MoJo: Budget Cuts "Eroded Our Ability to Respond" to Ebola, Says Top Health Official

Ya wanna shrink government....and when government can't respond to a serious public health threat like EBOLA......hmmmmm.....isn't that what you wanted?

Budget Cuts "Eroded Our Ability to Respond" to Ebola, Says Top Health Official

By Gabrielle Canon

On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester. [READ MORE]

 

 

Meet the Former Bike Executive Who Could Crush Scott Walker's White House Dreams

By Andy Kroll

These days, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential dreams are hanging by a thread as he battles for reelection against a political neophyte whose only previous electoral campaign was a self-financed 2012 run for the local school board. Why is he vulnerable? Walker devoted his first term to ramming through a chunk of the modern conservative agenda: He limited collective-bargaining rights, slashed taxes on the wealthy, enacted new voter ID requirements, boosted funding for vouchers at the expense of public schools, curtailed abortion access, and weakened environmental protections.

Mary Burke, Walker's opponent, is running as a McKinsey moderate, the anti-politician with business savvy who will jump-start the state's economy and heal a divided Wisconsin. She believes her pro-business message can win over those key undecided voters. In a nonpresidential year when turnout could decide the election, Burke's strategy is a gamble—and it just might work. [READ MORE]

 

THIS WEEK'S NEWS ROUNDUP

Ebola Patient in Dallas Had Contact With Several Children

Ebola made its way to the United States this week, with the bad news that the patient, though he came from Liberia, was released from the hosptial and came into contact with several children. A humanitarian aid worker in Syria got frustrated with ISIS and tweeted the coordinates of one of its bunkers, leading the group to go on the offensive. Protests in Hong Kong has exploded in the last week. And the United States happens to be fighting pirates off the west coast of Africa.

Meanwhile, social conservatives are mad at the GOP for supporting two gay candidates, while Mitt Romney came up with new, crazy excuses for his 47 percent remarks. New Mexico's attorney general is looking into Susana Martinez's missing emails, and police departments across the country told Mother Jones about their (failing) efforts to return surplus military equipment like tanks and grenade launchers to the Pentagon. [READ MORE]