U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has over-ruled the recommendations of the FDA and ‘the morning after’ pill (or Plan B) will not be made available to everyone as an OTC product.  Girls must be 17 years or older to buy the product without a prescription. 

From Huffington Post:

The Food and Drug Administration recommended on Wednesday that Plan B One-Step, commonly referred to as the “morning-after pill,” be made available over the counter without age restrictions, but an Obama administration official overturned that recommendation.

After ten months of reviewing scientific data, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg decided on Wednesday that emergency contraception should be made available to everyone over the counter.

“There is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential,” she said in a statement.

Read more…

Both Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and  Rep. West of Florida faced angry town hall voters during spring break over proposals to change Medicare.  The Florida town hall meeting nearly erupted in chaos and angry voters challenged West for what they saw as trying to dismantle Medicare to pay for bolstering up tax cuts for the wealthy and industry.  The crowd was enraged.  Rep. Ryan faced a similar packed town hall meeting.  He attempted to outline his proposals and justify changes.  The citizens were having none of that. 

Florida Rep. Daniel Webster ran into an extremely loud accusatory crowd in Orlando who demanded that he leave Medicare alone and accused him of selling out in favor of corporations and fat cats.  They waved signs stating ‘Hands Off Medicare.’   According to the New York Times:

Mr. Webster, shown in video from station WFTV, sought to defuse the situation by saying that any changes were years away and that current retirees would not see a difference. “Not one senior citizen is harmed by this budget,” he said, noting that his new granddaughter was “looking at a bankrupt country.”

Read more…

The Richmond Times Dispatch:

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Virginia’s petition to have its lawsuit against federal health-care legislation bypass appellate review and be heard directly by the court.

As a result, the lawsuit will continue on its current path to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is scheduled to hear the case May 10 in Richmond.

Read more…

Who is Jarod Loughner? That seems to be the question everyone is fighting over. What were his links to politics? Anytime a congresswoman and a judge are shot, the shooting is automatically political–whatever that means.

From all descriptions, Jarod Loughner is seriously mentally ill. Even if he is political, he seems in too much of a fugue state to even have an ideology.

 Where do we, as a nation, go from here?  This horrific situation seems so like the massacre at VA Tech in so many ways.  Specifically, a person demonstrating psychotic, erratic behavior is noticed by professors to the point they refuse to teach the students  (Dr. Gioninni at Tech and Ben McGahee at Pima Community).  The students are removed from the class.   At Pima, Jarod was suspended from college until he had a psychological evaluation declaring him not a danger to himself or others.  In both cases, we have bizarre behavior that makes students and faculty every uneasy and very afraid.

So nothing is done.  Both students meltdown and both go on a rampage, killing and wounding multiple people. 

Why must we allow those who are obviously seriously mentally ill to go untreated?  What must happen in order to put people away BEFORE they harm others?  We need to reassess how we deal with people who display extremely erratic behavior.  We cannot allow these rampages to continue. 

Saturday’s events will change how some things happen in America. We will use expressions like ‘post Tucson’ to indicate how things have changed since this tragic event.  Hopefully America will focus on providing a safety net for when people get dangerously mentally ill.  Now is not the time to make cuts in mental health care.  Our very lives depend on it.

UPDATE:

Read more…

From Huffington Post:

DETROIT — A federal judge on Thursday rejected an attempt to stop some key provisions of the new national health-care law, saying Congress has the authority to require people to get insurance by 2014.

The ruling – the first in a challenge to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul – came in a lawsuit filed in Michigan by a Christian legal group, the Thomas More Law Center, and four people who claimed lawmakers exceeded their power under the Constitution’s commerce clause.

But U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit said the insurance mandate, and the financial penalty if someone skips coverage, are not illegal. He said Congress was trying to lower the overall cost of insurance by requiring participation.

“Without the minimum coverage provision, there would be an incentive for some individuals to wait to purchase health insurance until they needed care, knowing that insurance would be available at all times,” the judge said.

“As a result, the most costly individuals would be in the insurance system and the least costly would be outside it,” Steeh said. “In turn, this would aggravate current problems with cost-shifting and lead to even higher premiums.”

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler noted the ruling “marks the first time a court has considered the merits of any challenge to this law.”

Now we all get to discuss what this ruling means.  Meanwhile, according to my friend Ivan, the race to the appeals court is on.  Where does this leave our esteemed AG?  How does this affect his solitary lawsuit?  

Most of us will now have more questions than we did before this ruling was issued.   U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh was appointed by Bill Clinton and has been a U.S. District Judge for about 12 years. 

The Opt Out Resolution, that call to arms by Corey Stewart passed the BOCS on Tuesday, not with a bang but  a whimper. What passed in a 6-2 vote, was a resolution that directs the county staff to find out how much new federal health care regulations will cost Prince William County. Both Supervisors Jenkins and Principi voted against this Resolution because they felt it was taking the staff off their regular jobs and that staff was already short.

From the News and Messenger:

With a vote of 6-2, Prince William supervisors Tuesday passed a resolution that directs staff to find out how much new federal health care regulations will cost the county.

The resolution also requires staff to report these costs to the board and to alert state and federal authorities if there’s a problem—that is, if the regulations amount to unfunded mandates that will require supervisors to raise taxes or cut essential services.

Supervisors John Jenkins, D-Neabsco, and Frank Principi, D-Woodbridge, voted against the measure after attempts to amend the document—to set up a committee to study the issue and to direct staff to research and report on tax-saving benefits of the federal health care plan—failed.

The actual resolution that passed is a watered-down version of what was originally proposed, and is in not a call to opt-out of the federal health care plan. It does not support, or even mention, the state’s lawsuit against the federal law, either. Rather, the resolution, which is available online at the county government’s website, http://www.pwcgov.org, is a directive to staff.

This Resolution is a far cry from what was originally proposed for our county by Corey Stewart, early in April at a political rally down in Stafford County. Stewart originally  said he was proposing a resolution that would direct the staff not to honor new medicaid claims that were to be ushered in January 1, 2014 as a result of HCR. By April 15, Stewart was handing out fliers at a Tea Party Tax Rally calling his proposal an Opt Out Resolution. By the time Moonhowlings.net received a copy, there was no ‘Opt Out,’ just a directive for staff to study the costs and report back to the board. Funny how that all worked out, isn’t it?

Good work, citizens of Prince William County. It looks like we avoided another Stewart Folly.  Hats off to the supervisors who voted no.  As our regular, George Harris,  has stated, he found out much of what he needed to know by making a couple phone calls.  Why can’t the county do the same thing rather than turning every issue into a circus?

This Tuesday the PWC BOCS plans to vote on a much watered down ‘Resolution’ (See 10H on the Agenda)

Mr. George Harris gets it. We hope the rest of the BOCS gets it.

George S. Harris’s open letter to the BOCS in News & Messenger May 1 says it all.

LETTER: To the Prince William Board of County Supervisors
Your View
Published: May 1, 2010

I am writing to you to ask you to help this unlearned citizen understand why a resolution is needed by the Chairman Corey Stewart to determine the number of people affected by the expansion of the Medicaid criteria under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I simply wrote to the Prince William County Department of Social Services and within a few days received a reply from Mr. Dennis E. McFeeley, Divi-sion Chief of Benefits, Employment and Child Care Programs. His telephone number and email address are: Phone: (703) 792-4315 Email: dmcfeeley@pwcgov.org.

By the way, the estimated number is 15,200 of the poorest of the poor.

It would seem to me that Mr. Stewart could simply pick up the telephone and call Mr. McFeeley or Mr. Ric Perez, the acting director of the Department of Social Services, and pose the question he has included in his draft resolution. While I don’t have Mr. Perez’s direct telephone number, the main number is 703-792-7500. I suspect whoever answers the telephone would be more than glad to connect Mr. Stewart with Mr. Perez.

Yes, I agree it would prudent to determine how much the Medicaid expansion will cost Prince William County, but considering that it will be some 14 years before the county must begin cost sharing, any estimation would at best be an onageristic estimate. Again, a telephone call might work.

On the other hand, if Mr. Stewart is using a resolution to stick the board’s collective finger in the federal government’s eye, I strongly recommend against this. We’ve already been made to look the fool too many times.

Therefore, I am left to draw the conclusion that this tempest in a teapot is nothing more than political posturing on Mr. Stewart’s behalf to satisfy his political base and the members of the Tea Party whose meetings he frequents as a speaker. If my conclusion is wrong, would someone be so kind as to let me know?

GEORGE S. HARRIS

Manassas

One has to ask why a resolution is needed when picking up the telephone and asking a few questions solves the same purpose? Could it be that Mr. Stewart is once again grand-standing? Is this his way of attempting to save face after standing on the steps down in Stafford like George Wallace demanding civil disobedience from county employees? (Click to see background material)

Hopefully all the supervisors will see the absurdity of this ‘Resolution’ and will vote NO. Why help Corey Stewart make a fool of himself?

‘NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED’ is the crux of any resolution.  In this case, there are 4 key directives.   They  tell us what is going to be done.  All the ‘whereases’ are justifications.

The day before yesterday the  Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released its report which claries the fiscal impact , if any, of the expansion of Medicaid.  Click here to see the entire report.

Poverty Guidelines

10 Components of the Healthcare Bill

In talking this out, why do we need a resolution to do any of this?  Just do it over time and report back.  Can’t the BOCS just direct Ms. Peacor to make a statement after the dust has settled and the ink has dried on the Legislation?   isn’t that what is supposed to happen anyway?

Why all the fanfare?  Why the proclamations from the court house steps and from the Tea Party Rally?  Creating an Opt Out Resolution which doesn’t even opt out  seems like bad business as usual.  What is the price tag for all this investigation?  What is the price tag for pulling people off of their regular jobs to do all this busy work?

The red print is from Moonhowlings.

The Directives from the ‘Resolution:’

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Prince William Board of County Supervisors requests that the Department of Social Services, assisted by County staff:

1.     Estimate the additional population eligible for Medicaid in Prince William County as of January 1, 2014 according to the provisions of the PPAC and the regulations which will probably be promulgated by the federal government to implement the PPAC; and

It will be difficult to estimate the county demographics for Jan. 1, 2014.  The best we will be able to do is estimation. Estimations may be extrapolated from other existing data.  However, the estimations  are not exact.  Furthermore there are benefits that cannot easily be quantified:

According to News and Messenger:

The 2008 American Community Survey reported that [the county's] poverty rate was 5.2 percent in 2008, less than half the statewide rate of 10.2 percent and about one third the national rate of 13.2 percent,” according to the quarterly report.

The county’s median household income in 2008, according to ACS figures, was $88,724, leading to its rank of 16th in terms of wealth among the largest counties in the United States. Per capita income in the county for 2008, meanwhile, came in at $36,049, according to the quarterly report.

2.      Estimate the additional financial burden to the County taxpayers for additional administration of benefits for the newly expanded, less-sensitive population; and

What is a less-sensitive population?  A family of 4 making $29,000 is hardly rolling in the lap of luxury.  What is involved in administering Medicaid?  Processing an application, verifying eligibility, enrolling the person/family into the Medicaid program according to the guidelines is pretty much it.  Is there a hidden process we don’t know about?

• The additional cost to the states represents only a 1.25 percent increase in what states would have spent on Medicaid from 2014 to 2019 in the absence of health reform.
• The federal government will assume 96 percent of the costs of the Medicaid expansion over the next ten years, according to an analysis of CBO estimates.
• And having more people covered as a result of the Medicaid expansion and other provisions in the health reform law will reduce state and local governments’ current spending on other services for the uninsured, such as mental health services.

3.  . Work with private health care providers to estimate the magnitude of the reduction of

Working with private health care providers?  Which party will these providers belong to?  How will they be selected?  This information will be anecdotal at best.  Didn’t Linda Chavez warn us about using anecdotal  documentation rather than scientific data?

Why should we expect there to be a reduction of available health care options for the Medicaid population?

Why isn’t the BOCS attempting to bring more medical services to the county?  Aren’t these businesses we are trying to attract?

4. Advise the Commonwealth and the federal government that unless additional resources are found at the federal and state levels of government to fund the administration of the expansion of Medicaid, that Prince William County will be forced to raise taxes on County residents or slash strategic services in order to fund eligibility workers to administer the massive expansion in the eligible population which will become effective on January 1, 2014 enrollment of newly covered beneficiaries.

Gobbledeegoop?  What did that paragraph just direct?  Talk about obsfucation.  Geez.

When will we advise the Commonwealth and the federal government?  According to the  CBPP study:

Contrary to claims made by health reform critics, the Medicaid expansion does not pose substantial financial burdens on states. The additional state spending that will result from the expansion is only 1.25 percent of what states would have spent in the absence of health reform, but it will cover 16 million more people, which will help reduce states’ costs for other programs and bring numerous other benefits to the states. The federal government will pick up most of the costs of the Medicaid expansion, overall making it a good deal for the states.

And…..(and let’s put that Peacor woman to work)

AND, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Prince William BOCS directs the County Executive to:

1. Estimate the increased cost burden the PPAC will have on the County’s provision of health insurance to its employees; and

1. Provide comment to the Federal government as regulations and procedures are written which implement the Health Reform legislation in order to ensure that the impacts on local governments both from the significant expansion of Medicaid and from the implementation of other sections of the legislation are fully articulated.

Corey has issued a call to arms to his Tea Party base, or who he perceives to be his Tea Party base. Others have called it a call for anarchy.

Unfortunately, the Whereas remarks are mostly speculation.  The law does not take effect until Jan 1, 2014.  The rush to urgency is simply not there, regardless of how much Corey tries to make this a case of imminent impending doom.

We will post the actual meat of the resolution, items 1-4, individually in the next post.  Even the most casual observer will note that Corey’s ‘Opt Out Resolution ‘ opts out of nothing and will only cost the county money it doesn’t have.

The other supervisors are wise to his tricks now.  They realize that he is salivating to be  elected Lt. governor  in 2013 or elected to  some other higher office at either state or national level.  They also realize that he wants to climb up this ladder of success on their backs, not on what is good for the county.  They know that pulling  the Department of Social Services to do investigative work is bad business.   This agency  has recently regrouped and reorganized after the tragic death of Lexie Glover.  They have a new director.  To pull people  off of their routine work load to go do investigative work is wrong and disruptive.   When county people are pulled to work on other things, then the regular work load just doesn’t get done.

The power of 4 is going to be the power of a little bit more than 4, this time.

Below is a copy of the proposed “Opt Out” Resolution to be presented on May 4, 2010.

MOTION:                                                                        May 4, 2010

Regular Meeting

SECOND:                                                                        Res. No. 10-

RE:                 REALLOCATION OF COUNTY RESOURCES TO COMPLY WITH PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT  

ACTION: APPROVED

WHEREAS, Medicaid is an entitlement program authorized under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, financed by the state and federal governments and administered by the States. The Virginia Medicaid program is administered by the Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS); and

WHEREAS, the provision of eligibility workers to enroll beneficiaries and administer benefits has been imposed on Prince William County government with insufficient overhead funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia to cover all costs of administration; Prince William County citizens fund 53% of the administrative costs of administration through their local taxes; and

WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of Virginia currently covers eligible children, parents or caretakers of children, pregnant women, elderly persons, and persons who are blind or disabled, and the Virginia Medicaid population for Fiscal Year 2008 was  487,929 children, 142,180 parents or caretakers of children and pregnant women, 81,541 elderly persons, 182,636 persons who are blind or who have disabilities; and

WHEREAS, due to the provisions of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama on March 22, 2010, Virginia will add an estimated 400,000 residents to its Medicaid rolls, and by 2022, will spend an additional $1.1 billion, according to a projection from Virginia’s DMAS cited publically by Governor Robert F. McDonnell.

WHEREAS, private practice providers, general hospitals, children’s hospitals, and other health care providers have expressed grave concern that an open ended surge in Medicaid beneficiaries, and an anticipated decrease in reimbursement rates by States, will force providers out of business or force them to turn away currently served Medicaid populations; and

WHEREAS, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors strongly believes that there should be affordable access to high quality health care in Prince William County, and is gravely concerned that the changes to Medicaid will reduce the amount of affordable care available and reduce the Medicaid population’s access to health care as well; and

 

WHEREAS, Prince William County funds the administration of Medicaid benefits through their general fund, and the general fund is the primary source of funding for education, police protection, transportation, and all other critical county functions as identified in the strategic plan; and

 

WHEREAS, Prince William County currently provides local taxpayer funding totaling $6,526,214  within the Department of Social Services in FY 2010 administering benefits including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps, Medicaid, Refugee Resettlement, Auxiliary Grants for the elderly and disabled, general relief, and financial assistance to eligible families for the purchase of child care services; and

WHEREAS, according to testimony provided to the Board of County Supervisors on March 23, 2010 there is already a shortage of benefits administration staff and therefore insufficient capacity to handle the increase in the Medicaid eligible population created  by the federal PPAC; and

WHEREAS, the PPAC constitutes an indirect unfunded mandate which completely ignores the cost of administration to local jurisdictions, forcing them to reallocate their scarce human services resources to less critical populations;

WHEREAS, Prince William County will honor state and federal law but is concerned that the PPAC will place a significant new financial burden on localities in the near future;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Prince William Board of County Supervisors requests that the Department of Social Services, assisted by County staff:

1.      Estimate the additional population eligible for Medicaid in Prince William County as of January 1, 2014 according to the provisions of the PPAC and the regulations which will probably be promulgated by the federal government to implement the PPAC; and

2.      Estimate the additional financial burden to the County taxpayers for additional administration of benefits for the newly expanded, less-sensitive population; and

3. Work with private health care providers to estimate the magnitude of the reduction of available health care options for the Medicaid population in Prince William County;  and

4. Advise the Commonwealth and the federal government that unless additional resources are found at the federal and state levels of government to fund the administration of the expansion of Medicaid, that Prince William County will be forced to raise taxes on County residents or slash strategic services in order to fund eligibility workers to administer the massive expansion in the eligible population which will become effective on January 1, 2014 enrollment of newly covered beneficiaries.

AND, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Prince William BOCS directs the County Executive to:

1. Estimate the increased cost burden the PPAC will have on the County’s provision of health insurance to its employees; and

1. Provide comment to the Federal government as regulations and procedures are written which implement the Health Reform legislation in order to ensure that the impacts on local governments both from the significant expansion of Medicaid and from the implementation of other sections of the legislation are fully articulated.

Votes:

Ayes:

Nays:

Absent from Vote:

Absent from Meeting:

For Information:

None

CERTIFIED COPY___________________________________________________________

Clerk to the Board

Original Proclamation made by Corey over the weekend of April 10, 2010

 Once again, Chairman Stewart is using his fellow colleagues to promote his need for media coverage. I imagine they are getting pretty fed up with his antics. On April 13, Corey travels to Stafford to unveil his plan of anarchy, the plan where he is going to pass a resolution directing PWC staff NOT to implement the new Medicaid guidelines that will include accessibility to health care for a family of four making less than 29,000 dollars a year. You know, those pesky working poor that would otherwise not be eligible for coverage. Then on April 15, TEA party rally day in PWC, Corey hands out his flyers, hocking for support of his “resolution to opt out of Medicaid” on the May 4th BOCS meeting.

I am hopeful his fellow Board members are finally going to tell Corey that his mis-use of his office has simply gone far enough. Moonhowlings.net  has a copy of the actual resolution Corey will be proposing, and let me tell you, the supposed “lion” is simply a declawed domestic cat. Corey is lying to his base if they believe he has actually gone through with his threat to disobey the “rule of law”. All the resolution does is misdirect money to determine the impacts of the new recipients of Medicaid. We will be posting the resolution in pieces with our own refutations from plenty of credible sources.

Apparently, the folks at the News & Messenger agree, based on their editorial today: 

(posted in its entirety) 

EDITORIAL:  Keep your eye on the county, Stewart

Our View

Published: April 21, 2010

 

When will Corey Stewart stop giving the impression that he is running for the next office and focus on the business of the county?

 

Recently Stewart, the head of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, announced that he will put forward a resolution to prevent county employees from implementing new Medicaid regulations when they take effect in 2014.

 

While this may score him political points with the Republicans whose support he might need next time he tries to step to higher office, it doesn’t do much for county residents—the people Stewart is actually supposed to be serving.

 

Stewart said the new regulations—which are part of the national health care reform legislation—will be costly and won’t survive any real legal challenge.

Stewart also said, “I don’t think the county should be responsible for administering a federal program.”It is one thing for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to challenge health care reform—he is, after all, the state’s lawyer—but Stewart’s realm of power is Prince William County and his duty is governing. That’s where his attention should stay.

Perhaps the new Medicaid regulations aren’t legal, but that is not something for the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to decide.

And they could be costly. Of course, the legal battles that could result from the county’s refusal to follow federal law would probably also drain the taxpayer’s wallet.

As for whether the county should be responsible for administering a federal program, it is interesting Stewart did not hold to this line of thought when he decided the county should take charge of enforcing federal law on illegal immigration. Sounds less like a principled stance and more like political opportunism to us.

We are all for Stewart being a strong county leader. We just wish that his strength could be focused more narrowly on local matters and less on attention-grabbing issues.

It does the county no good to constantly be in the headlines for the radical actions of some of its supervisors. The only people that benefit are people like Stewart, who garner press while the county’s reputation suffers.

The county can address the local impact of things like illegal immigration and the new Medicaid regulations, but it can do so in ways that do not damage our home or end up in court. The problem with Stewart has never been that he doesn’t fight for the county, it’s been that he serves the county second and his ego first.

 

 

Posted by Elena

A call for anarchy?

From the News & Messenger regarding the local Tea Party Rally yesterday:

Stewart, a Republican, said he will ask his colleagues to approve a resolution that would prevent county employees from implementing new Medicaid regulations when they take effect in 2014.

“That is a public option that increases Medicaid to beneficiaries by more than 40 percent,” Stewart said at a Prince William County TEA Party Patriots rally at the McCoart Administration Center on Thursday.

Stewart, who seemed confident that his resolution will pass, said the county would not provide the benefits until it is compelled to.

“We will not implement those regulations until we are required to do so through injunction, which can only be initiated by the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” he told the crowd of about 100.

Additionally, Stewart said he believes the regulations will not bear legal scrutiny.

“I do not believe they are legal,” he said about 2 p.m., when the crowd had dwindled from a high of about 200 at noon when the rally started. “I do not believe they will serve anyone.”

He continued, “I do believe that they will hurt the current beneficiaries of Medicaid—the disabled, the poor children and others—who already have difficulty finding physicians who will treat them on the low reimbursement rate.”

Stewart said the regulations amount to “unfunded mandates” that will cost taxpayers money and divert resources from other areas.

“I don’t think the county should be responsible for administering a federal program,” he said.

Still, Stewart said he didn’t know how thing would shake out legally.

STOP!  Stewart doesn’t know how things will ‘shake out legally?  That might be a real good question to ask before everyone jumps on the bandwagon trying to get re-elected.  Injunctions are orders by a court of law to do or not do something.  When the feds are involved, ‘an injunction’ can also come along with some enforcement  like the National Guard or US Marshalls.   Is that what we want?  Another University of Alamaba situation?

Read more…

A big thanks to Elena for this gem. She says that David Frum was subsequently fired from his job at American Enterprise Institute for expressing this opinion. How many of us could have easily have said this:

David Frum

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

 

 

 

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

Read more…

Rep. Perriello from the Charlottesville  area voted for the Health Care Reform bill.  Today officials and the FBI are looking in to how the propane gas line at his brother’s house got cut.  Political opponents had posted his brother’s address on a website, thinking the address was the congressman’s.   According to msnbc.com:

From NBC’s Pete Williams
Virginia officials, aided by the FBI, are looking into how a residential propane feeder line was cut at the home of the brother of a Virginia congressman.

Investigators have reached no conclusions about how or why it happened. But the line was cut after the home’s address was posted on a blog and a Facebook page, both maintained by members of a local Tea Party group who thought it was the home of Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who voted in favor of the health-care bill.

One said, “This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address,” and added, “I ain’t holding back anymore!!” The other urged readers to “drop by” the home and “express their thanks” for the vote. 

The cut in the gas line, which runs from a propane tank to a gas grill on a screened-in porch, was discovered Tuesday, the day after the address was posted. When they realized that it was incorrect, the operators of the blog and Faceboook page took the address off.

The chairman of the Lynchburg, VA, Tea Party, Mark Lloyd, told NBC News, “I learned what happened after the fact. We made an official statement on our Web site,” saying that that his group “did not request, sanction, or endorse” posting the address, which appeared on a different Web site.

Tea Party member Nigel Coleman, who wrote one of the Internet posts, told the Charlottesville Daily Progress that he was shocked when he heard about the incident.

Rep. Steny Hoyer reports that threats have been made to around ten Congressmen and women who voted yes to HCR legislation.  Shepherd Smith reports that he is waiting for an update from Capitol Police. 

Please note that the material for this post comes from both MSNBC and from Fox News.   Unfortunately incendiary rhetoric meant to gather the troops sometimes sends some of them off the deep end.  All of us, regardless of party affiliation or ideology must be mindful of our audience and what we say.  Civil debate becomes increasingly more important.  Shepherd Smith gave one of his fierce admonitions about settling political unhappiness and discontent at the ballot box.  I feel certain there will be footage of his remarks.  I will post them.  One bad apple can give many black eyes. 

It goes without saying that any  remarks like that would be removed from this blog.  However, no one here would post like that either.  The blogosphere does have the responsibility to maintain civil discussion.

Daily  Progress Story