This one takes the whole wheat flour cake.

The Federal Trade Commission, who under the Bush Administration never met a merger they couldn’t wait to approve, is suing to block the merger of two grocery store chains, Whole Foods and Wild Oats.  Customers, the FTC claims, would suffer horrendous consequences:  “If Whole Foods is allowed to devour Wild Oats, it will mean higher prices, reduced quality and fewer choices for consumers,” according to the head of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.

Combined, both businesses have revenues equal to about 40% of that of Kroger, the nation’s largest grocer.  It seems that Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Safeway are insulated from government persecution into their expanding organic foods marketshare…but the two little guys would form a monopoly. 

 It’s either refreshing to see the Bush administration care about niche-market organic food shoppers (LIBERALS)…or it’s another outrageously ridiculous policy carried out by this transparently hypocritical and egalitarian President.

My pesticide-free tortilla chip is on the latter.

The news out of Fort Wayne this past weekend is sad, and will surely touch the fuzzy warm liberals who continue to live in the past and put people ahead of privatization profits. 

The Journal-Gazette reported on Sunday, June 3, on the fate of former residents of the closed Fort Wayne State Development Center:

“At least seven former residents have died in their new homes in a 16-month period since February 2006, according to state records.

In comparison, that is almost the same number of residents – eight – who died at the center during a 4 1/2 -year span from 2003 through April 2007.

“Some of them might have died at the center, too, but not as many,” former center nurse Ray Wallace said.

Well, we can’t have our cake and eat it too, I suppose.  But wait:  the newspaper also reports how closing the Center early actually cost the private contractor, Liberty Healthcare, money:

Liberty Healthcare took over management of the center in May 2005, with a full privatization following soon after. The official closure announcement for the campus came in October 2005, though some transitions had already begun.

The company earned a $4.8 million closure bonus when the last resident left the center, and it has the right to a $400,000 monthly management fee through the end of July.

Peter Bisbecos, director of the FSSA’s Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services, said that the planned closure date was July 1, at which point Liberty would have been entitled to three more months’ worth of management fees. So by getting done early, he contends Liberty cost itself money.

“They are not a charity, but they did not wring every penny out that they could have,” he said.

So privatization works, because contractors don’t wring out every penny they could.  Will you all now shut up, please, and let Mitch manage our state? 

Adding this up, the vendor gets a $4.8 million closure bonus after the last patient was moved out on April 18th.  The vendor gets a $400,000 per month consulting fee for May, June, and July.  So, the Mitch and Mitch privatization efforts cost $6 million in a bonus and for three months following the closure of the facility. 

At least the residents were in the good hands of a non-government private contractor whose goal was to save the state money.  Well, all but the patients who died:

But according to FSSA, seven other former residents have died in their community settings – three in Fort Wayne, two in Indianapolis, one in Arizona and one in
Kentucky.

Their average age was 55, typical for this particular population, according to Rosebrough. The causes of death include a heart-valve rupture, an infection after surgery and acute leukemia.

Others of more concern include two siblings who died of dehydration, one who died of sepsis and another who died of septic shock and dehydration leading to renal failure.

Brought on by Journal Gazette inquiries, the FSSA reviewed the deaths and found the siblings’ deaths could have been prevented if not for a guardian’s decision to refuse treatment. The sepsis death occurred in Arizona and was “out of our hands systematically,” according to an FSSA memo.

The septic shock death – a 59-year-old who died in Fort Wayne in November 2006 – “could arguably be classified as preventable,” the same memo stated.

I’m impressed with the “out of our hands systematically” defense.  In privatization of human services, as with privatization of any other government responsibility, the wording of the contract is supreme.  There must be language in there that says if the client gets shipped out of state, FSSA has no responsibility. 

There’s precedence for this, of course, in other areas of state government.  One that comes to mind is in corrections, where one state  (oh, let’s pick any one…how ’bout Arizona?) ships its prisoners across the country to let another state (maybe, Indiana?) house them.   Any minor problems that come up, such as a full-scale riot, would be systematically out of Arizona’s hands. 

So FSSA was merely following the trend.

But FSSA is different.  Mitch Roob is a numbers guy, and he’s not about to let a newspaper out-do him when it comes to numbers.  So, the FSSA boss is having his agency enter into ANOTHER contract with ANOTHER private vendor to track the former residents of the center until at least January.  No word yet on how much that one will cost us.  My crystal ball foresees an FSSA press release admonishing us to stop worrying about the cost, because the cost of the newest contract will be surely cheaper than if the FSSA actually did the tracking themselves. 

I’m getting the hang of this, but I still don’t understand where the preventable deaths of disabled Hoosiers (and ex-Hoosiers, if you insist on counting them) belong on the spreadsheet.  That’s because I’m from the old school, where the State accepts a moral responsibility to care for those citizens with severe disabilities who cannot function in our communities on their own.  Maybe the next FSSA press release will help me understand the how to reconcile the obligations of the state with the latest privatization-savings toteboard.

First it was Indianapolis, where the Marion County GOP couldn’t find anyone to run for Mayor against Bart Peterson.  The Republican party recycled a candidate whose big foot fit nicely in his big mouth.  Bob Parker’s  reponse to GOP criticism of his remarks about Israel invading Syria was to not file for the office, leaving the GOP without a deep-pocketed nut to run for the city’s top job.

Now it’s Fort Wayne and Evansville.

The Indiana Republican party’s failure to keep right-wing activists from dominating their party is nowhere more evident that Forth Wayne.  Matt Kelty defeated the party’s celebrated County Commissioner, Nelson Peters, in a close race.  We now know that over $150,000 in loans to the Kelty campaign came not from his personal funds, but from other sources.  Kelty has called in right-wing attorney James Bopp to clarify that these loans were to Kelty personally…who then decided to loan them to his campaign.  Since filing false campaign disclosures is a crime that would prevent Kelty from running for office, there will surely be explanations and charges that this whole mess was created by liberals trying to derail Matt’s campaign. 

Tom Henry, the Democratic challenger, needs to realize that screwing up a campaign financial disclosure form is not an issue that will motivate voters to support him.  He’ll have to show the loan and its disclosure was part of the character of Kelty:  hide the truth behind a loophole.  If you’re caught, pull a trick out of the Mitch Daniels’ bag and simply state you had a different interpretation of the law.  It’s working for Daniels over his refusal to suspend the gas tax, after all. 

Although a very bumpy start for Kelty, and a very encouraging start for Henry, this issue, unless skillfully portrayed as showing the character of Kelty, won’t decide this race.  The Fort Wayne race for mayor ain’t over.

The Evansville race for Mayor is.

Not only is Jonathan Weinzapel well-funded, well-liked, and generally perceived as doing a good job by the citizens of the Evansville, he now faces an opponent accused of dead-beating on over $30,000 of back child-support.  His response was remarkably odd:  As Mayor, he proclaimed, he won’t let his issues with Michigan child support laws affect the citizens of Evansville.  This gracious reprieve from dragging the 120,000 + southern Indiana Hoosiers through a litany of Michigan laws designed to keep children from the repercussions of their parents’s divorce means only one thing:  Weinzapel re-elected. 

So, which will be the next Hoosier city to see their Republican mayoral candidate meltdown? 

The Indianapolis Star’s disgracefully amateurish Matt Tully bemoans another issue today that breaks his heart, and he just can’t understand it.  Until he creates a new game, and now all is clear.

The Star’s continuing effort to place the root of all crime on the shoulders of any and all Democratic  elected officials led off this week with the story that the Indy/Marion County police force is 120 officers short.  As we all know by now, it’s not Matt’s job to actually do any reporting when it comes to his columns or his blog.  His role is to vomit up his musings on this issues.

Today’s “Why, oh why…?” offering asks, “How could this happen?”

Fair question.  Maybe the Star could find an employee who’s willing to look into it.

But don’t ask Matt to do it.  He’s too busy playing his new game of counting the police cars on the way to work.  It’s his way of understanding the problem, and he encourages us to get to the root of crime in Indianapolis by playing along. 

Pure creative genius at work, folks.  I don’t know why the rest of us who passed time in the back seat of our parent’s car on those long road trips didn’t think of it first.  Adapting our counting of different state license plates, or the different color of cars, coulda put us on the map.

It’s more fun that asking if the Governor’s policy of raiding local police forces for more State Troopers might be to blame.  It sure beats looking at exit interviews with employees to see why they left.  Has there been a wave of retirements?  Is there a lack of applicants?  Are officers leaving because they don’t like the job anymore?  Are they leaving for more money?

Boring.

Just count the police cars you see every day.  You’ll then understand all you need to know (if you are a political columnist for the state’s largest newspaper) about crime.

The #1 bumper sticker on Indiana automobiles, pickup trucks, and bicycles for three years has been the phenomenally-popular “Ditch Mitch” tags.  A close runner-up is it’s cousin, “Not My Man”…a rebuke of George Bush’s “My man Mitch” pitch he made for his former budget director.  Add up all the other bumper stickers on all Hoosier vehicles combined, and they don’t equal the anti-Mitch Daniels stickers.

No wonder so many Democrats are in the race for Governor.  It doesn’t take a Corporate CEO to figure out that most Hoosiers do not like Mitch Daniels.

State Senator Richard Young of Milltown in southern Indiana was the first to announce.  The Senate Democratic leader, Sen. Young is picking up a good deal of support from the loyalists of the late Gov. Frank O’Bannon.  No wonder–his campaign chairman is Judy O’Bannon, the greatest First Lady in Indiana’s history.  Sen. Young brings legislative experience, a strong base of support in southern Indiana, and a commitment to curtail the selling off of state assets that Mitch Daniels calls “efficiency”.  Look for the state’s environmental community to line up behind Sen. Young, as well as most farm groups in the state.  With his early campaign literature touting his philosophy of inclusion and empowerment, the activists in Democratic Indiana may start lining up behind him as well. 

Jim Schallinger, an architect who lives in Indianapolis but will be highlighting his ties to his hometown of South Bend to avoid being another candidate from Indy, announced his candidacy next.  Schallinger’s firm has built many public buildings, including more schools than anyone’s counted so far.  He knows a lot of folks in the building and construction industry, which just happens to be a huge resource of campaign cash.  A well-known contributor to Democratic campaigns himself, Schallinger’s personal wealth and connections are being touted as his best assets to mount a campaign against the money-hoarding Governor Daniels.  He’s called in many favors to line up some early endorsements, and the Bayh loyalists seem to be lining up behind him.  He’s never held office before, and he’s touting that as an asset.  His early stump speeches are vintage Evan Bayh:  family ties to Indiana, an uncomfortably forced folksiness, and a tiny bit of self-deprecating humor on occasion.  He looks good and sounds good at first glance, but so did the Manchurian candidate.  Russ Pulliam even seems to like him as a Democratic Mitch.

Within the next month, former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson of Argos in Marshall County will be announcing her candidacy for Governor.  An articulate, intelligent, and policy-oriented woman, she brings both experience and baggage to the race.  A moderate Democrat, her tenure in Congress earned her respect of peers on legislative matters.  As a campaigner, though, she’s come up short several times, most recently in 2002.  Her challenge to ex-U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola was marred by her failure to respond to Mr. Negative’s constant attacks.  Sure, after two more campaigns, the voters threw Chocola out, saying they didn’t like his negativity.  Still, if Long Thompson can put together a complete and total campaign effort, she is a credible candidate.  She doesn’t have a natural constituency base, save for the few Democrats in her old congressional district, and that may hinder her efforts in a primary election.