Monday Reads
Posted: June 4, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Moyers, Debt Ceiling, Frank VanderSloot, Garrett Epps, John Boehner, Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, Paul Krugman, recession, Ryan budget, Scott Walker, Tom Barrett, whiny billionaires, Wisconsin recall 74 Comments
Good Morning!
I thought I’d start this morning reads off with Bill Moyers who is having a good laugh at the expense of billionaires that are donating lots of money to political campaigns. It seems they really don’t like having their names bandied about and their closets opened. Pity the Poor Billionaires!!!
Last month, an Obama website cited eight mega-donors to Mitt Romney’s campaign as possessing “less-than-reputable records.” Among them was Frank VanderSloot, a Romney national finance co-chairman who has raised millions for the campaign. He’s a rancher – with 110,448 acres, on which he no doubt roams playing “This Land is Your Land” on his little Stradivarius — and CEO of the billion-dollar company Melaleuca, which Rolling Stone describes as “a ‘multilevel marketing’ firm based in Idaho that sells off-brand cleaning products and nutritional supplements.”
VanderSloot and his wealthy pals went ballistic and cried intimidation. “You go back to the Dark Ages,” VanderSloot said, “when they put these people in the stocks or whatever they did, or publicly humiliated them as a deterrent to everybody else — watch this — watch what we do to the guy who did this.”
Conservatives described the Obama ranking of Romney contributors as an “enemies list,” conjuring images of Nixonian wiretaps and punitive tax audits. But despite protestations to the contrary, these deep-pocketed plutocrats aren’t shelling out the shekels for the love of flag, Mom and apple pie (or tarte tatin, as they call it in the swanky joints).
“Most of the megadonors backing [Romney’s] candidacy are elderly billionaires,” Tim Dickinson writes in Rolling Stone. “Their median age is 66, and their median wealth is $1 billion. Each is looking for a payoff that will benefit his business interests, and they will all profit from Romney’s pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes, extend the Bush tax cuts for the superwealthy — and then slash the top tax rate by another 20 percent.” As at least one of them has said, they view these cash infusions as an “investment,” plain and simple.
Money is rolling into Wisconsin in Tuesday’s recall election. The Hill reports that it’s the most expensive race in Wisconsin history. The Koch Brothers are knee deep in money trying to keep their union bustin’ boy in office. We’ll be live blogging this tomorrow night so stay tuned!
Out-of-state sources have funded both sides heavily in the contest CPI said. Barrett has received about 26 percent of his $4 million in donations from sources outside of Wisconsin, while Walker has received two-thirds of his $30.5 million haul from out-of-state. Both campaigns have been aided by strong spending by super-PACs and other outside groups.
Labor unions have spent heavily to defeat Walker. The report says that the nation’s three largest public unions, the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), have directed at least $2 million to anti-Walker efforts.
Walker, for his part, has been aided by conservative businessmen including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and billionaire David Koch. The Republican Governors Association received a $1 million contribution from Koch in February, according to CPI.
The economy is slowing down. Oil prices are dropping in response. The stock market has lost all its value. Will we see another recession shortly?
The statistics on Friday were daunting. Only 69,000 jobs were created last month, far lower than what’s needed just to keep up with population growth. The job tallies for March and April, shabby to begin with, were revised down, for an average monthly tally of 96,000 over the past three months, versus 252,000 in the prior three months.
The weakness was not only displayed in job growth. Average weekly wages declined in May, to $805, as a measly two-cents-an-hour raise was more than clawed back by a drop to 34.4 hours in the length of the typical workweek.
Similarly, the rise in the number of people looking for work is normally considered a sign of optimism, but, on closer inspection, it appears to be simply the reversal of a drop in job-seekers in April.
Granted, it is better for jobless workers to be actively looking for work than sitting on the sidelines. But without enough jobs to go around, the inevitable result is higher official unemployment. The jobless rate ticked up from 8.1 percent in April to 8.2 percent in May, or 12.7 million people. Of those, 42.8 percent, or 5.4 million people, have been out of work for more than six months, a profound measure of personal suffering and economic decline.
There’s no sign that Washington is prepared to shoulder this responsibility. President Obama’s last big push for job creation, the $450 billion package proposed last fall, would have created an estimated 1.3 million to 1.9 million jobs by providing aid to states for teachers and other vital public employees, investments in infrastructure and tax breaks for new hiring. It was filibustered by Senate Republicans and not brought up for a vote in the Republican-dominated House, with Republican lawmakers claiming that deficit reduction was more important. Since then, they have balked at even smaller administration proposals, like modest investments in clean-energy projects.
Blocking constructive action is bad enough, but it’s not the worst of it. Recently, the House speaker, John Boehner, has ratcheted up economic uncertainty by pledging to force another showdown this year over legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A debt-ceiling debacle would come on top of the expiration at the end of 2012 of the Bush-era tax cuts and the onset of some $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts. If allowed to take effect as planned, those measures would take a huge bite out of growth, further weakening the economy.
Paul Krugman slammed the “anti-bipartisanship” in the Paul Ryan budget and in Romney’s support of obstructionist policies aimed at tanking the economy yesterday on ABC. Krugman said that the budget Romney supports is a “fraud”.
This morning on “This Week,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed budget plan a “fraud” as Romney campaign senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom confirmed his candidate’s support for the plan that would trim trillions in federal spending over the next decade.
“The Ryan plan — and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack — but it isn’t. It’s not an attack on the person; it’s an attack on the plan. The plan’s a fraud,” said Krugman. “And so to say that — just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That’s not — if that’s — if that’s being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship. ”
Krugman, who has been critical of the Ryan, R-Wis., plan in the past, was responding to the Fehrnstrom, who confirmed Romney’s support for the plan after ABC News’ George Will asked Fehrnstrom to clarify his candidate’s stance on the Ryan proposal.
“He’s for the Ryan plan. He believes it goes in the right direction. The governor has also put forward a plan to reduce spending by $500 billion by the year 2016,” said Fehrnstrom. “In fact, he’s put details on the table about how exactly he would achieve that. So to say he doesn’t have a plan to — a plan to restrain government spending is just untrue.”
Krugman defended the president’s budget plan when asked by Fehrnstrom if he preferred it over the Ryan plan.
“I mean, the president — at least it’s — you know, I don’t approve of everything, but there are no gigantic mystery numbers in his stuff. We do know what he’s talking about. His numbers are — you know, all economic forecasts are wrong, but his are not — are not insane. These are — these are just imaginary,” he said.
Molly Ball writes about the mediocre Mitt Romney Governorship of Massachusetts at the Atlantic. Here’s my favorite quote “He believed that a PowerPoint presentation would solve all our problems.” Here’s some other tidbits that lead up to that very funny line.
Romney campaigned on a promise to clean up Massachusetts’ notoriously cronyistic state government, painting his opponent, the sitting state treasurer, as a product of a backroom-dealing Beacon Hill culture. But his efforts once he was elected were somewhat halfhearted and largely fruitless.
One example was the state’s judiciary, a notorious hotbed of patronage. Romney’s attempts to reform it didn’t succeed, and instead, he ended up succumbing to the status quo, the Washington Post reports. His attempt to consolidate transportation agencies was shot down by the legislature, as was his push to remove from the state university system William Bulger, brother of mobster “Whitey” Bulger. (Bulger did eventually resign, in part due to Romney’s pressure.)
“A lot of governors come in offering to change the political culture,” said Cunningham. “But he wasn’t here long enough, he didn’t put enough effort into it, and he had a very formidable opponent.”
Perhaps because of his outsider mien, Romney enjoyed notably chilly relationships with legislators and local officials, who found him distant and somewhat disengaged. John Barrett, who was mayor of the city of North Adams during Romney’s governorship, described him Thursday as “a governor who just ignored us, who didn’t want our effort,” saying he never met with mayors or sought their input. “He believed that a PowerPoint presentation would solve all our problems,” Barrett said.
So, the biggest issue on my mind is the looming Debt-Ceiling fight and the horrible Agent Orange. I pretty much believe that the House Republicans will crash all the markets and then some if they think it makes Obama less likely to be elected. Here’s Garrett Epps at the American Prospect. He believes–as do I–that Obama should use the Constitutional Option and tell them all to go to hell regardless. It will be interesting to see how soon they will heat this up.
The debt limit will apparently become a crisis again sometime after the election. Boehner two weeks ago announced his plan to demand another round of cuts when the current ceiling is reached at the end of the year. (I suspect this manufactured crisis will only happen if Obama is re-elected; if Mitt Romney wins the election, Republicans will suddenly find economic recovery an important value after all.)
Obama should begin now to prepare for the predicted crisis. And if there is any way to climb down from the inane “my attorney Bernie says I can’t” comment, he should find it. I called the U.S. Department of Justice to ask whether the Office of Legal Counsel has issued, or is preparing, a formal opinion on the President’s possible power under Section Four; the DOJ’s spokesman did not return my call.
There’s an interesting analysis at TP on how the last debt ceiling debate hurt the economy. A repeat under current conditions could be disastrous.
House Republicans last year used the imminent approach of the nation’s credit limit to force Congress into enacting a series of spending cuts. The hostage scenario led to the nation’s first ever credit downgrade, with the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s repeatedly citing the GOP’s intransigence on revenue as a key justification. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has indicated that the GOP is ready to reenact the debt ceiling debacle the next time the nation comes close to its borrowing limit. But as economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers write, the economy was significantly setback during the last showdown, which they call “an act of economic sabotage“
Follow the links to the Bloomberg analysis and you’ll see why we’re in worse position to weather that kind of anti-bipartisanship nonsense this year. So, who really killed the confidence fairy last year?
High-frequency data on consumer confidence from the research company Gallup, based on surveys of 500 Americans daily, provide a good picture of the debt-ceiling debate’s impact (see chart). Confidence began falling right around May 11, when Boehner first announced he would not support increasing the debt limit. It went into freefall as the political stalemate worsened through July. Over the entire episode, confidence declined more than it did following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008. After July 31, when the deal to break the impasse was announced, consumer confidence stabilized and began a long, slow climb that brought it back to its starting point almost a year later. (Disclosure: We have a consulting relationship with Gallup.)
Businesses were also hurt by uncertainty, which rose to record levels as measured by the number of newspaper articles mentioning the subject. This proved far more damaging than the regulatory uncertainty on which Republican criticisms of Barack Obama’s administration have focused (more on that subject in a Bloomberg View editorial today). Employers held back on hiring, sapping momentum from a recovery that remains far too fragile.
It’s going to be a very long, hot summer.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
kat, did you check out this Alternet discussion of the 12 year old who explained that it would be better if a nation borrowed from its own bank, instead of private banks? http://www.alternet.org/story/155700/12yearold_girl_explains_what_most_economists_cant_about_money_and_debt?page=1 It makes sense to me, but then I’m not an economist & doubt that I could convincingly play one on TV.
It is really wrong in so many ways it is not even funny.
Americans are being offered a close look at the economic failures that could very well happen between now and November with the GOP dug in at any cost to gain back both Houses and the Oval Office. It seems to me that much of these failures are due in large part to the unwillingness of congressional leaders to put country before party and nothing will get done by way of relief until they reach their goal.
Krugman can argue until he is blue in the face since the only “message” they wish to impart is to vote for Romney and all our troubles will vanish overnight. Jobs will miraculously appear, the budget will be balanced, and prosperity will return if the wealthy are left alone.
Nothing will be gained in the next 5 months but a lot of obstruction, wrangling, name calling, and a picture of Romney as something he is not nor ever was: a job creator.
The rest of us will sit here in an anxious state of misery wondering how much we will lose and how much more we will be expected to “sacrifice” in the face of “austerity” while these billionaires are given the green light to get away with murder at our expense.
An entire party has stood in the way of any form of progress or relief for the past almost 4 years and should never be rewarded. However, having said that, it will be whatever happens in WI tomorrow that will determine where this nation is going in November.
It is going to be a huge effort to combat the money machine that is underwriting any idea we ever had of democracy.
Sad, but so true.
People always the current election is the most important ever, but this one may really fit the bill. Seems to me the GOP is an ongoing criminal enterprise pretending to be a political party. That the American people may fall for that is frankly scary.
I am wallowing in a defeatist attitude this morning since I feel that Walker will prevail in WI.
And I also believe that if he succeeds this will signal the November outcome because it will underscore the majority of WI voters who don’t mind in the least being governed by the likes of corporations and special interests who are attacking their way of life.
If this is the trend, then the passage of the Ryan Budget Plan is not far behind. Where once I trusted the average voter to do the right thing on behalf of their own interests, that no longer is the case.
It is not to far a stretch for Romney to achieve that miserable 50.1% if the outcome goes the way I think it very well may go.
No longer a glass half full or half empty, it is overflowig with money, money, money.
I hear you Pat, I was just coming here to post these links on Wisconsin
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Pokes Obama for Skipping Recall Campaign – Jonathan Miller – NationalJournal.com
Two new polls show tight race in Wisconsin recall | Reuters
Walker Recall Battle May Hurt Obama – NYTimes.com
One of my weaving friends is pushing for the Dems in the recall vote, and I really get the sense from her that she is not expecting a win on Tuesday.
I have no clue about the WI recall outcome. It totally depends on turnout and that’s just usually unpredictable.
It kills me that billionaires are now known as Job Creators. It’s as if they think they could change the negatives of being super rich into a positive just by a new nickname. Reminds me of 1984 and doublespeak, like war is peace, ignorance is strength and death panels.
Hello, Eric.
It’s really not cool to use sock puppets, you know. We can see your IP and e-mail info when you comment. Tell me, are you trolling us just for fun or are you working for someone? Gee, if we’re big enough to get Republican trolls, we must be doing something right!
My mother used to have a key chain with a message on it: “The Rats Win”. She thought it was funny, but true.
I predict the rats win in Wisconsin tomorrow. I also predict they win in Indiana in November. The energy and the money is on their side.
Hoard cheese now.
Okay, this is yet another example of what the “compromise” for “religious conscience” is bringing:
‘For Going Against God’s Will’ Catholic Hospital Denies Gay Man HIV Meds | The New Civil Rights Movement
If this is true than it is a travesty.
However, Dr. Borga herself is not mentioned in the lawsuit which begs the question as to why not.
I would rather wait to hear more about this lawsuit since the hospital itself, religious or otherwise, would be setting itself up for suits like this more often than just this one if this is their practice to withhold treatment.
Dr. Borga not being named in the suit itself raises questions for me as she is “quoted” by the patient which would lead one to believe that she basically instituted the lack of medical coverage from the outset.
The hospital may very well be at fault but Dr. Borga’s supposed comments are in themselves incindiary which is why I question the reason for not naming her as a defendant especially when she is accused of making those comments to his “attending physician”.
I will wait and see before I make a judgment since this suit has some holes in it that don’t make much sense to me.
His sister may have been prevented from visiting because he was in a psych unit for starters and it may have not been anymore than just policy rather than a discriminatory act carried out by the hospital. I worked in hospital for many years and visitation on those units were closely guarded and monitored essentially on behalf of the patients themselves.
The charges may be true or they may be bogus.
The question again is why is Dr. Borga herself not named since it appears that it was her attitude and recommendations that led to his mistreatment.
That is horrible.
People are always telling me (as an atheist) that the constitution guarantees the right of free expression of religion, and Libs always forget that part of the 1st Amendment. This is usually said in support of prayer in schools and rights of religious hospitals to deny the morning after pill, and the like. What this story once again shows is that what we really need is the strict enforcement of freedom from religion. And to stay out of Catholic hospitals, especially if you are gay.
Hi again, Eric! When you use terms like “Libs,” you instantly give yourself away. You need to find something better to do with your time, you poor thing.
lol
Oh, boy. Hey, did you know that if Martha Coakley stood outside Fenway for 20 minutes in a massive media frenzy and permitted the amazing visual of one or more of our famously angry, frustrated, and aggressive MA Republican friends getting in her face, screaming abuse, and being dragged away by the cops, she’d be in the Senate today? True story.
Seriously, you kill me! LOL
BB. 😆 😆
Looks like the former porn star who chopped his former lover up and sent parts to Canadian Parliament has been caught. ‘Canadian Psycho’ Magnotta arrested in Berlin, report says | Fox News
Good!
BTW, Luka Magnotta’s real name is *Eric.*
Lol, BB.
According to the Daily Mail, Magnotta stayed for two nights with a gay man he met in a bar. Imagine how the guy felt when he realized who he’d been sleeping with? He apparently recognized Magnotta from photos and called police.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154389/Luka-Rocco-Magnotta-Cannibal-porn-star-arrested.html
Well, if we’re going to have a concern troll, at least it’s not Angry Black Guy again
#Quebec Students Resist State Repression:
The George Bush like draconian laws for ‘terrorists’ are now present in Canada where Bill 78 was passed to quash protesters and their freedom of expression leading to even lawyers marching in the streets due to the law’s unconstitutional infringements on citizens rights. How far will governments go!?! One lawyer compared the language of Bill 78 to that of South Africa’s Apartheid policies and citing the concerns of lawyers seeing the erosion of all citizens’ rights in Canada.
We should keep an eye on what is going on in Canada as we could well see that type of law
here…as I noted that the Canadians took Mayor Quan’s approach and at one point arrest everyone in a protest as Quan did in Oakland (Arresting even journalists).
There have been solidarity protests in New York and in Europe and hopefully all free people will keep an eye on this type of POLICE STATE approach and just say NO to it and politicians that support these draconian laws.
To maintain some sanity about the election, this is a good site to visit from time to time. Obama has a clear path to victory as of now.
http://electoral-vote.com/
It will be hard for Mitt to win. He’d have to win several swing states. Obama has a much higher bottom because he’ll take most of the high population centers. Mitt will get Texas and lots of red states with low population. I think it’s a good sign that Obama’s so far ahead in Michigan.
I guess that’s why the Republicans are working so hard to crash the economy and suppress Democratic voter groups. I just hope the Democrats wise up for a change and deal with it. The first step should be the Constitution option on the debt ceiling, as Dak says in the post.
Yep. The constitution option would be a fine step. I think he’s going to have to go really negative about the economic sabotage of the republicans to stay ahead of their deliberate destruction. It worked for Truman.
He should have a whole team of lawyers in every agency looking for things he can do via executive order between now and November.
I sure hope he does it, Ralph.
Today’s partial lunar eclipse of the full moon must be getting to me. 🙂
Thanks for the link back to some sanity, Ralph.
Glad to be helpful. Sometimes I get beside myself over it all 😉
You gotta love New England. After no winter and a warm spring, we’re getting a winter weather pattern in June. It’s been days since I’ve seen the sun, and I had to turn the furnace on.
Summer has been good here so far. Last year we had already been over 100 at this time and haven’t been close yet. Today it’s cloudy but 81 anyway now.
That’s the perfect temperature! The good thing about New England is that no weather pattern ever stays very long. It will probably go from the 50s up to the 90s any day now.
Same here. Everchanging weather, unless we go into an awful string of 100+ days, those seem to last unfortunately.
It’s freezing here in Western MA!
I put socks on for warmth and I’m usually barefoot in warm weather. Well, in the house at least.
I’m still fuming over paying $100.00 last week to have an electrician check out my theromstat because the A/C was out of whack. Last Monday I had it on because of the humidity. Today I’m cold.
Right now I am considering putting on the heat just to take the chill out.
You can’t beat New England for fickle weather.
I had to put on the heat at times for the past three days. I tried to stick it out and just dress warmly, but finally I couldn’t take it anymore.
Bwahahaha! PowerPoint makes you stupid.
Romney is an amalgamate of all the really bad bosses I ever had in the private sector. Arrogant, entitled preppie male who thinks everything positive came from him and people should just bow and shower him with love. Thank goodness we try to turn MBAs out these days with a little more heart and humility. (Not that it always works)
I’ve told this story before, one of our state legislators often repeats this story about Romney. They were all in the State House waiting for some ceremony or whatever, and Romney just completely dusted Bob Hedlund, one of the most senior Republican State Senators. Ignored him, dissed him, cut him completely. Looked directly at him and breezed on by. Everyone was stunned. What did Hedlund do to anger Romney so much? What was going on? Then they realized, the reality was, Romney had no clue who he was. He’s been in office for a good while, and keep in mind in MA there was a grand total of 6 s-i-x Republican State Senators and he couldn’t even be bothered. That’s how little he cares about governing. I’m sure he had nothing to do with the PowerPoint, hanging out in his office marking time until he could finish using the state as a stepping stone.
Seriously, you just don’t understand Willard’s real motivation in life. /s
Dear god, that video is suitable for Halloween. Remember the days when candidates who were creepy and awkward actually had other qualities to recommend them, like being knowledgeable and dedicated and hard-working?
“What should be done about the economy? Republicans claim to have the answer: slash spending and cut taxes. What they hope voters won’t notice is that that’s precisely the policy we’ve been following the past couple of years. Never mind the Democrat in the White House; for all practical purposes, this is already the economic policy of Republican dreams”
This Republican Economy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/krugman-this-republican-economy.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
.
If they manage to get rid of Obama, they’ll no doubt go right back to spending like crazy and increasing the deficit just like Bush did.
If I really thought they would spend on something besides the pentagon, I’d feel better about it, but they won’t.
Ed Schultz has John Nicols on and he says that Independents are breaking for Barrett in Wisconsin.
Great … the polls are showing that it’s pretty much a statistical dead heat and that turn out will be important.
Huge GOTV push by union workers.
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Wisconsin-Huge-GOTV-Push-Marks-Recall-s-Final-Days
Turnout will be everything in Wisconsin.
Nichols is a Wisconsinite, isn’t he? His info should be reliable. Fingers crossed.
Schultz has his flaws but he has been good at reporting the Wisconsin story from the beginning.
Yes, John Nichols is a wonderful writer who is from Wisconsin. He’s been reporting on this story from the beginning. Schultz has him on all the time. I think he’s broadcasting from Wis.–if not today, I’m sure he will be tomorrow. He has really done a lot to support the people of Wisconsin.
Charles Pierce!
What Are the Gobshites Saying These Days?
LOL! On MoDo:
That is a hilarious AND insightful piece by Pierce. He hits the nail on the head once again. What would we do without him these days?
George Zimmerman is supposedly getting more donations now that he’s back in jail. And his lawyer says Zim is upset.
I guess he got his appetite back. Now he’ll have to eat jail food for awhile.
(Italics added.)
the Zman seems to think he’s already proven it. First, dufus, you are innocent until proven guilty under the Constitution (if that part’s still in effect). Then you get a fair trial. Don’t like jail? Next time don’t lie to the judge. And hint: you’re not supposed to like jail.
http://prospect.org/article/our-most-widely-ignored-public-intellectuals
“As the most prestigious economic dissenters of this era, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman form a category of two: astonishingly prescient, widely read, and largely ignored by those in power.”
What’s that about “a prophet in his own land hath no honor?” No, the saying that applies is more like “Reality? What reality.”
Dak, you’re pretty damn good at “translating abstruse economics” yourself.
My daughter is sick with Strep throat and impetigo in a cut she got while canoeing down the Nottley River here in Blairsville. Now I am wondering if this is the same thing my son had, he was diagnosis with bad Poison Oak at ER last week…he also had sore throat but was negative on the strep test. Damn, I am so creeped out about all this…
(Can you see how I am reaching out to those of you…to tell me its okay…nothing to worry about…cough…cough.)
Follow your instincts … if you think it’s a problem … take him in to the ER …
We took him there last week when it started. I have a call into the pediatrician, she saw Bebe today, hopefully she can see Jake tomorrow.
I am Praying for you and the kids Minx. ((hugs))
I would trust a mother’s intuition. Don’t ignore it. You know your child better than anyone. Go to the ER right now if you feel it is warranted.
It was my mother who first thought I had a brain tumor. It’s “just stress” the doctors said, but my mother knew better. It took me many months to convince a doctor to give me an MRI. Finally, when the MRI did show a lesion deep inside my brain, the doctor was amazed. He actually apologized to me for not taking my symptoms seriously.
I hope both of your children will soon be well, JJ.
It’s going to be okay. Take him to the ER if you feel like that’s the right thing to do, but don’t worry, he’ll be fine.
Good. I’d be dead right now if I would’ve trust my family doctor over what my body and mind were telling me about what turned out to be inoperable cancer. I listen to that nagging voice now whenever it just doesn’t let go of me.
For sure you really had a time of it.Dak. 🙂
Yeah, I am going to listen to my inner paranoid self too…Keep you all posted, and thank you for the well wishes. I am freaking out inside, but trying not to show it to my kids. Don’t want to get them worked up too.
Oh no JJ! I’m so sorry to hear this. As Dak said, trust your instincts. He needs to see a doctor ASAP.
Best possible thoughts coming your way JJ. Always trust your instincts in these matters.
Oh my gracious! What Miz Pat said over at Esquire: