and still do right by the kids. But it’s not easy because the stipends are usually low. Ours barely covered food and other essentials, and many months we paid out-of-pocket for things like sports gear or a computer for homework. (And we were in Massachusetts, a generous state.)

Many people who view fostering as an income stream wind up shafting the kids.

Leave it to one of the Y’all Qaeda macho men to take things to a new low, however. Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and his wife have apparently fostered more than fifty boys over the past decade, many from “mental hospitals, drug rehabs and group homes for emotionally distressed youth.” Not only did he use the stipend to support himself, he also made them work on his ranch.

In my view this comes close to human trafficking. Sure, foster kids should do chores, but to use money that is supposed to support them to support yourself AND to use them as free labor on your ridiculous macho-man massively-government-subsidized nonstarter of an animal-exploitation business? NOPE.

More details will undoubtedly emerge, and perhaps they’ll cast a sunnier light on the situation. Perhaps Finicum paid the kids for their work. Or perhaps the ranch was a really wonderful experience compared with the institutions the kids came from. None of that changes the fact that these kids were vulnerable, and exploited. I wonder what else they could have been doing if they hadn’t been conscripted into the ranching business. Studying? Seeing a counselor or visiting with their sponsor? Getting some actual relevant-to-the-21st-century work experience?

Or, how about just plain goofing off and being kids?

Based on this quote alone I would be very surprised if any facts emerge that exonerate Finicum:

“[Fostering] was my main source of income,” Finicum said. “My ranch, well, the cows just cover the costs of the ranch. If this means rice and beans for the next few years, so be it. We’re going to stay the course.”

Sounds like every grieving parent I know!

Dickens himself couldn’t have created a better villain.

The mystery is why the child-welfare authorities in Finicum’s state of AZ acted now. My guess is that they noticed the media interest surrounding all things Y’all Qaeda and decided to act pre-emptively to avoid getting spotlighted. “Hey Marge, remember those homeless kids we keep giving to the rancher for free labor? Maybe we shouldn’t be doing that.”

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Flint and lead screenings

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One of the things that puzzled me about the Flint lead poisoning is why the problem took so long to identify.  Medicaid gives strong incentives to managed care organizations to test their pediatric members for lead poisoning.  Michigan has their own lead policy:

All Medicaid enrolled children are considered to be at high risk for blood lead poisoning. In accordance with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines, Michigan Medicaid policy requires that all Medicaid enrolled children be blood lead tested at 12 and 24 months of age, or between 36 and 72 months of age if not previously tested.

Public Act 55 of 2004 required that by October 1, 2007, 80% of Medicaid enrolled children were to have been blood lead tested. MDCH designed a report, theMedicaid Blood Lead Testing report, to monitor compliance with this law.

The January 2013 report showed that there were 3,000+ kids in Medicaid under the age of 2  in Genesee County.  70% of those kids had a lead screening.

Someone should have been screaming that the Medicaid pediatric population was seeing a massive lead level spike.  It should have been either at the provider level, or more readily, at the insurer level as they should have been seeing the claims for follow-up visits after positive lead tests started to come back in high numbers.  And if the providers and insurers were not screaming their heads off, the Michigan medicaid administrative offices should have been as soon as they started to see the claims come across their data encounter system.

Unfortunately, it looks like the state of Michigan put their head in the sand (via the ACLU)

In a posting Monday on the website FlintWaterStudy.org, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards accused the state of neglecting the lead-poisoning issue even though Michigan officials knew as early as summer 2014 that there was a problem.

“They [Michigan Department of Human and Services officials] discovered scientifically conclusive evidence of an anomalous increase in childhood lead poisoning in summer 2014 immediately after the switch in water sources, but stood by silently as Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) officials repeatedly and falsely stated that no spike in blood lead levels (BLL) of children had occurred,” wrote Edwards

Lead poisoning is something that should be picked up through multiple systems.  I can’t figure out why the public health system failed so obviously.

Flint and lead screeningsPost + Comments (97)