Eminent Domain

Some of the first apartments I lived in when I moved away from home were in the Central West End in St. Louis. This was in the 70s and Barnes Hospital/Washington University began what seems a never ending process of expansion.

I would end up losing three apartments to them before I gave up and moved back to the Soulard neighborhood.

The last one they forced us out of was owned by an old woman named Effie. She told us Effie meant grandma in Polish. She and her late husband had moved from Poland during WWII.

Effie owned two 4 family flats. She loved visiting everyone. She putzed around like she was working on the place, but it was really only an excuse to see what everyone was up to.

Effie came to us in tears with news that Barnes was taking her buildings. There was nothing she could do about it. They found her a little bungalow on the south side, but she still didn’t want to sell.

Effie’s son fought it out in court for her, but Barnes had too much money and power. Effie died in that little bungalow a year later.

There is a legal battle in St. Louis over a sign painted on the side of a building near my house. The brick house is owned by a non-profit ministry called Sanctuary in the Ordinary and managed by Neighborhood Enterprises, Inc., which is headed by Jim Roos. They used to manage a 2-family building of mine.

The city's Board of Adjustment voted 4-1 in July to uphold the city's denial of a permit allowing a 369-square-foot painted sign on the south side of the building. The sign is visible from Interstates 44 and 55 and Gravois Avenue coming into downtown.

Roos and the Missouri Eminent Domain Abuse Coalition decided to appeal. The issue is now in federal court.

Roos says the mural is on the building to protest the potential that it and other property between 13th Street and Tucker Boulevard south of Lafayette Avenue could be taken by eminent domain for a shopping center to the west.

While the city sent out letters in May saying it is no longer interested in the property, it didn't remove the blighting designation that allows the city to take it if it wanted.

Apparently the sign could stay if it depicted an American flag, said something about Jesus, or could be considered art.

This is turning into a big problem for the city because if they deny Roos’ right to display the sign based on content, it’s a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Personally, I think the city just can’t stand anyone getting such a great advertising space for free.

Thanks Ronnie!

What a man!

Ronald Reagan cut social spending, creating the homeless problem by turning hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people out on the streets.

He appointed Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court.

He cut school funding, trying to classify ketchup as a vegetable.

He traded arms, money, drugs, and hostages between Iran and the Nicaraguan rebels.

He claimed that trees cause most pollution.

He lowered taxes in 1981, creating debt so bad he raised taxes each of the next six years and still didn't make up for it. And while he streamlined the complex and exemption-riddled income tax, his changes created the largest-ever shift of tax burden from the wealthy to the middle-class and working poor.

Reagan ignored the health crisis caused by AIDS.

Reagan spent billions on SDI, an "anti-missile shield". Which, incidentally, violated
the ABM treaty.

Reagan more than tripled the national debt.

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop discovered that a woman
did not suffer long-term physical or emotional trauma as a result
of having an abortion. Reagan suppressed the report.

Reagan provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons.

When a Marine barracks was blown up by terrorists in Lebanon, Reagan
responded by pulling American forces out of Lebanon and invading the
small Caribbean island of Grenada.

Reagan's attorney general, Ed Meese, was investigated
by three different special prosecutors for involvement in three
different scandals.

Over 100 Reagan appointees were convicted
of crimes committed while in office.

Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.

He almost totally sabotaged the behind the scenes work of Gorbachev. They already had signed agreements when Reagan made his grandstanding speech, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."----and here we are.

Rational Health Care

Republicans are still using tort reform as their answer to health care reform. As if, frivolous law suits are why health care is so expensive. We’ve had caps in Missouri and Texas for years and it’s only made matters worse.

By setting arbitrary time limits to file personal injury or medical malpractice claims, putting caps on non-economic and punitive damages, and limiting liability for manufacturers of defective products, tort reform is making it extremely difficult for people to seek compensation when they have truly suffered serious losses at the hands of another. In addition, tort reform weakens the deterrent effect that civil suits have on wrongdoers.

An 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient living in a Texas nursing home facility was raped by a nurse assistant who had a history of sexual assault at previous nursing home jobs. The patient’s daughter wanted to file a negligence lawsuit against the nursing home facility for hiring the man despite his past.

However, tort reform in Texas made the lawsuit almost impossible. Attorneys advised against filing a suit, which alone could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it wouldn’t be worth it due to the caps on non-economic and punitive damages, the higher standard of burden of proof that falls on the plaintiff, and other tort reform strategies implemented by the state.

The nursing home who hired a sexual predator would continue to run as if nothing had happened. This woman and other victims that were once helped by the civil justice system are now regularly barred from court.

A man who was undergoing open-heart surgery woke up during the middle of his procedure because of being under-anesthetized due to medical error. For three hours, this man drifted in and out of consciousness and suffered severe pain during the surgery, but was helpless to call out in anguish. The breathing tube down his throat prevented him from making a sound and paralytic drugs left him motionless during the procedure.

Approximately 20,000 to 40,000 of the 21 million patients who receive general anesthesia before surgery wake up during their procedure from being under-anesthetized by mistake. These patients undergo extreme physical pain and suffering and often develop post-traumatic stress disorder and other serious psychological problems as a result.

Patients who have tried to speak out about anesthesia awareness have been silenced by doctors and other medical professionals They were told their experiences were “all in their head.” When this open heart patient told the nurse he had been awake during surgery, she did not believe him. When he was able to recount the doctor and nurses'' conversations and where they were standing during surgery, the nurse got the doctor. He said, “Don’t worry the patient won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”

Due to tort reform’s caps on non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and mental anguish, this man and thousands of other medical malpractice victims would not be able to receive compensation for their enormous losses. Many would not even get a chance to bring their claim to court. Negligent medical professionals responsible for this nightmare would continue to threaten the well-being of patients unabated.

The really sad thing about all of this is, it doesn’t bring down the cost of healthcare! I have pointed out before that it would be cheaper for us to have single payer universal healthcare. Please refer to my Associated Content article from 2008, it still applies.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/860847/our_health_care_system_is_a_national.html?cat=9

Who's Writing History?

I didn’t want to post about the shootings that took place in Tucson last week. The right and the left wasted no time blaming each other. It doesn’t matter what motivated the shooter, he was a self absorbed pathetic little man and neither side has to take credit for his actions.

What does bother me though, were the few on the right who pointed out he had a copy of the Communist Manifesto. There was no mention that he also had a copy of Mein Kampf. As if these two books went hand in hand.

I think it was Glenn Beck who first started calling the Nazis leftists because the word socialist in their title.

The National Socialist German Worker’s Party was simply called The German Worker’s Party until 1920. Adding the word socialist was purely a populist move.

Nazi ideology stressed the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, communism, economic liberalism, and democracy; supported the "racial purity of the German people" and that of other Northwestern Europeans; and claimed itself as the protector of Germany from Jewish influence and corruption. They began as a reaction to leftist unions.

They were allies of the Italian Fascists who were as extreme right wing as you can get; a system of government run by corporations and the military.

I can’t understand why talking heads try to influence people by rewriting history. The press has to start calling them out on it!

One Chance To Make A First Impression

"Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." That’s actually the name of HR2, House Republicans attempt to kill Obama’s health care package. It’s hard to tell whether this title reveals the childishness of Republicans who are pushing for it or the voters it’s aimed at.

The Congressional Budget Office has issued a statement that repeal of the health care law will add $230 billion to the deficits through the next ten years.

Republicans can’t seem to discuss any issue without adding misleading talking points; “Job Killing” Health Care Act, “Government Run” Health Care, etc.

They’ve convinced their constituents that:

• Guns make you safe
• The earth is 6000 years old
• Gays are evil and dangerous
• Iraq had something to do with 9/11
• Obama is a Muslim
• Obama is a communist
• Obama is the Antichrist
• Lowering taxes for the super rich would help the economy
• Deregulating banks leads to prosperity
• Jesus is coming back soon
• Every word of the Bible is true – literally
• We don't need trains that work, infrastructure that functions and new energy, just Jesus...

When they said they were going to read the entire constitution at the opening of the 112^th Congress I wondered how they would include blacks equaling 3/5 a person and not being free in free states. It was easy, they omitted those parts entirely. So much for the intentions of the original framers.

Two Republican House members, including a leader on the Rules Committee, cast 6 votes on the US House floor despite missing Wednesday's swearing-in---- A violation of the Constitution they now have to struggling with correcting.

It’s impossible to overstate the incompetence of the Democrats, but Republicans should note that you only get one chance to make a first impression.