Not Another Rush Job

The President wants Congress to deliver a Health Care Bill by the August recess, a task marginally smaller than establishing world peace. Congressional leaders are telling the President that the health care bill will not happen on the President's time line. I'm sure this is going to upset the President. I'm not upset. The last thing we need right now is another rush job.

The stimulus bill was a rush job. The 1000+ pages of legislation signing us up for a $800 billion expenditure was rushed through at the President's urging despite promises to let the people review the bill for 5 days. Instead, the bill was signed two days after it landed on the President's desk. To make matters worse, there were provisions in the bill which would have financially hurt the States in the long run. These provisions could have been identified and stripped given the proper time to review a 1000+ page bill. I don't know about you, but I could not read 1000+ pages of pending legislation in less than two days.

So back to the health care bill. What makes the President think that rushing to a health care bill is the right answer? We already spend $1 out of every $6 of the GDP on health care in this nation. If we don't get this bill mostly right, the monumental mistake is going to crush the economy. I'm certainly not in a rush to make that mistake.

Measure twice, cut once, as my Dad used to say.

The Right Message After All of These Years

President Obama gave a wonderful speach as the keynote speaker at the 100th anniversary celebration of the NAACP. The President's message was one of personal responsibility and motivation. He encouraged minorities to pursue higher education and achievement irregardless of their current situation or obstacles.

The President's outlook is refreshing and the message to the NAACP is clear. No more playing the victim card. Playing the victim card has not advanced the cause of any minority in this country. Unfortunately, past leaders of the NAACP were more keen on keeping their constituents 'needy' than giving them lofty goals, a vision, and a path forward.

I give the President a standing ovation for his speech last night. He displayed the courage to demand personal responsibility of his own people. Similar statemments by other Black leaders, such as the comedian Bill Cosby, have caused them to come under criticism by the Black community. Had work, education and success are powerful tools to combat discrimination. The power is there for any willing to grab those tools and make them work.

Swine Flu versus the Everday Flu

A few weeks ago, the world was perched on the pandemic precipice with a crumbling ledge beneath our feet. Well, maybe not really. But the media sure portrayed the situation like it was.

The swine flu, excuse me, H1N1 virus, turned out to be a bust. Why? Maybe it busted because the WHO and CDC moved quickly to distribute antivirals and methods to test for the exact strain of H1N1. Those quick actions helped to isolate victims and curtail the spread of the flu.

Some are asking "what's the big deal?" Less than 300 people worldwide died from H1N1 and almost 500,000 people a year die from seasonal flu. Why do we care so much about H1N1?

Well, seasonal flu hurts elderly and young children the most. The majority of deaths from seasonal flu are occur with the elderly. (Trust me, I did the little "r" research and these facts are the god's honest truth) The flu is a gateway sickness that cascades into something worse like pneumonia, but the deaths are attributed to flu.

H1N1 was deadliest to people age 21-50 and NOT the elderly. H1N1 was most virulent against the working age people. Why? Doctors think because these people don't take the time to get fully better before working or try to work through the sickness. Remember the advice when pigs were making us sick, "If you're sick, don't go to work. Stay home and get better." That is advice that will save your life. You can find another job later, the idiot who doesn't follow this advice won't be coming back to his job anyway.

Bringing Down the (Speaker of the) House

The battle has been joined.

Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in an afternoon press conference today accused the CIA of intentional misleading Congress about the true nature of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

In previous statements, the Speaker claimed to have NOT received classified briefings by the CIA during 2002 and 2003 on the methods CIA operatives were using to gather intelligence from Al Qaeda operatives and Taliban militants. During this period, Nancy Pelosi was the minority chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

A few weeks ago, J. Porter Goss, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee during Nancy Pelosi's tenure on the same committee publicly commented on Rep. Pelosi's attendence at these same classified briefing. Mr. Goss clearly remembered Nancy's presence and her strong support for the CIA's activities.

Woops, I guess Mr. Goss filled in her "memory gaps."

So now the CIA has been unjustly accused of a dastardly deed, intentionally misleading members on Congress with untruthful briefings. By some accounts, Rep. Pelosi attended nearly 40 briefings by the CIA on the topic of interrogation techniques. (if her memory is so bad, maybe its time for her to step down and live in a retirement village???) I don't really understand how you forget about 40 or so briefings.

Today, Director Panetta released a soft statement in rebuttal to the Speaker's unfounded accusation. One way to interpret this soft statement is to leave her an out, a way for her to back away from her accusations and let the issue drop.

I don't think this is the last we'll hear of this issue. Everytime the Democrats leading Congress push to investigate Bush administration officials on the interrogation issue, the subject of these briefings is going to rise again.

I wonder who its easier to fire in Washington, the Speaker of the House (an elected official) or long-term CIA bureaucrats who successfully survive several generations of appointed officials at the CIA? My money is on the bureaucrats sticking around. Good luck, Madame Speaker.

The Esteemed Fourth Estate

Yesterday, the main stream media (MSM) grabbed a story in its jaws and ran like crazy until the Director of the EPA could get it under control. The headlines ran along the lines of "OMB Disagrees with EPA findings on Greenhouse Gases."

The truth, as the OMB later offered, was something different.

So why did the MSM run so hard and so fast with this story line? Isn't the MSM predominantly from the far left and shouldn't they be behind the Obama administration and not against it? The answer is, money.

The fourth estate is a business. That business seeks to exploit the truth for stories that highlight controversy, contradiction, conflict and conspiracy. When you read, listen or watch MSM news stories, think of those stories in the light of the four c's. It will blow your mind.

There is more spin in the MSM than in a child's top. The target of the story is irrelevant. The goal of a story is too hook the reader with controversy, contradiction, conflict or conspiracy and gain your viewer/reader/listenership.

The OMB Did Not Get the Memo

Today, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a 9 page report online that called into question the Environmental Protection Agency's analysis of the potential danger 6 greenhouse gases posed to people. In a bold statement, OMB reportedly called into question the science behind the EPA's judgments on the damages caused by greenhouse gases.

This document was pulled and a rebuttal from the Director of the OMB has been posted on the White House website. One can't find the original OMB document that caused the media stir today. That must be because the offending document has been pulled for "review" and will be re-issued with the offending statements removed.

I guess OMB did not get the memo that the discussion on global warming or climate change has been concluded. Here's a brief summary of the memo "the data on global warming is beyond refuting" (the President says as he waves his hand enacting the famous Jedi mind trick).

Sure, I'll believe that one. I wonder how many more days Rahm Emmanuel is going to have a job. Isn't he the one who should be controlling the 'message' and making sure that all of the government agencies are pushing a coordinated message?

GITMO Detainees May Be Held in the U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/us/politics/01gitmo.html?hp

SecDef Robert Gates asked for $50 million to build a detention facility to hold the estimated 50-100 really, really bad people [we can't call them terrorists any more] that we won't turn over to another country.

Acutally, I'm all for releasing every single detainee. And I mean free to go. Escort them to the airline gate, give them a first class ticket and $100 and load them on the plane in their orange jump suits. Once they land in their home countries they are not our problem anymore. I don't think they will be readily able to join with their terrorist brothers because the "bad people" might suspect that we've put GPS tracking chips up their orifices. Essentially, these guys are ruined.

Just for fun, we should place each one of these guys under general anesthesia for a quick 'procedure' making them think that they've been bugged. I love mind-fucking with people!

And if we encounter these guys on the battlefield again, our boys should just put a $0.38 bullet between their ears and save us the trouble of feeding them in perpetuity.