Opinions on health care

Glenn Beck's take:

"We have a right to health care, really? God doesn't give health care. Man provides health care. So how can it be a right. If you are endowed by your Creator with certain unalienable rights, how can a God-given right be health care, unless Jesus comes down and starts to open up a clinic and heal us himself? There cannot be a right to health care, because the rights come to God."

And Pope Benedict's:

Access to adequate medical attention, the pope said in a written message Nov. 18, was one of the "inalienable rights" of man. [...]

The pope lamented the great inequalities in health care around the globe.... Because an individual's health is a "precious asset" to society as well as to himself, governments and other agencies should seek to protect it by "dedicating the equipment, resources and energy so that the greatest number of people can have access."

Don't know the effects of this last opinion.

though I hear some hold his opinion about God to be more authoritative than Beck's.

My home town (almost)

Enjoying a snow day (as am I - canceled class to day and now NO snow, rain, sleet - it will come later this evening)

What's wrong with automobile safety regulation?

Nothing much. Everything is working the way it was supposed to.

The agency and the manufacturers know each other well. Two top officials in Toyota's Washington office, which deals with the NHTSA, are former agency employees.

It is a relationship "built on trust," said Nicole Nason, who was the agency's administrator from 2006 to 2008.

Ah, yes. Trust. Like the banking system. After all, what do the drivers of the cars know.

let's see - 2006-2008. That would be the Bush years. Heckofa job.

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The Minotaur program and accountability

Continuing the mythological meme of that last post (can you find the minotaur on the diagram?) here is a pitch perfect newscast from the Onion on the recently revealed Minotaur program for handling detainees in our war on terror (now officially known as the 'war on whatever'). It manages to skewer both sides of the argument at the same time.

Knowing the Feds are watching over me

.... I sleep so much better. Here's an item from The New York Times:

The Food and Drug Administration, widely criticized for lax inspection of domestic and imported foods, responded to several outbreaks of food-borne illness this year by spending $300,000 to hire a public relations agency to "create and foster a lasting positive image" for the FDA.

Well, $300,000 is merely some small change compared to the $85 billion for AIG and the $700,000,000,000 we putting on the table to salvage the economy. But you know, it mounts up.

Detroit gets Federal money

That would be in loan guaranties to the tune of $25 billion. Told ya so. But now at least American car companies can get busy designing those super-duper hybrids and fuel efficient cars that ... uh... the Japanese already have on the market. Oh, well.

The Detroit Free Press reported that it is “the largest federal aid ever offered to the U.S. auto industry.” The loan payments are deferred for five years, so the cost to taxpayers is $7.5 billion, AP reported.

But ...

That amounts to a subsidy for such products as hybrid vehicles and plug-in electric cars.

Weird little cars? Electric ones? OK - I'm for it.

Pony up folks.

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And, of course, the Bush State Department

The same clowns who caused so much emotional and financial pain to 20 some American families by refusing to let them bring their legally adopted children home from Vietnam are malicious bumblers on other fronts too. Remember the let's-all-look-at-passport-files for all three presidential candidates scandal? The one the State Dept and Condi Rice all swore up and down was only the result of some idle curiosity on the part of non-DOS contract employees?

Late breaking news implies this is another example of DOS bafflefarp and bullwhaaa:

The department intends to name a new acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services to replace Ann Barrett who will be stepping aside.

The official declined to offer an explanation as to why Barrett is being replaced, but the timing comes in the midst of a State Department Inspector General investigation into the passport breaches.

Call me suspicious, but why do I think that she was fired? For good reason?


These clowns have to go.

The Dept of State - bumbling clowns

That is, for personal reasons involving the adoption of my grandson, about the mildest thing I can think to call them. After watching how the State Dept carried out a political agenda to screw hapless American citizens, proved absolutely unresponsive until forced to correct the mistake, and then lied about it, and continues to come up with fresh lies about it, the following news story on Talking Points Memo about how Dept of State employees checked into Obama, Clinton, and McCain's passport records makes perfect sense. It certainly sounds familiar: the same suspect behavior, the same secrecy as to who was doing what, the same contempt for transparency, and above all, the start of the same lies to cover their ass.

This comment from a reader of the above linked story seems to have it about right:

-Mismanagement. You’ll recall that the whole US passport program was in disarray at the end of 2007 because the Bush Administration failed to plan for the Canada-Mexico-Carribean travel changes. Waits were stretching on for months. It’s possible these offending contractors may have been brought in to fill the gaps that the Bush Administration allowed to happen.

-Mismanagement II. You’ll also recall that Condi Rice refuses to take even symbolic responsibility for the day-to-day management of State. Blackwater contract? US Embassy in Baghdad? Contractor fraud? Cookie Krnogard? (A Relevant Article from the Post)

-Cover Up. Someone at State knew and didn’t report it up the chain. If a system was installed to track this information, then surely SOMEONE thought it to be important. So where did the info stop, or who suppressed it and why?

I may hold my nose if necessary to vote for anybody the now clinically deranged Democratic Party can put up for President so I can be sure that clowns like this are purged from the ranks of the federal bureaucracy, once the wonder and envy of the world. At least for those of us who knew something about the workings of bureaucracies.

USCIS: the most hated entity in the Federal Gov't

At least at the Clemens' household. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services. They are the clowns preventing our adopted 'grandson' from coming into America. Making our homeland safe from incoming 6 month old infants. It's explained here and here. [We aren't too fond of our Senator, Elizabeth Dole, either. Her office refuses to even respond to requests for help]

But, lest you think that Clemens and Carmen et al are simply malcontents focusing only on their own peculiar experience, here is a helpful editorial from today's Washington Post explaining just how inept and out of control these clowns are. You will notice that they are self funded, btw. That means they are NOT controlled in any way by congress. They can, and do, tell Senators to buzz off if they have the temerity to question CIS judgement. Perhaps that explains why Senator Dole's office refuses to get involved.

Anyway, here is a key quote from the editorial:

IN JULY, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services increased naturalization and visa fees across the board by an average of 66 percent. One fee more than septupled: the application to change from temporary to permanent residency, which went from $180 to $1,370. Immigration advocacy groups and other critics (including us) decried the ghastly expenses immigrants faced. Still, USCIS pledged that the increases would benefit applicants by allowing the agency to reduce processing times: from six months to four months for permanent residency visas, and from seven months to five months for naturalization applications.

Fast-forward to today. As USCIS Director Emilio T. Gonzalez testified at a House hearing last week, permanent residency applications now take about a year to process, and naturalization applications take a whopping 18 months. USCIS attributes this to the surge in applications it received in June and July -- 3 million applications and petitions in the summer of 2007, up from 1.8 million in the summer of 2006 -- and says it had no way of anticipating the increase. But USCIS should have known that raising fees so precipitously would have this effect.

This is typical of how things operate at CIS: price gauge so they can increase their budget without Congressional oversight, blithely make pledges they can't possibly meet, and then stonewall. Twits.


[not that it is the main thrust of my post, but this 'unavoidable' delay in processing citizenship will almost certainly benefit the Republican Party in November]

Fallout from the Immigraton Bill fiasco

Here is an interesting take on the failure of the Immigration Bill - it seems that a great many Hispanic legal immigrants who had no intention to become citizens are now signing up to do so. They are very specific in saying that they want to be able to express their opinions about the opponents of the bill by voting. What a great idea.

The comments from readers are interesting too. Here's part of one:

I’ve had three close relatives become naturalized citizens. My wife, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law(who came over here as a nurse). None are fans of illegal immigrants but also think Immigration, ICE, CIS, whatever you want to call it is both mismanaged and shouldn't have hiked the fees like they did.

As far as I know, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who has ever dealt with any aspect of ICE, CIS, or the diplomatic personnel taking applications for visas have ever had anything good to say about the process, either the way they were treated or the accuracy of the information. This includes the writer of this blog and at least two of its readers (Maira and Cantanima) .

The government can be quite efficient, considerably more efficient than business or even NGOs - when it is politically expedient to be so. Social Security is a good example. Why are our immigration services so dysfunctional?

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The Passport is here!

Maeráed's passport has arrived. Her mom handed it to her at our favorite pizzeria last night. She looked at her picture in it and said "Who's that?"*

It only took 14 weeks, even though the head of the passport office was quoted in The Washington Post as saying the backlog delay is 10-12 weeks.

And, btw, it took a very well connected Republican Senator's staff's direct intervention to get it within those 14 weeks. Must have been a typo in that news report. Or perhaps she misspoke. Or can't remember. There's been a lot of that going around Washington lately.

Or perhaps she was simply misquoted. I'd be the last person on earth to say she deliberately 'misled' us.

*I got the same feeling the last time I had a passport photo taken.


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The Bushies and Competence

The last post was about a problem that while infuriating if you are the one experiencing it is not a matter of life or death. The republic will go on even if my little niece's summer is ruined.

But what about the way we treat our soldiers returning from the Iraq war? Surely, if there were any place the Bush administration might be expected to take pains, it would be with medical care for our veterans.

You already know the answer of course. Congress slashed funds for head wounds and conditions at the Walter Reed Hospital, mere blocks from El Prez' house and the Army's showcase was shown to be... well, let's just say less than optimal. You can check here for my take on another problem last year before the bad news hit. And here. And for some real rage inducing giggles, here.

But what happens when your wounds are not physical and do not show? Then, apparently the government simply cheaps out and denies that you are wounded. Josh Marshall give a synopsis of a new Washington Porst article detailing the VA's conduct. Here's a bit about one of soldiers who helped capture Saddam Hussein:

One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled "severe and chronic." In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was "in need of major help" and that he had provided "more than enough evidence" to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, "have been well documented."

None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. "The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat," his rejection letter stated.

So we send them into combat, and then deny that they have been in combat. And besides, they were probably crazy to start with. We don't need to spend any money on them! Make no mistake about it: it is a question of money. From Day One the admin has tried to fight this war on the cheap. We have been ... "thrifty"... with everything except blood.

This goes beyond incompetency, beyond stupidity. It is criminal.

Bushies and Passports

The Bush administration has come completely apart. As it cracks up people can now take a look inside at all its secret little parts whirling and gigging. The ones that were supposed to be so efficient.

Here is a case in point: getting a passport. Back in 2005 the Federal government decided to increase the demand for passports by mandating tougher documentation for travel in the region, especially hotbeds of terrorism like Mexico and Canada (I hear Winnipeg is particularly dangerous). So - it should require a minimal amount of intelligence and foresight to understand that serious steps would have to be taken to meet the huge increase before the deadline. The Bushies running the passport department assured Congress that they could handle it.

Guess what? Just so you won't think this is just a typical liberal screed, let's look at a post from the National Review. Please read the whole thing to appreciate its venom, but here is a taste of it:

Last Friday, after members of Congress reported that their offices were overwhelmed with complaints about passport delays, DHS and State announced they were postponing implementation of a new requirement that all air travelers between the countries have passports...

... DHS and State haven’t done so well with the first part of the plan. Passports, which usually take between 8 and 10 weeks to process, are now routinely taking 13-15, according to members of Congress whose offices have been deluged with complaints from summer travelers. The departments failed to prepare adequately for an estimated six million new passport applications from air travelers, and the system was overwhelmed.

DHS - that would be those wonderful folks bravely fighting to keep us as safe as New Orleans was, just before it was destroyed. Once again they seem to be having trouble with a slow motion disaster moving directly toward them.

What it means to you and me? Well, my Irish-American friend Maeráed is now 5, which means she needs a new passport so she can go to Ireland next Thursday. Not only have the folks at the passport office not managed to issue one in 15 weeks, calls to our Congress women have gotten nowhere. This leaves her mom with two options: go to Ireland without her daughter, or drive up to Washington to wait in line personally to get an emergency passport.

I used to work for the Federal government. So did Carmen. I had also worked for State and County government, small business, and one large corporation. The Feds were by far the most efficient and dedicated of all the people I worked for or with.

No more. They are just hapless stumble bums left completely clueless. This is a failure of leadership - remember Brownie and Chertoff* during Katrina? Run this level of performance through every part of government: the CIA, DHS, DOJ, DOD, any and all. And you have the Bush administration. A group of feckless clowns playing it for laughs and self-aggrandizement because, hey, they don't believe the Federal government does anything useful anyway! So why worry about it.

All politics is local, and the local politicos, the representatives and senators, are now getting their ears flamed so badly from people like Maeráed's mother that they are beginning to fear for their jobs. When you talk to their offices about where your passport is they are as harsh in their criticism of the Bush administration as the wildest most irrational liberal.

Never forget who visited this upon all of us. They are still out there. They are still asking for your money and your vote.

ps: I hope you weren't planning on going anywhere requiring a new passport this summer.

* the one who was not even aware of what every single citizen who had turned on a TV was aware of. And HE is protecting us from Terrorists?

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