NO PROFIT IN EBOLA

The US "for profit" healthcare system is not equipped to handle situations that are considered "high maintenance" and "low profit margin" which is evidenced by the slipshod way  these facilities are handling the Ebola soon-to-be epidemic.


A growing number of health experts are drawing a line between this gross unpreparedness and the United States' for-profit healthcare system, under which there is minimal oversight and no uniformity between healthcare providers.

For-Profit Healthcare Under Fire As Ebola Spreads to Second US Healthcare Worker

Combine this national problem with the state-wide healthcare system in Texas and you have a full blown disaster in the making;

Of all 50 U.S. states, Texas has the worst health care system, the highest percentage of uninsured citizens and the most prostate cancer deaths, according to a federal report on health care quality released this week.

The 2011 State Snapshots report ranked states on a 100-point system based upon measurements of 155 different key indicators of health care quality, and Texas scored the lowest with just 31.61 points.

The report, produced by an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, compiled data from the National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Reports, which track a wide range of health care indicators like cancer rates, elderly care, early childhood care, infant mortality, disease prevention and deaths.

More than 6.3 million Texans, which includes 1.2 million children, do not have health insurance, according to the Texas Medical Association — a fact that undoubtedly led to the state coming in last place overall, thanks to the financial drag uninsured people place on hospitals.

THE POWER OF THE 99%

The only power an average American has is their vote.  And when they use it there is nothing that can stand in the way of the power it unleashes.



There is a small but powerful group of influential people who expend vast resources to prevent this and will do whatever it takes to make it NOT happen. They only way they can succeed is by preventing as many Americans as possible from voting this November.



If they succeed then what Bob Herbert wrote about will prove to be our Manifest Destiny.





Losing Our Way by Bob Herbert





From longtime New York Times columnist Bob Herbert comes a wrenching portrayal of ordinary Americans struggling for survival in a nation that has lost its way

In his eighteen years as an opinion columnist for The New York Times, Herbert championed the working poor and the middle class. After filing his last column in 2011, he set off on a journey across the country to report on Americans who were being left behind in an economy that has never fully recovered from the Great Recession. The portraits of those he encountered fuel his new book, Losing Our Way. Herbert’s combination of heartrending reporting and keen political analysis is the purest expression since the Occupy movement of the plight of the 99 percent.
The individuals and families who are paying the price of America’s bad choices in recent decades form the book’s emotional center: an exhausted high school student in Brooklyn who works the overnight shift in a factory at minimum wage to help pay her family’s rent; a twenty-four-year-old soldier from Peachtree City, Georgia, who loses both legs in a misguided, mismanaged, seemingly endless war; a young woman, only recently engaged, who suffers devastating injuries in a tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis; and a group of parents in Pittsburgh who courageously fight back against the politicians who decimated funding for their children’s schools.
Herbert reminds us of a time in America when unemployment was low, wages and profits were high, and the nation’s wealth, by current standards, was distributed much more equitably. Today, the gap between the wealthy and everyone else has widened dramatically, the nation’s physical plant is crumbling, and the inability to find decent work is a plague on a generation. Herbert traces where we went wrong and spotlights the drastic and dangerous shift of political power from ordinary Americans to the corporate and financial elite. Hope for America, he argues, lies in a concerted push to redress that political imbalance. Searing and unforgettable, Losing Our Way ultimately inspires with its faith in ordinary citizens to take back their true political power and reclaim the American dream.

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL DAMAGES MORE THAN BRAINS

A football crazed parent will argue that football builds character, cooperation, and prepares you for success in adult life.



What you don't hear much about is what else this violent prone, mindless, brain damaging so-called sport foments.

Seven Sayreville football players suspended amid abuse scandal at New Jersey school 

The mother of a sophomore player told The News that her son had suffered abuses similar to those detailed in an early report from NJ.com, that the older players inserted fingers into the rectums of a line of freshmen players, forced to lie face down on the floor of the locker room. According to the allegations, they then placed the fingers in the mouths of their victims.

Now, we'll hear that this is an isolated incident and should not be considered the norm so what's the big deal?  Maybe these people should take into account that violence breeds violence and then it's only a matter of whether it's on the filed or in the locker room. 

CHILDHOOD ABUSE CREATES SUCCESSFUL ADULTS

Peterson said he disciplined his son similar to how he had been punished as a child and attributes what he refers to as his "success" to how he was punished. 

Using this twisted logic one could justify dragging a woman out of a cave and clubbing her because our prehistoric ancestors  did. 

Corporal punishment is legal in every U.S. state. Should Peterson's case go to trial, legal experts say, the final determination of what is reasonable discipline will be based on the standards found in the local community — and Texas law offers no definition of what that is. It says the use of non-deadly force against someone younger than 18 is justified if a parent or guardian "reasonably believes the force is necessary to discipline the child or to safeguard or promote his welfare."

The felony child injury charge stems from when Peterson disciplined his 4-year-old son in May with a tree branch or "switch," resulting in injury.

Peterson, 29, said the injuries his son suffered were unintentional and that he was using the same disciplinary methods that his father used on him when Peterson was growing up.

But a grand jury concluded Peterson "recklessly or by criminal negligence" caused injuries, breaking the law and exceeding community standards for corporal punishment. He faces up to two years in state jail and a fine if convicted, but also could get probation and/or agree to undergo counseling on child discipline.

The Texas Attorney General's Office notes that belts and brushes "are accepted by many as legitimate disciplinary tools, but "electrical or phone cords, boards, yardsticks, ropes, shoes, and wires are likely to be considered instruments of abuse."


F. Scott McCown, director of the Children's Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law that represents children in abuse and neglect cases, said people can have abstract debates about what is reasonable but they tend to come to a consensus when looking at a specific case.

Some of the factors that tend to be used to decide whether corporal punishment was unreasonable include whether a child needed medical attention and if the disciplining left visible marks and bruises, McCown said. According to court records, Peterson's son suffered cuts, marks and bruising to his thighs, back and on one of his testicles.


If Peterson's case goes to trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys will be picking jurors in a county with conservative beliefs and one that has also banned corporal punishment in its largest school district. E. Tay Bond, an attorney who has worked in Montgomery County for 16 years, said the potential jury pool in the Peterson case will likely not be economically or racially diverse.


Because jurors in are summoned via email, the jury pool will be made up of individuals with a higher socio-economic status, who tend to be more conservative, Bond said.


"People will still discipline their children ... As long as it's appropriate and not excessive, it's not a crime," Wilke said.


It's unclear how many cases involving abuse claims stemming from corporal punishment are dealt with either by Texas courts or CPS. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, CPS's parent agency, doesn't keep statistics detailing whether an abuse case involved corporal punishment. McCown said that in most of the cases his clinic has handled, usually parents do not end up going to jail.


The range of punishment for injury to a child charge depends on the defendant's intent. Peterson is accused of injuring his son through his reckless actions, while Dill was accused of intentionally or knowingly causing injury to his child. He faced up to 10 years in prison. 

Is Football Safe for Children? League of Denial (Part 7 of 9)

THE 1% MILKING UNCLE SAM

Anyone wondering why America is always looking to get into a war need look no further than Wall Street and the 1% who invest and cash in on the Military Industrial Complex; yep - the one Ike warned us us about a half century ago.



Who foots the bill? You get one guess; YOU! The average middle and low income American taxpayer who will again be conned (scared) into believing that the boogeyman is back.



Social Security? Medicare? Food Stamps? Infrastructure? Affordable Healthcare? Education? Minimum Wage? The VA?

Sorry; can't afford it. Only 1 entitlement program can be funded; you know the one that feeds the 1%.

US Defense Industry Winning In Syria And Iraq, With Long Campaign Expected

As the U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against ISIS continue, it remains unclear exactly how the complex mission against the Islamic State group will unfold. But what is evident already as strikes escalate is that U.S. defense companies are already cashing in.

Just days after the strikes in Syria began on Sept. 23, shares of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics all reached record prices.

"President [Barack] Obama has predicted that this air campaign could last for a long time, so that signals billions of dollars in additional sales of munitions, of spare parts and potentially also of aircraft," said defense consultant Loren Thompson.

But more than an increase in stock prices, the widening conflict, which started in Iraq in August before moving to Syria just one week ago, not only brings new orders to the defense industry, it can also help pay for new technology and even help stave off the closure of production lines and keep military hardware from being cut.

“One of the things that can help a new capability breakthrough is an operational stressor, like a major air campaign,” Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel and former deputy assistant secretary of defense who is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Fortune.

KILLING KIDS FOR FUN

There is nothing freakish or accidental about these deaths. These kids  are willfully and knowingly put into harms way by obviously reckless and dimwitted people who believe that entertaining themselves is worth the risk.

Official: Death of HS player a 'freak accident'

The death of a 16-year-old varsity high school football player after an on-the-field collision during a game was "a freak accident," the school's superintendent said at a news conference Thursday.

Steven Cohen, the superintendent of Shoreham-Wading River School District on Long Island's North Shore, offered his sympathies to the family of Tom Cutinella, who played linebacker and guard and was in his junior year.

"I think it was the result of a typical football play. It was just a freak accident," Cohen said. "You know, the game involves contact, and it was the result of a freak football play."
An average of 12 high school and college football players die every year from football-related accidents, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Concerns about hard hits have grown in recent years, and concussion management has gained renewed attention for the roughly 1 million boys who play high school football.

Two other deaths have come just recently.

Cornerback Demario Harris Jr. of Charles Henderson High School in Troy, Alabama, died Sunday after collapsing on the field Friday following a tackle.

According to AL.com, coach Brad McCoy said a neurologist told him that the player had ruptured an aneurysm in his brain. However, according to the report, the player's father, Demario Harris Sr., said in a Facebook post that the teen had suffered a brain hemorrhage caused by a hit in the game.

"He may have had a pre-existing condition, but there is no way to tell now," the post read, according to AL.com.

Linebacker Isaiah Langston of Rolesville High School in North Carolina died after collapsing during Friday's pregame warm-ups, family and the school district said Monday. Although he did not know the official cause of death, the player's brother Aijalon Langston told ABC 11 that it was related to a blood clot in the brain.