April 6, 2008
April 5, 2008
Nearly 200 Women and Children Removed from Mormon Compound in Texas
Michelle Roberts,The Associated Press, April 5, 2008
ELDORADO, Texas – Child welfare officials have now removed nearly 200 women and children from a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, authorities said Saturday.
The investigation began after a 16-year-old living there complained of physical abuse. A search warrant authorized state troopers to enter the retreat run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and look for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.
The warrant said the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.
State Child Protective Services on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that another 131 residents were removed overnight and that by Saturday afternoon 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed.
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April 4, 2008
The Saddest Part…
I took a half-step back. A half-step, that’s all it took. Then I remembered: the 2000 Presidential election was rigged and the will of the people thwarted. Then, the 2004 presidential race was rigged and the will of the people thwarted. Why would ANY of us assume the 2008 race won’t be rigged, or isn’t already?
I’ve asked this question to several people I know – call it an informal poll – and they all tell me the dems will win because the country is sick, sick, SICK of Bush and repugs and the dems will come out in droves. They seem to have forgotten Stalin’s sage teaching: “It’s not who votes that counts. It’s who counts the votes.” In view of this, combined with our actual experiences in 2000 and 2004, I’m feeling a bit silly about “standing up” for any of the candidates.
My half-step back allowed me to see more clearly and remember: we get the “President” we’re given. I don’t pretend to know who makes the determinations but I’d guess they have more money than God and they don’t WANT us to know. What I DO know is that our “Democracy” is broken and we don’t have an actual voice in the election of our president any longer.
Meanwhile, We, the People are out here fighting hand-to-hand over our preferred candidate. We ALL used to know that the press couldn’t be trusted. These days, though, we’re in the trenches slashing our friends the instant some “reporter” writes a story suggesting Bill is a racist or Barack hates America.
To me, the saddest part about the infighting is that friendships are being destroyed over something we actually have no control over…
Paul Krugman: Voodoo Health Economics
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, April 5, 2008
Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan.
It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics — not the supply-side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.
As Mrs. Edwards pointed out, the McCain health plan would do nothing to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those, like her and Mr. McCain, who have pre-existing medical conditions.
The McCain campaign’s response was condescending and dismissive — a statement that Mrs. Edwards doesn’t understand the comprehensive nature of the senator’s approach, which would harness “the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans,” reducing costs so that even people with pre-existing conditions could afford care.
This is nonsense on multiple levels.
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