Thursday Reads
Posted: July 12, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, health, Mental Health, Mitt Romney, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Jesse Jackson Jr., Massachusetts, Rory Staunton, septic shock 59 Comments
Good Morning!!
I don’t know if this has anything to do with “Romneycare,” but the news came out yesterday that the average life expectancy in Massachusetts is nearly 81 years!
Life expectancy for people in Massachusetts hit an all-time high in 2009, as the rate of deaths from major killers, such as heart disease and cancer, declined, according to a report released Wednesday by the state Department of Public Health.
Overall life expectancy from birth was 80.7 years in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, compared with 78.5 years nationally. Since 2000, death rates in the state from stroke, heart disease, all cancers combined, and diabetes have continued to drop.
Deaths from HIV and AIDS have dropped dramatically in recent years. Nearly 1,000 people died in both 1994 and 1995, during the peak of the epidemic. In 2009, there were 124 deaths from HIV and AIDS. The decline, the authors write, is the result of advances in treatment and a reduction in the infection rate.
Life expectancy varied by location. Check this out: in Brookline it was 87 years!
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Melinda Gates tells “How I convinced Bill to give away his millions.”
Imagine for a moment that you are married to one of the richest men on the planet. You have three beautiful children and a $125 million home, complete with an indoor swimming pool boasting underwater speakers and a home cinema. How would you choose to spend your days? Shopping? Lunching? Ah yes, travelling – but to the dirt-poor villages of Bangladesh? The wretched slums of India? To TB wards and Aids clinics to sit with the dying and the ostracised?
Melinda Gates, wife of the Microsoft magnate Bill, flew in from a field visit to Niger and Senegal on Tuesday, and will have risen by 4.30 yesterday morning to conduct meetings and interviews before the real working day begins.
In her capacity as co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she will then join Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, in hosting a family-planning summit for global leaders in London. Together, they will launch a $4 billion fund-raising effort that would deliver safe contraception to 120 million women and girls in developing countries.
The article doesn’t really say how she convinced her husband to become a philanthropist, but there’s some information about Melinda’s early life.
Gates’s conscience was cultivated from an early age. Unlike her Harvard drop-out husband, who was born into a privileged Seattle background, she is one of four children brought up in modest circumstances in Texas, where education was regarded as the holy grail. Her housewife mother regretted not attending college. Her engineer father set up a cleaning business on the side to raise the cash for his children’s education, and as a teenager Gates scrubbed floors to help out.
It’s nice to know that there are some wealthy people who actually want to use their money to help others instead of collecting homes and cars and horses like certain presidential candidates.
Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, Dick Cheney is holding a fundraiser for Mitt Romney today in his home in Wyoming.
Romney officials have said little publicly about the event, expected to be a high-dollar but low-publicity evening that will give top donors the chance to dine with Messrs. Cheney and Romney.
But the campaign trumpeted the reception and private dinner in an email to potential attendees, telling them that “Jackson Hole is a beautiful summer destination and this will be a memorable event.”
The dinner offers an opportunity to continue a string of fundraisers that have given Mr. Romney an advantage in the money race with President Barack Obama in the past two months.
“The past two months” are the operative words in that last sentence. Despite all the talk of Mitt Romney besting President Obama in the money race, Obama is still far ahead of the presumptive Republican nominee in terms of money collected since the two announced their candidacies. At HuffPo, Paul Blumenthal writes:
According to a report from the Sunlight Foundation, Mitt Romney will need to outraise President Barack Obama by $158 million over the next four months if he wants to take the lead in overall fundraising. This punctures a bit of the new narrative of Romney having passed Obama in fundraising. Sunlight’s Bill Allison: “For Mitt Romney, the magic number is $158 million. That’s how much he’ll have to outraise President Barack Obama over the last four months of the campaign to surpass the president, the record holder for campaign fundraising. Obama’s advantage has been lost in media reports highighting the Republican nominee’s $106 million June haul.
Romney’s June number doesn’t even put him on track to out-raise Obama.
For that to happen, Romney would have to best Obama by $39.5 million a month for each of the last four months of the campaign, which is $5 million more than the advantage Romney had in June.
The Obama campaign seems to be keeping this quiet so they can play the underdog. Interesting, huh?
Perhaps in an effort to even the score, Romney is planning fundraisers in foreign countries. We’ve already talked about the events that are being organized for him in London at the time of the Olympics. USA Today reports that he is also planning a fundraiser in Israel.
Mitt Romney is reportedly planning a fundraiser in Jerusalem during his visit to Israel later this month.
The Jerusalem Post reports that donors will be charged “$60,000 or more per plate” at the event. Romney is jointly raising money with the Republican National Committee, and $75,000 is the maximum donation to the Romney Victory Fund.
Romney is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, during his trip. The Israel visit will come after Romney attends the Summer Olympics in London.
I’ve been posting in comments for the past couple of days about the mysterious disappearance of Jesse Jackson, Jr. He took a medical leave on June 10, but no one would say where he was. Rumors spread that he was in rehab for drugs or alcohol. Finally today, the news came in a statement from Jackson’s chief of staff that Jackson is in an inpatient facility being treated for a “mood disorder.”
The statement quoted the unnamed Jackson doctor saying: “The congressman is receiving intensive medical treatment at a residential treatment facility for a mood disorder. He is responding positively to treatment.”
Earlier today, Ald. Sandi Jackson, said she is hopeful physicians will release details soon about her husband.
“I’m hopeful that my husband’s doctors will be able to release something soon,” she told the Tribune. “I’m in constant talks with them about Jesse’s condition and his medical prognosis going forward.”
Rep. Jesse Jackson, 47, a Chicago Democrat, has been on a medical leave since June 10, but his aides and family have declined to disclose the nature of his medical problem, where he is being treated or when he may return to work.
A mood disorder could mean major depression or bipolar disorder. Whatever is wrong, I hope Jackson will recover and be able to return to the House of Representatives. At present, he isn’t expected to return until after Labor Day, if then.
I couldn’t help noticing this NYT article about a 12-year-old boy who died tragically and unexpectedly of septic shock: An Infection, Unnoticed, Turns Unstoppable.
For a moment, an emergency room doctor stepped away from the scrum of people working on Rory Staunton, 12, and spoke to his parents.
“Your son is seriously ill,” the doctor said.
“How seriously?” Rory’s mother, Orlaith Staunton, asked.
The doctor paused.
“Gravely ill,” he said.
How could that be?
Two days earlier, diving for a basketball at his school gym, Rory had cut his arm. He arrived at his pediatrician’s office the next day, Thursday, March 29, vomiting, feverish and with pain in his leg. He was sent to the emergency room at NYU Langone Medical Center. The doctors agreed: He was suffering from an upset stomach and dehydration. He was given fluids, told to take Tylenol, and sent home.
But Rory was already in grave danger.
Bacteria had gotten into his blood, probably through the cut on his arm. He was sliding into a septic crisis, an avalanche of immune responses to infection from which he would not escape. On April 1, three nights after he was sent home from the emergency room, he died in the intensive care unit. The cause was severe septic shock brought on by the infection, hospital records say.
I hope everyone will read this very sad article. An overwhelming infection that began with strep killed my graduate school mentor–the same infection that killed young Rory. One day he began vomiting and thought he had a stomach virus. The next day he was dead. This happened a few months after I earned my Ph.D. with his help and support. As you can probably imagine, this was a terrible shock to me and I’m really still grieving–I have tears in my eyes as I write this. Everyone should be aware that sepsis is “a leading cause of death in hospitals, can at first look like less serious ailments…”
Moments after an emergency room doctor ordered Rory’s discharge believing fluids had made him better, his vital signs, recorded while still at the hospital, suggested that he could be seriously ill. Even more pointed signals emerged three hours later, when the Stauntons were at home: the hospital’s laboratory reported that Rory was producing vast quantities of cells that combat bacterial infection, a warning that sepsis could be on the horizon.
The Stauntons knew nothing of his weak vital signs or abnormal lab results.
This is starting to turn into a health care post, so I’ll return to politics before I wrap up. Yesterday everyone was talking about Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP. He was booed when he talked about repealing Obamacare and at a few other points. So why did he go? Surely he doesn’t expect to win over many African American voters. I thought this piece by Jamelle Boule provided a possible answer: Mitt Romney’s Successful Speech to the NAACP
As an attempt to persuade, Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP this morning was an exercise in futility. African Americans are loyal Democratic voters, and aren’t particularly interested in an agenda of tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for everyone else. But that wasn’t the point. Romney almost certainly knows that he’ll only win a tiny percentage of black voters in November—at best, he’ll match John McCain’s performance in 2008. If current opinion surveys are any indication, it’s more likely that he’ll win fewer African American voters than any Republican in recent history.
The point of this address to the NAACP was to send a signal to right-leaning, suburban white voters—that Mitt Romney is tolerant, and won’t represent the bigots in his party. But there’s a sense in which Romney had it both ways: Not only did he reassure hesitant whites, but by pledging to repeal Obamacare—and being booed by the audience—he likely increased his standing with those who do resent African Americans. By going to an audience of black professionals and sticking with his stump speech, there’s a sense in which Romney might receive credit for refusing to “pander.”
That makes a lot of sense to me. Here’s another piece I found interesting about Romney’s efforts to woo Evangelical Christians:
Several years ago, when Mitt Romney was merely a multi-millionaire Massachusetts politician, he couldn’t locate the conservative Christian evangelical movement with a GPS or MapQuest. Over the past few years however, Romney and his team have been holding a series of meet-ups – whose pace has been recently accelerated – with conservative Christian leaders to assure them of Romney’s fealty to their issues.
When Romney heads off to Israel later this summer, he hopes to accomplish at least three objectives: renew his longtime friendship with Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu; convince Jewish donors and voters that he is more Israel-friendly than President Barack Obama; and, send a message to conservative Christian evangelicals that he can be trusted.
Right win Christians are hoping Romney picks a VP from one of their own
“Acceptable nominees could be Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Bob McDonnell, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, and Marco Rubio.”
Please let it be Rick Santorum! That would be the kiss of death for Romney’s chances.
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Love the picture of the Crimson Corner!
Based on what I have read or heard so far regarding Jesse Jackson, Jr., he has plenty of baggage to be lugging around which may be attributable to his bizarre seclusion.
He barely won his primary as the Dems wanted another candidate to replace him. He dodged a bullet in the Blago affair. He has been reported to be having marital difficulties due to his infidelities and there have been rumors of his substance abuse problems floating around.
Whatever the true circumstances, he has not voted in congress for a few months which is leaving his constituency up in arms. As I see it, just another entitiled “legacy” who got where he is due to name recognition and nothing more. He was truly obnoxious during the 2008 election with some pretty bad comments made against Hillary Clinton.
As for Mitt, he is still an @sshole!
I still think of it as Nini’s Corner. I can tell I’m getting old because I use the old names for everything.
I think Jesse Jackson, Jr. is still under investigation. If he’s really clinically depressed, it wouldn’t be strictly from stress though. I didn’t know about the substance abuse rumors. His family is vehemently denying that, but something must be seriously wrong. They’re saying he won’t be back until September and maybe not then.
Thanks for posting the link to the sepsis story, my son has been having these staph infections a lot this summer. It is a very dangerous concern and one I wish would be taken seriously. I can understand how you are still grieving for your mentor. It is a tragic way to die…
Going back to read the rest, but I had to comment on this.
On a personal note, my dad is an ass…and an idiot. He is refusing to do what the dr’s are telling him. Urrrrh, this is frustrating! I can feel my blood pressure rising. Dammit!
I can relate to your frustration and your Dad.
Years ago when my mother was released from the hospital after experiencing a stroke, the doctor at discharge advised “no cigarettes and coffee”. The minute we got into the car on the way home she asked to have me stop at a store for “cigarettes and coffee”.
She was 78 at the time and who was I to deprive her of the few pleasures she had left in life if this gave her comfort. She lived on for 4 more years, clutching her cig and coffee cup right up to the end.
It’s a toss up sometimes of knowing how to do the right thing.
We must be related. My mom did the same thing after a heart attack in her late 60s. She lived to be 87, two weeks shy of her 88th birthday, just like she always had.
Good genes are the key to survival. My grandparents smoked, ate huge steaks, and used half and half on their cereal till they died. My grandmother died in her late 80s, and my grandfather in his 90s. My Mom is now 87 and her elder sister is will be 90 in September.
Oh my, I went through the same thing with my mom, who had emphyzema. She was also legally blind from macular degeneration so there was no way she could get to the store herself to buy her cigarettes. I felt like crap buying her more and her doctor shook her finger at me for doing it but like you Pat, I thought, “Who am I to make this woman even more unhappy than she is?” She died at 87 years old and smoked to the end. I guess she went out the way she wanted.
JJ,
I thought of you also when I read that story on sepsis from strep. I guess parents (and patients) should ask specifically to see their lab tests and ask about vital signs. That NY doctor may have a lawsuit on his hands.
You are right BB, people need to keep up on their own when it comes to lab test. I am obsessed with this now…
I’m sorry for the loss of your friend, BB. One of the big factors we consider when deciding upon where we want to live is the availability of good medical care. Obviously from these accounts it’s a crap shoot. Mistakes happen in the finest facilities in the world. In the near tragedy in my family we got extremely lucky because an alert PA in a hospital in a small town we were visiting diagnosed my daughter correctly. I’ve spoken to physicians who have said that the PA who got it right could very easily have begun testing in other areas and missed the diagnosis. Just freakin’ lucky he was on the ball.
Sorry this is probably going to nest in an odd place!
Anyhow, I can’t help but observe that the man who said Hillary’s tears in NH needed to be analyzed…is now inpatient for a mood disorder. I’ll say no more, other than to wish him the help and care he needs.
Thanks for the terrific roundup as always, BB. Still working my way through.
I thought of that too!
I thought Junior was the one who made rude remarks about Hillary. When he made that remark I was thinking something like — how would he know about that. The way he made the remark has always stayed with me. So now that he’s in treatment for a “mood disorder” his off hand rude remark makes more sense.
Karma.
Rush Limbaugh says Romney was booed at the NAACP convention because he’s white. Funny, I don’t recall Hillary or Bill being booed like that. We’ll have to find out what happens with Joe Biden. He’s white, isn’t he?
For a party that has used elements of “race baiting” since Obama took office, this is pretty ironic. Just another “dog whistle” sent out to his braindead listeners who had no objection to previous remarks against Sandra Fluke. An “okey dokey” day for them.
Boston Globe: Romney was at Bain three years longer than he has claimed.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
If Romney was the “sole owner” of Bain Capital, when did he sell it? I don’t understand that. Does he still own it, but just isn’t involved in day-to-day operations?
I’m happily surprised that the MSM isn’t letting this go unanswered.
The Boston Globe: not Romney fans.
I used to regard Mitt as a rather hapless man who had lots of money and POTUS was just another “jewel in his crown”.
But I have begun to see him more and more as a rather sinister figure who refuses to disclose his source of income along with his unwillingness to comment on anything that may cost him a vote here and there. He really will say and do anything to achieve that 50,1%.
Lies, evasion, spinning, twisting – anything goes with Mittens. He signed into law a policy that ensures 98% of MA residents are covered by insurance and you would think that somehow this would serve as a launching pad for election. Yet he has summarily dismissed it, pretends to read it differently, which right there shows what a duplicitous character he actually is.
What he ran on in 1994 as a Senate candidate is in sharp contrast to what he promotes today. The man is shameless.
How any reasonable voter cannot take issue with what Mitt Romney represents is beyond me.
Same here, Pat. I always thought Romney was creepy and out of touch as Governor, but I had no idea how super-creepy and corrupt he really was!
This is pretty funny. Buzzfeed published audience reaction shots from the Romney NAACP speech. The faces look incredulous, bored, skeptical, etc.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/reaction-faces-from-the-crowd-at-mitt-romneys-naa
No Romney voters among those folks. 🙂
The Penn State investigation is complete: Report: Penn St. officials concealed abuse | ajc.com
Here’s a link to the full report.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/FreehReport071212.pdf?mod=e2tw
What does Penn State, the Catholic Church, and Cindy Anthony have in common?
They all lied to cover up the criminality that occurred in front of their eyes.
What’s more important: a prize winning football team, congregant donations, a lying sociopath who killed her own child?
I think we all know the answers to that. Lie, lie, lie.
Hackers Expose 453,000 Yahoo! User Accounts | Geekosystem
Michael Tomasky finally gets it: Romney is “a spineless, disingenuous, supercilious, race-mongering pyromaniac who is very poorly intentioned indeed, and woe to us if this man sets foot in the White House as anything but a tourist.”
And those are Rmoney’s good points!
Yeah, all I could think of when I read about this is that he’s just as much of a nasty bully now as he was when he was younger.
Bingo!!!!!!!!!!
Gail Collins in the NYT…
From Digby ,,,
Forbes on Romney’s use of “gray areas” in his claims about when he left Bain.
It really depends on whether you believe the SEC filings or a press release. Since false SEC filings are criminal offenses, I would rather believe them. Last time I looked a press release is not a sworn statement.
There are a lot of SEC filings naming Romney as sole owner and CEO. I wonder how much of Bain he still owns? An unnamed Romney campaign staffer told the Globe that the story the conflict with what Romney claims and the SEC filings “defies common sense.
According to Fact Check.org, if this is true Romney is guilty of a felony for false filings with the SEC.
David Axelrod tweet:
Romney had some conservative African Americans flown in to cheer him at the NAACP convention!
Wow!!! He flew in Black people to the NAACP convention? This guy is so desperate.
Raw Story has a piece up on Romney & Bain. It sounds as if RMoney (as Ralph has coined him) signed some sort of filing documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission that identify him as the Owner-CEO of Bain through 2002. That would be a huge no-no if the ownership and leadership of the business was being misrepresented.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/12/obama-campaign-severe-consequences-if-romney-committed-felony-with-bain-lies/
We’ve been discussing that. Look upthread. I’m talking to Dak about it right now.
Sorry. I should have read the entire thread before linking and I should have known that y’all were all over this. Question: Has anyone read, written about or does anyone know what sort of consequences are associated with filing this sort of false info with the SEC? According to what I’m reading RMoney actually signed off on the filing documents, if so that puts him squarely in the middle of the firestorm.
Just watched part of an interview with Bay Buchanan on Andrea Mitchell. She was really high-stepping for Romney trying to explain how he owned the company, but wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operation, strategy or decision making. She seemed a bit melodramatic and nervous trying to explain the contradiction. I pity the Romney advisors, they have a tough job bobbing-and-weaving around all the lies and obfuscations.
That’s OK, Mouse. I just wanted you to know there was lots more info upthread. Good to know this was discussed on MSNBC. The story is everywhere! This will probably dog Romney through the weekend and beyond! I just hope he doesn’t have to step down as nominee. I want it to drag on until the Repubs don’t have other options.
“I just hope he doesn’t have to step down as nominee. I want it to drag on until the Repubs don’t have other options.”
I agree, but I can already hear the Ron Paulians deep-breathing in the background. They’d love the opportunity to knock out Mitt, even if the Obama Campaign is the means to their end.
If the story line that Buchanan was laying out is true, then Mitt Romney is guilty of Business Lip-Sync. His name was on the label, but someone else created and sang the song.
Hi BB, I know your intentions were good, but lionizing Bill Gates from that press release schmaltz aka “puff piece” is a bad idea. First, he’s using his “trust” to dismantle public education and the push for charter schools and now electronic homeschooling. When he gives all that money to organizations for things like medicines and vaccines, he stipulates that those medicines must be purchased from specific companies, his “buddies”, at vastly inflated rates. So much so that it often puts many charitable organizations in worse shape than before the endowment.
And then there’s his infiltration of third world agriculture by buying up major shares in Monsato and pushing GM crops there. As I’ve linked before, GM crop introduction in India led to 250,000 (yes, that’s the correct number) suicides.
This man uses his PR machine to make everyone fawn over what a giving, wonderful guy he is. When it seems like the foundation was created as a way to tax exempt his massive wealth and wield it for money and power. The same old song of the rich.
I wasn’t lionizing Bill Gates. I just linked to a story about *Melinda Gates.* I’m aware those investments. Just because I put a story about Melinda in a post doesn’t equal “lionizing” her or her husband.
So many people have no awareness that very often women are their own person — we can think for ourselves,
It was obvious that BB’s article was about Melinda Gates — and not Bill Gates.
My husband makes his own decisions and votes all by himself — but that is expected.
There have been a number of articles about Melinda Gates — as her own person — making decision and having her own agenda.
Attacking the husband when the article is about the WORK and philosophy of the wife is what chauvinist personalities do.
Harry Reid: The Senate couldn’t confirm Romney for dogcatcher.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/reid-romney-couldnt-be-confirmed-as-dog-catcher-by-the-senate.php?ref=fpb
Stephanie Cutter: Prove it!!
I think Rmoney committed a felony either way.
1) Romney told the SEC that he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president” up until 2002.
2) Romney said in his recent financial disclosure form that he left Bain in 1999 – so the two federal forms contradict each other, at least one is a lie.
Seems Romney lied to the federal government either way. Either to the SEC, or in his more recent financial dislosure forms. And either one appears to be a felony.
I just wrote a much longer version of this in a post!!!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/cutter-romney-a-liar-potential-criminal
From Bob Bauer:
I’ll bet Mitt employs some high-octane Lawyers whose sole purpose is to pull his miracle underwear out of his crack, doncha know? 🙂
This audit from the Columbia Journalism Review showcases the lobbyists and wingnuts getting their story across in the MSM.
Manufactured quotes
In view of the way most have covered Rmoney and Bain, I think it’s relevant there.