A Mind is a Terrible Thing

When people want to know why I’m down on the Obama Administration, it’s because stuff like this is just part of a pattern — whatever they promised, we get the opposite and a whole lot of happy talk about how we liberal lefties should just shut up already.

FDL Action » White House ‘Official’ Bad Mouths Labor Leader For Expecting Obama To Keep His Promises
Looking back at Obama’s campaign health care plan, it is shocking how many promises he broke without a fight. Obama promised:

* A new national health exchange open to all Americans
* A new public plan available to all Americans to compete with private insurance
* An employer mandate to provide health insurance
* A minimum medical loss ratio for insurance companies
* To allow people to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe
* To repeal the ban that prevents the government from directly negotiating with drug companies

Note none of these promise are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill. Obama has made no effort to fight for the inclusion of some of these (public option, employer mandate, minimum medical loss ratio) and months ago even made secret deals vowing to actively work to kill drug re-importation and direct drug price negotiation.

During the election Obama actively campaigned against two policies. One was the individual mandate favored by Hillary Clinton (and the health insurance industry) and the other was a tax on employer-provided health insurance which was also supported by John McCain. These two issues are now part of the Baucus bill. Since taking office, Obama has spent dramatically more time and political capital fighting hard to include these two provisions that he opposed than he has spent trying to include top progressive/labor union priorities that he supported, like the public option.

(emphasis mine)  Hey, nobody likes being lied to.

Anthrax detector can spot H1N1 virus | KRQE News 13 New Mexico
A device developed during post-9/11 anthrax scares can quickly and simply detect the H1N1 swine flu virus, according to University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories scientists.

In recent years, UNM scientists have modified the device to instantaneously test for other viruses such as HIV and hepatitis A and B.

This is just one of the many reasons why we need to spend more on science and research.

Orly Taitz Fined $20,000 – Judge Land’s Order
It’s here! Judge Land took his time with this one. For a history of the case, see these previous diaries. He begins by quoting Justice Cardozo:

Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions. [A lawyer is] received into that ancient fellowship for something more than private gain. He [becomes] an officer of the court, and, like the court itself, an instrument or agency to advance the ends of justice

(h/t stef on Daily Kos)

It’s a pretty long post, but well worth the read.  Judge Land’s order is a judicial smack-down of the finest kind.  He methodically, with ample references to established law and legal precedent, exposes to the entire world the embarrassment that is Orly Taitz trying to pretend she knows how to practice law like a big girl.

This is gonna get very expensive for her, and I predict an expedited disbarment from the California Bar Association.  I’m still holding 4:1 odds she’ll lose her license by the end of the year, or 1st quarter next year at the latest.

I’m loving this guy.  The Democratic party had damned well better not give in to the GOP’s and wingers’ hissy fit and blatantly hypocritical bleatings.

Grayson on ‘die quickly’ quip: ‘I apologize to the dead’ | Raw Story
US House Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who introduced a motion condemn Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson for saying that the Republican health care plan amounts to hoping that the sick “die quickly,” said he would withdraw the motion to give Rep. Grayson (D-FL) a chance to apologize.

Well, Grayson has apologized — just not to the Republicans he offended.

“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America,” a defiant Grayson said on the House floor Wednesday.

The “holocaust” Grayson was referring to was the 44,000 Americans that a recent study says die each year because of inadequate access to health care. The representative cited the Harvard study (PDF) in what appeared at first to be an apology, but quickly turned into a retort.

The number of dead “is 10 times more than the number of Americans who have died in Iraq and who died in 9/11,” Grayson said. “But that was just once. This is every single year. That’s right. Every single year.”

(h/t RawStory)

A worthy cause:  “Friend a Gorilla“.

They’ve only just launched the site, so there are some holes yet in it, but it’s a great idea: For just $1 each, individuals can “friend” (as in Facebook or Twitter) an actual individual mountain gorilla in Uganda.  There are also corporate sponsorships available, or one can donate directly to the gorilla preservation trust funds.

I have five gorilla friends now.

How much government control in cybercrisis? – Security- msnbc.com
There’s no kill switch for the Internet, no secret on-off button in an Oval Office drawer.Yet when a Senate committee was exploring ways to secure computer networks, a provision to give the president the power to shut down Internet traffic to compromised Web sites in an emergency set off alarms.

Hey, I know — let’s call this system “Skynet”.  And automate the hell out of it, so it can react on its own in the case of some global crisis.  Give it neural-style networking and a learning, adaptive architecture, so it can become smarter and smarter over time.

What could possibly go wrong?

No health coverage tied to 45,000 deaths a year – Health care- msnbc.com
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

Think about that: Every 12 minutes, someone is dying because they do not have medical coverage.

Every.  Twelve.  Minutes.

Still think America has the #1 healthcare system there ever was?

Every 12 minutes that goes by with a congressman/woman saying “we need more time to work on this reform thing” — they are indirectly consigning another American citizen to death.  It’s sickening.

The Brunswick News – Home Page
“Every individual has the right to choose their own doctor and that’s why I’m opposed to universal health care,” (Senator Saxby) Chambliss said. “There will come a point where the right to choose your own doctor will be made by the government and not the individual, and that is fundamentally wrong.”

Apparently Senator Chambliss has never heard of Preferred Provider Networks, HMOs, PPOs or those dreaded words “out of network.”

He still has this quaint notion that insurance companies don’t already tell people which doctors they can and can’t see.

Cheney Offers Sharp Defense of C.I.A. Interrogation Tactics – NYTimes.com
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday sharply criticized the Obama administration’s decision to investigate the abuse of prisoners held by the Central Intelligence Agency as he delivered a forceful defense of the full range of interrogation techniques used by intelligence officers.

Never mind the fact that what Cheney’s defending — torture — is illegal, felonious, a war crime, and a moral abomination.

I don’t care what the excuse is.  The deliberate inflicting of torture on someone is evil — and worst of all are those who justify and order it.

I would not want that man’s karma, nor wish it upon anyone else.

Via McClatchey today:

Cheney, who strongly opposes the Obama administration’s new probe into alleged detainee abuse, was asked in the Fox News interview whether he was “OK” with interrogations that went beyond Justice’s specific legal authorization.

“I am,” the former vice president replied.

“My sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks,” he said. “It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.”

“Enhanced interrogation techniques” refers to waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and nine other tactics — some of which are considered torture.

Which, incidentally, is a felony crime under U.S. law and signed treaties.  Numerous laws and treaties.

Torturing someone to death, as happened on many occasions to prisoners in U.S. custody, is a crime that can earn the federal death penalty.

Cheney also said that Obama, who declared at the beginning of his term that he wanted to avoid revisiting Bush-era policies, should’ve been more involved with Holder’s decision. The White House has said the probe, a preliminary review, was properly an independent decision made by Holder.

“The president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land,” Cheney said. “I think he’s trying to duck the responsibility for what’s going on here. And I think it’s wrong.”

Funny… it used to be George W. Bush’s job to be the chief law enforcement officer in the land, and his administration seemed to spend all of its time writing memos exempting themselves from any responsibility to uphold or adhere to the very laws they were charged to enforce.

Cheney is an evil, evil man.