Tag Archives: responsibilities

Working for a Living

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Indiana has joined Kentucky in getting approval to add a work requirement to its Medicaid program (separately: Federal approval should not be a requirement; the program should be a State-run and -funded program only).

Of course, there are objections.

Democrats and consumer groups are decrying the GOP push, saying it is antithetical to Medicaid’s goal of expanding health care.

That’s plainly not true, though (I’ll ignore the conflation of health care with health care coverage).  The push is exactly what’s needed to make health care coverage available to all who want it.  The plan, even as minimal as this one is (the work-related requirement would apply only to a small segment of Indiana’s Medicaid enrollees), will facilitate availability, not limit it.  By making it possible for folks to get off this welfare program and into jobs that can enable them to buy their own coverage—if they want it—it will allow the State’s Medicaid dollars be committed to those who truly need Medicaid because they’re too old, too young, and/or too infirm to get desired coverage on their own.

A Thought on American Women’s Gymnastics

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Unless you’ve been vacationing unplugged under a rock for the last several months, you’re aware of the atrocities committed by Larry Nassar, the ex-pseudo-doctor for the US’ women’s gymnastics team.  Now we find out that

The US Olympic Committee didn’t intervene in USA Gymnastics’ handling of sexual-abuse allegations against longtime national-team doctor Larry Nassar in 2015, even after USA Gymnastics’ then-president told two top USOC executives that an internal investigation had uncovered possible criminal behavior by the doctor against Olympic athletes.

And pursuant to a lawsuit,

the organization [USOC] said it was “first made aware of the possibility that a USA Gymnastics physician had sexually abused USA Gymnastics athletes in the summer of 2015, when we were informed by USA Gymnastics.”

Gymnastics is a physically dangerous and mentally stressful sport, as are most competitive sports.  Our women, and our girls, who participate in this game don’t need the added stress, much less the added damage, of sexual misbehaviors, sexual harassment, sexual assault inflicted on them by those placed in positions of power or authority over them—trainers, coaches, doctors, anyone.

I think it has become necessary to shut down women’s gymnastics as a formal sport in the US for a significant period of time, perhaps 2-5 years.  The time is necessary to completely revamp the sport and purge the criminals and the merely misbehaving personnel, folks like the imitation doctor Nassar, just convicted of harassments and of assaults against our girls; folks like the Karolyis, whose “training” techniques at best don’t align with American values; others who mistreat our girl and woman athletes while pretending merely to “toughen up the buttercups” or who get their jollies from molestations.

USA Gymnastics and the women’s side of the United States Olympic Committee must cease to exist.  When the time comes, replacements for USAG and that portion of USOC must be created from the ground up.  Anyone associated with USAG and USOC and anyone associated with those personnel out to and including the second degree of association must be banned from participation also.

Full stop.

One more item: the boys and men’s side of this needs a full, deep, and independent investigation, too, on general principles.  What deeply nefarious affairs are going on there that we don’t know about?  Hopefully none, but it’s time to look closely.

Yet Another Mueller Leak

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As usual, it’s carefully crafted and timed (it came out Wednesday morning) to cast President Donald Trump and his administration in a bad light and to try to steal the headlines from Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is seeking an interview with Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for President Donald Trump’s legal team, according to a person with knowledge of the matter….

As usual, too, Mueller is carefully silent on the leak and refuses to do anything to halt further leaks.

Aren’t these investigations supposed to be secret until they’re dropped or charges revealed?  Hah. Naïve me.

Democrats

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…will not compromise.  The Progressive-Democratic Party refused President Donald Trump’s offer of compromise and bipartisan work during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.  They booed Trump’s request that both parties work together on immigration reform, never minding that he offered DACA protections—via legislation, yet, rather than an ephemeral Executive Order—for one million more children brought here illegally and young(er) adults brought here illegally as children than ex-President Barack Obama (D) had.

They sat, refusing even to acknowledge with polite applause, our nation’s economic successes.

That subset of the Progressive-Democratic Party, the Congressional Black Caucus (a misnomer, since they refuse to allow black Republicans to join the group), sat on their hands, refusing to acknowledge black unemployment gains—the lowest level since the statistic began being recorded—and Hispanic unemployment gains—the lowest level since that statistic began being recorded.

The Progressive-Democrats refused to acknowledge a child whose efforts led to American flags being put, on Veterans Day, on the graves of veterans that otherwise would have gone begging.

They even refused to acknowledge the work done to redress Government’s failures regarding our veterans—they just sat, like bumps on a log.

Some of them boycotted the speech rather than respecting the occasion, rather than respecting their own constituents by representing them at the speech.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D, IL) even stalked out of the speech after the bulk of the Representatives and Senators present began chanting “USA! USA!”

This is the contempt in which the Progressive-Democratic Party holds us Americans.

Remember their intransigence and their arrogance this fall.

Another Biased Federal Judge

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US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, of the Eastern District of New York, blatantly and zealously does not like President Donald Trump, as many folks do not.  However, the judge is hearing a case concerning whether to block Trump’s withdrawal of ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) unconstitutionally applied DACA protections, and that overt bias may well feed into his ruling on what should be an open and shut question: the DACA protections were illegally applied, and apart from that, they were applied by DHS Memorandum, and so even were Obama’s DACA legal, the protections can be removed by Memorandum or by a President’s Executive Order.

Amazingly, Garaufis is considering the weight to be given to Trump’s campaign rhetoric as though that could be relevant, and the text of the law be damned.

Judge Garaufis appeared to struggle with how much to weigh Mr Trump’s prior comments in determining whether to temporarily block the unwinding of DACA, saying he couldn’t ignore them.

“I’m not sure what the answer is,” Judge Garaufis said.

If the good judge doesn’t understand the question, he should recuse himself.  If he doesn’t understand so basic a question, he has no business being on the bench at all.

It gets worse.

In a speech to the Heritage Foundation last year, Mr [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions cited a comment from Judge Garaufis at a hearing in the same case in which he said the government “can’t come into court to espouse a position that is heartless.” Mr Sessions said comments like this are “highly offensive and disrespectful” of the legislative and executive branches.

Getting visibly angry, Judge Garaufis said of Mr Sessions, “He seems to think the courts cannot have an opinion.”

Yewbetcha.  Courts cannot have political opinions.  Not a syllable of one.  It’s appalling that a Federal judge does not understand this, or pretends not to.