GITMO detainees will be offered Swine flu vaccinations
The Pentagon is going to start offering the GITMO detainees Swine flu shots. The GITMO detainees have been catagorized as a higher risk group and so the vaccination will be made available to them. I am not really sure how they can be a higher risk group if they are detained from the outside world without contact except from the guards on duty (who are required to be vaccinated). It would seem to me that their risk of exposure would be lesser than the risk of ordinary American citizens who are still not able to find the vaccination if they want it.
The news that the United States is going to ship doses of the vaccination overseas before all Americans are able to get the flu shot is troubling enough; I just hope that the GITMO detainees will have to wait in line until all wanting Americans have gotten the shot. But by classifying the detainees as a high risk group it sounds like they will be among the first to receive the shots.
Obama administration throws out wiretap lawsuit
Much was made of President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping for the last several years. As a candidate President Obama lampooned the Bush administration for its warrantless wiretapping only to continue the practice once he became president. This is just one of many Bush policies in the war on terror that Obama spoke out against as a candidate yet continued as president.
Today Eric Holder threw out a lawsuit that was filed against warrantless wiretapping, proving once and for all that the Obama administration is perfectly willing to continue a Bush policy that he displayed so much disdain towards during the campaign.
Attorney General Eric Holder says a lawsuit in San Francisco over warrantless wiretapping threatens to expose ongoing intelligence work and must be thrown out.
Even as he continues Bush’s warrantless wiretapping he looks to distance himself from the former president by claiming that he is continuing Bush’s policies using a different means.
In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration’s position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently
Suddenly it appears that state secrets have some validity, this is contrary to the position that Obama held during the campaign.
Holder said that in the current case, that review process convinced him “there is no way for this case to move forward without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence activities that we rely upon to protect the safety of the American people
This is the same argument that the Bush administration had been making all along. This adminstration can try to paint this picture any way they like but the bottom line is that this administration is continuing the Bush administration’s policy of warrantless wiretaps and they are defending this position on the same grounds that President Bush defended it.
Don’t get me wrong, I support this decision, I just find it strange that the Obama administration is continuing and defending a policy that candidate Obama so strongly opposed. This is an admission that the Bush administration was right on this issue all along.
The only difference here is that the Obama adminstration supplied the judge with the specifics on why this lawsuit was a threat to national security while the Bush administration would not supply specifics; the result, however, is the same. The Obama administration is using warrantless wiretaps and defending their use.
The Obama administration has essentially adopted the position of the Bush administration in these cases, even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration’s abuse of the state secrets privilege
That statement sums up the difference between candidate Obama and President Obama perfectly.
Maxine Waters to be investigated by Ethics Committee
California Democrat Maxine Waters is going to be investigated by the House Ethics Panel for a possible violation. As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and as chairman of its subcommittee. Maxine Waters has been working hard to solve, or at least ease, the banking crisis.Perhaps she has been working just a little too hard. It seems that she may have arranged for a meeting between a small bank, OneUnited Bank, and the Treasury Department and used her influence to sway the department to send government aid to the bank.
No problem, after all we needed to help the small banks survive the crisis, right? Not so fast. Maxine Waters just happened to forget to mention to the Treasury Department that her husband was a former board member and currently has $250,ooo in stocks in that bank.
She is now being investigated to see if she unethically used her power to directly benefit herself and her husband. As the wife of a stockholder in a bank that received government aide, she arranged for a meeting to help provide that aid, forgot to tell anyone that her husband was a stockholder, and we are supposed to believe that nothing unethical happened here. I don’t think so. There are too many coincidences.
She is innocent until proven guilty so she should be allowed to remain a California Representative, but she can not serve on the House Financial Services Committee while this investigation is ongoing. She needs to step down from that committee until the investigation is over.
Joe Lieberman will stump for some Republicans in 2010
The fissure between Joe Lieberman and the Democrat party that began over his support for the surge and continued into his re-election campaign and endorsement of John McCain appears to be widening.
Joe Lieberman is saying that he will support some Republican candidates when the 2010 elections roll around. This has to infuriate Democrats who wanted to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee but relented after Lieberman promised to be a loyal, water carrying Democrat.
This announcement could cost him his chairmanship but he has obviously put what he feels is best for the country ahead of his personal aspirations. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats who hailed Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrat party react to this news.
Democrats welcomed Arlen Specter with open arms and hailed him as a hero for switching parties and doing what he thought was right. This is no different; Joe Lieberman is also doing what he thinks is right. But Democrats will predictably call him a traitor to the party.
It will be interesting to watch those very same Democrats who trumpeted Arlen Specter as courageous for making a tough decision based on ideology make the argument that Joe Lieberman is not doing the same. The only difference between the actions of these two men are which party is hurt and which party is helped by Lieberman’s announcement.
Sebelius admits that Swine Flu vaccines will be sent overseas before all Americans are immunized– Part 2
We have been told for about a year now that a Swine flu outbreak could be a serious issue and that the possibility for a worldwide pandemic exists. We have been told this by the United Nations, health organizations, doctors, and Homeland Security.
Taking all of the above at their word that the Swine flu really does represent a possible real threat to become a pandemic, and that this is not just a contrived crisis being used by the government to gain support for healthcare reform legislation, we have to ask ourselves what the government has been doing to protect us from this threat. After all, President Obama has declared a state of emergency over the Swine flu.
There is a serious Swine flu vaccine shortage in this country and given the amount of time that we have had to prepare for this threat one has to wonder why there is not enough of the vaccine available to those groups which are most at risk. So far the only government response has been to preach to the American people the virtues of well established hygienic procedures. Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, Homeland Security Director, Janet Napolitano, and the president himself have told us to sneeze into our sleeves, wash our hands, and to stay home from school or work if we are sick. No shit, we have known these precautions for years, we do not need high level government officials to tell us this. What we need is for high level government officials to ensure that the Swine flu vaccination is made available to those at risk. They have failed.
Much was made about the possible bird flu pandemic during the 2004 election, President Bush was run through the ringer because America was not ready for the impending pandemic. That crisis never came to pass. But here we have another pandemic that the government has warned us about and President Obama has remained blameless about his incompetence to protect the American people from the impending doom that his administration has said is coming.
In light of the Swine flu crisis we would hope that the government would distribute the vaccine to the states in a timely manner but last week we learned that the United States will begin to divert 10% of the vaccine to foreign nations before all Americans who are in the stated risk groups have had the vaccine made available to them.
President Obama tried to downplay this revelation as a misunderstanding, or poor communication, but today we have learned that Kathleen is still considering sending 10% of the vaccine overseas before all at risk Americans have received their vaccination.
She admits that the government knew all along that there would be a Swine flu vaccine shortage but that the United States entered into an agreement anyway to give away vaccines to foreign countries, and she is still considering doing just that.
We knew from the outset–everybody knew from the outset–we would not have enough to immunize the 150 million Americans who fit into those five priority groups
Well, there is an 11-country partnership, which has made a commitment to make vaccines available to developing nations
She continued by saying that as more vaccine becomes available the government would make the determination as to when the donations to foreign countries would begin. I have a radical idea, we can start the donations after to foreign countries all of the Americans who want the vaccine have received the vaccine.
If this is truly a crisis that the American people need to be worried about, and it is the United States government that has made the American people frenzied about the Swine flu, than the United States government has the obligation to make sure that no vaccinations are diverted overseas while Americans wait in line.
The government’s lackadaisical response to this crisis in which they had ample time to prepare makes you wonder if this was just another trumped up crisis designed to keep the American people in a constant state of panic.
President Obama has increased the use of predator drones in the middle east in order to attack suspected terrorists. The leftists in the government have portrayed this as Obama’s smarter strategy for combatting terrorism, they have used this to separate Obama’s war strategy from Bush’s war strategy. There is only one problem with Obama’s predator drone strategy– according to the United Nations the predator drone attacks may violate international law.
I guess that this makes President Obama a war criminal, after all he is violating international humanitarian and human rights law. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, how can this be? Certainly if these accusations were made against President Bush the left would feign outrage and concern over his lack of caring for international law.
But seriously, if I were President Obama I know what I would say to the United Nations– go pound sand. I am not the president however so it will be interesting to see how Obama reacts to the news that he may be violating humanitarian and human rights law. The president should come out in defiance of the United Nations but knowing Obama’s love of this American hating organization I doubt that will be the case.
Will Obama put the will of the United Nations ahead of the protection of the people? That remains to be seen. Will he call off the predator drones because the United Nations doesn’t approve of the attacks? I certainly hope not. When we have these terrorists in our sights we cannot let them go, we need to use whatever means necessary to take these men out. Just ask President Clinton how it worked out when he refused to kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance.
Hopefully President Obama will keep up the increased predator drone attacks, hopefully he will not take his eye off of the goal in an effort to appease the United Nations. He would do well to remember that he is president of the United States but we have already seen that he is all too willing to work with the United Nations. I hope that he draws a line in the sand on this issue. I just don’t trust that he will.
I hope that his loyalty lies with the United States and not with the United Nations. After all, he has been flying across the globe apologizing for America, calling us arrogant, and promising to restore our standing in the world, this news certainly can’t help the image that he wants to portray.
It now looks as though the United States House has finalized, or are about to, finalize, the healthcare reform bill and are set to unveil it shortly.
House Democrats reached agreement Wednesday on key elements of a health care bill that would vastly alter America’s medical landscape, requiring virtually universal sign-ups and establishing a new government-run insurance option for millions.
The official announcement could come as early as tomorrow morning.
The rollout would cap months of arduous negotiations to bridge differences between liberal and moderate Democrats and blend health care overhaul bills passed by three separate committees over the summer
If there have been concessions made that bridge the gap between the liberal members of the House and moderate to conservative Democrats this article certainly doesn’t make it appear so. According to the article Americans will be mandated to buy healthcare insurance or face fines and the public option, in some form, is still there. So something must have been done to win these votes or Nancy Pelosi would not bring this bill up for a vote. Enough pressure must have been applied and moderate Democrats must have given in to that pressure.
It appears that the last sticking points that still remain are over taxpayer funded abortion and covering illegal aliens. The House hopes to bridge that gap, (read apply even more pressure), later tonight.
Time is running short, the House is not listening to the people. This bill is going to move forward regardless of what the majority of Americans want. This bill still has a long way to go before it becomes law and if this report is true than it is up to the senate, which seems even more divided, to put an end to this legislation.
It looks like the moderate and conservative Democrats in the House have failed us, it may be time to turn our attention to the senate debate. But we must not let up and we must continue to pressure our representatives until a vote is actually taken. We can not just accept the vote as a foregone conclusion. There is still time to stop this bill but we must remain vigilant.
President Obama loses two climate change battles
Today President Obama lost two battles in his effort to save the world from the trumped up climate change crisis and it was Democrats who dealt him the loses.
Democrats were forced to hand over concessions on legislation that would have allowed the EPA to regulate the dairy and hog industry as well as the several Great Lakes steamships that would have been required to reduce their carbon footprints.
The Environmental Protection Agency would be effectively barred from mandating the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions generated by large-scale cattle, dairy and hog producers. In addition, 13 Great Lakes cargo steamships won a last-minute exemption from a proposed rule to require lower-sulfur fuel to reduce harmful emissions.
While these concessions are only for one year, it could show the beginning of a fissure within the Democrat party as leadership tries to balance their climate change agenda with the faltering economy.
It is interesting to note that this is an admission that climate change legislation will be a drain on the overall economy regardless of the administration’s spin that climate change legislation will open up all sorts of new “green” job opportunities. When push came to shove the Democrats did not dare to enact legislation that would so obviously adversely effect the ability of their constituents to earn a living. This should be a lesson to us all about what kind of effect climate change legislation will have on the economy.
Nancy Pelosi takes the public option off the table….. sort of
In an effort to disguise government controlled healthcare the Democrats coined the phrase “public option.” This was done because they thought that it sounded better than the alternative and it was done to try to fool the American people about what a “public option” was. It fooled nobody, everybody understood that the “public option” was government run healthcare. The majority of Americans oppose government run healthcare and they let their representatives know this loud and clear over the last legislative recess.
United States representatives know that the people as a whole do not approve of the “public option” and being the voice of the people and the arm of the government that is supposed to be the closest to the people they know that the “public option” must go if they truly want to represent the people.
And now even Nancy Pelosi has resigned herself to the fact that the “public option” is off the table….. sort of. Instead of listening to the will of the people and dropping the “public option” altogether, Nancy Pelosi has decided that it is time to drop the term “public option.” The “public option” will still be on the table, it just won’t be called the “public option” anymore if she has her way.
In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as “the consumer option.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi’s side and used the term “competitive option.”
The “public option” is now being replaced with a term that the Democrats hope sounds more friendly; either the “consumer option” or the “competitive option” but the fact remains that the option is still the same– it is government run healthcare and this is still the option that the American people oppose.
Instead of abiding by the will of the people– which is her job description– she is attempting to put a better face on a bad idea. She, and all the others who are trying to force this on the American people, thinks that she knows what is best for the American people and she does not give a damn whether the American people want the option or not.
The Democrats tried to put one over on the American people when the refered to the “public option” and now that that didn’t work they are trying to fool the American people by changing the terminology once again. Instead of listening to what the American people want she is playing a game of semantics and hoping that either the American people aren’t paying attention or are too stupid to see the game that she is playing. This is insulting to me and it should be insulting to the vast majority of the American people.
While the usual RINOs; McCain, Snowe, and Collins, sit on the fence about healthcare reform and the public option it looks as though we can look towards at least one Senate Democrat, Joe Lieberman, to filibuster any healthcare reform bill that includes a public option. Before you jump on me for calling Lieberman a Democrat, I know that technically Joe Lieberman is an independent but he caucuses with the Democrats and for most intents and purposes he is a Democrat.
We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now
He is threatening to join the Republicans and vote against any healthcare plan that includes the public option.
can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company,” Lieberman added. “It’s just asking for trouble – in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people who have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid
This is bad news for Harry Reid and the Democrats who are still trying to muster the required 60 votes. With a few exceptions the Republicans are united against this bill, the key for this bill’s passage lays with the Democrats. They can not afford to have defections and Joe Lieberman’s defection has to be troubling to Harry Reid.
Without the votes of Joe Lieberman and Robert Byrd (who is most likely too sick to vote) the Democrats only have 58 votes if no other Democrat defects.
I expect that at least two of the three aforementioned RINOs will vote in favor of healthcare reform, meaning the Democrats can not lose another vote. It is going to be a close call whether this bill passes or not, there have already been many twists and turns in the debate and I expect more to come.
