Making a cultural impact is as important as the money

Emily Singer of Daily Kos discussed the health of Mitch McConnell, they guy I’ve called Moscow Mitch. Back on June 14 McConnell’s office announced that he had been hospitalized. No other information was provided. A journalist got hold of the 911 call for that date and, as Singer wrote, “in which dispatchers said they were responding to a suspected cardiac arrest at McConnell’s residence and that CPR was being administered.” Since then, no information. Is he recovering? On life support? Brain dead, but being kept alive by machines? His office has not said. If McConnell dies before the end of his term there would be a special election. Or maybe Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear faces off against a Republican legislature to fill the seat (until the special election is held?). McConnell’s office isn’t even telling the governor about his condition. Now his Republican allies are stepping in and saying they had spoken to him for 20 minutes, that he was fully engaged and eager to return to the Senate. One of those was McConnell’s successor Majority Leader John Thune. Republican propagandist Scott Jennings was another who made the same statement, this time to CNN. The host asked could we get McConnell on the phone now? Jennings weaseled his way to not answering. Singer noted:

Given that all of these Republicans have been proven liars, it’s hard to trust what any of them say about McConnell’s actual health status. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle of having engaging 20-minute-long conversations and being in a vegetative state, as you have to be seriously ill or impaired to be hospitalized for as long as McConnell has at this point.

McConnell is on the Senate Appropriations Committee in charge of passing bills to fund the government. With him absent the committee is at a standstill. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup exlrrp posted a meme saying what I thought about:

I’m starting to think Republican’s scheme to conceal that Mitch McConnell is brain dead in a hospital bed is a test run for what they’re going to do if/when it happens to Trump.

NPR host Juana Summers talked to education correspondent Cory Turner about a test being rolled out by the US Department of Education. If a college or university program’s graduates don’t earn more than someone who never went to college, the program and its students could lose access to federal loans. That assessment is made four years after graduation. Many say this is a reasonable expectation. This test would mostly target private for-profit schools, already known for not providing a good education. Beyond that the programs most likely hit: Certificate programs in cosmetology. At the master’s level are programs in mental and social health services. At the bachelor’s level are programs in theater, fine arts, and music. That’s where my alarms went off. Turner brings in Tiffany Camhi of Oregon Public Broadcasting and Cindy Flores, a middle and high school teacher of mariachi music. Flores had to take out loans to study music and get a teaching certificate at Portland State University. She needed that education to get the job, but ended up $55,000 in debt. It’s a dream job for Flores and she’s not in it for the money, but people like her often don’t earn as much as a high school grad. Lee Ann Scotto Adams heads the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project says that the Dept. of Education is defining student success in only one way. For some people making a cultural impact is as important as having the money. Measuring only the money misses that. Scotto Adams also doesn’t like the measurement being taken at four years after graduation. Artists sometimes have unpredictable incomes in their early years. Can we say Republicans don’t value the arts, or is the problem the whole US economy that doesn’t value the arts? Noam N. Levey, in an article for KFF posted on Kos, told a story I had also heard on NPR. The Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has a congregation that is politically mixed, where nasty guy supporters sit with his fiercest critics. Rev. John Jackman treads carefully. However, four years ago he found a cause both groups support – retiring medical debt.

“This is the easiest money I’ve ever raised,” he said. “All I do is tell people what we’re doing, and they write me a check.” Few issues have been more politically explosive in recent years than healthcare, pitting Democrats and Republicans in bitter debates over the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and other flash points. Yet moved by the sense that the medical debts their neighbors faced were deeply unfair, members of Trinity Moravian, no matter their politics, rushed to write $25 or $50 checks to pay off the bills.

They have prompted other churches to do the same and inspired the state government to get involved.

Earlier this year, Trinity wrapped up its eighth medical debt campaign, part of what the church calls its Debt Jubilee Project. This one raised more than $17,000. That helped retire more than $2.2 million in debt. Medical debt can be bought for pennies on the dollar because creditors believe most debts won’t be paid.

Catherine Coe, a member, works in the accounting department of a hospital system. She sees people facing financial ruin fequently. Terri Mabe used to work in the construction industry. She said that between projects workers are laid off. If one gets sick at that time they can easily get a bill they can’t pay. This country needs to come up with a medical system where medical debt doesn’t happen. Alas, Republicans seem to like inflicting this situation on the lower classes. Recently the church held a service of Jubilee. They had a list of 1,631 names whose debt they were able to forgive. They burned the list. Perhaps this will be a bridge so both sides will begin to care for the other and they can bridge political differences.