Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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Tuesday, Jun. 01, 2004The Duplicity that is Dubya
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
President Bush spent the Memorial Day weekend thanking the nation's veterans for their service, saying "we acknowledge the debt [we owe them] by showing our respect and gratitude." [1] Yet, his rhetoric came just hours after the Bush Administration announced new plans to slash veterans health care funding if it returns to power in 2005.
Late last week, the Administration released a memo detailing a plan to cut $1 billion from the Veterans Administration [2] in the first budget of its second term. The cut would come even after the White House has tried to close veterans hospitals throughout the country, [3] and has proposed veterans health care budgets that have been criticized by veterans groups and the President's own Veterans Affairs secretary. [4] It also comes after the president decided to cut off 164,000 veterans from their existing prescription drug coverage, [5] and threatened to veto [6] any bill that would allow veterans to receive both the military pension they were promised, and any disability compensation to which they are entitled.
Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion.
Sources:
1. Presidential Weekly Radio Address Speech, WhiteHouse.gov, 05/29/04
2. "Democrats rip Bush's outline for cuts in domestic programs," Palm Beach Post, 5/28/04
3. "VA Seeks Major Hospital Overhaul," CBS News, 8/05/03
4. "President Bush's Veterans' Budget Called Woefully Inadequate and Inexcusable," Senate Democratic Policy Committee, 2/12/04
5. "VA Cuts Some Veterans' Access to Health Care," Washington Post, 1/17/03
6. "Bush Threatens Veto of Defense Bill," Washington Post, 10/7/02, p.A02.
~~~
BUSH CUTS CHILDREN'S HEALTH WHILE REWARDING HMO'S
During today's trip to Tennessee [1], President Bush will hold a photo-op at a children's hospital and then attend a $2,000-per-person fundraiser at the home of a top health insurance executive [2]. The two events provide a perfect display of how the President has misled America on health care policy: at the same time that he has tried to slash funding for children's hospitals, his budget lavishes billions of dollars on health insurance companies who fund his campaign.
During today's first event, the President is expected to praise children's hospitals. However, his budget this year proposes to freeze funding for grants to these hospitals, preventing their federal grants from keeping pace with inflation [3]. He also proposes a $94 million cut to the Community Access Program [4] - effectively eliminating another program that provides grants to children's hospitals in need. And he is trying to slash $158 million (68%) from training grants for specialties that include pediatrics [5]. These efforts are consistent with his past policies: last year, the President proposed cutting $86 million (30%) from grants to children's hospitals [6]. And in 2002, he proposed to cut $35 million (14%) from grants for children's hospitals to train pediatricians [7].
After his photo-op at the children's hospital, the President will attend a fundraiser at the home of Clay Jackson [8], an executive [9] at a health insurance company called BB&T [10]. Unlike the children's hospitals whose budgets have been cut, insurance executives like Jackson have a lot to thank the President for. For instance, the President crafted a Medicare bill that gives health insurance companies a new $130 billion subsidy [11], while forcing many seniors off traditional Medicare and into HMOs [12]. The President has also done nothing to address the skyrocketing costs of health care, sitting by last year as HMOs raised premiums by 13% [13] and raked in an extra $6.7 billion from Americans [14].
Sources:
1. "Bush to pump health care, campaign coffers with Nashville visit", WATE.com, 05/27/2004
2. "Bush expected in Nashville for Republican fund-raiser", Nashville City Paper, 05/11/2004
3. AAMC.org, 02/06/2004
4. House Budget Committee
5. House Budget Committee
6. Democratic Policy Committee, 05/20/2004
7. Children's Defense Fund Action Council
8. OpenSecrets.Org
9. "BB&T to Acquire Nashville-Based Agency", Insurance Journal, 08/04/2003
10. BB&T
11. F.A.I.R. Medicare
12. Public Citizen, 02/13/2003
13. "Health costs skyrocket", CNN Money, 09/22/2003
14. "HMO profits jumped 52%", CBS Marketwatch, 05/04/2004
Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion.
~~~
Bush Salmon Plan Seen as Ruse to Cripple Endangered Species Act
Late last month the Bush Administration announced that it would begin counting hatchery fish as well as wild when considering Pacific salmon for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
With only an estimated one in five west coast salmon now spawned in the wild, this threatened to end to federal protections for wild salmon-as well as safeguards for critical inland habitat from logging, mining, development and agriculture. Early reports suggested that 15 salmon stocks would lose federal protection. [1]
The administration claimed the revision was inevitable, thanks to a 2001 federal court ruling that the government had erred in listing coastal coho salmon as endangered based solely on the number of wild fish, without counting hatchery fish. This ruling contradicted 15 years of Pacific Northwest salmon recovery efforts. It was not appealed by the administration. The final policy is expected early next month, when it will be published in the Federal Register and opened for public comment. [2]
Public and scientific outcry greeted the new policy. "Hatchery fish and wild fish are very different in behavior and genetic variability," says Jeff Miller, Bay Area Wildlands Coordinator of the Center for Biological Diversity. "No credible scientist would support the idea of counting large numbers of hatchery fish -- which are produced artificially in concrete rearing tanks, and then dumped in the estuaries, bays and lower rivers -- when assessing the status of wild fish stocks."
"In crowded hatchery conditions hatchery fish spread diseases to wild fish, and also compete with wild fish for scarce resources and spawning habitat," Miller told BushGreenwatch. "Hatchery fish, which are mass-produced and have low genetic variability, lower the ability of wild fish runs to adapt to environmental change."
The administration backpedaled in mid-May, declaring strong support for preserving wild salmon stocks. "After re-evaluating the listing of 26 species of salmon and steelhead, and considering the science on hatcheries, we have preliminarily determined to propose relisting at least 25 of the 26 species, with evaluation of the remaining species still underway," a NOAA administrator wrote to Northwest representatives and senators on May 14. [3]
Relieved but wary, conservationists, foresee continued struggle. "The general trend of the Bush Administration--inviting challenges to endangered species listings, and then putting up no defense, or not vigorously defending them so that they're struck down--is ongoing," said Miller, noting that conservationists are having to go to court instead of working on restoration. "We're fighting to keep species listed that desperately need these protections. And there's a huge backlog of other species that need to get on the list."
Brian Barr, Wildlands Restoration Program Officer for the World Wildlife Fund's Klamath-Siskiyou Program, says the proposed policy could undercut critical habitat protections. "Hatcheries are operated as domestication processes. We could have captive breeding programs relied on very heavily to improve our odds of 'recovering' a vast array of other species that are currently listed under the Endangered Species Act," says Barr.
The Bush Administration ignored its own panel of outside experts when it crafted the new hatcheries policy. "Six of the world's leading experts on salmon ecology complained [in March] in the journal Science that fish produced in hatcheries cannot be counted on to save wild salmon," reported the Washington Post. "The scientists had been asked by the federal government to comment on its salmon-recovery program, but said they were later told that some of their conclusions about hatchery fish were inappropriate for official government reports." [4]
Bush appointee Mark C. Rutzick, a former timber industry lawyer, is considered a primary architect of the policy. [5]
"We're fighting a rear-guard action to keep [endangered species] from being taken off the list," says Jeff Miller. "It's like the Bush Administration is running through a hospital's critical trauma unit, pulling everyone's I.V. drips. These species are really in the emergency unit, and they're trying to pull them off life support."
SOURCES:
[1] "Hatchery Salmon Bombshell," Tidepool, Apr. 30, 2004.
[2] "Hatchery Salmon to Count As Wildlife," The Washington Post, Apr. 29, 2004.
[3] "Letter from NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher Concerning Proposals to Renew Listings of Northwest Salmon and Proposed Hatchery Policy," May 13, 2004.
[4] The Washington Post, op. cit.
[5] "Shift on Salmon Reignites Fight on Species Law," The New York Times, May 9, 2004.
~~~
I know full well that Republicans hardly have the market cornered when it comes to lies, but has there EVER been a more dulpicitous administration?
It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a douchbag is our best option.
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