From the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 -- October 2008:
Nearly half (47%) of the public reports someone in their family skipping pills, postponing or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. For example, just over one-third say they or a family member put off or postponed needed care and three in ten say they skipped a recommended test or treatment – increases of seven percentage points from last April’s tracking poll which asks the same question...
"I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."
President George W. Bush
Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2008
Merry Christmas to everyone.
A retention pond wall collapsed early Monday morning at a power plant run by the nation's largest public utility, releasing a frigid mix of water and ash that flooded as many as 10 homes and put hundreds of acres of rural land under water.
The 40-acre pond was used by the Tennessee Valley Authority to hold a slurry of ash generated by the coal-burning Kingston Steam Plant in Harriman, about 50 miles west of Knoxville, said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. An earthen wall gave way just before 1 a.m., flooding the road and railroad tracks leading to the plant, which is located in a mostly rural area.
Authorities said no one was seriously injured or needed to be taken to the hospital.
Emergency workers helped people out of two partially collapsed homes and used four-wheel drive vehicles to check other homes where people couldn't drive out, said Roane County Rescue Squad spokesman Brian Grief.
Officials originally said 15 homes were flooded, but Grief said the number is about 8 to 10.
He said rescue workers had begun evacuating a subdivision of about five houses...
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945
Senate Guru points out on his web site that with the departures of Barack Obama and now Ken Salazar from the Senate, there will soon be more Kennedys in the Senate than Hispanics or African Americans.
I hope everyone has a safe, fun, and happy holiday season.
The Posse Comitatus act of 1878, described in Wikipedia:
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law () passed on June 16, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force and State national Guard forces (when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police or peace officer powers that maintain "law and order" on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.
The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.
Okay, they say they were there for "training" purposes on setting up roadblocks. C'mon they could come up with something better than that couldn't they? Is this the first step in making the public climatized to military road blocks within our borders? I don't know but the "training purposes" meme just doesn't work for me. I would think / hope that even conservative republicans would be a bit concerned about this.
The California Highway Patrol in the
High Desert and the Twentynine Palms Marine Base are receiving dozens
of calls complaining about a controversial DUI checkpoint. Military
Police joined the CHP for a recent checkpoint in Yucca Valley. The
Friday night checkpoint was in front of the Yucca Valley Home Depot on
Highway 62. What has High Desert residents confused is that they are
not used to military police so far from the Marine Base. From the local radio to internet blogs, residents were concerned the Military Police presence violated federal law. The
original California Highway Patrol news release mentioned the military
presence. One released shortly later doesn't mention the military,
arising community suspicion of a cover-up. Congress passed the
Posse Comitatus Act more than a hundred years ago forbidding the
military from enforcing civilian law such as traffic stops. Marine
Lt. Thomas Beck tells News Channel 3 the Military Police were not
arresting people. They were just watching the checkpoint to see how
they should do it on base...
In April of 2008, President Bush signed into law S.1858 which allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. This was to be implemented within 6 months meaning that this collection is now being carried out. Congressman Ron Paul states that this bill is the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database.
S.1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is justified as a "national contingency plan" in that it represents preparation for any sort of public health emergency. The bill states that the federal government should "continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening" and "maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening... ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly". Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests.
Read the full bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xp...Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care warns that this new law represents the beginning of nationwide genetic testing. Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:
• Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
• Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
• Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
• Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study "secondary conditions" of individuals and their families.
• Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.Read her entire analysis of the implications of this bill here: http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NB...
Brase states that under this bill, "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research." All 50 states are now routinely providing results of genetic screenings to the Department of Homeland Security and this bill will establish the legality of that practice plus include DNA.
Ron Paul has also vigorously argued against this bill making the following comments before the US House of Representatives:
"I cannot support legislation...that exceeds the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. I must oppose it."
"S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker, the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. …"
"Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children, in fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a 'public health' disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of 'emergency."
