I think I’ll watch Glee tonight and wait for Fox or the right wing blogs to review the plan. Then I’ll assume that the actual facts are the opposite.

From what I have heard so far (via progressive lawmakers like Tom Harkin and Chuck Schumer on Olbermann and Maddow earlier tonight) is that it’s really strong. It has a public option (opt-out, but that’s a lot better than opt-in or a trigger), and the price tag is $849 billion. Here’s more initial coverage from CNN:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled a sweeping health care bill Wednesday that would expand health insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans at an estimated cost of $849 billion over 10 years.Reid and other Senate Democrats cited an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for the coverage and cost figures.

In addition, they said at a news conference, the budget office estimated that the proposal would reduce the federal deficit by $127 billion over the next 10 years and by more than $600 billion in the following decade.

The CBO figures were preliminary, the Senate Democratic leadership said in a media briefing. The CBO was expected to provide its final analysis later Wednesday or on Thursday, according to the briefing.

And the Stupak Amendment is gone! Apparently, Harry Reid has kept some restrictive language in the bill to keep anti-choice Democrats aboard, but it’s more along the lines of the language that was already in the House and Senate committee versions:

The original committee versions of the House and Senate bills already included limits on federal funding for abortion services but they did not go far enough to satisfy anti-abortion-rights Democrats like Stupak and Nelson.

Finding a middle ground will be a challenge, said Nelson. “The problem is, any kind of compromise leaves it somewhat short to one or both parties,” he said.An existing law, known as the Hyde amendment, already prohibits federal money from paying for abortions except in cases or rape or incest or when the woman’s life is endangered. Anti-abortion-rights lawmakers, however, argued that the House bill and the measures approved by two Senate committees would have circumvented that law.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, said Reid’s new provisions would preserve the Hyde amendment while enabling people to buy insurance plans with abortion coverage on the exchange.

“We’re basically going to keep current law, which is what we ought to do,” Kerry said after the Democratic caucus meeting.

I will have more coverage and reaction on the bill as it comes in.

More, the effect of the amendment on the private market over time is likely to extend to the “rider” coverage that amendment supporters point to as an alternative for women shut out of the exchanges, and even to employer-provided insurance coverage:

… the study finds that the supposed fallback option for impacted women–a “rider” policy that provides supplemental coverage for abortions only–may not even be allowed under the terms of the law. “In our view, the terms and impact of the Amendment will work to defeat the development of a supplemental coverage market for medically indicated abortions. In any supplemental coverage arrangement, it is essential that the supplemental coverage be administered in conjunction with basic coverage. This intertwined administration approach is barred under Stupak/Pitts because of the prohibition against financial comingling.”

The authors also note that though the direct impact of the Stupak amendment on women who receive insurance from their employers will be initially minimal, the provision’s tentacles could nonetheless reach into the employer-provided insurance market, too, “further driv[ing] the industry to shift away from current abortion coverage norms and toward product designs that meet exchange and Hyde Amendment requirements.”

In the years that we have pursued this project, today’s posting is one of the strangest international press articles I can recall. And while it indicates that Hamas may be allowing more press freedom than we thought – the conclusions of the author are anything but comforting.

Keeping in mind that the accused killer is of Palestinian origin, the author of this article from the Al Watan Voice, a newspaper published in Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory, while blaming the Fort Hood shootings on a conspiracy of either Zionism or Freemasonry [not unusual for the Arab press], agrees with the reasoning of the conspirators he seeks to expose.

And what is this reasoning? That President Obama, in showing humility and forgiveness toward Arab and Muslim states, is regarded by them as weak, and that the only way to deal with such states is the way George W. Bush did.

For the Al Watan Voice, columnist Hameed Al Wasity writes in part:

“Barack Obama has shown and continues to show inappropriate weakness and unjustified humility. This has been taken advantage of by Arab and Muslim governments.

“The Fort Hood shooting was organized by the hidden world government, international Zionism or Freemasonry (who nominated Obama for a presidential run), and was designed to push an Arab-Muslim officer – and a doctor with the rank of Major – to teach Obama and others a primary lesson: when an American doctor and officer would betray and kill in an instant, one cannot so easily trust Arabs and Muslims – and he [Hasan] was an Arab and a Muslim!!

“Unless Obama changes his policies and begins following in the footsteps of those who preceded him by bringing back American prestige, then there’ll be yet another lesson and another opportunity!! …”

By Hameed Al Wasity

Translated By Nicolas Dagher

November 12, 2009

Palestinian Territories [Gaza] – Al Watan Voice – Original Article (Arabic)

CNN has carried a report of an Arab officer who killed 13 American soldiers and wounded dozens at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

And the officer, Major Nidal Hasan, is a psychiatrist responsible for treating American soldiers. There are so many colorful stories about his nationality. Some of his colleagues say he’s Jordanian, while certain news outlets report he’s of Palestinian origin.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Brain Chemicals, Not Will Alone
We don’t know the qualified diagnoses of Nidal Hasan. But it may have markers of a serious chemicological and brain disturbance.

The subject about how the brain chemicals in the body can go haywire, wrongly signaling a person about events and stimulii around them, causing interpretations and behavior that are either too much or too little– is a subject so large that it would take several libraries to trace what has been researched and written about these matters over the decades.

Once thought to be the province of will, that people ‘decide’ to be a certain way, it is clearly held now that persons who suffer from extreme distortions of reality in every part of their lives, familial, social, work, relational… are not willfull most often.

Neuro-biology tells us that there are vast storms that cross the brains and bodies of those afflicted so deeply, and their ability to have relationships, to work, to find consensual reality with most others, deteriorates… forcing the person so suffering into isolation socially and otherwise… except for those who have complementary mental conditions who may then ally with them.

Paranoid Schizophrenia
Regarding persons who are homicidal and suicidal, there’s a form of schizophrenia that is unfortunately common. I am thinking of the horror that was brought by the undone mind of Harris at Columbine, the undone mind of Cho at Virginia Tech, and now the grave possibility of the same ‘undone’ condition of the mind of the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, at Fort Hood.

There are many many others, including women suicide bombers, Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate, Charles Manson, and others who were not recognized for the extreme storms raging in their brains before they unleashed their terrified and distorted interpretations of the world on others.

This form of homicidal and suicidal schizophrenia, in its extreme, causes the mind to literally divide the world into good and evil, with usually the person suffering from mental illness as a warrior who must destroy evil.

The paranoid overlay to this illness then causes the ill person to target people who are often innocent of doing anything other than resisting/ rebuffing the mental illness of the person. The person who is ill takes this as proof of their evil. And is often terrified by it, by the images it brings into their minds… and so plans to strike out.

Also, persons with this particular illness are often deeply attracted to any religious system that revolves around death, world’s end, bands of warriors killing everyone, the defense of the one true God by murdering the ‘infidel’ or ‘unbeliever’, etc.

Except instead of hearing these as recordings of previous writers who may or may not have been in peace with God, they hear these religious ideas as concrete, as exhortations to go do likewise.

EVERYTHING is then filtered through the illness which divides the world into the dark and the light.

The rebuffing of the ill person by others is not taken as a mere social snub. It is taken as rebuffing the Warrior of God, as an insult to the Great God Himself. The retaliation is for that: the offense against the warrior and against one’s God.

None of this extreme way of ill thinking makes sense to a rational person. But, it makes perfect sense to any man, any woman who is living with a psychotic storm coursing through their brains night and day… storms that cause one to be highly easily offended, that cause distortion of others’ intentions, that cause one to feel not just unsafe, but hunted down by others.

There is more to this illness. As I said, its many aspects, case studies, medical research about it all spans literally millions of papers and books.

Interventions?
The only semi- and excellently effective ones we know at this time are educating society about the symptoms of the often adolescent onset of this disorder, and accurate diagnoses instead of thinking the increasingly psychotic behavior is merely ‘freedom of speech,’ and ‘freedom of movement.’

Anti-psychotic medicine, to gentle and still the storms, and to slow or stop the psychosis, is what we have to offer a person who suffers from this at present.

A large number of persons with this form of paranoid schizophrenia often take their own lives and sometimes, the lives of others. They have, whether man or woman, come undone and are incapable for more than moments at a time, to think of others as human.

In the end, they are terrified, even despite their bragadoccio. The believe everyone is the enemy. And the enemy must be exterminated.

With help and the minute amounts of daily medicines that regulate the brain’s pathways to a more normal way of thinking that does not take homicidal or suicidal offense at everything in one’s environment, that leaves the person without the hypervigilance and feelings of dread and terror that are made up in one’s own mind, a person can often live a life at peace… for themselves, for others.

‘Peace for others,’ meaning, there is often great and unrelieved suffering in the families and friends of those who dearly love someone whose chemistry of the body is bounding to extremes, or else burning far too low. The families and loved ones are often beside themselves to protect the person who is ill, from themselves. And also to protect vulnerable people in the family, such as children, from the one so afflicted.

For loving families and friends, having their loved one returned to them in some way that allows peace for all, is often nothing short of a miracle.

______________
CODA
Cruel interventions
There is as large a body of work about the cruel interventions regarding those who are suffering from serious mental distortions of reality: ice baths with patient laced in under leather over-cover causing hypothermia and death; being chained to lie in one’s offal day after day until the infection from supperating bed sores literally kill the person, deadly assault for aggression, rape of over-drugged patients, surgical removal of brain parts without legal standing, liberal use of stun guns for minor infractions in institutions. The list is very long and very very heart rending.

Poor diagnostic skills, lack of awareness
I’d also just mention that sometimes even those who are most qualified to diagnose, dont see the conditions right before their eyes. It could be because they dont want to have one more very difficult to deal with client at the center who takes up substantial resources. It could be they are book-smart and street-stupid. It could be not being perceptive in spades. It could be that they think being kind will help, and diagnoses is stigma. But kindness alone will not stop the storms in a person’s mind that rage and rage unbidden and ceaselessly.

For homicidal and suicidal psychotic ideation… which is fierce, relentless and obsessive…. only an accurate understanding of the symptoms, and as best we have at the moment, those minute amounts of medicine that can create calm so the person can think clearly, rather than one obsessive disorganized and often deadly scatter-shot thought over and over. I have seen it and seen it wherein someone in charge would not pay critical and informed attention when I and others said more than once, This person has homicidal and suicidal ideation repeatedly. Sadly, in my personal experience, extremely with grief that never goes away, twice my and others’ warnings were brushed off by those in charge. One family is missing a son. Another family is missing their father and their mother.

Refusing care
Whether a person suffering from such a deeply distorting illness will continue their medicine, is an issue. In another situation altogether, we have a person in our foster family who wanders several states away. They have a different form of schizophrenia than we are talking about. But, because of extreme mind fantasies, they wander… impulsive and unprotected from predators on the streets. They are now nearly 70. They’ve given to criminals all their family inheritance from their parents. By impulsive insults to others, they have been beaten up by others, further injuring head and eyes. They have injured others as well.

We’ve made the calls and received the calls for decades. Sometimes they will be found and helped. Other times they insist aggressively and ragefully that all doctors, all who help, are bad people. They cannot grasp how dangerous it is to be at the mercy of a mind that projects evil and badness on others. They beg for money for imagined surgeries, based on self-diagnoses of some condition they read about in the newspaper. All their immediate family has closed them off. They are often angry and terrified by ‘what others do,’ yet insist nothing is awry in their life or worldview… and then lurch into the deadly streets to wander buffeted by psychosis again.

The saddest distortion of all; that the mean streets are safe. They are not. And our foster relative is not safe, either. Can talk a good game, but the sum of their life is a shatters. And laws are such where they wander, that nothing can be done to intervene. The reality is, as always, far more complicated than armchair observation. And far more helpless making in some cases.

Unintended consequence of laws
In the case of Nidal Hasan, I think too, if there is a serious mental disturbance present… then a thorough analyses of ‘failure to see/ failure to report’ would have to look at the laws of the military and his domicile state, that would determine… if he were suffering a psychosis… whether as in some other states in the U.S…. no person can be held and treated against their will.

The issue with such laws that were put into place to stop abuse of those ill, those not ill but merely contrary, and those not ill but purported to be by their greedy relatives, etc., is that the unintended consequences of such laws is… also far too often… they prevent the most extremely ill and vulnerable from being brought to a true helping place where the mind’s storms can be quieted and peace returned to the person.

Some think differently
Though there are some who speak of letting people with extreme psychoses wander and be at the mercy of street thugs and criminals… that it’s just another form of the diversity of human nature to be so ill, that ‘freedom to be not well,” is a human right that ought not be interrupted, despite the person not being able to work, not able to raise one’s children, not able to return love other than in rote ways, not able to carry their own weight, not able without huge financial resources from somewhere to live a half-way safe life…

and there are some who attempt to assign mystical proportions to a person of extreme psychosis… even though they can clearly see that person can in no other way live life with some decent and ongoing sense of security and peace and productivity.

I see it differently. I’ve noted the abuses that can occur with and without laws in place. However, leaving it up to a poor suffering person with extreme mental /chemical disorders to self-diagnose accurately and go for real help that can actually help, is like asking a person at an accident scene with severe internal injuries and who lies on the ground semi-unconscious … to self-diagnose their own life-threatening conditions and walk themselves to the ER.

Sometimes mercy must be bold if possible
Usually someone has to call it like it is. Forget political correctness. Forget ‘boys will be boys’, ‘girls will be girls,’ set aside, ‘this is a harmless state of mind,’ ‘just an opinion I have,’ ‘just a religious belief I have,’ when one is talking about cruelty to self and others, violence of imagination unrelenting.

Someone has to call it like it is. Out of mercy. And true regard and concern. Without backing off because the person so afflicted says they are just fine, can carry on a conversation, dress themselves, eat food, drink coffee, and do what is called basically functional– yet their minds are fragmenting at the speed of thought and not with love, but with resentment, hatred and inhumane thoughts (and actions) toward others.

It ought not be that school administrators, military officers or others STILL not be well trained in symptomatology of the most serious chemical disturbances that violently afflict a person outside their own will… those in charge not realizing out of ignorance or their own biases… that not intervening usefully, compassionately and decisively, can multiply incidences of violence toward others.

There is an elaborate science of war including the study of underlying causes and ways to fight war, but there also has to be a science of peace… knowing its underlying premises and how to build it strongly… starting with studying and learning underlying causes of mental disasters ramping up if intervention are not undertaken. Or, if ‘being nice’ or looking away for personal reasons… overtakes being wise.

It makes sense to take extreme care to not harm a person who is harmless. But, in the same vein, it is insensible to wait to name and help until after all relationships are ripped asunder, after all dreams are in shreds, after relentless day after day high tension in one’s mind has created havoc with the other organs of the body, after worklife becomes impossible, after one’s loved ones flee, after all financial resource is drained, and in the cases of extreme psychosis… after great harm has been done to the person and to others.

It is owed to the human being who is relentlessly chemically fragged day in and day out… to have peace instead of war in their minds. To have calm instead of overly tight triggers that break down other parts of the body with excessive corisol and other chemicals which flood the body corrosively causing other critical health issues.

It is also owed to society to have all souls, insofar as possible, not left without help that truly helps. And in a timely manner.

———–
the drawing is by Rami Al-Ramahi

In spite of the ever-mounting information regarding his extremism, his self-declared status as a “Soldier of Allah”, his statements that he viewed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a war on his religion… the arguments still continue.

“He was just like every other crazy that goes off the deep end and starts shooting people up”, they say. “It had nothing to do with his religion.”

It’s confounding.

Yes, Hasan is clearly “a crazy”. Sane people, as a matter of course, don’t commit mass murder, no matter the provocation. Yet to deny that Hasan’s “crazy” was not directly tied to his brand of Islam is the most bizarre form of denial to me.

It’s possible that all these people arguing that his religion was incidental to his crime are motivated by concern for the many millions of non-radical Muslims. If so, then I can at least understand the rationale (if not the denial). We should all be concerned about the possible tarring and denigration of others who do not ascribe to the extremists’ views, but share the religion nonetheless. Clearly those innocents are at risk, and it’s important to distinguish between this madman (and those who think like him), and the vast majority of Muslims who do not share these views.

But it is they who are incidental here, not Hasan’s religious views and related acts.

Trying to re-frame his many years of words and actions, which culminated in a despicable but logical end, is not doing ordinary Muslims any favors. Rather, it blurs the line between them — and frankly, that line should never be blurred. It’s crucial to distinguish them. Had this monster been a violent Christian extremist who’d been going off for years, and followed it up by shouting “Praise God” before shooting up a bunch of people, it would clearly have been connected to his twisted religious views.

And that would be different… how? Other than the religion under discussion, it wouldn’t be.

Friends, the murder of George Tiller was an act of terrorism. The bombings of his clinic, and the first shooting, were terrorism. Furthermore, I think they were precisely the same kind of terrorism: religious terrorism.

Religious terrorism is not exclusively the province of Islamic extremists, and it’s a blatant falsehood to claim that the terminology is not applied to fanatics following a different “path to enlightenment”. Or has everyone forgotten about the Army of God? The fact that the United States is currently at war with violent Muslim extremists certainly raises the profile of their crimes, but that’s about it.

Pretending that Hasan was not acting on his twisted interpretation of Islam does nothing to protect ordinary Muslims, anymore than pretending that Eric Rudolph wasn’t an extremist Christian protects ordinary, well-meaning Christians.

They’re terrorists — specifically, religious terrorists.

In this case, the religion is Islam, and Hasan’s version of it is heinous. He committed murder in the name of that religion.

It is what it is.

Therefore, I find it not at all unusual that today’s authors of Op-Ed columns in today’s Los Angeles Times argue amongst themselves. The issue is not whether Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan committed a terrorist act. He did.

The issue which is only partially addressed in the opinion pieces is why the army failed to connect the dots of his behavior that culminated in the massacre.

The questions are — was it because he was a Muslim? Was it because the army was protecting its investment in his education since it not only was short on Muslims it was short on mental health experts? Or was it because the army brass was intimidated and too politically correct?

That last question really bothers me. It forces a hypothetical question which really cannot be answered. That is, what if the major was a white Christian from our nation’s heartland whose religious views trampled his objectivity as a psychiatric specialist? Or worse, what if he was totally incompetent as judged by his peers? Either way, would he have been drummed out of the corps? We don’t know. He should have been discharged without prejudice so he could rise or fail by market forces in private practice with an unblemished service record.

The problem with my analysis and the army’s is that hindsight is seen from a prism that is 20-20.

The Times commentaries are worth reading. One was offered by Tim Rutten, the paper’s resident conservative. The other by Judith Miller, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a Fox News contributor, and David Samuels, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine.

Continuing our coverage of the global reaction to the Fort Hood killings, this morning we posted this Arabic op-ed from the United Arab Emirates – a moderate Arab state considered friendly toward the United States.

Writing for the Dar Al Khaleej, columnist Saad Mehyo suggests a common Arab explanation for many of the world’s difficulties: a conspiracy directed by the “extremist right-wing Jewish-American alliance,” in this case, designed to scuttle President Obama’s attempts to improve U.S. relations with the Arab world. This may sound far fetched to Americans – but to many people beyond our shores, it’s an article of faith.

For Dar Al Khaleej, Saad Mehyo forecasts two possible explanations for why Major Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers – Mehyo himself calling his second possible explanation a conspiracy theory:

“First, the incident of Major Nidal Hassan may truly have resulted from his abysmal psychological state. But despite this, the black knights [extremist right-wing Jewish-American alliance] will seek to exploit the tragedy to the point that the hearts and minds of Americans will take their side in the tug-of-war with those who favor dialogue.

“Second, (and here is where the conspiracy theory comes in) someone may have manipulated the mind of this officer with drugs and psychological pressure, in order to push him to commit this act.”

And why does Mehyo think option number two is such a likelihood? Because, he writes, it has happened before:

“American investigative journalist James Bamford (who relied on official government documents), wrote that in the early 1960s, senior U.S. military commanders planned subversive operations, including the implementation of terrorist operations in many American cities – in addition to hijacking planes and the sinking an American ship off Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. The plan, which was approved by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and planned with the help of the super-secret National Security Agency, stated: ‘If we execute these operations, the loss of (U.S.) life published in newspapers will spark a national wave of revulsion. That will help us a great deal.’ Now let’s see – what would Bamford have to say about the Fort Hood incident?”

By Saad Mehyo

Translated By Nicolas Dagher

November 9, 2009

United Arab Emirates – Dar Al Khaleej – Home Page (Arabic)
Is the Fort Hood shooting, in which the accused is an American-Muslim officer of Palestinian descent named Nidal Hasan, some astonishing hurricane that came out of a clear blue sky? Not at all. It was like a bolt of lightning that will come and go at the speed of light. America’s sky is as clear as ever.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) was able to get his odious amendment through the House, but it’s unlikely to do as well in the Senate, especially after President Obama signaled his desire to see it changed. It led the Michigan Democrat to start making threats today.

“We won because [the Democrats] need us,” Stupak said. “If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don’t say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won’t vote with them the next time they need us — and that could be the final version of this bill.”

There are some pretty dramatic problems with this bravado. For one thing, there’s no “double-cross” — Speaker Pelosi let him bring his measure up for a vote and it passed. There was never any deal that the Senate had to follow suit. For another, according to House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Stupak brought 10 votes, not 40.

Indeed, it’s probably worth noting that Stupak has proven to be something on an extremist when it comes to opposing women’s reproductive rights, but it’s not all clear that he represents an unyielding bloc of lawmakers. It’s not unreasonable to think that some of the same pro-life Dems who voted for Stupak/Pitts and the reform bill may also be willing to accept a compromise that Stupak would reject.

Meanwhile, back in the land of Steele-trap minds:

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.
[...]
According to several Cigna employees, the insurer offers its customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage – and the RNC did not choose to opt out.

But rank and file Republicans said Thursday that the policy should – and would – be changed.

“We were not aware of this, obviously, [duhhh!]and this will, of course, be fixed,” said James Bopp Jr., a Republican National Committeeman from Indiana. “I think Chairman Steele [duhhh!] will see to it that that’s the case.”

Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia conservative, said “they need to drop that clause” from the policy or find a new one.

“From a philosophical standpoint, it’s inconsistent,” Kingston said. “It makes me think someone isn’t scrutinizing the purchases.”

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

Since Susan wants to put words in the mouths of the city officials, let me put a few in hers. What you’re saying is that you are openly blackmailing the city, threatening to stop doing the good work you normally perform, rather than have to deal with gay people.

Now, before we get too carried away, I still maintain that the church has the right to its own opinions on these subjects, as backwards as they may be. (What ever happened to love the sinner but hate the sin?) But there’s a lot more to this story. Aside from the political intrusion of the church into secular matters with this outright blackmail attempt, there is also the issue of following the money. You may say that what the church does with its own funds in terms of charity is their business… and you’d be right. But they’re not dealing with just the coins taken from the collection plate. They get a lot of taxpayer money for these good works.

Catania, who said he has been the biggest supporter of Catholic Charities on the council, said he is baffled by the church’s stance. From 2006 through 2008, Catania said, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts, as well as several hundred thousand dollars’ worth this year through his committee.

“If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes,” Catania said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.

Blackmail. Very nice for such a charitable organization, eh? Seriously, people. It’s time to just tax the churches if they are going to act not only as powerful political agents, using the pulpit to influence voters with the Voice of God, but are willing to bend arms in the government in overt attempts at extortion to change policy if it doesn’t fit their views.

by Rick Moran

We all like things to be simple. This is probably due to an evolutionary quirk that rewarded simpleminded hominids who didn’t expend the enormous energy in calories that would have required us to think hard about something. The brain eats up about 40% of our caloric intake so it makes sense that those early pre-homo sapiens would have been natural Clintonites and “kept things simple, stupid.”

The way everyone is furiously writing about the Fort Hood shootings – specifically why this painfully obvious jihadist was allowed to stay in the army – verifies that hypothesis.

It’s really quite simple, you see. The American government and the military are lousy with PC and we paid for our timidity in the face of evil with the lives of 14 brave soldiers.

Or, an equally simple explanation is that war and cruelty to Muslims drove Hasan over the edge so of course he snapped. That and the prospect that he was going to be sent to Iraq.

For the fringes, it’s even easier; the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim and, on the other side, it really is America’s fault that Hasan “went Muslim.”

You can box, wrap, and tie up in a bow explanations given by both right and left for why the Fort Hood attack occurred. They are that pat, that logical, that simple – so easy to understand in the context of ideology and partisanship that going beyond and digging a little deeper is discouraged because it might complicate things.

I am not satisfied by these explanations and you shouldn’t be either. There is a germ of truth in the explanations offered by both sides, but I think large gaps need to be filled in to prevent us from making Hasan a cartoonish representation of the Evil Muslim, or blameless victim.

There is history to consider, for instance. The 9/11 attacks placed the American government – indeed all Americans – in a bind; how do we fight an ideology animated by religious fanaticism without condemning hundreds of millions of believers who are peaceful adherents to that same religion to guilt by association?

We failed to make this distinction in World War II with the Japanese to our eternal shame. You simply cannot tar an entire group – ethnic, racial, religious, or even those of a certain sexual orientation – with the sins, no matter how grievous, of a few. To do so is to toss the very idea of American exceptionalism out the window.

This does not mean that you must totally sacrifice security in order to avoid the conundrum. The Hasan case clearly proves that. This is a fellow that dozens of people knew did not belong in the United States Army due to his radical, treasonous statements. At this point, we don’t know why no one turned him in, or if they did, why nothing was done. It is a distinct possibility that more latitude has been given Muslims in the military with regard to their views than is granted others, but there is no direct evidence that this is so. It makes sense that this is the case, but lacking facts, it is still rank speculation.

It is also speculation that no one turned him in because they feared PC retribution. What Hasan did is so far beyond the pale of rationality that most who heard him spout no doubt believed him chillingly odd but not a real threat. I think that would be the reaction of most of us if we had encountered Hasan in our everyday lives. We get the same kind of reaction from friends and neighbors of serial killers, despite warning signs that we never pick up on. It may very well be that Hasan’s acquaintances in the army did indeed fear the consequences of turning him in. But we don’t have a clue so why the certainty in such speculation?

Not wanting a repeat of the Japanese experience in World War II is not political correctness. But perhaps the way our government implemented policies to avoid that historical deja vu will be seen as having gone too far. Clearly, the Hasan case cries out for a thorough review by the military of its policies. But I suspect it wasn’t a policy failure that led to Hasan’s continued association with the Army but rather a failure of imagination on the part of his co-workers and friends who either fooled themselves into believing he wasn’t a killer, or dismissed his treasonous utterances as someone “just letting off steam.” The prospect that he would pick up guns and kill fellow soldiers was so far beyond the pale of imagination that those who knew of his views and heard his bloodcurdling threats never put two and two together, never made the psychic connection, between thought and act.

Does this mean that it was, in fact, political correctness that was involved in the “failure of imagination?” I can hear many of you who subscribe to this theory telling yourself that you never would have made that mistake, that because you are PC free, you would have reported Hasan immediately.

I congratulate you on your perspicaciousness. But if you worked with someone everyday for years and the change was gradual, I question whether in fact, such would be the case. And for those, like the seminar participants at Walter Reed who heard Hasan in all his jihad glory, the failure of imagination would have been even more applicable given their unfamiliarity with the terrorist.

Hindsight allows us to read into Hasan’s jihad anything that fits our preconceived notions of political correctness or victimhood. But for all of us, the conundrum remains. Bending too far toward PC is a recipe for disaster. Leaning toward treating every Muslim as a potential threat is equally distasteful and un-American. Finding the middle ground would seem to be impossible given the way this incident has now become a war between the ideologies.

But find it we must. Is there a way to satisfy our security needs while refraining from engaging in emotionally satisfying Muslim bashing or ignoring the eventualities posed by radical, fundamental Islamism that led to Hasan’s rampage?

Not quite as easy to explain now, is it?

Rick Moran is Associate Editor of The American Thinker and Chicago Editor of Pajamas Media. His personal blog is Right Wing Nuthouse.

I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won’t ever need such a pill. And anyway, it’s no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don’t think there’s even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)

Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well. And unlike the payments for abortion, which actually lower overall medical costs (pregnancy obviously costs much, much more) banning tax dollars from covering any kind of Viagra would result in a substantial savings[.]

[...]

I realize that many people disagree with my moral objections to men getting erections which God clearly doesn’t want them to get, but my principles on this are more important to me than theirs are to them. So too bad. If you want a boner, pay for it yourself.

First, I believe a woman has the right to choose an abortion, not the government nor any religious organization. At the same time, I would not encourage my wife to abort our child unless it would save her life.

Second, as a policy issue, I have no moral grounds to oppose the Hyde Amendment which essentially prohibits taxpayers’ money to pay for an abortion. The reasoning in itself is contradictory and unfair to women who cannot afford abortion procedures. My bias is directed at those women who lack responsibility and willy nilly get themselves pregnant as often as a tree bears fruit. Why should I living in Southern California pay for an abortion for some tart in South Florida? No where does it say some things in life are not fair.

I applaud the Catholic Church for running a network of hospitals and promoting universal health care coverage. At the same time, I am appalled that representatives of Catholic bishops successfully lobbied the House of Representatives to take its anti-abortion issue to the ultimate extreme. One threat they have used is closing down all the Catholic hospitals in America if they don’t get their way.

The bill passed by the House prohibits a woman from getting an abortion even if she pays for it if any of the insurers involved receive federal subsidies. That, my friends, is a step too far since every carrier for a woman with modest income is subsidized.

From here, the debate goes downhill in a hand basket. It renews the ugly argument of the role religion plays in politics. My basic principle is to keep religion out of politics yet the Catholic bishops as well as the far right Protestant fundamentalists have every right to exercise their powers to our Congress. Complicating matters is many if not most Catholic laypeople quietly do not condone abortion.

Good politics is the art of compromise and doing what’s best for the common good. It will be needed if Congress ever passes health reform. As of now, the abortion issue is more volatile than any tangent of a public option.

This article from National Public Radio sums the issue well.

This GUEST VOICE piece is by Rafael Jesús González from California, on Veterans’ Day 2009. It is a perspective on ’supporting the troops’ …or not. I brought it here to give a small x-ray into how one family’s three generations of soldiers is evolving nearly ninety years after what was supposed to have been ‘the war to end all wars, World War One’

…GUEST VOICE by Rafael Jesús González
I am leery of being asked to honor veterans of almost any war, except as I honor the suffering, the being of every man or woman who ever lived.

I am sick of “patriotism” behind which so many scoundrels hide.

I am sick of war that has stained almost every year of my life.

Especially now, in the midst of yet another unjustified, immoral, illegal, untenable, cynical, cruel war our nation wages in Iraq, in Afghanistan.

I am impatient with fools who ask whether I “support our troops.”

What does it mean to “support our troops”? What is a troop but a herd, a flock, a band? What is a troop but a group of actors whose duty it is not to reason why, but to do and die?

In the years I served in the Navy and Marine Corps as a medic, I never took care of a troop; I took care of men who had been wounded and hurt, who cut themselves and bled, who suffered terrible blisters on their feet from long marches, who fell ill sick with high fevers.

If to support means to carry the weight of, keep from falling, slipping, or sinking, give courage, faith, help, comfort, strengthen, provide for, bear, endure, tolerate, yes, I did, and do support all men and women unfortunate enough to go to war.

Troops, I do not. If to support means to give approval to, be in favor of, subscribe to, sanction, uphold, then I do not. The decision to make war was/is not theirs to make; troops are what those who make the decisions to war use (to kill and to be killed, to be brutalized into torturers) for their own ends, not for the sake of the men and woman who constitute the “troops.”

I honor veterans of war the only way in which I know how to honor: with compassion; with respect; with understanding for how they were/are used, misled, indoctrinated, coerced, wasted, hurt, abandoned; with tolerance for their beliefs and justifications; with efforts to see that their wounds, of body and of soul, are treated and healed, their suffering and sacrifice compensated.

I never refuse requests for donations to any veterans’ organization that seeks benefits and services for veterans. I honor veterans, men and women; not bands, not troops.

__________
CODA
A Note On Evolution in Family Viewpoint As Cultures Evolve, or Lag
by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés…

So much turns and evolves in the generations of a military family, in any family that has a hand in trying to ride the culture before them. I think of Tyrone Steels’ family (He is TMV’s site admin and a writer) which has layers of civil rights marchers, black panthers, quiet shy people, bold outspoken people, and those who do not entirely conform to the previous generations’ ideas about politics and conduct of life in the public sphere.

And yet, they care for one another, and for others. There are many families who honor and respect each other–and others– even though their ways of seeing the world, their ways of conduct in the world, differ.

Veterans’ Day is not just a day of remembrance. It was literally meant as THE day on EARTH that there would never again be war. It was originally to fasten the idea to the wall of humankind that the world had just experienced in sorrow “the war which would end all wars.” Amongst many, the belief was that so great were the horrors, depredations, and devastations of WWI, the piles and piles and piles of the bones of the dead across the world, that all horrified just souls, were saying, Never war again.

So the history of Veterans’ Day grew from bloody world soil. When the First World War officially ended June 28, 1919, the actual fighting had already stopped… it has become legend that it stopped on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the previous year. Armistice Day, as that ‘end to war’ was known, later became a national holiday, and in 1954 (the year Rafael Jesús González, the author of the above piece, graduated from high school), the name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans of all wars.

Rafael Jesús González’ grandfather Benjamín Armijo from New Mexico was a veteran of WWI, “an old man who seldom spoke and [who wore] his cap of The American Legion. (He was also Republican.) Three of González’ uncles, Roberto, Armando, and Enrique, fought in WWII. As a child missing his uncles, González remembers his uncles photos “on my grandmother’s home altar, very handsome in their uniforms; endless rosaries and litanies the women in the family regularly met to pray; and the three blue stars that hung in the window.”

His uncle Roberto, tío Beto… came home with ulcers and los nevrios, nerves. His uncle Armando, tío Pana, in the Infantry division… served in the Pacific Theater, and Guadalcanal. His uncle Enrique, tío Kiki, the youngest, in the Airborne Division, the “Screaming Eagles”, served in the European Theater and parachuted into the taking of Germany.

And after that war ended, “they came home, tío Pana into a hospital, sick with malaria which affected him throughout this life; tío Kiki with a malady in the soul not so easily diagnosed, hidden in his quiet humor, gentle ways. All my uncles were gentle men, in all senses of the word.” And Beto, Pana, Kiki were of a time that men felt they were made less if they were to speak of pain, of what they had seen, what they had done…

And thus comes before us with his writing today, the once little boy who witnessed the grit of gentle strong soldiers in his own family, and he now, Rafael Jesús González, is himself an old man. And he writes, as you read above… an evolution of thought and feeling, rinsed through many generations of soldiers’ courage and compassion.

There’s a lot of bragadoccio in some who claim to be veterans, but it’s far more often that a war vet is like González’ uncles, grandfather, González himself: reflective, not knowing all the answers, thinking, doing what is within their reach to truly touch and not just talk. I’ve not yet met a WW II vet who calls himself from ‘the greatest generation,’ which is actually the title of a book created by Tom Brokaw and the marketing department of his publisher.

But I have met many WWII vets who are warm men, who are real and human and good, and who push away any inflated moniker that separates them from other ordinary humans who have once upon a time done one or more extraordinary things and under duress. The grief of war is not that the superhuman are killed. The grief of war is that souls who are sweet and complicated and all that is utterly and divinely human… are slaughtered.

Returning to the headline: It’s easy to take sides, ’support the troops’ or not… but it’s grown into a trite phrase/question for many. Rather, seeing behind the either/or of that limp litmus, just for a little bit, was the intent of this article I placed for you here. A small x-ray of one aspect of one family of soldiers from three different generations.

Blessed Veterans’ Day
dr.e
military wife (DH 21 years USAF, now at VA processing prostheses for vets)

“Having a ham sandwich on the afternoon of Yom Kippur doesn’t make you less Jewish,” Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue, said recently.

I feel like this may be a license for mis-behavior. (If you’re interested in the context of Rabbi Schochet’s remark, click here.)

Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

Conservatives may be more correct than Progressives on this limited debate. Pregnancies and abortions are intrinsic parts of any healthcare debate since they impact the health of a woman. It is also a covered medical procedure for a majority of private health policies provided by employers across the country. However, many women do not make claims for reimbursement or present their insurance cards at the time of an abortion because they do not wish to inform their employers they have elected for such a procedure that generally costs between $300 and $600.

Since the 1973 Supreme Court decision, U.S. law permits an abortion for any reason during the first trimester. After the first 3 months, then states can limit it for certain public policy reasons or prohibit certain procedures altogether. There are not that many physicians and medical facilities that provide these services and overall availability varies greatly between different cities and states. The nation is evenly divided on this issue with a slight majority supporting the procedure anytime the mother’s life is at risk or the pregnancy was the result of rape of incest. The Supreme Court has cited these reasons to permit some later-term abortions. Certain abortion foes do not even sanction those exceptions, nor do they support the sale and distribution of RU-486, the morning-after pill since it causes an immediate menstrual period even though a recently-fertilized egg may or may not be present.

Employer-sponsored healthcare exists in the U.S. because of favorable tax treatment by the Federal Government. The benefits of medical insurance are not considered taxable income to the employee yet the employer may deduct those expenses against gross revenues to arrive at taxable net income. This preferential tax treatment has also been subject to considerable debate during the past 10 months. Therefore Conservatives can reasonably argue that federal funds and tax policy impermissibly support and pay for abortions covered under private employer-sponsored health plans.

If Democrats want to pass any healthcare before the 2010 Midterm elections, they will have to compromise with Democrats and some Republicans who support such broad limitations on public funding for abortion. In fact, those opponents of this elective pregnancy-terminating procedure could logically demand that all abortions not be covered in any public or private health insurance policies and that morning-after pills should also be excluded.

This national policy would not limit a woman’s choice, but merely eliminate public funds from paying for those particular legal private choices, without disrupting the need for federal subsidies so lower-income families can afford private health insurance. The left would argue that poor woman cannot afford these procedures without public assistance, but that misses the entire point. The choice is always there but the lack of money to pay for an elective and legal procedure has never been an adequate challenge against restrictions on how public tax funds are allocated.

It is highly probable that the Senate Bill and the later joint conference committee’s final Bill merging the Senate and House versions will have to deal with these issues. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other abortion foes will likely widen their demands in light of their recent successful amendment to the House Bill. If they are successful at banning all public and private insurance policies from covering abortions and morning-after pills, Democrats might be able to insert an exception if a physician determines and signs a written certification that the life of the mother is at stake, to make it a covered procedure for all public and private insurance. To expand access to on-demand elective abortions for poor women, proponents may have to depend upon private charitable fundraising for such specific financial support.

As a counterbalance to sweeping prohibitions of any insurance coverage for all abortions, both liberals and conservatives should demand greater public and private insurance coverage for comprehensive pregnancy care, childbirth, extensive infant and maternity care during the first 6 months after birth, and full coverage for surgical remedies of various congenital birth defects.

In addition, progressives could advocate more public funds for comprehensive sex education in all public, charter and private schools starting in the 4th or 5th grade, being this is a healthcare education issue. Those schools that refuse to provide such sex instruction could lose all their federal and state public funds.

All condoms and other pregnancy-prevention medicines and devices for both men and women could be fully covered by public and private health insurance plans. A compromise should be sought to greatly reduce the need for any abortions because there would be far fewer unwanted pregnancies. For those pregnancies that proceed to birth, the mother and new child must become societal priorities so we significantly reduce our inexcusably high infant mortality rate. Any “continuum of life” should include adequate healthcare though every stage of life.

Whereas we can all believe different things with respect to when life begins and death occurs in humans, we need to establish firm, secular lines in a pluralistic society with respect to what is legally protected and what the public will support financially. This compromise would maintain a workable separation of church and state within the healthcare reform debate. These provisions might provide an opportunity for the Democratic Party to bring into its fold a number of pro-life Independents, Democrats and Republicans.

Meaningful healthcare and health insurance reform should move forward this year, even if it does not include everything many people desire. Life in general – and specifically politics in Washington – is an endless compromise. The choice of doing nothing will cost taxpayers far more under the current system in excessive payments under Medicare and permitting tens of thousands of people to die or go bankrupt due to a lack of adequate health insurance.

The public option, whether with an opt-out or triggering provision, or immediately effective for a small number of uninsured, may not survive into the final bill sent to the President. He probably has understood this inevitability since January that politics in Washington would not permit its survival. Some of my prior healthcare posts suggested the same or that a public option was not needed for comprehensive healthcare reform. On this policy initiative, these past 10 months of extreme vitriol, hyperbole, anger, debate and horse-trading were probably all for naught.

I would strongly advocate that the final healthcare legislation permits any state to try its own public option or complete single-payer plan free of any legal challenges. There are probably a half-dozen interested states that should be given the opportunity to be national incubators of these ideas. To oppose even this option for experimentation by individual states would be contrary to the very notion of federalism and our protection of individual freedom and liberty to choose all legal options that have been and still are intrinsic to our very system of government.

The many common, non-partisan, and non-debated proposed reforms in both the House and Senate bills should be enacted even if a major compromise must be made with those that oppose abortion since many of them also support expanded coverage to the uninsured and stricter regulations on private healthcare. We must realistically anticipate that we will be monitoring and modifying our national health system over the next decade. Neither the extreme right nor left is justified in complaining about most of these modest and incremental healthcare reforms.

After the passage of healthcare reform by the end of 2009, we will have to promptly turn towards addressing unemployment and all the other massive challenges facing this country.

Marc Pascal

Alas, it is the same old clunky, clueless David Brooks:

Here is what inspired the false hopes:

We’re all born late. We’re born into history that is well under way. We’re born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn’t choose. On top of that, we’re born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can’t control. We’re thrust into social conditions that we detest. Often, we react in ways we regret even while we’re doing them.

But unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty.

[...]

Most people select stories that lead toward cooperation and goodness. But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged.

And then the bucket of cold water, as Brooks proceeds to do exactly that which he decries:

That narrative has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.

This narrative is embraced by a small minority. But it has caused incredible amounts of suffering within the Muslim world, in Israel, in the U.S. and elsewhere. With their suicide bombings and terrorist acts, adherents to this narrative have made themselves central to global politics. They are the ones who go into crowded rooms, shout “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” and then start murdering.

When Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did that in Fort Hood, Tex., last week, many Americans had an understandable and, in some ways, admirable reaction. They didn’t want the horror to become a pretext for anti-Muslim bigotry.

So immediately the coverage took on a certain cast. …

[...]

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. …

This is, indeed, the narrative that has been flitting about among the literati in the chattering class and in the blogosphere. Marc Lynch confronts it:

Since the Ft Hood atrocity, I’ve seen a meme going around that it somehow  exposed a contradiction between “political correctness” and “security.”  The avoidance of Nidal Hassan’s religion out of fear of offending anyone, goes the argument, created the conditions which allowed him to go undetected and unsanctioned in the months and years leading up to his rampage.  American security, therefore, demands dropping the “political correctness” of avoiding a  confrontation with Islamist ideas and asking the “tough questions” about Islam as a religion and the loyalty of Muslim-Americans.

This framing of the issue is almost 100% wrong.    There is a connection between what these critics are calling “political correctness” and national security, but it runs in the opposite direction.   The real linkage is that there is a strong security imperative to prevent the consolidation of a narrative in which America is engaged in a clash of civilizations with Islam, and instead to nurture a narrative in which al-Qaeda and its affiliates represent a marginal fringe to be jointly combatted.  Fortunately, American leaders — from the Obama administration through General George Casey and top counter-terrorism officials — understand this and have been acting appropriately.

That last is critical, because whatever anti-Muslim sentiments exist among ordinary Americans (and statistics show that it’s actually decreasing) are less significant than how public officials and authority figures react to those sentiments:

… Asking whether “Americans as a group are virulently biased against Muslims” isn’t really the right way to look at the issue. If you’re a member of a minority group that suffers discrimination, you don’t want to know what the average American thinks about you; you want to know whether there’s a substantial and persistent group of Americans who are strongly prejudiced against you, and whether their expressions of prejudice will be generally tolerated. You’re afraid, basically, of the Cossacks, and what you want to know is whether the Tsar will clamp down on them or not—or whether, in the old worst-case scenario, the Cossacks work for the Tsar. The immediate and unequivocal statements of public authorities are ways of codifying political mores and saying, no, the Cossacks don’t work for the Tsar, and in fact the Tsar will put them in jail if they try anything.

[...]

… Certainly, the most important thing for Jewish Americans is that society as a whole recognise the existence of anti-Semitism; everybody knows it will never be eradicated entirely. That’s why the immediate efforts by General George Casey and by Janet Napolitano to head off anti-Muslim reactions to the Fort Hood massacre have been so compelling and reassuring. And this is also why attempts to link the massacre to “political correctness”, and to imply that Muslims should be subjected to greater discrimination and surveillance, are so misplaced and dangerous. The fever swamps of the nativist internet are currently awash with anti-Muslim bigotry; they always will be. The question is whether the major media and responsible public officials make concerted, pro-active attempts to prevent such bigotry from spreading into the mainstream. …