As The Swine Flu Turns

Let's move from Specter, donkeys and elephants, over to swine flu. We're up to 68 cases in the United States and 98 cases outside of Mexico in the rest of the world. We've seen hospitalization here but not as virulent a sickness as in Mexico, where reports show up to 150 dead. The expert at the WHO said yesterday that the spread of the virus cannot be contained, and now we need to work on mitigating its worst effects. And considering that we're starting to see new cases in new countries, that seems correct.

While the WHO has raised the global pandemic alert, they're also keying in on the source of the outbreak.

In Mexico, where the only related deaths have been reported, state health authorities looking for the initial source of the outbreak toured a million-pig hog farm in Perote, in Veracruz State. The plant is half-owned by Smithfield Foods, an American company and the world’s largest pork producer.

Mexico’s first known swine flu case, which was later confirmed, was from Perote, according to Health Minister José Ángel Córdova. The case involved a 5-year-old boy who recovered.

But a spokesman for the plant said the boy was not related to a plant worker, that none of its workers were sick and that its hogs were vaccinated against flu.

Tom Philpott has been all over this since Friday. The Smithfield farms in Perote are thought to have infected the water supply and the atmosphere. Drinking pig shit will tend to do that. Can we finally have this debate about factory farming?

The latest news is that the LA County Coroner is investigating two deaths that may have resulted from swine flu. Obviously this is concerning, but at the same time, the large majority of strains here have been less virulent, and we have no confirmation on this case in LA.

...It's amusing to hear media types talking about how people should stay home from work if they're sick when nearly half of private-sector workers don't have paid sick days. I'm one of them. As a freelancer, I only get paid if I come to work. So if you want to keep America prepared in the event of an outbreak, you have to set up ways for Americans to be able to stay home from work without threatening their financial livelihood. Not to mention the 47 million without health insurance. This highlights the need for a bigger public health safety net.

...John Barry, author of a great book about the deadly 1918 influenza that killed 670,000 in the United States, has a good piece about where the swine flu will strike next.

The Rot At The Heart Of The State Political System

For a variety of reasons, this is a depressing day. In California terms, it's because, for all the progress we think has been made over the last few cycles, the situation is very familiar - the big money special interests rule Sacramento, and the "lawmakers" do nothing but chase money.

Yesterday, the bill which would phase out plastic bags in California by placing a $0.25 fee for their use in shops which failed to recycle them stalled in the State Senate (must have been that Bag Tax blogad). Cost was raised as a concern - it would have cost a whopping $1.5 million dollars (on a $100 billion dollar budget) to implement!

Also yesterday, the proposal to make California the very first state in the nation with guaranteed paid sick days for every worker, a right held in most industrialized nations, failed in the Senate, also due to cost (this would have been a robust $900,000 a year to implement!). The bill was at the top of CalChamber's annual "job killer" list.

So bills that would have a major impact on health, the environment and quality of life are quietly yet consistently killed. Meanwhile, the "lawmakers" shuttle from one fundraiser to the next, sucking up to the people who really control the Capitol.

In just four days next week, at least 40 politicians and candidates are scheduled to hold fundraisers, soliciting donations over cappuccino, carnitas and cocktails, at cafes, art galleries and restaurants. Most events are within a few blocks of the Capitol and require a minimum donation of $1,000 to attend.

Lobbyists -- whose clients' interests are on the line in the Legislature -- face so many opportunities to give to legislators' campaigns that some are plotting a schedule and mapping a route.

"You run from one to the other," said Craig Brown, a lobbyist who represents several law enforcement unions.

The result of all these payments is a lobbyist class which is free to designate what bills would or would not be too "costly" to implement. They'll pay top dollar to the lawmakers to make sure they don't spend a lot of money. There's quite a disconnect there.

It's no wonder that "lawmakers" don't care about Arnold Schwarzenegger's vow to veto every bill until the budget is resolved. The more bills have the potential of returning, the more money flows into candidate coffers from the lobbyists who want to stop the bills. It's a vicious, disgusting cycle which restricts progressive change at virtually every level. Sure, they'll let something like SB 840 slide through because they know Governor Backstop will veto it. But anything that might actually become a law - forget it. Not unless the Big Money Boys wrinkle their noses in assent.

The big challenge for progressives and activists is to show a model that would break the cycle of lobbyist cash for access in Sacramento. The low-dollar revolution has been nonexistent here, and without it you cannot credibly campaign in the state without help from special interests. Until that time, we'll continue to see consumer-friendly bills die in committee, lobbyists writing the laws, and the rest of us scratching our heads why we can't make progress.

Wahhhhhh!!!!

Arnold Schwarzenegger will turn this car around right now!

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday he will refuse to sign any bills that reach his desk until the Legislature sends him a budget agreement.

"At this point, nothing in this building is more important than a responsible budget to fix our broken budget system," he said at a hastily called afternoon press conference. "So until the Legislature passes a budget that I can sign, I will not sign any bills that reach my desk."

Schwarzenegger acknowledged that his decision "means some good bills will fail." But he said with a cash crisis looming, the late budget takes on even greater urgency.

He's signaling here that his little state employee wage cut gambit didn't work. It didn't produce the kind of compromise he wanted and it sent him tumbling in the polls as he attempted to cynically hold innocent bystanders hostage in an unrelated fight. So he had to cut off all bills instead. Maybe now, he thinks, the legislators will take notice.

But let's understand what he's doing here. Yesterday, as a culmination of four years of work, Alan Lowenthal's bill to clean up the ports of Oakland, LA and Long Beach passed the State Senate. Eliminating the toxic pollution at the ports would save 3,700 lives annually according to the California Air Resources Board. The bill would enact a $30 container fee on every import, using that money ($300 million annually) for investment in reducing pollution and improving freight rail. It's a milestone bill that is sorely needed to improve the air quality of these communities.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Arnold's latest stunt will actually kill thousands of people from reversible diseases.

There's a bill pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee authored by Fiona Ma (AB 2716) which would deliver guaranteed paid sick days to all California workers. This bill has the support of 73% of the public and would make the state the first in the nation to provide this to their residents. Arnold would rather stamp his feet and issue ultimatums than improve the lives of Californians and do the bidding of the overwhelming majority of the public.

On health care, while we cannot expect a comprehensive plan to come out of this legislative session, there is a deal coming together that would improve health care for those who have insurance by mandating some strict rules for the industry:

In the final weeks of the legislative session, they are negotiating measures that would limit insurer profits on individual plans, require plans to provide a minimum set of benefits and restrict insurers' ability to cancel policies retroactively [...]

Three million Californians buy health insurance on their own rather than through employers. Insurers keep premiums low -- and profits high, their critics say -- on some individual policies by limiting the services they cover. Such plans may exclude prescription drugs and maternity services, for example; others may cover only hospital visits.

Many of the policies have big deductibles and require patients to pay large portions of their expenses, costing them much more than coverage obtained at workplaces.

The game-playing by Arnold on the budget means that, in all likelihood, these rules will not go into effect, and individual consumers of health insurance (like me) will remain incredibly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the insurance industry, which has shown already a penchant to deny coverage and jack up premiums. That too will put the lives of Californians at risk.

There's a human cost to the bullshit that Terminator Boy isn't accounting for. His head is in the clouds, and he thinks he can bully the legislature liked he bullied people in scripted movies for decades. But the recklessness will cost money, pain, suffering, and even lives.