Single-Payer Healthcare: Faint Hope or Fair Promise?

Thanks, Rachel. I think healthcare is one of three huge issues in the round of struggles in this Congress, along with the war and the environmental issues. And of course we all realize that they are related, painfully so. Let's keep plugging away at education and encouraging empowered citizens to act!

My personal physician for the past nine years, Dr. Nicholas Pace, is retiring from private practice in May. He's not truly retiring. He's merely retiring from private practice. He will continue to see his contract patients (from GM, the corporation for whom he's worked for many years) as well as teach.

Why?

Dr. Pace’s accountant was finally able to convince him, after many years of making the same recommendation, that he was actually losing money by continuing to see HMO clients.

Sad and incomprehensible, isn't it.

Dr. Pace is the kind of physician who every patient deserves to have. When my cholesterol wasn't responding to either exercise or dietary modifications, Dr. Pace enthusiastically referred me to a doctor specializing in blood lipid (fats) analysis. In my experience, Dr. Pace has always put the best interest of his patients first and foremost.

I last saw Dr. Pace a few weeks ago for a routine blood test. While explaining his rationale for why he had decided to stop seeing private clients, he shared with me an information sheet, originally posted in a Manhattan hospital. This spreadsheet disclosed the true nature of problem: that one company, United Healthcare, had made over two billion dollars in the fiscal year that Dr. Pace has lost money seeing clients.

As we concluded our final consultation, I asked Dr. Pace straight out: would a single payer system make more sense to physicians, and lead to patients receiving higher quality medical care. His answer was unequivocal.

YES.

I want to take this opportunity to publicly express my gratitude to Dr. Pace for his many years of service. When physicians like Doc Pace are no longer able to afford to see clients, it's clear that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark".

I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I believe insurance corporations are running a "legally" endorsed scam on everyone. Health insurance is at the top, yes, but also car insurance, insurance for natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc.), life insurance, homeowners' insurance, dental insurance (sometimes included in medical insurance) - all of them, across the board. All of this is made worse by state and/or federal legislation requiring people to buy various kinds of insurance. (I don't know about everyone else, but in this state one is required to show proof of insurance before one can license their cars every year.)

Insurance corporations pay their executives huge bonuses for doing absolutely nothing, and they are only out for the profit; money is always the bottom line with them. They pay the people who make claims practically nothing and/or have such high deductable costs that the insurance is practically worthless. Or, they have some bogus excuse to get out of paying other claimes which look like they'd be covered but someone along the line uses an exception excuse in small print, which still makes insurance corporations "legal" scam operations.

I'm old enough to remember when doctors did have the interests of their patients at heart. I remember the days of no health insurance when office calls were five or ten dollars each. Yes, you read that right: five or ten dollars for an office call! Prescriptions (no insurance coverage) were affordable, often the same cost as an office call or less. Just plain medical care was more-or-less affordable, even for poor people. The cost for a week's stay in the hospital when I had my appendix out when I was 18 was about $100 (it was major surgery in those days; now they remove an appendix with laparascopic surgery and people might only stay overnight for the procedure).

Back in those days pharmaceutical companies did not hawk their medications on TV (asprin and acetaminophen excepted). In those days whatever profit margins pharmaceutical companies got they did put back into research and development of new medicines.

Now people pay huge sums of money to insurance corporations... and for what? What's the return on the savings investment of pooling money to cover people in emergencies, disasters, accidents, whatever?

Hospitals need to cover costs of diagnostic equipment and salaries of employees; doctors now form professional corporations for their clinics, employees need to be paid. All true.

But if we looked at the profit margins of all of them, I suspect they have long since recouped the costs of equipment, supplies and salaries and malpractice insurance... and where are the profits going otherwise....? Who's reaping the benefit from huge bonuses in those profits...?

As far as medical care is concerned, I believe we would do better to have socialized medicine where doctors and nurses get salaries like everyone else (and where doctors and nurses need to be tested yearly to make sure they know what they are doing and keeping up with the latest medical advances; some countries do that already).

I still think various insurances are legally-mandated scams.

For the Love of Money
by The O'Jays

Money money money money, money [x6]
Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Listen to me y'all, do things, do things, do bad things with it
You wanna do things, do things, do things, good things with it
Talk about cash money, money
Talk about cash money- dollar bills, yall

For the love of money
People will steal from their mother
For the love of money
People will rob their own brother
For the love of money
People can't even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they're gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, money

For the love of money
People will lie, Lord, they will cheat
For the love of money
People don't care who they hurt or beat
For the love of money
A woman will sell her precious body
For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight
Call it lean, mean, mean green

Almighty dollar

I know money is the root of all evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds

Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Some people really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Lay down, lay down, a woman will lay down
For the love of money
All for the love of money
Don't let, don't let, don't let money rule you
For the love of money
Money can change people sometimes
Don't let, don't let, don't let money fool you
Money can fool people sometimes
People! Don't let money, dont let money change you,
it will keep on changing, changing up your mind.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 28, 2007 07:18 PM

Yes, the dentist I worked for (and his study group of other medical professionals) had jumped on the bandwagon of "no HMOs, no PPOs". It just wasn't economically feasible to accept their drastically reduced fees-for-service. We would accept whatever insurance would accept us, and filed claims, and I fought endlessly with insurance companies who wanted to tell our clients what was "medically necessary" and what wasn't (I had to educate the clients that "medically necessary" wasn't a diagnosis...it was a term used by the insurance companies to deny coverage...our dentist called it "practicing medicine without a license").

It took a couple of years while the other dentist in town (it was a small town) got much more business than we did, since he was in all the "preferred networks" that forced him to charge their reduced-fee schedules and in return, shuttled him their patients.

Then the clients realized that they got shoddy, rough, rushed, insurance-determined treatment from that dentist and came back. Many decided to alter their dental coverage so as to better financially benefit themselves and their families - dropping HMOs and PPOs for higher-deductible, more flexible "cafeteria plans" and other open options. Some used HSA's and dropped dental coverage all together.

As employees, we had medical savings accounts based on the number of hours we worked. We could use the money to pay premiums, pay deductibles, co-pays, or even pay for elective treatment. It worked well for all of us, whether young and single or middle-aged, married, and with three teen-age children.

Having also lived in England, where I was covered by (and used) a "single-payer" health system, I worry that it, like Medicare, will in this country simply be a big, bloated HMO. Like Medicare, NHS has very rigid "fee schedules" that tell doctors how much they will pay for each procedure, which procedures are "medically necessary", and which procedures are not covered at all. As a result, the good doctors have decided to abandon the NHS system and start their own private practices, where those who can afford to pay out-of-pocket for their medical services go for treatment. (Like private school parents, they are being taxed for services they choose not to receive.)

When I went to an NHS doctor, it was a truly frightening experience. The office was in a bad part of town, the clientele was decidedly "lower class", and the office looked as though it hadn't changed in 50 years. Walls were a sickly green and equipment was ancient. The doctor spoke such heavily accented English I could barely understand him. He didn't use gloves and used an antiquated "remedy" to solve my problem.

My problem recurred within a week. Desperate and in pain, I was taken by an English citizen (at their private expense) to their "family doctor", one of the aforementioned professionals who had left NHS service. The difference was startling.

This doctor's office, a building adjoining his comfortable home in the suburbs, was new, clean, and modern. There was no waiting room: he saw patients only by appointment (or emergency appointment) and only from established families. He was friendly and knowledgeable; conducted procedures in a sterile fashion; and used up-to-date methods to resolve my issues quickly.

Another English citizen I knew there, who worked for a "public" ambulance/911 service described that the NHS was broken. Vastly reduced fees paid to doctors and hospitals, combined with a slow and inefficient bureaucracy that attempted to control patients' treatment options in the name of cost, had served to drive out all the good doctors and facilities and created a marked two-tier system.

Those who deal with Medicare will tell you a similar story in this country. That is the challenge we face with a government-run, "single payer" health care system.

Single payer?
~~~

UPI Health Business Correspondent
The movement to improve the quality of healthcare has largely passed children by, but a new proposal in Congress aims to erase that gap.Analysis: Street sees rise in ImClone drug
Published: April 27, 2007 at 6:18 PM
By STEVE MITCHELL
WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- In the second part of an interview with United Press International, Democratic congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio claims he is the only contender for the Democratic ticket with a plan for truly "universal" healthcare, because the plans of his rivals still allow private health insurance companies to run the show.
Q: Your legislation, Medicare for All, outlines a plan for a national, single-payer healthcare system. Senator Hillary Clinton's plan for national healthcare more than a decade ago failed. What was Clinton's biggest mistake in attempting national healthcare reform?

A: It wasn't her mistake, it was the media's mistake, because the impression was she was working (toward) the system I'm talking about. Not a chance.

She has the right rhetoric, she knows the issues, but her plan in 1993 was for for-profit insurance, it wasn't single-payer. It was for competition between insurance companies, like competition between private oil companies, or private electric companies, or banks. It wasn't about a single-payer system. And, or course, she's smart enough to promote the confusion about it. But anybody who bothers to do a little bit of research would see that the plan was for for-profit insurance.

Q: Is Senator John Edwards, in your view, doing the same with his plan?

A: Senator Edwards has a plan to keep the insurance companies in charge. (Edwards and Clinton) both say they're for universal healthcare, but what they're talking about is continuing the for-profit insurance companies' domination of the healthcare system, without any control of cost; it's all about for-profit. People will have to pay more -- it locks people into paying for (substandard) coverage, in Edwards' case, because it would be illegal to be uninsured.

Q: A recent survey showed that most Americans still favor getting their healthcare through their employers. How do you respond to those findings?

A: The fact is that the linking of insurance to jobs leaves 46 million people without any health insurance and 50 million underinsured. It leaves half the bankruptcies in America tied to doctor bills; three-quarters of them are families who are working.

So check this out: It means even if you have a job, the (insurance) premiums are going up and the co-pays and deductibles can crush you -- that's if you have a job. If you lose your job, you lose your health insurance.

http://www.upi.com/Health_Business/Analysis/2007/04/26/costrx_kucinich_plan_to_cover_all/

Rachel,

Really great points you made in your article.

I know we've discussed this in the IRC and have found some agreement.

All of us know the cost of health care is prohibitory because the pharmaceutical companies charge too much. They have 'pork' in advertising, special incentives to salesmen (women) and Doctors. And we know that all of us can now go into the Doctor and self-prescribe Prozac or whatever we want. We're suppose to "just ask your doctor" according to the thousands spent to make us convinced that drugs are the way to cure everything.

I'm sure single-payer will have issues too. Such as what is considered "cosmetic" or what is considered "not worthy trying" but I believe it's the right place to start.

Posted by: V at April 28, 2007 08:06 PM

Good points. Those are, of course, the other side of the debate. I still receive bills from doctors looking to recoup the amount of their fees for seeing my late mother than Medicare refused to reimburse. The amounts that Medicare was willing to pay each doctor seems miserly to me. But he amount that each doctor was charging Medicare seemed exorbitant, if not criminal.

I am simply relaying the sentiments of a physician who has seen patients for over 40 years. Obviously, government control brings its own set of curses.

Still, I'd rather a system where the doctors get rich than the insurance companies.

I HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH CINDY SHEEHAN: I WAS THREATENED WITH ARREST (TODAY)!!!

I was at an A28 rally today in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had set up a kind of stage/shrine on a hillside along a major boulevard in the city, with Impeach Bush signs stuck in the groud and peace flags hanging from trees. This happened, btw, after we were kicked off a bridge/overpass because it was a "private" thoroughfare. I was alone, at this point, because the rest of the group had moved to second location. I agreed to stay behind and tend to the "shrine"... I was first approached by the University people who told me to remove the stuff. I told them I was on public land - not university land - and had a right to be there. This university guy made some calls on his cellular phone and drove away. I sat back down on the hill to do some reading...... Then a Kalamazoo police car came up and told me I had to remove the stuff...

I did my best to stall... asked him what ordinance did not allow me to put signs up etc... He said I would be arrested ( I thought this was a idle threat since I was not threatening anyone). It took him probably a good fifteen to find the law regarding signs on the computer in his patrol car. Then he said if I didn't take the stuff down I would be ticketed. At that point, I said "fine ticket me." I did not want to lose the flags (expensive) and the wire signs (expensive) - the cardboard sign I could sacrifice. In the end, the when I started taking down the expensive stuff the cop (who felt he had saved face) said he would not ticket me.. etc...

Another day in BUSHIEWORLD...

Congratulations Ralph!

Great job!

Well played, Ralpheh.

THIS TUESDAY: GET READY TO ROCK AND ROLL -

(btw:I SUGGEST JAMMING THE WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD WITH CALLS - 202-456-1414 OR COMMENT LINE 202-456-1111;)

Forward from United for Peace and Justice -

After Bush vetoes the war funding bill, Congress will have to decide how to proceed. I believe they will make their choice based on the public response to Bush's veto. We must make them hear our demand that Congress stand with us rather than the President Congress must end this war, not continue to fund it.

Make plans now for a loud, visible action.

Post your plans immediately at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/modinput4.php?modin=50
choose "Emergency Veto Action"

Timing: Congress will send the war funding bill to Bush on May 1st (the 4th anniversary of his 'mission accomplished' speech). He is expected to veto the bill quickly. Your action should take place the day after, or within a few days, of the veto.

Some Suggested Actions
Street Actions
can take many forms, street theater, vigil, rally, phon-a-thon (that's where volunteers will have cell phones so passers-by can call your Senators and Representative)
Banner Drop
make big banners, hang from highway overpasses or buildings or other prominent places
Actions at Congressional Offices
inside the office: read letters from military families http://www.mfso.org/section.php?id=4
outside the office: vigils, pickets, street theater etc

Find more details and ideas here: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3576
If your group has other ideas, please send me a short description and links to any resources so I can post it on the UFPJ website.

Posted by: Ralpheh at April 28, 2007 08:25 PM

Well done, Ralph.

Before I post on-topic, I need to thank Dwahzon and Christy for their answers to my previous questions re Christy's aunt Aline. Thanks so much. What a truly horrific set of circumstances you have lived through, Christy. I hope that one day these years of worry and heartsickness will make some sense to you. Right now it's hard to find any good that has come out of anything. You will never forget the details of the last 23 years, but you are a good and compassionate person, and maybe you can find extra strength in knowing that the truth is almost always exposed in the end.

Dwahzon, your blog entries and links were brilliant, although most of the newspaper items were "not found". One article was available - an interview with Christy's mother, Aline's sister. The blog entries you directed me to, were certainly an eye-opener. Thankyou.

Obviously, government control brings its own set of curses.

Still, I'd rather a system where the doctors get rich than the insurance companies.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 28, 2007 08:24 PM

I'm pretty sure that oncall would second this. :)

Seriously though, I don't want anyone to think of government control as the cure-all. It will have its own set of problems (as Veritas can attest from her observations of the British NHS).

But a less-than-perfect healthcare system is still better than none at all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801113.html

Cheney And Bush Just Too Busy With The Hard Work Of Sending Our Familys Off To Fight And Die In Illegal Wars On Behalf Of Their Big Oil And Weapons Cronies While Invading Our Privacy And Shredding Our Constitution To Accept And Distribute 10's Of Millions Of Dollars In Katrina Aid Offered By Our Closest Allies

=*=

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/28/sen-durbin-drops-bombshells-on-the-senate-floor/
Sen. Durbin Drops Bombshells on the Senate Floor

{{{Listen to this! This is one instance where I would have forgiven anyone on the intelligence committee for breaking an oath of secrecy long enough to tell us the truth behind the lies that got us into Bu$h's illegal war in Iraq (before the vote took place in Congress). The mushroom cloud you see in the sky is from me; steam is coming out of my ears...!}}}

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/28/bill-maher-psychologically-analyzes-president-bush/
Bill Maher Psychologically Analyzes President Bush

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070428/ap_en_tv/rabbit_ear_revival
Antennas find new life in HDTV age
{{{For TeeVee geeks. ;-)}}}

Greg Palast | US Media Have Lost the Will to Dig Deep
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042807G.shtml
Greg Palast discusses the state of mainstream American journalism, writing that "investigative reporting - the kind Jack Anderson used to do regularly and which was carried in hundreds of papers across the country, the kind of muckraking, data-intensive work that takes time and money and ruffles feathers - is dying. One of the biggest disincentives to doing investigative journalism is that it jeopardizes future access to politicians and corporate elite."

I know a lot of people would say this'd be no reason to consider voting for somebody.

On the other paw, I'm not at all so sure that it ain't.

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

(Viz the 9th photo/caption down as of this posting... the 10th needs no further explanation as a possible reason *not* to, ahem)

This is really, really good stuff.

Transcript of Bill Moyers' interview with Jon Stewart as broadcast Friday night:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html

Video excerpts of same:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/watch.html

Very relevant comment by DU poster 'localroger' on said Moyers/Stewart interview:

"It strikes me that having Bill Moyers tell you over your humble objections that your comedy show is true journalism is like having Stephen Hawking tell you over your humble objections that your crackpot theory of physics makes more sense than the Standard Model. It's not that Jon is doing journalism so much that he is doing something completely new. He probably nails it himself when he says TDS is more like an editorial cartoon. What he should remember is that editorial cartoons sway public opinion, swing elections, and there is a Pulitzer Prize for them for good reason."

Yes, we need more Diogenestic men like Jon Stewart out there. And more like similarly-Diagonestic Bill Moyers, too.

One more and then I really will stop now, I promise.

This was posted to DU in the wee smalls of this morning by 'Omaha Steve':

----------

'A life long Democrat is sick PLEASE send a get well card by snail'

David is a dear friend. He has debated with me on issues for a better understanding than I had before. He was at the victory party in the Ambassador when RFK was shot. He gives of his time and $ to Democratic causes. When my name came up to run for office, he stepped up with a how can I help attitude. David is one of those hollywood liberals you hear about. I'm asking my friends here for a big favor. David is in the hospital with Pancreatitis. He is only allowed short visits of family members at this time. A simple get well card would do wonders for him.

David Macklin
Lovelace Medical Centre
601 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102
ROOM 4022

-------------

My note to Mr. Macklin is already stamped and ready to drop in the mailbox when I go buy cat food this morning. Here's hoping you are the same.

because we all need to have more friends like that,
Otter

NonnyO,

Yes, steam emanating from here too. And when he says, "I voted no because I knew, but I couldn't say to the American people..." Well, I'd like to know if he even thought to adamantly tell his peers in Congress "JUST SAY NO!" Or a simple, "I'm on the intelligence committee. I've seen evidence. I am voting NO. JUST SAY NO!" and maybe more people would have known to not vote for the war even if they didn't know the exact intelligence committee's information.

Besides....I've heard from my calls to Republicans that "They all saw the same evidence and it was all available for them to sift through..." Well....Doesn't Durbin's comments prove otherwise? Don't they prove that only 16 members of a committee had the truth and the rest had lies?

Oh, why can't everyone tell
A statesman from a thug
Who's got our telephones bugged
A frat boy who took drugs
Who Lays down with thieves
The one who deceived
About the Dubya MDs

How did you get us to trade
Our heroes for shrubs
Democrats for Repubs
A stain we never could scrub
A living, breathing oil spill
How did we reject
Surplus safety net
For nine trillion in debt

How I wish
How I wish you were Gore
It's been two lost terms swimming in a cesspool
Of malfeasance and shame
Trashing all of the Bill of Rights
And starting losing fights
With pre-emptive war
Wish you were Gore

http://www.myspace.com/vastleftdotcom

Christy -

The Sunday NYTimes has an article about Robert Charles Browne & the investigator who got him to confess. I can't remember if Browne is still a suspect in your aunt's murder, but I thought you might be interested in the article.

The Confessor
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/magazine/29ColdCase.t.html?

Here's an update on some of yesterday's many A28 events:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x781150

What a country...

U.S. didn’t accept most foreign Katrina aid
Some donations spoiled, while millions still haven’t been collected or spent

As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.

Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving."

Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims.

Only a fraction of promised aid collected
Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18341744/

Yeah, monkey, I saw that same article and it made me cringe. Jeebus K. Ryst, we have simply got to wash these men right outta our hair before they gets us all kilt ever one.

GONZALES EMBARRASSED AT HARVARD REUNION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Attorney General Surprise Visit at 25th Reunion Met by Student Protests

Cambridge, Mass. Alberto Gonzales was confronted by student protesters and forced to leave through a back door on Saturday during a visit to Harvard Law School for his 25th reunion. After two weeks clinging to save his job and defending allegations that he fired eight U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, what might have been a relaxed day of reminiscing with old classmates became instead yet another reminder that both his job and his reputation are in serious jeopardy.

[snip]

The Attorney General was on campus, unannounced to students, to deliver a lunchtime speech. But word quickly spread that a suspicious motorcade had been spotted by the campus center, and by the time Gonzales and his fellow classmates assembled on the law library steps for their class photo, a group of current students were there to greet him, having donned black hoods and orange jumpsuits. As the photographer told the class of 1982 to smile and say "cheese," the students yelled out that saying "torture," "resign" or "I don't recall" might be more appropriate.

[snip]

The Attorney General's visit to his alma mater coincided with the third anniversary of the release of photos depicting the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and came the day after a German federal prosecutor dismissed a case alleging that Gonzales was responsible for approving the policies that resulted in those abuses. These facts were not lost on Deborah Popowski, a second-year law student who had just finished organizing a nationwide student sit-in urging Congress to pass pending legislation that would restore detainees' rights to habeas corpus. "When I heard he was on campus, I was stuffing envelopes with letters to Congress in an office two floors above. I dropped everything. Gonzales needs to know that after approving poorly-reasoned memos that distort the rule of law and justify torture, he is simply not welcome here."

[snip]

More here:
http://michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=870

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday said the administration did not use former CIA Director George Tenet's "slam dunk" comment as the reason to invade Iraq, disputing his complaints.

"We all thought that the intelligence case was strong." Rice said, speaking to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," just hours before an interview with Tenet was set to air on CBS News' "60 Minutes."

-snip-

"Look, not everything went right," Rice said. "This is a very difficult circumstance. There were some things that went right and some things that went wrong. And you know what? We will have a chance to look at that in history. And I will have a chance to reflect on that when I have a chance to write my book."

Rice reiterated her plan not to testify before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, which last week subpoenaed her to discuss her role in the administration's use of unsubstantiated reports that said Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger.

Rice said she has already spoken publicly about the issue and has sent committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman "hundreds of papers of documentation, including numerous letters that answer exactly the concerns and questions that he had."

Rice added that her reasons for not wanting to testify go beyond personal ones.

"There is a constitutional issue that the White House ...we are concerned about, which is that this was in my role as a White House staff aide to the president. There is a separation of powers."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/29/rice.tenet/index.html

Oh. Well, then. If Condi says it, then it must be true. Right?

Retired general urges Bush to sign Iraq withdrawal bill

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush should sign legislation starting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq on October 1, retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom said Saturday.

"I hope the president seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill Congress has sent him," Odom said, delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address.

Odom, an outspoken critic of the war who served as the Army's top intelligence officer and headed the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, delivered the address at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California. He said he has never been a Democrat or a Republican.

The general accused Bush of squandering U.S. lives and helping Iran and al Qaeda when he invaded Iraq. (Watch how political theater may take center stage in funding showdown )

"The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place," he said.

"The president has let [the Iraq war] proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies."

Odom said he doesn't favor congressional involvement in the execution of foreign and military policy but argued that Bush had been derelict in his responsibilities.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/28/democrats.radio.ap/index.html

"There is a constitutional issue that the White House ...we are concerned about, which is that this was in my role as a White House staff aide to the president. There is a separation of powers."

Posted by: monkey at April 29, 2007 02:23 PM

This from the same group who orchestrated testimony from Clinton's W.H. staff about a stain on a dress?

So, does "seperation of powers" mean that if you are an aide to the president, youcan do whatever the f*** you please without answering to anyone, under oath or otherwise?

... and there sure as hell IS a constitutional issue at the White House.

This letter to Tenet is a must read:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/29/122649/314

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

snip!!!

Sincerely yours,

Phil Giraldi

Ray McGovern

Larry Johnson

Jim Marcinkowski

Vince Cannistraro

David MacMichael

W. Patrick Lang (Colonel, retired, US Army and former Chief of Middle East Division, DIA)

And I'd like to add that Durbin can put his 'confession' someplace where the sun doesn't shine either. David Kurtz says it best: "Is this the best Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) could do? ... This strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of how intelligence oversight is supposed to work."

Exactly! Both Tenet and Durbin are crying about not being responsible when both were in positions to make a different yet opted not to!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013895.php

Rice: Iraq benchmarks could derail next war bill
Bush will not support punishment of Iraqi government, secretary says

Updated: 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will not support a war spending bill that punishes the Iraqi government for failing to meet benchmarks for progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Rice’s comments cast fresh doubt on a potential compromise between the Democratic-led Congress and the White House in getting money to U.S. troops.

With a regional conference on Iraq set to begin Thursday in Egypt, Rice raised the possibility of a rare direct encounter between high-level U.S. and Iranian officials. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is expected to lead his country’s delegation.

“I will not rule out that we may encounter one another,” Rice said. “But what do we need to do? It’s quite obvious. Stop the flow of arms to foreign fighters. Stop the flow of foreign fighters across the borders.”

Rice suggested the president would not agree to a plan that penalizes Baghdad if the Iraqi government fall shorts. To do so, she said, would remove the ability of Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and other leaders to do their jobs.

Rice takes gradualist view
“What we don’t want to do is to tie our own hands so that we cannot act creatively and flexibly to support the very policies in Iraq that we’re trying to enforce,” Rice said.

Rather, Rice said, it makes sense to give Iraq’s leaders time to meet the goals they have set. She said Bush has made clear to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that people in the United States have limited patience.

“The United States is paying in blood and treasure,” Rice said. “The Iraqi leadership is being told — and I think they understand — that the kind of Iraq there is going to be is up to them. We can’t give them a united Iraq.”

Asked about the possibility of being held in contempt by the committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Rice said, “That’s the chairman’s prerogative. I respect the oversight — the oversight responsibilities of Congress — but I frankly think this one has been looked at and looked at and looked at.”

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18383332/

FDL has two good posts on Condi and on Bush and Laura suffering "unimaginable suffering."

Peggy Noonan (the interviewer): You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?

Laura Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.

George W. Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "you'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. . . . I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura –

Laura Bush: I don't have my contacts in , and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers –

George W. Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back up stairs and go to bed.

Mrs. Bush: [LAUGHS] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.

Peggy Noonan (interviewer): So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.

George W. Bush: That's right — We got a laugh out of it!

~~~

and on Condi:

No wonder Condi Rice is working so hard to avoid the subpoena from Waxman's committee for her testimony (despite having time to tape three Sunday Talking Head shows this morning). From ABC's This Week:

RICE: The question was…how long were you going to wait, given that it appeared that the situation was getting worse.

GEORGE S.: Well, looking back, do you think that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States?

RICE: I think that…uh…an imminent threat? Certainly Iraq posed a threat, and the question was, was it going to get worse over time, or was it going to get better?

So…that would be a no, then? Keeping all those excuses straight is hard work. (ThinkProgress has more Condi idiocy from Face the Nation. It's time to dust off the Richard Clarke clips again.)

Re: sparrow's link to the dKos story above, one of the people in the comments section posted this link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/larrys_keith_ol.html

Olbermann interviewing Larry Johnson, more about Tenet & Durbin.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.
Posted by: sparrow at April 29, 2007 04:31 PM

This post should have come with a barf bag warning. Urge to hurl all over my keyboard and monitor....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHEN will our Congress Critters rid us of the criminals and their criminal hirelings?!? They are millstones dragging us down, drowning us in a sea of their lies and war crimes....

We are in a waiting game. Congress Critters are STILL trying to appease the spoiled frat brat (ya think they'd know by now that's not possible; he wants to be the supreme dictator; appeasing control freaks does not work; getting them out of power will work), people are dying in a war based on lies for oil, people are being tortured, all of which are war crimes per the Geneva Conventions, and our "elected" representatives continue to enable the administration in their crimes. They are enabling a control-freak, power-mad dry drunk. This can't end well. But it must end.

WHEN will our Congress Critters stop the spoiled frat brat who is so determined to be the supreme dictator of this country with aims at being a world dictator?!? Don't they realize that if they don't stop him that other countries may get impatient and pre-emptively stop him...???

We are treading water with the millstones around our neck. If our Congress Critters keep refusing to remove the criminals "leading" this country, we will surely drown.

WHEN will our Congress Critters stop the spoiled frat brat who is so determined to be the supreme dictator of this country with aims at being a world dictator?!? Don't they realize that if they don't stop him that other countries may get impatient and pre-emptively stop him...???

We are treading water with the millstones around our neck. If our Congress Critters keep refusing to remove the criminals "leading" this country, we will surely drown.

Posted by: NonnyO at April 29, 2007 05:37 PM

I'm not the only person who thinks that Rove and Cheney (Bush) have 'the goods' on many Congressmembers and is able to silence them that way.

Trials of the Truth Seekers
Historians will see the '06 election returns as indispensable to their work. Without them, we'd never know what's happened to this country.

By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek

May 7, 2007 issue - Henry Waxman looks like your accountant, but he acts more like a dog with a bone—the hard bone of truth. This short, bald, mustached California congressman is digging up what really happened inside the U.S. government during the early years of the new century. Last week, for instance, Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard startling testimony about how the Army lied repeatedly to protect its image, covered up those lies, then lied again. Instead of depressing me, the hearings left me strangely exhilarated. Historians will likely see the 2006 midterm election returns as indispensable to their work. Without a change in party control, we would never have a chance to get to the bottom of what has happened to this country.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18367806/site/newsweek/

(CNN) -- In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership."

The writers said Tenet has "a moral obligation" to return the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush.

They also called on him to give more than half the royalties he gets from book, "At the Center of the Storm," to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and families of the dead.

The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. (Read the full letter)

Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. McGovern is a former CIA analyst.

Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division and was head of intelligence for the National Security Council in the late 1980s.

The writers said they agree that Bush administration officials took the nation to war "for flimsy reasons," and that it has proved "ill-advised and wrong-headed."

But, they added, "your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership.

"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq."

Tenet's 'lack of courage'
The writers accused Tenet of having helped send "very mixed signals" to Americans and their legislators prior to the war.

"CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq.

"This intelligence was ignored and later misused."

The letter said CIA officers learned later that month Iraq had no contact with Osama bin Laden and that then-President Saddam Hussein considered the al Qaeda leader to be an enemy. Still, Tenet "went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to al Qaeda.

"You showed a lack of leadership and courage in January of 2003 as the Bush administration pushed and cajoled analysts and managers to let them make the bogus claim that Iraq was on the verge of getting its hands on uranium.

"You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset - credibility."

The letter described Tenet as "one of the bullies."

"You helped set the bar very low for reporting that supported favored White House positions, while raising the bar astronomically high when it came to raw intelligence that did not support the case for war being hawked by the president and vice president.

"It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community -- a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality."

The letter said Tenet's failure to resist pressures from Cheney and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld helped build public support for a war that has cost more than 3,000 American lives and many times that among Iraqis.

"You betrayed the CIA officers who collected the intelligence that made it clear that Saddam did not pose an imminent threat. You betrayed the analysts who tried to withstand the pressure applied by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

"Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/tenet.letter/index.html

Frank Rich | All the President's Press
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042907E.shtml
Frank Rich says the White House correspondents' dinner has become a crystallization of the press's failures in the post-9/11 era.
Excerpt:
To pick just one overarching example: much of the press still takes it as a given that Iraq has a functioning government that might meet political benchmarks (oil law, de-Baathification reform, etc., etc.) that would facilitate an American withdrawal. In reality, the Maliki "government" can't meet any benchmarks, even if they were enforced, because that government exists only as a fictional White House talking point. As Gen. Barry McCaffrey said last week, this government doesn't fully control a single province. Its Parliament, now approaching a scheduled summer recess, has passed no major legislation in months. Iraq's sole recent democratic achievement is to ban the release of civilian casualty figures, lest they challenge White House happy talk about "progress" in Iraq.

It's our country's bitter fortune that while David Halberstam is gone, too many Joe Alsops still hold sway. Take the current dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder, who is leading the charge in ridiculing Harry Reid for saying the obvious - that "this war is lost" (as it is militarily, unless we stay in perpetuity and draft many more troops). In February, Mr. Broder handed down another gem of Beltway conventional wisdom, suggesting that "at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback."

Some may recall that Stephen Colbert offered the same prediction in his monologue at the correspondents' dinner a year ago. "I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency," he said. "I believe it is just a lull before a comeback." But the fake pundit, unlike the real one, recognized that this was a joke.

According to Bill Maher, David Iglesias was the real-life lawyer that Tom Cruise played in "A Few Good Men". I did not know that.

I also didn't know that there are 100,000 mercinaries in Iraq, as Richard Belzer claimed. Yikes.

The things you learn watching HBO.

Support for Iraq War Timetable Hits 64% in U.S.:
64 per cent of respondents think the U.S. should set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq sometime in 2008
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/15551
{{{Well, clearly Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber and their cohorts are in the minority. Two poll questions quoted in this short article.}}}

U.S. Storm Troopers - Occupation Of Iraq - 101
3 Minute Video
Proud moments in US. military history caught on tape. How are these action different than those of Nazi raids in occupied France?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17620.htm
{{{Caveat: This may make you ill.}}}

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/29/murtha-uses-the-i-word/
Murtha Uses The “I” Word

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/29/fired-us-attorney-david-iglesias-on-real-time/
Fired US Attorney David Iglesias on “Real Time”

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/28/white-house-officials-involved-in-prostitution-scandal/
White House Officials Involved in Prostitution Scandal

{Listen to this to the end of what Brian Ross has to say of what kinds of people were involved, particularly the occupations of those who worked for the DC Madame!!! ABC has the names. If those names go public, this could make Clinton's blow job look like a harmless indiscretion (and Cons look like fools for spending billions for impeaching him for what may look like a harmless indiscretion by future standards).... So, why hasn't ABC news released the names already...? Smells to me like Mickey Mouse is protecting lots and lots of people, from the White House on down, by keeping those names secret.}

Sparrow - that last one's for you. I have to wonder how many politicians (both Cons and Dems) have used the services of the DC Madame. I have to wonder how "selectively" Mickey Mouse's ABC "news" department will use their list of thousands of names in the future.....

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 29, 2007 07:45 PM

There are well over 100,000 mercenaries in Iraq. The numbers are in print somewhere. I've posted articles about them.

DynCorp (Halliburton subsidiary) is definitely one of them. Of three mercenaries from MN killed, in-state snooze said two were employed by DynCorp. A fourth mercenary was captured last fall, fate still unknown, and I haven't heard which mercenary group he works (or worked?) for. Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) is/was another subsidiary of Halliburton that hires mercenaries.

Blackwater (of New Orleans infamy) is another mercenary group.

They are being paid $30-35,000 (five figures) per month. If they're Americans. If they hire someone from other countries, they're paid considerably less.

There are hundreds of "support services" corporations that provide other services, not necessarily mercenary services, but enough of them do to make bad names for US military personnel. Some mercenaries were apparently involved with the torture at Abu Ghraib. I've still never heard of any US military personnel returning from Gitmo, so I suspect they are running the show there, too.

Posted by: NonnyO at April 29, 2007 08:00 PM

Soooo, the money that Shrub wants to get his hands on so badly "for the troops", how much of it goes, or has gone to, these mercenaries and so-called support services?

War Inc.

Sparrow - that last one's for you. I have to wonder how many politicians (both Cons and Dems) have used the services of the DC Madame. I have to wonder how "selectively" Mickey Mouse's ABC "news" department will use their list of thousands of names in the future.....

Posted by: NonnyO at April 29, 2007 07:53 PM

Gosh..at first I was frightened you thought I would be interested because of this:

Posted by: sparrow at April 26, 2007 05:00 PM
Posted by: Otter at April 26, 2007 05:40 PM

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH....!
Dang near choking with laughter! :-)

Posted by: NonnyO at April 26, 2007 06:07 PM

"Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/tenet.letter/index.html

Posted by: monkey at April 29, 2007 07:15 PM

That's great that it's on CNN now and not just dailykos.

I have been out of civilization for awhile and certainly off-line and unaware of what is going on in the news at any level, no electricity or media even print.

I did just now get to read through the impeachment topic and also check email briefly and you can see kayakbiker's IMPEACH coverage in Minneapolis at http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com.

I did miss Seattle's as I am in rural Oregon but I know that there was some freeway blogging activity going on via Backbone Campaign.

I did also meet some "rural red" area people with sons and daughters fighting in the middle east and they may be from other spheres than I am spiritually and politically but let me tell you one thing - they are not happy with what is going on, not at all!

I also didn't know that there are 100,000 mercinaries in Iraq, as Richard Belzer claimed. Yikes.

The things you learn watching HBO.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 29, 2007 07:45 PM

---------------

Soooo, the money that Shrub wants to get his hands on so badly "for the troops", how much of it goes, or has gone to, these mercenaries and so-called support services?

War Inc.

Posted by: monkey at April 29, 2007 08:16 PM

---------------

Well, shucks, it's been a pretty open secret for a while now, especially here on the DCP blog. NonnyO's gotten her fur up over the issue of so many Blackwater & other contractors being deployed in Iraq without adequate oversight on a number of occasions. I have, too.

And as I recall, there's at least one threader posted in the last couple of months about the totally bogus scenario of our having about as many 'civilian' contractors working in Iraq as we have underpaid & overexposed American troops there -- approximately 100,000 military/security and more than another 40,000 generic support people on the ground there last time I checked.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a very good thing that HBO is bringing this to peoples' attention. But it's not news... unfortunately.

Especially in the light of all the last several months' horror stories about Walter Reed and the military's refusal to take adequate care of its own troops while paying outrageous sums to hired guns instead, I should certainly think that this government-payrolled-mercenary situation would have gotten more play than it did. This pisses me off. Where's all the damn outrage here, anyway??

And I know you know this, but not everybody does. So here are just a few of the many ref links regarding our country's use of mercenaries, for the sake of future reference...

http://www.google.com/search?Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=rPf&q=mercenaries+site%3Ademocracycellproject.net&btnG=Search

http://www.culturekitchen.com/m_loutre/blog/are_americans_really_dying_in_vain_in_iraq

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061231_chris_hedges_americas_holy_warriors

http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070330_jeremy_scahill_on_soldiers_of_fortune

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/2249

War Inc.

Posted by: monkey at April 29, 2007 08:16 PM

Excellent question. One I've also asked.

And I don't have the answer.

I'm aware of the stories a while back that said that the "surge" would not be only the 21,500 US troops, but that with "private contractors" for "support services" (whatever that means; I am assuming it means Halliburton and/or Blackwater and/or other corporations like them) the total number of people would be around 48,000 (or was it 48,000 on top of the 21,500?).

The "emergency" supplemental bills that have mostly financed Georgie's war are not covered in the Pentagon budget. For at least a year I've been wondering if the "emergency supplemental bill" monies (financed by loans from China and/or other countries) have been going straight into Halliburton and Blackwater and other "private contractor" corporations like Custer Battles (under investigation) and Carlyle (Pappy Bush's group) and some other names of lesser known "private contractors" (all of whom were major contributors to Georgie's political campaigns). Those loans won't be paid off for many generations, if ever, thanks to the monumental debt this administration has chalked up.

We all know Halliburton has raked in record profits because of Georgie's war and someone in Congress is investigating them for getting millions or billions fraudulently. We just don't actually know the exact figure. But corporations connected to Georgie and/or his family are making record profits in numbers that are obscene. I highly doubt even Congress Critters know who's getting what monies, and unless the lead-curtain secrecy surrounding Georgie's administration is blown to smithereens, we will likely never know (remember, one of the first Executive Orders Georgie signed involved not releasing papers from people in their administration, and their families control when the papers will be released after they die). That's dictatorial power....

Millstone... sinking....

Posted by: sparrow at April 29, 2007 08:45 PM

I had the same reaction! :-)

I don't know whether to chortle with glee, or not. If ABC selectively releases the names, they may slant the story against Dems. If they release all the names, I suspect the sexually repressed Cons who tout abstinence and all that rot will be caught in their own net and will be in the majority. The occupations of the people who are working with the DC Madame (besides the obvious) were what caught my attention.

There is a major disconnect between what happens inside the Beltway Bubble vs reality outside of the Beltway Bubble it's just incredible. I think that bubble oughta be pricked like an over-ripe boil that bursts and spews pus.... (all puns intended).

Then we need to clean it up and heal and start over, exposing every crime that's happened since election day 2000....

Quote of the day:

"Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill." : R. Aldington

I found the quote on the ICH newsletter and in view of my disgust with bandwagon patriotism and jingoistic patriotic slogans, it struck me as apt about Georgie....

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

Posted by: monkey at April 29, 2007 01:41 PM

Our interagency logistical support was nonexistent, meaning that one government agency often had what another agency needed and it was well nigh impossible to get it coordinated. For example, one agency had fuel, one agency had bottled water, one agency had trucks, and yet a fourth agency had personnel to guard and distribute the supplies. All the pieces have to come together in order to get things from point A to point B, and maybe point B is owned by the local or state government, which is fighting with the feds over funding...etc. One of the many big-picture problems I was starting to attack before I transferred.

But that's a topic for a whole other blog header.

Re: Emergency supplemental bills

Here's how the funding process works. I'll start with a true unplanned event like Katrina. DoD gets their regular budget. Then they need to spend money for something that's outside all the line items in their regular budget ("contingency money" is almost never part of that budget). So they spend into the hole, kind of like running up a credit card bill, then they give the itemized bill to Congress and Congress cuts them the check.

The first year or so that we were in Iraq, it made sense to have supplemental bills for funding Iraq costs, because DoD budgets are set years in advance and don't include money to cover the cost of wars that haven't happened yet. So the same thing happened, all the "Iraq expenditures" were tracked with a certain cost center "code" as DoD (and DHS) spent into the hole, then they gave Congress the bill and asked to be reimbursed.

However, now that it's clear the fighting's going to drag on for ages, there's a lot of argument about putting the Iraq costs into the normal DoD budget and trying to allot money ahead of time. The counter-argument is that that would not give DoD enough financial flexibility to respond to changes in the warfighting environment as they occur. So that is their argument for continuing the "credit card system".

As for the "Blackwater Army", it's too bad that the first salvo in the war to cut troops' funding was not simply to cut all funding for all these "private security services" first, while leaving armed forces budgets/funding intact. This would deal a powerful blow (private security services constitute a good 50% of our forces there) and leave the other side without a cogent argument about how we were ostensibly "hurting the troops" by cutting their funding.

But that's a topic for a whole other blog header.

Posted by: V at April 29, 2007 10:25 PM

----------------

Okay, so, then... where's that whole other blog threader? Email inboxes are standing by.

:0)

Otter...check IRC

Free Health Care does not solve all problems. But it certainly is better than your current situation. Especially for someone with a chronic disease, or a need for regular and ongoing medical supervision and treatment. Australia has such a system but our hospitals nationwide are poorly funded with too few beds available to meet the need. These issues need to be addressed at our next federal election.

Free health care doesn't mean that we poorer folk have to make do with a consultant from a nearby abbatoir. I have received excellent treatment and hospitalisation whenever I've needed it over the last 10 years of being without medical insurance. My young specialist presented a paper at an international conference in Montreal last year.

Called Medicare, the scheme ensures that all Australians have access to free or low-cost medical, optometrical and hospital care while being free to choose private health services and in special circumstances allied health services. The benefit for those who take out private health insurance is the freedom to choose the hospital and the doctors you want. As most insured find - more than likely the doctor you want is unavailable and there isn't a private room to be had in any of the hospitals around.

With private insurance there were always GAPs to pay. The insurer would pay a certain amount, the government would pay some, and then I had to pay the balance of that doctor's fee. Medication while an inpatient has to be paid for by those who are privately insured. For those not insured, medication whilst an inpatient is free. I don't have a GAP to pay. Medicare pays it all. In fact I've just returned from the Specialist Clinics at the hospital.

Medicare is paid for by a levy of each person's taxable income. In 1984 the levy was 1% of taxable income. The levy has increased over the years with an additional levy to be paid by the highest income earners - those over $150,000 a year. John Howard feels short-changed by this and resents paying more than poor people, so that's another reason for a switch of government this year. During the 10 years that he has been Australia's PM he has completely dismantled the Dental program which operated in the same way as Medicare.

We have only a fraction of taxpayers here in Australia compared with the levels of income earners and taxpayers in the US. If we have been able to fund this program for more than 20 years, surely you can do it in your country also. The levy should never be able to be used on anything other than personal and family health care.

A run-down on Condi's performance, including previous and current standing in the world. What a difference a year or two makes!

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/bright-light-becomes-a-fading-star/2007/04/29/1177787966093.html

The thing about the Blackwater numbers is that, for me, they demonstrate the futility of the entire surge concept.

If we already have like 250,000 men in Iraq, including the mercenaries, and that's not putting Iraq to sleep, then nothing we can do, short of a Vietnam size escalation (which would require a DRAFT), will restore order.

The scary thing we have to look forward to is that when we finally succeed in getting the troops to begin leaving, there's going to be a bloodbath in Iraq that the networks will try to cover; and the same people who defend the President today are going to be blaming the left for that carnage. And that carnage is almost certainly now unavoidable.

Posted by: woz at April 30, 2007 01:23 AM

Last few paragraphs...

The better explanation is that Rice's silence is simply another illustration of the Bush Administration's incompetence and inability to get beyond playing politics and doing spin to actually doing the hard work of implementing a coherent set of policies.

For all the razzle dazzle of Rice's first year as Secretary of State, it is hard to think of any real and substantial achievements. Her so-called "transformational diplomacy" in the Middle East has achieved virtually nothing. None of the region's leaders it seems take her seriously.

And there are no good signs that any sort of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are likely in the foreseeable future, despite Rice's frantic shuttle diplomacy in the region last month.

Her decline mirrors the disintegration of the Bush Administration. Perhaps that's the real reason why she has remained silent as George Bush has tried in vain to sell Americans on an Iraq policy that a majority of them are convinced can't succeed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Poor construction, improper design, substandard materials and lack of maintenance have caused the failure of seven of eight U.S.-funded Iraq reconstruction projects that were recently reviewed by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, according to an inspector general report.

"If these projects are typical of the quality and effectiveness of operations and maintenance performance on transitioned projects, the value of the U.S. investment in Iraq reconstruction will be at risk," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general, in his report to Congress and the Bush Administration. "Unless corrective action is taken, the useful lives of those projects will be significantly shortened."

The U.S. is spending $37 billion on Iraqi reconstruction. In addition, 914 people -- including 224 U.S. citizens -- have died while working on the U.S.-funded projects, the report said.

The report said a major problem was the Iraqi government's lack of maintenance plans for the facilities after it has taken over control from the U.S.

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/30/iraq.reconstruction/index.html

Funding for the troops?

Four U.S. soldiers killed in Baghdad attacks
April 30, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Four American soldiers died in a pair of weekend attacks in eastern Baghdad, U.S. military statements released Monday said.

Three Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldiers were killed and another was wounded when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb during a combat patrol on Sunday. An Iraqi interpreter was also killed in the attack.

On Saturday, a fourth Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldier died when his combat patrol was hit by small arms fire.

Since the start of the war, the U.S. military has suffered 3,343 fatalities in Iraq. At least 103 American troops have died during April, making it the deadliest month of 2007 and the sixth deadliest month of the entire war.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/30/iraq.main/index.html

Any morning chatters around?

Letter to George Tenet [UPDATE: CNN,MSNBC Interviews Mon. AM]
by L C Johnson [Subscribe]
Sun Apr 29, 2007 at 09:33:42 AM PDT
Update [2007-4-29 22:54:59 by L C Johnson]: I will be interviewed tomorrow morning about this letter on CNN at 7:30 AM ET. Then I'll be a guest on Stephanie Miller's talk show at 8:05 AM ET. Stephanie Miller's talk show will be carried Monday through Wednesday on MSNBC, in the old Imus time slot. Or listen live via Stephanie Miller's site.

Posted by: sparrow at April 30, 2007 08:26 AM

I'm your huckleberry.

I'm going back into irc. (I had to shut it down really quickly. But I'm heading in there now.)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq are so beset with daily violence, corruption and poor maintenance that Iraqis will not be capable of managing reconstruction anytime soon, investigators say.

The latest audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that uncertainty and delays plague a U.S.-led war and rebuilding effort that has already cost nearly $400 billion (€293 billion).

Echoing what U.S. military commanders have acknowledged in recent days, the 210-page report being released Monday found that security remains highly volatile. Rates of attacks are lower, but attacks are more devastating, meaning greater disruption of services and public works.

Corruption among Iraqi officials also appeared to be worsening. Iraq's annual financial loss now exceeds $5 billion (€3.66 billion) because of fraud and abuse that "afflicts virtually every Iraqi ministry," according to the report. It cites the ministries of oil, interior and defense as the biggest offenders.

"Persistent attacks on U.S.-funded infrastructure projects and sustainment challenges could jeopardize the completion of projects by their planned end-dates of mid- to late-2008," according to the report.

In a cover letter, Inspector General Stuart Bowen Jr. said the Iraqi government was assuming more of the financial burden for the recovery effort, but U.S. support "will remain relatively robust for the foreseeable future."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/30/iraq.reconstruction.ap/index.html

Yeah, let's stay.

US Democrats raise prospect of Bush's impeachment over Iraq

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top US congressional Democrat has raised the possibility of George W. Bush's impeachment in a bid to force the president to accept a compromise that would place conditions on continued US military involvement in
Iraq.

Representative John Murtha, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Defense and is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, made the comment Sunday in response to repeated threats by the president to veto legislation that calls for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by the end of next March.

"There's three ways or four ways to influence a president," Murtha said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program. "One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is the purse."

Asked specifically if Democrats, who now control the US Congress, were seriously contemplating the impeachment option, the congressman responded: "What I'm saying, there's four ways to influence a president ... And one of them's impeachment."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070430/ts_alt_afp/usiraqpolitics_070430072129

Posted by: madame defarge at April 30, 2007 09:43 AM

I thought the president was already under the influence.

More good news...

Wolfowitz Resignation Deal in the Works

Behind the scenes of the gladiatorial battle that will take place between Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank Board today are efforts by his lawyer, Robert Bennett, and the Bank staff to negotiate terms of Wolfowitz's departure.

According to some insiders, Wolfowitz wants "some acknowledgment" of the Bank Board's complicity in the messy circumstances surrounding his and Shaha Riza's situation.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002098.php

Posted by: monkey at April 30, 2007 08:36 AM

At least you didn't say, "I'm your blackberry."

Although now that I think of it why don't you have a RNC blackberry? (Just a few cc's would be good.)

Posted by: monkey at April 30, 2007 09:45 AM

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushloaded.htm

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushdui.htm

http://earthhopenetwork.net/Bush_Drunk.htm

Totally OT & non-political...well, sort of...

I highly recommend a visit to Jamestown this year for anyone who can get there.

Here's a great article that tells it like it really was for those 104 men who arrived at a swampy island 400 years ago...and the beginnings of encroaching on Indian land, slavery, & democracy...

Jamestown laid groundwork for America to come

JAMESTOWN, Va. - If you're looking for America's cozy creation narrative - pious settlers, friendly Indians and "the first Thanksgiving," all blessedly lacking the stain of our original sin, slavery - then go visit that rock where the Pilgrims landed.

But if you want the whole story of the white man in America - the full-tilt frenzy of near-starvation and cannibalism, salvation through entrepreneurial enterprise, importing slavery, overrunning Indians and the nation's first step toward representative democracy - then come to Jamestown.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17151351.htm

GOP’s base helps keep unity on Iraq
Lawmakers not backing war pay the price

WASHINGTON - With public opinion tilting firmly toward ending U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.) might have expected praise for his votes that would start to bring the troops home. Instead, at town hall meetings on the Eastern Shore, the former Marine and Vietnam combat veteran has been called a coward and a traitor.

After Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's troop increases, reaction in his district was so furious that local GOP officials all but invited a primary challenge to the reliable conservative. Inglis responded with multiple mailings to his constituents, fence-mending efforts and a video message on his House Web site pleading his case. On subsequent Iraq votes, he has not strayed from the Republican fold.

The experiences of the few Republicans to vote against the war help explain the remarkable unity that the party has maintained in Washington behind an unpopular president. Just four Republicans -- two in the House, two in the Senate -- voted last week for a $124 billion war funding bill that would require troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1, legislation that Bush has vowed to veto.

That cohesion reflects the views of the GOP's core voters, who see the war in Iraq in fundamentally different terms than Democrats and political independents do, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success.

"That's the dilemma for Republicans going forward," Kohut said yesterday. "They've got to look out for their base, but they have to acknowledge the independents have aligned themselves with the way Democrats are thinking on the issue of Iraq."

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18386898/from/RS.2/

Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success.

"That's the dilemma for Republicans going forward," Kohut said yesterday. "They've got to look out for their base, but they have to acknowledge the independents have aligned themselves with the way Democrats are thinking on the issue of Iraq."

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18386898/from/RS.2/

Posted by: monkey at April 30, 2007 10:06 AM

These are the hardcore Fox viewers.

The indys and the dems are tuned into the real journalism on the Comedy Network.

Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB117752895118782401.html