Dakota Access Pipeline: Sacred Stone Camp stand

CNN reported today that there are thousands of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters hunkered down in frigid winter conditions at the Sacred Stone Camp in Cannon Ball, N.D. /CNN image

This weekend, more than 2,000 military veterans, including U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, are vowing to serve as human shields for Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters at the Sacred Stone Camp, Reuters reported today.

The protest camp is within a couple miles of the energy project's last unfinished segment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set a Dec. 5 deadline for protesters to leave Sacred Stone Camp or face arrest.

The Corps decided last month to delay the final unfinished leg of the pipeline project, which features tunneling under Lake Oahe, a drinking water reservoir for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The Corps said the project pause is necessary because "additional discussion and analysis are warranted" on several grounds, including "the history of the Great Sioux Nation's dispossessions of lands" and the resource value of Lake Oahe to the Standing Rock Sioux.

Despite the delay, the Dec. 5 eviction deadline has set the stage for another confrontation over the 1,172 mile long pipeline, The project price tag is pegged at $3.7 billion.

In August, hundreds of DAPL protesters were based at the Sacred Stone Camp. /KFYR-TV image 

In spring 2016, a Google Maps image shows the barren and sparsely populated landscape at Sacred Stone Camp.

Dakota Access Pipeline another black mark

During a cold late-fall night in Standing Rock, N.D., police target a water cannon at protesters who have been trying to block completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Nov. 20, 2016, clash also included police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, Youth Radio correspondent Avery White reported. /Avery White photo

In the 21st century, there should be no more Native American treaty violations or disruption of natural resources on Reservation land. The Dakota Access Pipeline is an affront to both of these fundamental deal-breakers.

The pipeline cuts through land promised to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in an 1851 treaty. The petroleum project also poses an environmental threat to the tribe's primary water source--the Missouri River--which runs along one side of the tribe's Reservation.

The drumbeat of human rights abuses against Native Americans--muted for a generation since conflict rekindled during the 1970s at Wounded Knee in South Dakota--is back with a vengeance with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In October 2016, armed soldiers and law enforcement officers move in formation during the eviction of protesters who had camped on private land in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Associated Press reported at least 117 protesters were arrested and at least one was injured. /AP photo by Mike McCleary

American indigenous people have been on the receiving end of violence on a societal scale since the arrival of the first European colonists in the early 1600s. Accounts and accusations of germ warfare against Native Americans begin in the Colonial period, with war crimes including mass executions and concentration camps accelerating through the 1800s, then closing with The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

The U.S. government has been signing treaties with American indigenous people since the founding of the country, reaching a pact with the Delaware Nation in 1778. Many thousands of Native Americans were segregated into Reservations under hundreds of these treaties, which grant the right of self government to indigenous people, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

Ever since the first treaties were negotiated, Native Americans have variously staved off or succumbed to incursions targeting treaty-protected territory. Greed is always the motive: land grabbing and resource robbing have driven the exploitation for centuries.

The Dakota Access Pipeline traverses more than 1,100 miles of environmentally sensitive terrain, including two dozen river crossings: full illustration. /New York Times graphic, above; Washington Post graphic, below

In September 2016, thousands of protesters march to a burial ground site that bulldozers disturbed during construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. /Robyn Beck photo via Getty Images

During the Nov. 20 clash, police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets on protesters near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. With the temperature around 26 degrees, hundreds of protesters were treated for hypothermia, tear-gas inhalation, and rubber-bullet injuries including head wounds, according to sacredstonecamp.org. One tribal elder went into cardiac arrest; but medics performed CPR and resusitated him, the website reported. /ABC News image

Child abuse and neglect: The full story

Rachelle and Bella Bond shown in an image posted on Facebook. In June 2015, Bella "Baby Doe" Bond's body was found on Deer Island in Winthrop, Mass. Rachelle Bond has pleaded not guilty to an accessory to murder charge in the killing of her infant daughter. Her boyfriend at the time of the infanticide faces a first-degree murder charge. /Image via bostoncbslocal.com

If there is any job in state government harder than police officer, it is child-protection service worker.

In news story after news story, even reputable journalism organizations tell only part of the sad tales of the neglected and abused children whose lives are entrusted to state agencies entrusted to protect at-risk kids. An overly simplistic narrative is repeated like a mantra in the media across the country: "The state dropped the ball."

Investigation of N.H. child-protection agency: Swollen case loads are key driver of child-protection service worker turnover and under-staffing. /N.H. Department of Health and Human Services graphic

Here is what the public does not hear or learn in most news stories about the parent-betrayed innocents who have no hope other than the assistance and protection provided by state departments of child and family services:

• Personal responsibility: Every one of these children belongs to A FAMILY, not just their biological parents. The front line of defense for neglected and abused children is their family: parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other adult relatives. The next time you see a news story about state officials failing to protect neglected and abused children, two of the top questions begging answers are, "Who failed these children in the first place? And how many family members are willing to step to the plate and start swinging to protect their kids?" In nearly every family tormented with violence, sexual abuse and neglect involving a child, there is at least one relative who could intervene decisively.
• Collective responsibility: The general public gobbles up the incomplete and misleading narrative that media outlets usually publish whenever the state "drops the ball" and fails a child who is harmed or killed. Yet the vast majority of citizens fail to look in the mirror. If taxpayers really care about having state officials intervene to protect neglected and abused children, the agencies assigned to do the job must be fully funded and staffed. A 2003 federal General Accounting Office report listed average case loads for child welfare and foster care workers nationally at 24 to 31 children, twice the case-load level that the Child Welfare League of America recommends. Here in New Hampshire, the Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has been woefully underfunded and understaffed since the Department of Health and Human Services budget was slashed during The Great Recession. In a staffing report released in October 2016, the average monthly case load for a New Hampshire DCYF protective-service worker was pegged at 54. From December 2015 to July 2016, one third of DCYF's protective-service worker positions were vacant or held by workers in training or on leave.
• Unrealistic expectations: Anyone concerned about their personal safety is unlikely to apply for a child-protection service worker job and unlikely to stay in the role for very long. Police officers hate to go on domestic disturbance calls--for good reason. Emotions run high in domestic disputes, especially when children are involved. Police officers are at high risk of injury or death when they respond to domestic disturbance calls, and they carry several weapons to defend themselves along with body armor equipment. In most states, child-protection service workers are not allowed to carry weapons when they visit a troubled home. Fear of death or serious injury may not be a daily concern for all child-protective services workers, but brutal stress and dealings with evil perpetrated on children is on the daily.
• Social and behavioral determinants: Coming to grips with the roots of child abuse and neglect is the daunting task facing nearly all of American society: every citizen, government agencies, healthcare providers, educational institutions, law enforcement and the courts. Prevention is under-resourced, particularly substance-abuse treatment and mental health services.  

In September 2015, police were sent to the Manchester, N.H., home of Kaitlin Paquette, 22, and her 21-month-old daughter, Sadence Willott. Paquette is facing second-degree murder charges in the bludgeoning death of the infant. The young mother's troubled life illustrates some of the social determinants that are root causes of child abuse and neglect. /image via patch.com

I loathe apologists, and this post is not intended to make excuses for state officials who are untrusted to protect abused and neglected children. I have witnessed state officials "drop the ball" and put children in harm's way, including a Rockingham (N.H.) County judge who slept through portions of a child-custody hearing in which child sexual abuse was alleged.

But I also loathe overly simplistic journalism that amounts to misinformation, people who shirk personal responsibility, taxpayers who lack the conviction to pay for services they claim are essential, and missed societal opportunities to alleviate the suffering.

In August 2015, Vermont case worker Laura Sobel, left, was shot and killed while leaving her office. The woman accused of pulling the trigger, Jody Herring, was allegedly upset over losing custody of her 9-year-old child and also is suspected of killing three family members. /Image via nbcnews.com

U.S. healthcare lags among industrialized nations

/image via mydcdental.com

U.S. healthcare service delivery is not the best in the world.

This week, the privately funded and nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund (CF) released an international survey that evaluates the delivery of healthcare services and measures of health in 11 industrialized countries, including the United States. The key findings of the international survey should be sobering for Americans:

• Citing unaffordable costs of care, 33 percent of U.S. adults reported going without medically advised care, skipping visits to a doctor when they got sick, and not buying prescribed medications. In contrast, only 7 percent of U.K. and German adults reported similar difficulties linked to cost of care.
• Low-income U.S. adults fared the worst in the CF international survey in terms of foregoing medical care because of cost, with 43 percent of respondents reporting they had skipped getting care because they could not afford it. Low-income adults reporting similar struggles with cost of care in the other 10 industrialized countries surveyed range from 8 percent in the United Kingdom to 31 percent in Switzerland. 
• The United States also is an outlier for poor health compared to other industrialized countries, the CF international survey shows. Americans had the highest rate (28 percent) of suffering from multiple chronic conditions. 

For decades, opponents of attempts to fundamentally improve the delivery of healthcare services in the United States have spewed patriotically correct rhetoric, claiming that American healthcare is the best in the world. These largely false claims have been largely politically motivated.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) has attempted to make meaningful reforms, and opponents of Obamacare have vilified the law as a nefarious example of government over-reach that undermines the American healthcare sector's greatness.

Now, with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare are at the top of the political agenda in Washington. Brace yourself for a tsunami of bullshit from politicians seeking to score political points.

Brace yourself for false claims that Obamacare is undermining the greatness of U.S. healthcare services. Any such claims will be largely untrue and designed to achieve political gains that are petty compared to the interests of the American people at stake.

While certainly flawed in some areas such as making healthcare services affordable for all U.S. citizens, Obamacare is a leap forward from the status quo when the law was adopted in 2010. For example, Obamacare makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, and it allows families to keep their children covered for medical expenses until they reach age 26.

The politics at play in efforts to reform the U.S. healthcare sector should be sickening for Americans. The economics should be infuriating.

In 2010, when the PPACA was adopted, U.S. citizens spent about $2.6 trillion on healthcare services. Although the pace of ever increasing U.S. healthcare spending has slowed since Obamacare became the law of the land, healthcare spending is projected to account for 20.1 percent of economic activity in the country by 2025.

In a prepared statement accompanying the release of the international survey, CF President David Blumenthal, M.D., highlights the economic bottom line: Americans are getting ripped off.

"The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, but what we get for these significant resources falls short in terms of access to care, affordability and coordination," he says. "We can learn from what is working in other nations. If we're going to do better for our patients, we need to create a healthcare system that addresses the needs of everyone, especially our sickest patients and those who struggle to make ends meet."

A research paper that features more details and analysis of the CF international survey has been published in the journal Health Affairs.

Trump: Ultimate outsider faces huge challenge

President Jimmy Carter delivers his State of the Union Address to Congress in 1978. /Image via CNN.com

Here we go again.

Forty years ago, Jimmy Carter was elected president after running his campaign as a political outsider. A majority of Americans voted for the Georgia Democrat in 1976, but Carter struggled throughout his presidency to assemble majorities in Congress to support his legislative agenda.

After the 1976 election, the Democrats controlled the U.S. House and Senate, but they did not want to play ball with Jimmy.

Last night, Donald Trump was elected president after running his political campaign as the ultimate outsider, often clashing with prominent members of his own party. A plurality of Americans voted for the New York Republican, but Trump will face a challenge at least as great as the biggest hurdle that hobbled Carter: Governing in Washington after insulting the Washingtonians.

In the 2016 election, Republicans have retained control of the House and Senate. Now, we will see whether GOP lawmakers will play ball with The Donald.