Nineteen-year-old Beauty Phillips clutches her emaciated baby tightly to her chest. At seven months, Inga suffers from malnutrition.
On this chaotic Friday morning in the Slipway Clinic registration room, over one hundred mothers, their crying infants wrapped in traditional lappa cloth, wait on narrow wooden benches for hours to be seen.
"She is always sickly," explains Phillips about Inga’s constant vomiting and diarrhoea. "I get my water from the community hand pump, and for my toilet I’m going to the waterside or common toilet. This is why I think my daughter is getting sick."
One out of nine Liberian children die before their fifth birthday, or 110 out of every 1,000 live births, according to the Liberia Demographic Health Survey in 2007. Thirty-nine percent of children are stunted or short for their age.
Malaria, diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses like pneumonia are the leading causes of death here.
The crowded slum of Slipway lies along the polluted, marshy shoreline of the Mensurado River, near the heart of downtown Monrovia.
Although Liberia Water and Sewer are trying to reconnect pipes destroyed during the decades-long civil war, most residents cannot afford to buy or access the water.
Private septic tanks overflow regularly, and burning trash lies in heaps among the sewage surrounding the marshy pit latrines.
Liberia’s population is estimated at 3.5 million. "Over three million Liberians have no access to safe sanitation facilities," says Muyatwa Sitali, communications officer with Oxfam UK, which spearheads Liberia’s water, sanitation and hygiene consortium.
"Most people have no choice but to defecate in the open, where both their lives and dignity are at risk," Sitali explains.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has implemented a free nationwide public health care policy for children under five years old, a crucial step towards her promise to provide universal health care for all Liberians.
Liberia: Poor Sanitation Killing Country’s Young
Why is the Right Silent when Glenn Beck Calls a U.S. Senator a Prostitute?
From the November 23 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:
Where is the sanctimony from the right wing when Glenn Beck calls U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu a prostitute? Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for Beck to be fired? Where are the calls for consumers to boycott Beck’s few remaining sponsors?
Why the deafening silence from the right?
Help Senator Durbin Fight for the Public Option
Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.
The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.
Here’s how you can help fight for the Public Option…
From Senator Dick Durbin:
Moments ago, the Senate voted to begin its full debate on historic health care reform legislation instead of obstructing it with a filibuster.
Tonight’s vote marks the biggest victory to date for our grassroots effort to pass health care reform with a public option. We cannot give enough thanks to the over 100,000 signers of our petition at CitizensForAPublicOption.com for helping to fundamentally shift the momentum towards meaningful reform.
Not long ago, a few loud opponents of reform armed and organized by the insurance industry dominated this debate. Now the American people, the majority of whom support a public option, have spoken out and gained the upper hand.
Not long ago, the public option seemed like little more than a pipe dream. Now it’s part of health care bills in both the Senate and the House.
Not long ago, members of our own Democratic caucus weren’t sure they could even support an up-or-down vote on health care reform legislation. Tonight they voted to end the Republican filibuster.
But despite this good news, the fight for meaningful health care reform is not over. As we debate amendments to this legislation in the coming weeks, we will work with our colleagues to ensure it continues to address the "Three C’s" of meaningful reform: competition, choice, and cost reduction. And we will firmly oppose any effort to eliminate the public option.
Tonight we celebrate a milestone no one thought we could reach just months ago. Tomorrow the fight continues. We will not let up until the President signs a bill we can all be proud of.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Senator Dick Durbin
Senator Patrick Leahy
Senator Chuck Schumer
British Scouts Yell “Kill the Jews” at Jewish Second World War Vets
They were only teenagers, and part of adolescence is testing the limits. The other part is learning when you’ve gone too far, sometimes horribly too far, and learning there are indeed limitations.
A scout troop is being investigated by the police after its members shouted death threats and racist abuse at Jewish war veterans during a remembrance parade.
Dressed in full uniform, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout "Let’s kill the Jews" at Jewish second world war veterans.
The head of the scouts in the area has issued a full apology for the incident, which was witnessed by a senior policeman standing a few feet away.
A Metropolitan police spokesman said the Met was investigating two allegations of "racially aggravated harassment" involving more than one member of the Romford explorer scout unit. He would not say how many scouts were involved.
The Rev Lee Sunderland, who was taking part in the service, expressed shock after hearing the scouts shout: "Here come the Jews, let’s kill the Jews."
Other witnesses said the racists chants were started by a boy believed to be 15 years old. One of the troop has since come forward and been interviewed by police. He has been ordered by the Scout Association to visit the rabbi of the Romford and district synagogue to apologise in person.
One 84-year-old former RAF pilot challenged the scouts, "I was absolutely fuming … I told them I was a Jew and I’d spent four and a half years in the RAF during the second world war, and that Jewish people had sacrificed so much for freedom," he told the Evening Standard."
Nod to AmericaBlog for this.
Bush Tax Cuts Cost Two and a Half Times as Much as House Democrats’ Health Care Proposal
Turns out, Bush’s tax cuts hurt the economy. Wha…?
From the Citizens for Tax Justice:
And yet, many of the lawmakers who argue that the health care reform legislation is “too costly” are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts. Their own voting record demonstrates that health care reform is not a matter of costs, but a matter of priorities.
It’s difficult to see how the Bush tax cuts could provide us with two and a half times the benefits of health care reform. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. President Bush and his supporters argued that these high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity. There seems to be no evidence of this, particularly given the collapse of the economy at the end of the Bush years.
Details on the Bush Tax Cuts
The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.
This figure also includes the cost of adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) to prevent millions of additional taxpayers from being affected by it, as would otherwise have happened as a result of the Bush tax cuts.
Reason for Revisions
The projected cost of the Bush tax cuts is slightly less than we projected previously.5 This is mainly because of the economic downturn, which has reduced incomes. The projected distribution of the tax cuts has also changed slightly. Also, we no longer project the effects of the Bush tax cuts without AMT adjustments, since it is clear that Congress will continue to adjust the AMT to limit the number of people it affects.
Stark Contrast Between Congress’s Approach to Health Care Reform and Approach to Bush Tax Cuts
Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion. (One committee trimmed the costs of its health care bill below that amount, but an official estimate of the cost reductions was not available at the time of this writing.)
The chairmen of the three House committees have explicitly stated that their goal is a final bill that is deficit-neutral in the decade following enactment. It’s unclear if they have accomplished this yet, since the Congressional Budget Office has not yet issued final cost estimates of the bills, and the legislation is likely to change before the full House votes on a final bill. But President Obama and Democratic leaders have also committed to ensuring that health care reform will not increase the budget deficit.
Under the House bills, roughly half of the costs would be offset with savings in our existing health care programs, while the other half would be offset with a surcharge on the incomes of wealthy taxpayers. A previous analysis by CTJ has shown that this surcharge is a reasonable approach to financing health care reform and would only affect 1.3 percent of taxpayers. Another CTJ analysis concludes that the surcharge will likely have no significant impact on small businesses, despite some of the misinformation that has surrounded this topic.
In contrast, President Bush and his allies in Congress never even attempted to replace the revenue lost as a result of their enormous tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt, as already explained.
Health Care Reform: A Matter of Priorities, Not Costs
These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose the House health care legislation and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn’t demonstrate much concern about costs.
Tip of the hat to Crooks and Liars for this post.
Will the Catholic Church in D.C. Stop Feeding Homeless Over Gay Marriage?
I hope Allison Kilkenny’s conclusions are off-base regarding the decision of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to stop "social service programs" in the District of Columbia because of gay marriage.
A few days ago, I wrote about Goldman Sachs’s transition from a bank holding company into a public relations disaster machine. I argued that Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has been behaving like he wants to be attacked by a ferocious mob.
Now, it appears the Catholic church is determined to unseat Blankfein in the "Inexplicably Evil Organization Most Disconnected From Real People" category.
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.
Yup, that’s right. If gay folk can marry, the Catholic church refuses to feed the homeless.
Well, that all seems very reasonable. After all, the state would force the Catholic church to perform gay marriages, and celebrate the beastly unions, right?
Kilkenny offers a postscript to her article, "In the original article, I wrote that Jesus condemned homosexuality. However, that’s not true. The condemning homosexuality bit is written in Leviticus. Sorry, Jesus." Acutally, Jesus said nothing at all about sex or sexuality beyond his comments regarding marriage fidelity and divorce.
The Washington Post appears to support Kilkenny’s conclusions:
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
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."
This debate over same-sex marriage is so incredibly heated right now. I understand that the Catholic Church does not support same-sex marriage. How can they possibly use this one issue to justify turning their backs on those very people Christ calls us to serve?
According to the Post article, council members in D.C. don’t seem phased:
The church’s influence seems limited. In separate interviews Wednesday, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) referred to the church as "somewhat childish." Another council member, David A. Catania (I-At Large), said he would rather end the city’s relationship with the church than give in to its demands.
"They don’t represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure," said Catania, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill and the chairman of the Health Committee.
This from council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large):
"The problem with the individual exemption is anybody could discriminate based on their assertion of religious principle," Mendelson said. "There were many people back in the 1950s and ’60s, during the civil rights era, that said separation of the races was ordained by God."
Allow me to quote Amos the prophet, "Thus says the LORD: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke my word; Because they sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth, and force the lowly out of the way." (Amos 2:6-7)
HRC Launches National Action Alert on Workplace Discrimination
The Human Rights Campaign is turning up the heat on Congress to pass the federal Employement Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) launching a new Web site: www.PassENDANow.org.
With Congressional Action looming, HRC’s No Excuses Campaign Engaged
Washington, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)– The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, announced today that as Congressional action looms on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), it is extending the grassroots "No Excuses" campaign to increase constituent contact with Congress and awareness of the comprehensive website: www.PassENDANow.org.
ENDA, which has been introduced in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, would address discrimination in the workplace by making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote an employee based on the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. HRC also launched a national action alert this week to grassroots members and supporters urging them to contact Congress and express their support for a fully-inclusive ENDA.
“We need to step up the important work of telling Congress our personal stories and explaining the additional hardship we face in protecting our families, our loved ones and our jobs,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Congress is moving forward to protect Americans from arbitrary discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Like our neighbors and coworkers, LGBT people simply want a fair chance to succeed and support our families.”
HRC plans to release details next week on its participation of a national call-in day organized by a coalition of groups urging members and supporters to call the Congressional switchboard in support of ENDA. Meanwhile, HRC members and supporters have been overwhelmingly responsive this week to the organization’s national call to action on ENDA by sending off more than 62,000 emails or letters to members of Congress and newspapers urging for swift passage.
Earlier this summer, HRC launched a national, grassroots campaign called “No Excuses” to demand action from Congress on key issues of equality, including a fully inclusive ENDA. Designed to take advantage of the congressional summer recess, when members are in their local offices and meeting with constituents, “No Excuses” helped mobilize HRC’s members and their allies to meet directly with lawmakers and push for federal legislative change.
On November 5, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held the Senate’s first-ever hearing on a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity. The lead sponsors of the measure include Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Susan Collins (R-ME). The legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate on August 5 of this year; a House version was introduced on June 24 and the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the measure on September 23.
An estimated 87% of Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their equal employment policies, and more than one-third also include gender identity. More than 80 companies have joined the Business Coalition for Workplace Fairness, a group of leading U.S. employers that support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. To view a list of the companies, visit:www.hrc.org/bcwf.
ENDA is supported by a broad range of civil rights, religious, civic and professional organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, NAACP, AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, AFSCME, National Education Association, National Employment Lawyers Association, Anti-Defamation League, Union for Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, American Civil Liberties Union, and many others.
Currently, federal law provides legal protection against employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, age and disability, but not sexual orientation or gender identity. In 29 states across America, it is still legal to fire someone based on his or her sexual orientation, and in 38 states, it is still legal to fire someone for being transgender.
The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.