by Trey Bledsoe
After eating a too-generous portion of Stilton cheese on zwieback, the Hon. Mr. DeMint slipped beneath the covers in his 2,100 square foot Arts & Crafts Tudor home in Traveler’s Rest. Upon closing his eyes, the second most prominent South Carolinian immediately awakened on a twin bed in a modest ranch home, just of I-85 in Simpsonville.
“What has happened to this place?” wondered DeMint, “This looks like that Earl show, or the Port-au-Prince Hilton.” Rising from the bed with an unfamiliar pain, the Senator did not yet understand his passage into a fairytale reality owing more to the Brothers Grimm than Walt Disney.
“That’s new,” he said, and woozy feeling came over him, “Whoah. Better get to the bathroom.”
The bloody stool he passed gave him the first of many shocks that day. “Oh…whoah. This is bad. Real bad. I better call on Nick and get seen about this.”
Dr. Nick Kastlovakis was DeMint’s physician, and a fraternity brother from his days at UT-Knoxville, but the doctor’s office did not know him. For his part, DeMint was taken aback to find the office in a woodland glade and the receptionist to be a Golem, a creature of Jewish folklore.
“Sorry sir, you do not appear as a patient in our records,” the great clay man intoned.
“Listen, I’ve been a patient of Nick’s since he passed his boards. He is my doctor…”
“This is a very boring and predictable conversation, suh.” said the Golem, “You cannot be a patient because you are not in our records.”
“Well let me make an appointment then.”
“We are not accepting new patients at this time.”
“What! I have insurance! Let me make an appointment.”
“I suggest you visit the E.R.”
“Look at my business card! It says I’m a United States Senator! And I have a bloody stool!” The Golem placed the card beneath its tongue, then inexorably rose and pressed the consternated DeMint onto the street.
“You are not who you say you are.” said the Golem, “And you do not have health insurance.”
Still bleeding rectally, the bewildered DeMint followed the concrete path away from the Office Park, through the Gentrified Neighborhood, past the Kangaroo and into the E.R. There he wander’d for many an hour, between the gurneys of the half-living and the deskjobs of the half-dead. Finally, he met Dr. Sidling Twoshifts, the dissipated young Resident Wizard and Doctor’s Apprentice.
“You are bleeding rectally,” said Twoshifts, upon observation. “You’ll have to get that looked into.”
DeMint turned to the doctor, pleading, “Can’t you admit me? I’m in great pain!”
“I’m afraid I cannot admit you,” said the doctor-in-training, “as your condition is not life threatening. But you may have this sampler of Witch Hazel.”
“Not life threatening!,” said DeMint, “How can you say that when you haven’t done any tests!”
The wrath of the E.R. doctor was terrible. “Away with you! And make an appointment with your general physician!” And bearing his clipboard before him like a stone tablet, he drove poor DeMint from the place.
“Lord, have mercy on me.” said DeMint “What will I do now? The pain alone is more than I can bear, but this rough treatment is worse.” Just then he heard someone calling. It was a swarthy pixie, bearing a nametag reading ‘Truly Purefriend’.
“Hey Yago! You better get your ass down to the warehouse or our employer, Lance Crackers, will surely fire you if you don’t show up for work today.”
DeMint was perplexed, “Yago? Lance Crackers?” and he burst into tears. “Oh, Mr. or Mrs. Purefriend, I am so sick and cannot find a doctor and I think I may be broke. Does Lance give us insurance?”
“Hey don’t cry, Yago. No, there’s no insurance from Lance. But I know they will see you down at the People’s Clinic. We can go there if we ever get a day off and they will bill you.”
With Truefriend’s help, DeMint made an appointment at the People’s Clinic. And so for the next few weeks, Jim – or Yago – drove a delivery truck for Lance Crackers in the hot sun and suffered woozily through loss of blood. He found that he had a homelife with shadowy wife and children, who seemed to number two or three, depending on the lighting. But he could not hear them over the television set and and he usually rested or slept whenever he was off work and in his ranch style home.
Finally, the day came when DeMint was welcomed into the People’s Clinic, where again he was examined – this time by Dr. Irrascible Burnout, who performed bloodwork at an expense of thousands of dollars, many more thousands than DeMint did have. “You and your shadely wife make $40,000 per annum,” said the Doctor, “so obviously, you cannot hope to qualify for Medicare. Yet, I will test you physically and financially, though I suspect you are not exactly fit in either sense.”
“I’m afraid I have some very bad news” said Dr. Burnout when the results came back, “You have colorectal cancer and have had it for some time. The cancer was not apparent until it had grown to such an extent that the bleeding became external. I’m sorry, but you’re going to go into the hospital, incur untold tens of thousands in medical expenses, and then die, no doubt.” DeMint did not take this news well, but with the comfort of Purefriend, the Reverend Onceweekly and his shadelike offspring and mate, he prepared for the hereafter.
“Oh, Lord, “prayed DeMint, “Take this burden from me, for I cannot bear it. Truly, I did not appreciate the trials of an average person suffering under the lack of health insurance. It is a circle of Hell and there is no excusing my perfidious disconcern with the millions of my fellow Americans falling into this Pit each day. Forgive me, Lord. Make me Senator Jim DeMint again and I swear to you I’ll make this right.”
Dr. Burnout was as good as his word, for in the next six-to-eight weeks, DeMint did waste away before dying and the medical bills charged to his account would have staggered King Croesus, not to mention the $6,746.39 charge that would be assessed for his funeral and not including the $147.98 cost of printing an obituary in the Greenville Daily Prophet, and without going into the fact that his wife and children were even further removed from buying their own health insurance by the cost of covering DeMint’s sickness and death, and far be it from us to belabor the hour with the tales of woe and depression, of reduced diet and compromised circumstances subsequently suffered by the family, and it would really be pushing the reader’s patience to detail how the family in the end did default and declare bankruptcy, with the cost of the care and the collections and the paperwork and salaried administration for both being displaced onto other health care recipients of the clinic, including the Golem receptionist mentioned around the beginning of this story.
To get right to the point, DeMint died, though he did not leave his body at once. He lingered, it seemed, on the slab in the morgue. As the buzzing of the circular saw came ever closer to his coconut, he willed himself to wince and flinch until, tearing his eyes open, he saw his own bed’s canopy above him and the alarm clock going off just to his right. Half falling out of bed, he dragged himself to the window and pressed his cheekbone against the glass. DeMint saw a manicured lawn, attended by an early-rising Guatemalan immigrant of pixie-like appearance.
“Oh, thank the good Lord! Thank you, Lord, that it was only a dream.” he prayed, walking and stumbling down the hall to wake his wife. Knocking on her door, he composed himself, inhaling slowly while he turned the nights events over in his mind.
“Oh, honey,” he said when she opened the door, “No more Stilton cheese in this house ever again.”
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DeMint is part of a group murdering me. Sanford, DeMint, Graham and Barrett. They have denied me every right you guys have.
I am being sacrificed for C Street and the Family’s wierdo kooky religious ideas. They want me to have Jesus,… plus nothing.
HINT I HAD JESUS ALREADY AND I HAD OTHER THINGS TOO>>>> BUT C STREET KOOKY RELIGIOUS FANATICS TOOK IT ALL AWAY> I have been punished like no other American citizen in the history of our country.
I am the only person in America, who voluntarily returned to my professional RN job, after a period of very life threatening illness. I have a lifetime illness that will eventually kill me and will never go away…. for the record.
But when I got too sick to work in 2001, I got the ride of my life from the above cruel elected people.
Then I found my privatized Social Security account at Fidelity Investments…. it’s a 401 A… look it up, it’s a government account. ( hint- the only place to find info on 401 A accounts is the IRS website.)
So Fidelity….. well they are causing the entire financial crisis.
Look at who got all the TARP and AIFP money… surprise. FMR Fidelity Management and Research…. 82 devonshire Boston Mass….
which incidently also used to be UNUM PROVIDENT DISABILITY INSURERS ADDRESS>>>>
ANTI TRUST! you betcha.
TARP Recipients
** ALL OF THESE COMPANIES ARE FMR – by statement of beneficial ownership. All TARP money paid to these companies indirectly went to FMR.
Citigroup Inc. (New York) — $25 billion
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (New York) – $25 billion
Wells Fargo & Co. (San Francisco) — $25 billion
Bank of America Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.) — $15 billion
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (New York) — $10 billion
Merrill Lynch & Co. (New York) — $10 billion
Morgan Stanley (New York) — $10 billion
PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (Pittsburgh) — $7.7 billion
US Bancorp (Minneapolis) — $6.6 billion
Capital One Financial Corp. (McLean, Va.) — $3.55 billion
Regions Financial Corp. (Birmingham, Ala.) — $3.5 billion
SunTrust Banks Inc. (Atlanta) — $3.5 billion
Fifth Third Bancorp (Cincinnati) — $3.4 billion
BB&T Corp. (Winston-Salem, NC) — $3.1 billion
Bank of New York Mellon (New York) — $3 billion
Keycorp (Cleveland) — $2.5 billion
Comerica Inc. (Dallas) — $2.25 billion
State Street Corp. (Boston) — $2 billion
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (Milwaukee) — $1.7 billion
Northern Trust Corp. (Chicago) — $1.5 billion
Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Columbus, Ohio) — $1.4 billion
Zions Bancorporation (Salt Lake City) — $1.4 billion
Synovus (Columbus, Ga.) — $973 million
Popular Inc. (San Juan, Puerto Rico) — $950 million
First Horizon National Corp. (Memphis, Tenn.) – $866 million
M&T Bank Corp (Buffalo, N.Y.) — $600 million
Associated Banc-Corp. (Green Bay, Wis.) — $530 million
Webster Financial Corp. (Waterbury, Conn.) — $400 million
City National Corp. (Beverly Hills, Calif.) — $395 million
TCF Financial Corp. (Wayzata, Minn.) — $361 million.
The South Financial Group (Greenville, N.C.) — $347 million
Valley National Bancorp (Wayne, N.J.) — $330 million
East West Bancorp (Pasadena, Calif.) — $316 million
Citizens Republic Bancorp (Flint, Mich.) — $300 million
Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. (Lititz, Pa.) — $300 million
UCBH Holdings Inc. (San Francisco) — $298 million
Cathay General Bancorp (Los Angeles) — $258 million
FirstMerit Corp. (Akron, Ohio) — $248 million
International Bancshares Corp. (Laredo, Tex.) — $216 million
Trustmark Corp. (Jackson, Miss.) — $215 million
Umpqua Holdings Corp. (Portland, Ore.) — $214 million
MB Financial ( Chicago) — $193 million
First Midwest Bancorp Inc. (Itasca, Ill.) –$193 million
Pacific Capital Bancorp (Santa Barbara, Calif.) — $188 million.
First Niagara Financial Group Inc. (Buffalo, N.Y.) — $186 million
Provident Bankshares (Baltimore) — $151 million
Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc. (Boston) — $150 million
Old National Bank (Evansville, Ind.) — $150 million
Western Alliance Bancorporation (Las Vegas) — $140 million.
CVB Financial Corp. (Ontario, Calif.) — $130 million
Banner Corp. (Walla Walla, Wash.) — $124 million
Signature Bank (New York) — $120 million
Iberiabank Corp. (Lafayette, La.) — $115 million
Taylor Capital Group Inc. (Rosemont, Ill.) — $105 million * Bank of America holding
Midwest Banc Holdings Inc. (Melrose Park, Ill.) — $86 million
First Financial Bancorp. (Cincinnati) — $80 million
Wesbanco Inc. (Wheeling, W.Va.) — $75 million
Southwest Bancorp (Stillwater, Okla.) — $70 million
Superior Bancorp (Birmingham, Ala.) — $69 million
Nara Bancorp (Los Angeles) — $67 million,
Wilshire Bancorp (Los Angeles) — $62 million
Great Southern Bancorp (Springfield, Mo.) — $60 million.
Ameris Bancorp. (Moultrie, Ga.) — $52 million
Home Bancshares Inc. (Conway, Ark.) — $50 million
Capital Bank Corp. (Raleigh, N.C.) — $42.9 million
Heritage Commerce Corp. (San Jose., Calif.) — $40 million
Simmons First National Corp. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) — $40 million
Cascade Financial Corp. (Everett, Wash.) — $39 million
Peoples Bancorp (Marietta, Ohio) — $39 million
Porter Bancorp Inc. (Louisville, Ky.) — $39 million
Eagle Bancorp Inc. (Bethesda, Md.) — $38.2 million
Encore Bancshares Inc. (Houston) — $34 million.
Bancorp Rhode Island Inc. (Providence, R.I.) — $30 million
Severn Bancorp (Annapolis, Md.) — $30 million
Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corp. (Gladstone, N.J.) — $28.7 million
Intermountain Community Bancorp (Sandpoint, Idaho) — $27 million
LNB Bancorp Inc. (Lorain, Ohio) — $25.2 million
HF Financial Corp. (Sioux Falls, S.D.) — $25 million
Heritage Financial Corp. (Olympia, Wash.) — $24 million.
HopFed Bancorp Inc. (Hopkinsville, Ky.) — $18.4 million.
Bank of Commerce Holdings Inc. (Redding, Calif.) — $17 million
1st Financial Services Corp. (Hendersonville, N.C.) — $16.3 million
Community West Bancshares (Goleta, Calif.) — $15.6 million
FFW Corp. (Wabash, Ind.) — $7.3 million
Capital Pacific Bancorp (Portland, Ore.) — $4 million
I CANNOT FIND ENOUGH INFORMATION TO MAKE THE CALL ON THE FOLLOWING ENTITIES> but I would call attention to the massive fall out that is occuring as a result of so many failures. Clearly this type of calamity will reach into businesses not associated with FMR at some point as well. Please remember , just because one piece is out of place, doesn’t mean the puzzle doesn’t work at all. It could mean someone put the wrong piece in the box on purpose, to throw you off!!!!!
I do believe you, the Special Inspector General of TARP ,can find the connection that is buried within the following entities if you’d look.
United Community Banks (Blairsville, Ga.) — $180 million
Sandy Spring Bancorp (Olney, Md.) — $83 million
Columbia Banking System Inc. (Tacoma, Wash.) — $76.9 million
Southern Community Financial Corp. (Winston-Salem, N.C.) — $42.75 million
Washington Federal Savings ( Seattle ) — $200 million
Wainwright Bank & Trust Co. (Boston) — $22 million *** MOST LIKELY FMR***
Indiana Community Bancorp (Columbus, Ind.) — $21.5 million
First PacTrust Bancorp Inc. (Chula Vista, Calif.) — $19.3 million
Broadway Financial Group ( Los Angeles) — $9 million
Saigon National Bank (Westminster, Calif.) — $1.2 million
Although I consider the total of the above amounts to be an total that I can bearly wrap my head around, it is actually quite small in the big picture, at least compared to the top companies total bail out.
FMR also has statements of beneficial ownership on GM and Chrysler claiming all the AIFP bail out money.