Breakdown Of The House HHS Appropriations Bill

Yep, it’s awful. They are funding $4 billion less than last year. $4 Billion.

The Republican majority of the House Appropriations Committee released their draft version of the FY2012 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill with a budget that was $4 billion less than FY2011. There is no markup scheduled for this bill, thus members of the Subcommittee will not be able to weigh-in on the proposed bill. The funding levels contained in this bill will serve as the House marker when in conference negotiations on final spending levels with the Senate. As this is a draft bill, there is no report language, so some details on funding levels are not known. NASTAD has included an updated chart. (link is below)

The bill includes many policy riders, targeting funding for syringe exchange programs, the Affordable Care Act, and Planned Parenthood. The bill bans the use of federal funding for syringe exchange programs. The bill also includes language that prohibits funding for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including the elimination of the Prevention and Public Health Fund. In addition, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates can only receive funding after certifying that the organization will not perform abortions with non-federal funds.

Both the House and the Senate have voted on a continuing resolution that will fund government programs through November 18.

Some of the House draft bill highlights include:

Department of Health and Human Services:

Health Resources and Services Administration

Ryan White Program

The House bill flat funds all parts of the Ryan White Program, including ADAP. The Senate bill includes a $15 million increase to ADAP bringing the total to $900 million and it flat funds all other parts of the Ryan White Program.

Family Planning

The Title X Family Planning program was eliminated in the House bill. The program was flat funded at $299.4 million in the Senate version of the bill.

Community Health Centers

Community Health Centers received a decrease of $4.7 million from FY2011 in the House version of the bill. The Senate bill increased funding for Community Health Centers by $200 million from FY2011.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB

In the House bill, funding for the Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention was reduced by $32.7 million. There is not detail about how these cuts will be divided among the Divisions or if DASH will be included in the Center.

The Senate bill level funds CDC’s HIV/AIDS and STD prevention programs, including HIV prevention by health departments, HIV surveillance, the Enhanced HIV Testing Initiative and Improving HIV Program Effectiveness Program. DASH was flat funded as well. The Division of Viral Hepatitis received an increase of $10 million for testing.

Needle Exchange

The House version of the bill bans the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs, whereas the Senate version of the bill maintains current law on the use of federal funding for syringe exchange.

Immunization

The House bill does not provide detail about funding of the Section 317 Immunization Program. The program received a $50 million increase from FY2011 in the Senate bill.

Prevention Block Grant

The Preventative Health and Health Services Block Grant was funded at $100 million, a $19.1 million increase from FY2011 in the House version of the bill. The program was eliminated in the Senate version of the bill and the President’s budget proposal.

Prevention and Public Health Fund

In the House version of the bill, all funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund was eliminated. In the Senate version of the bill, the Prevention and Public Health Fund received an increase of $135 million.

Agency for Children and Families

Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative

The House bill reduced funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative by $84.7 million to $20 million. In addition to this reduction, the House bill provides $20 million for the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grant program, which was previously not funded and the bill removes language requiring the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative programs to be evidence based.

The Senate bill level funds the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, maintains language requiring programs to be evidence based, and does not provide any funding for the CBAE program.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

The House bill’s funding of SAMHSA is still being determined. In the Senate bill, SAMHSA Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration was level funded at $63 million. The Senate Committee also encouraged SAMHSA to develop a demonstration project on hepatitis education and testing for patients and providers.

National Institutes of Health

NIH received an increase of $1 billion in the House bill, bringing their total funding to $31.7 billion. The House bill also eliminates the transfer of $297 million from the NIH to the Global HIV/AIDS Fund. The Senate decreased NIH by $190 million from FY2011 levels and requested a transfer of $299 million to the Global HIV/AIDS Fund.

Department of Housing and Urban Development:

Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS

The House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill flat funds the HOPWA program, while the Senate bill reduces the HOPWA program by $4.3 million, for a total of $330 million.

State Department:

Global HIV/AIDS

The House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill provided $7.1 billion for global health programs, but does not specify a funding amount for the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria. The House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill eliminated the $300 million transfer from NIH to the Global HIV/AIDS Fund.

The Senate State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill provided $5.6 billion for global HIV/AIDS programs. The Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria was flat funded at $750 million (and $299 million in the Senate Labor HHS bill) and Bilateral HIV/AIDS received $50 million less than FY2011.

FY2012 Appropriations Chart 10-6-11

Rehberg’s Ridiculous Healthcare Bill: Resurrecting Non-Science-Based Prevention Policies

Oct3 by D Gregory Smith

Rehberg’s apparently not swayed by the people in his state affected by HIV. Nor is he swayed by science.

From The AIDS Institute:

“If ever passed, this spending bill would set back the progress we are making in preventing HIV and providing basic care and treatment for those who have HIV/AIDS in our country,” commented Carl Schmid, Deputy Executive Director of The AIDS Institute.

House Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Denny Rehberg (R-MT) introduced a fiscal year 2012 spending bill that guts many programs, including health reform, and resurrects non-science based prevention policies.

Most disappointing is how the bill would impede prevention. Rehberg’s bill would cut by nearly $33 million funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. This is despite an estimated 50,000 new HIV infections each year and over 230,000 people unaware of their infection. The U.S. government invests only about 3 percent of its HIV funding in prevention. The lifetime cost of caring and treating one person with HIV is approximately $360,000. In order to help achieve the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to reduce the number of new infections and increase testing levels by 2015, the President has proposed an increase of $57 million for HIV prevention in FY12.

On top of cutting CDC’s budget, the bill would ban federal funding of syringe exchange programs, a scientifically proven method to prevent HIV and other infections while not increasing drug use, and would resurrect failed abstinence only until marriage programs. Additionally, the bill would decimate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program by cutting its budget from $105 million to $20 million, eliminate all Title X spending, which funds HIV testing programs for women, and the entire Prevention and Public Health Fund.

The House bill proposes to flat fund the entire Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides care and treatment to over 550,000 low-income people with HIV/AIDS. It fails to address the crisis in the Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). There are currently over 8,500 people in nine states on ADAP waiting lists and over 445 people in six states who have been disenrolled from the program due to budget constraints and growing enrollment. The AIDS Institute and its partners have been advocating for an increase of at least $106 million. The President has requested a $55 million increase. In order to address the current wait list, an increase of approximately $98 million would be required.

Chairman Rehberg’s bill also prevents implementation of much of the Affordable Care Act, which once fully implemented, would both bring many people with HIV/AIDS into lifesaving care and treatment for the first time and help to prevent HIV.

The one bright spot in the bill is Rehberg’s proposal to increase medical research spending at the National Institutes of Health by $1 billion.

“While we realize we are living in very difficult fiscal times, this bill is not just about making difficult funding decisions, but about resurrecting many controversial policies that will never pass the Congress nor be signed by the President,” commented Michael Ruppal, Executive Director of The AIDS Institute. “As Congress finalizes its FY12 spending bill, The AIDS Institute will work with the House, Senate and the Administration to increase, rather than cut funding for prevention and adequately fund all parts of the Ryan White Program, including ADAP. Additionally, we will work to defeat all extreme policy riders.

The bill (HR 3070) has not been formally considered by the House Appropriations Subcommittee. The Senate Appropriations Committee already has passed its own version of the bill. Since Congress has not passed any spending measures, the government is currently operating under a short term continuing resolution.

This schmuck is completely unwilling to listen to facts- or to believe that HIV is in Montana, and it poses particular problems for his constituents. Maybe it’s time to educate him.

Call his office: (202) 225-3211

The President at HRC: Nothing To Sniff At

Oct3 by D Gregory Smith

I was going to give a bit of a recap of President Obama’s address to the Human Rights Campaign diners on October 1st- but when someone else already does what you would have done anyway- and probably better, it’s best to just get out of the way.

Over at Towleroad, the recap included some important points:

President Obama was urged this week to come out for gay marriage in his address to the Human Rights Campaign. He didn’t do so last night – not explicitly. But did he imply it? Toward the speech’s end, he cited New York’s marriage law as a triumph of democratic change. Might that be an indirect way of saying, “I’m with you on marriage”?

It’s progress led not by Washington but by ordinary citizens, who are propelled not just by politics but by love and friendship and a sense of mutual regard. It’s playing out in legislatures like New York, and courtrooms and in the ballot box. (…) It happens when a father realizes he doesn’t just love his daughter, but also her wife.

It’s disappointing that the president won’t make his “evolving” position clear. But last night’s speech was nonetheless a juggernaut. It opened with a wisecrack: “I also took a trip out to California last week, where I held some productive bilateral talks with your leader, Lady Gaga.” Snarky, yes: Gaga as Kim Jong-Il. The president throwing shade.

Joking aside, he seemed acutely aware of the complaint he’s getting from the LGBT community: that he’s too slow on civil rights. So he reminded us that he has never counseled patience in the fight, which he conflated with the movement for black civil rights. Then, without sounding triumphal, he went through the stack of accomplishment in his first term: hate-crime legislation, DADT repeal, abandonment of the government’s legal defense of DOMA (whose repeal he backs), lifting of the HIV travel ban, the “first comprehensive national strategy” to combat HIV/AIDS, hospital visitation rights for gay partners. (He didn’t mention the State Department’s new policy that makes it easier for transsexuals to change their passports.) (emphasis mine)

Nothing to sniff at.

Indeed. We may sometimes forget that this president has done more for LGBT equality than every other president before him.

We shouldn’t.

Read the full story here.

Barack Obama, Tax Cutting Champion Of The Modern Era

Sep16 by D Gregory Smith

Here’s a fistful of facts to throw out when the myth of Obama The Taxer rears its ugly head.
From The Daily Kos:

The Center for American Progress crunched the numbers and discovered:With the huge Recovery Act tax cuts and the enormous December 2010 tax cuts combined, President Obama has already signed into law tax cuts amounting to more than $900 billion from 2009 through 2012. Even after accounting for legislation that the president signed that increased revenue during that period, President Obama has cut taxes by more than $850 billion in his first term, or approximately 1.5 percent of GDP.That is compared to the $474 billion in tax cuts enacted by George W. Bush in his first term. If the latest tax cuts included in President Obama’s American Jobs Act are passed, he will be the biggest tax cutter of the modern era. Bigger than Reagan. Bigger than Bush. That’s saying something!

Yet, despite this fact, we’ve seen poll after poll indicate that people still believe President Obama has raised their taxes.

Two things:

1. The idea that tax cuts bring economic growth should be thoroughly debunked by now. But it isn’t.

2. It has to be political injustice of the worst order to be the biggest tax cutter ever and not get any credit. (emphasis mine)

And there’s even a fun graphic for the spatially minded:

“Right Wing Lunacy” To Enter State Race

Sep15 by D Gregory Smith

Cowgirl:

Confirming a story that was first reported here at the Cowgirl blog, TEA Party Republican Derek Skees, confederate sympathizer who has tried to set up his own Little South amid the ultra-right-wing colony in the Flathead, has announced his candidacy for State Auditor.

Skees will run against incumbent Monica Lindeen – D, and his candidacy will likely be based on a single issue: Say No To Federal Healthcare Reform.

...So Lindeen will have a fight on her hands. But fortunately she, too, is now positioned against something unpopular: right-wing lunacy. Skees is a national leader of a fringe of the GOP so far right that it barely considers itself Republican.

Know your ballots, people. Full story here.

Shut The (Bleep) Up

Aug29 by D Gregory Smith

We watched a little bit of the VMA’s last night- just until the latest episode of Torchwood reran- and I was amazed at all the bleeps that were happening. It almost made the show unwatchable.

Not because I’m a prude, but because I have a hard time with interrupted continuity. I hate distractions.

Ask anybody who has ever sat next to me in a movie theater- or watched a movie with me in my living room; I hate talking, interruptions or distractions. Ken has learned to sit on the aisle, and, if he doesn’t remember, I remind him to use the restroom before the movie. I don’t like talking or noisy crowds in the theater, either. I paid my good money to watch a movie, not listen to your conversation and commentary. For me, a movie is like a roller coaster- I pay my money, I get in the car and I don’t get out until the ride is over.

And I don’t bring my colicky baby.

But when something is continually interrupted, it starts to concern me. I have a hard time tracking. Maybe it’s advancing age and/or deafness that’s making me less tolerant of distractions, but it seems to be having its own manifestation in politics. Candidates are actively interrupting scientific communication in this country. Blatantly standing up in the middle of the show and making factual inferences with fantastical statements. Distracting people from the reality hiding behind the curtain with a little folksy humor or superstitious nonsense.

And I’m annoyed.

Thank God that I’m not alone. Paul Krugman today has an excellent article about the trending GOP tendency to deny science, knowledge- and maybe, common sense- in favor of the popularly held beliefs of uneducated, superstitious people. My words, not his. These are his:

According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.

So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.

And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change.

Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has gone beyond its long-term preference for the economic ideas of “charlatans and cranks” — as one of former President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisers famously put it — to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no attention to “fancy theories” that conflict with “common sense,” the Journal tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings to analyze things like financial crises and recessions?

Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.

And if you want more proof that the GOP is pandering to the uneducated you don’t have to look much farther than Michele Bachmann. Her blind-to-the-facts manner is starting to leak holy water as well:

Speaking to a crowd in Florida over the weekend, Bachmann said the historic earthquake and massive hurricane that rocked the East Coast last week was a message that God is upset with the way politicians in Washington have been doing things. The interview with the St. Petersburg Times…:

She hailed the tea party as being common-sense Americans who understand government shouldn’t spend more than it takes in, know they’re taxed enough already and want government to abide by the Constitution.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

Emphasis added. Bachmann’s comments put her closer to Pat Robertson’s take on the week than her most prominent rivals for the Republican nomination.

Part of me wants to yell “Shut the (bleep) up!” The same part of me that was annoyed in the theater during Schindler’s List when that woman with the whimpering and complaining kids (kids around 5, 6 and/or 7 from what I could tell), who kept telling them loudly to sit still, be quiet and stop whining throughout the whole movie- instead of taking them out the door and across the hall to watch Beethoven’s 2nd. In my frustration, I threw a dirty look and a kernel or two of popcorn her way.

It’s how I feel when people, jockeying to be the most powerful person in the world, blatantly disregard science in favor of folksyisms that appease- and get votes. This guy/gal is just like me. They should be president.

Huh? Whatever happened to the drive to be intelligent in our culture? When did it become evil? Haven’t we learned our lesson about folksy presidents from Texas?

I guess not. Just like the lady in the theater didn’t know-or didn’t care- that bringing small children to Schindler’s List would wreck the movie for almost everyone else in the room. But this time, I’m not going to just sit there, fuming. I’m not keeping my mouth shut.

Consider this the opening salvo.

Buttered.

Bachmann Bucks Voters, Demonizes Environmentalists

Aug28 by D Gregory Smith

Michele Bachmann yesterday called for the abolition of the ‘job killing’ Environmental Protection Agency- despite polls which show most Americans do not favor such a move.

“The United States is the number one country in the world for energy resources,” the Minnesota congresswoman told a central Florida town hall meeting, arguing that in shale deposits alone the U.S. easily outstrips the total oil supply of Saudi Arabia. “That doesn’t even include … all the oil in Alaska.”

But Bachmann said environmentalists were preventing resources from being exploited, leaving the U.S. dependent on energy imports.

“Instead of thinking we are beggars out here begging for oil and for energy, we are the king daddy dogs when it comes to energy,” she said.

“The radical environmentalists have demanded that we lock up all our energy resources,” she added. “President Bachmann will take that key out of the door. I will unlock it.”

The crowd at the upscale retirement community cheered wildly.

And Bachmann got a similar reception when she promised to eliminate the “job killing” Environmental Protection Agency, saying that she would close the agency down in a single trip. “We will turn out the lights and we’ll lock the doors,” she said.

Such rhetoric may seem to be a populist position- especially regarding the conservative base, but Bachmann hasn’t done her homework.

But a new poll from the conservative-leaning Rasmussen** finds that an overwhelming majority of likely voters, including more than two-thirds of independents, disagree with Rep. Bachmann. When asked whether they “favor or oppose abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency,” 61% of likely voters indicated that they are opposed:

Whoopsie.

Well, I’ve deeply suspected Bachmann of pandering to the wackos for a while now, but ignoring majority polls is just plain poor politics. But there is something worth remembering from this visit:

“…we are the king daddy dogs…”

Huh? I don’t claim to be a Freudian, but I think her fantasies are starting to invade her politics….

Colbert’s SuperPAC

Aug22 by D Gregory Smith

…made the New York Times today. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report has formed a SuperPac:

Citizens for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow may be a running gag on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, but it is spending money as it sees fit, with little in the way of disclosure, just like its noncomedic brethren.

Comedians, including Mr. Colbert in the last election, have undertaken faux candidacies. But his Super PAC riff is a real-world exercise, engaging in a kind of modeling by just doing what Super PACs do.

And he has come under some real-world criticism for inserting himself in the political process so directly. Mr. Colbert, who lampoons conservative talk show hosts by pretending to be one, is now making fun of Super PACs by actually forming one. His committee spent money on advertising in Iowa during the run-up to the Ames straw poll, which took place Aug. 13. It’s as though Jonathan Swift took his satirical suggestion about Irish babies one step further and actually cooked one.

At first blush, it seemed to be one more skirmish in the culture wars: East Coast funnyman uses his fan base to pay for satirical commercials, implicitly demeaning the Ames straw poll in specific, and Iowa in general. Mr. Colbert suggested that all the soft-money ads with their soft-focus shots of rural tableaus were exposing the children of Iowa to “cornography.” But the folkways being criticized belonged to the Beltway, not the Corn Belt.

“I am much taken by this and can’t think of any real parallel in history,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution. “Yes, comedians have always told jokes about elections, but this is quite different. This is a funny person being very serious, actually talking about process. What comedian talks about process?”

That’s what makes this guy one of my heroes…

While most of the rest of the news media continue to cover the coming election with long-running tropes — whose horse is ahead and who has the most loot? — Mr. Colbert has taken the equivalent of a political homework assignment and sprinkled a little silly sauce on top, and people seem happy to dig in.

Read the rest here.

Michele Bachmann, (Submissive) Theologian?

Aug19 by D Gregory Smith

Michele Bachmann has championed the “Christian” cause, sprinkling her speeches with scripture and holy buzzphrases. But one in particular caught my ear.

During the Iowa Republican Debate, Bachmann was asked about whether she would be submissive to her husband. She slipped right out of her earlier statements (and any fundamentalist credibility) when she basically said, “in our house, submission means respect”.

But what did Paul mean when he wrote, “Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord” in his letter to the Colossians? Or Peter, when he wrote “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands…” in the First Letter of Peter?

It comes from the tradition which Paul amplified in his letter to the Ephesians:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. (NIV) Ephesians 5.22-24

Pretty clearly not simple, mutual respect. Maybe another translation will help. Let’s try the King James:

²²Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.²⁴Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Nope, still clearly hierarchical. Paul is speaking from a clearly patriarchal tradition here- one where the husband is the head of the family, the boss, the Pope, the King- those are the images he uses here.

And they are meant very specifically and clearly: wives are the subjects of their husbands, as the church is subject to Christ. As a serf is subject to a king. Not partner, not even helpmate. Subject.

Not that I think this is right, proper or correct. My understanding of Christian scripture is quite different- and I take an anthropological/interpretive approach- not a fundamentalist one. But if you’re going to proclaim to have fundamentalist Christian leanings- you have to be consistent. The first century church was a product of its time- patriarchy was all the rage- and I think we’ve evolved beyond it. Well, mostly. But if Michele Bachmann is going to quote scripture, she can’t just pick and choose what it means. She can’t back off of it and maintain any integrity with/for her Christian base.

But she did. And she has. And the media is letting her. CBS News:

AMES, Iowa – Appearing on “Face the Nation” Sunday, Rep. Michele Bachmann stood by her comment in Thursday’s Republican debate, insisting that when she said wives should be submissive to their husbands, she meant that married couples should have mutual respect.
In 2006, Bachmann said her husband had told her to get a post-doctorate degree in tax law. “Tax law? I hate taxes,” she continued. “Why should I go into something like that? But the lord says, be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.'”
Asked about the comment by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell Sunday, Bachmann reaffirmed that to her, “submission means respect, mutual respect.”
“I respect my husband, he respects me,” she said. “We have been married 33 years, we have a great marriage…and respecting each other, listening to each other is what that means.”
O’Donnell asked Bachmann if she would use a different word in retrospect.
“You know, I guess it depends on what word people are used to, but respect is really what it means,” Bachmann replied.
“Do you think submissive means subservient?” O’Donnell asked.
“Not to us,” Bachmann said. “To us it means respect. We respect each other, we listen to each other, we love each other and that is what it means.”

Look at the story she uses to illustrate her point: Marcus Bachmann told her to get a degree in something she hated– and she did it because- according to a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture- she is his subject. She must submit to him. She later rejected this, saying it equals respect.

Well, maybe in the way a serf respects the King who holds power over him/her. But let’s keep looking. Hey! Maybe the dictionary will mention respect.

submissive
sub·mis·sive
–adjective
1.inclined or ready to submit; unresistingly or humbly obedient: submissive servants.
2.marked by or indicating submission: a submissive reply.

Okay, that didn’t do much for her case, either. Hey, maybe the Greek will help! What was the word in the Bible the writers actually used? Maybe that means respect…

“In the first instance, then, hupatassomai does not mean so much ‘to obey’—though this may result from self-subordination—or to do the will of someone but rather ‘to lose or surrender one’s own rights or will.¹³⁶ In the NT the verb does not immediately carry with it the thought of obedience … ¹³⁷

The idea implicit in the term is “to place under” (in the active voice).¹³⁸ As it is found in our text, the idea would be, “to subordinate oneself” or “to place oneself under.” In general terms, submission is the placing of oneself under the one to whom we submit. Since we are commanded to submit ourselves one to another, we are to place all others above ourselves. (source)

Whoops. Even worse.

Sorry, Michele. Looks like if you want to maintain scriptural consistency- and your fundamentalist/evangelical/christianist street cred, you’re going to have to say submit, subject to, submissive, surrender.

Presidential words, indeed.

NYT sums up Montana Politics

Aug19 by D Gregory Smith

…and does a pretty good job:

But the biggest question is whether anger — at Washington, at the parties, at the economy — can be in fact transmuted to hope for a better way, or whether anger just makes for more anger in a rolling cascade.

“United we stand, divided we fall — and we’re falling,” said DeAnne Asher, 64, who was chatting with friends on a recent morning in Lincoln, in the state’s wooded western half. Ms. Asher, who said she mostly voted Republican, does not plan to support Mr. Tester, but does not see voting for Mr. Rehberg either at this point. The entire system, she said, is broken.

“I’m fed up,” she said.

Full story here.