7/19/2025

Saturday, July 19, 2025

D+253/181/1280

q2w

In bed at 10 after watching another LO'D rant re Trump/Epstein/WSJ, up at 5:20.  66°, high of 80°, rain this afternoon.

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 8:15 a.m.

I woke up thinking that Mar-a-Lago must be a moral cesspool, and wondered whether it might be true of all of Palm Beach.  And of  much of official Washington and Wall Street.  And of much of our world.  It's Epstein and Trump and their multitudinous hangers-on that bring on these thoughts of what a foul, foul world we live in.  Homo hominis lupus.  I'm mindful, though, of 'judge not, lest ye be judged' and of the motes in others' eyes and the log in my own, in Matthew, but that advice makes one feel worse, doesn't it?  Niebuhr, the relevance of an impossible Christian ethic.  The first story I encountered on JSOnline this morning is about the arrest of a 46-year-old liver and kidney transplant surgeon at Froederdt Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin for possession and distribution of child pornography.  He had messaged an undercover agent who was posing as a young mother of an 8-year-old daughter on a chatroom for individuals interested in "taboo" sexual relationships.  He inquired about beginning a sexual relationship with both the apparent mother and the daughter.  The surgeon's name is Calvin Eriksen.  John Calvin must be displeased in Heaven over the behavior of this namesake.  Or is he?  His teaching had it that Calvin Eriksen was predestined to be a bad guy, but God created him anyway.  It's one of those conundrums about God that I have trouble with.  "There could be no election [of those predestined for Heaven] without its opposite reprobation ... whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children."  I seem to be among the reprobated.  I wonder how Marilynne Robinson (Gilead)  can have such benign thoughts about Calvin and his theology.  Go figure.

When I went to this morning's New York Times, the lead story is about the Jesus freak who carried out the assassinations of state legislators in Minnesota, a complete whacko whose life was totally dominated by religous thoughts and impluses.  Instead of Flip Wilson's Geraldine 'the devil made me do it,' with this guy and milllions of others, its' 'Jesus made me do it.'  God help us, but we know he won't.

Mass deportation and eldercare.  Trump promised (falsely) to ease off on mass deportation of agricultural workers and workers in the hospitality industries because those industries rely so heavily on immigrant labor.  The other industry I have worried about from the beginning of this deportation madness is the long-term care industry servicing the nation's huge and growing elderly population.  From today's NYTimes:

Immigrants make up about 28 percent of the work force directly providing that care, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data from KFF, a health policy research group. In comparison, foreign-born workers account for about 19 percent of the entire U.S. civilian labor force.  Immigrants also play an outsize role in the home care industry, making up about 32 percent of that work force, according to KFF.

The biggest impact so far has stemmed from the Trump administration’s decision to end various programs that grant migrants temporary legal status, which authorizes them to live and work in the United States. In late May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration, for now, to end a humanitarian program that gave temporary residency to more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The administration has also tried to end a program for Haitians who have been living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, which is intended to help migrants who cannot return to their countries because of unsafe conditions. 

Ms. Smith Sloan said the impacts across the long-term care industry could become more pronounced as the administration ramps up efforts to restrict migrants from entering the United States. If there are fewer immigrants to fill positions, that could lead to nursing homes and assisted living facilities shutting down wings or closing their doors entirely, she said. Cuts to Medicaid, which were included in the domestic policy bill that Republicans recently passed, could further strain providers, she added.

White House officials said Mr. Trump would ensure that sectors “have the work force they need to be successful.”

“There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration’s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

The administration’s attempt to clamp down on immigration comes at a time when the industry faces another challenge: the growing number of seniors. The U.S. population age 65 and older has been increasing at a rapid clip, meaning the long-term care industry will need more workers in the coming years to keep up.

“Barring some major change in fertility rates, we’re going to need immigrants to continue to supply the work force that the country needs for aging care,” said Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute.

Lower staffing levels at nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home care agencies could have substantial effects on the health of seniors, potentially leading to lower quality of care and life, said David Grabowski, a health care policy professor at Harvard Medical School. 

We know what "lower quality of care and life" means in a nursing home, and it's terrifying, nightmare material, Hell.