This is not a blog post

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Another day, another McCain advisor thrown under the bus for accidentally telling the truth about his candidate's indifference to the struggles of ordinary Americans. John Goodman "said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance."

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American -- even illegal aliens -- as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

This is nothing new, of course. Just a year ago, Bush made the same argument:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

Ronald Reagan pioneered this art when he justified his lack of decent funding for school lunches by redefining ketchup as a vegetable.

Still, before Bush became president, the idea you could solve problems simply by calling them victories was a concept reserved for satirists. Or something only a governor would get away with.

George Bush and his sidekick, John McCain, have really taken it to a new level. They redefined "hunger" as "very low food security" in order to salvage their domestic record. They redefined squirting guacamole at Taco Bell as a "manufacturing job" to salvage their jobs record. They are trying to redefine contraception as abortion.

They redefined what a stream is in order to open them up to the coal industry. They've tried to redefine carbon dioxide in order to allow more pollution. They redefined "privacy." They redefined "overtime." They tried to redefine toxic sludge to justify defunding Superfund. They redefined the Vice President as a fourth branch of government. They redefined "organic." They redefined "torture" and the Geneva Conventions.

They prevented NASA from talking about global warming or even mentioning the Big Bang. They don't want irradiated food labelled. They even fought to prevent meatpackers from testing their own cattle for Mad Cow disease.

And I haven't even started on all the people who were kicked to the curb for predicting the costs of the Iraq War would be tremendous. Or the way they hid the real costs of the GOP's health care bill.

That's how they solve problems. Two plus two equals four? No problem! "Two plus [redacted] equals five!"

McCain's plan is to deliver the exact same prescriptions for the "whiners" in a "mental recession:" Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm sure you all may be getting speeched out this week (with so many more to come), but if you get a chance and you haven't read it before, check out Mark Danner's 2007 commencement address to a group of Department of Rhetoric graduates at UC Berkely.

Happy New Year

Hello from the Pacific Northwest, the new residence of Dover Bitch. After nearly two decades in sunny SoCal, DB finally packed up the jalopy and headed for wetter digs. I will definitely miss my friends and family there -- and more than a few restaurants -- but the move was for the better and I have no regrets at all.

Still feeling out the local press. Thank heavens for the Internet. I'm not sure right now if I'm more irritated at the NY Times for giving Bill Kristol a paycheck or for continually enticing New Yorkers to come out to Portland. But at least I can feel good about having dumped my LA Times subscription when they hired that imbecile.

Sorry I was gone for so long, but after taking a short time off for the move, it became hard to overcome the inertia. I decided to wait until 2008 to get this thing going again. As I've written before, the upside of being a Z-lister is having the ability to disappear every now and then.

I just wanted to make a mention of one thing before I start up again. DB will be in mourning this year for a family friend who wasn't around this holiday season. Christmas dinner was tough for me this year because we lost her to cancer. I learned she had it this summer and she was gone before Thanksgiving.

A week after she died, I discovered that she had known about it for nearly two years. She had no insurance and was saving up to get the treatment that would have saved her life had she been able to tackle it sooner. Obviously, I'll be asking questions to myself about this for the rest of my life. But one thing is certain: She should have been eating dinner with us this year and America needlessly lost a great soul.

Whomever we call president-elect in 2008, that person better be ready to fix a health care system that is, for lack of a better word, fucked.

Bush: You're on your own, suckers

The audacity of George W. Bush hit another peak today as the president spoke at Cleveland Clinic. DB found this statement to be pretty galling:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

Just go to an emergency room. I wonder if Bush has ever had an experience like this one in Los Angeles this summer:

In the 40 minutes before a woman's death last month at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two separate callers pleaded with 911 dispatchers to send help because the hospital staff was ignoring her as she writhed on the floor, according to audio recordings of the calls.

"My wife is dying and the nurses don't want to help her out," Jose Prado, the woman's boyfriend, told the 911 dispatcher through an interpreter.

He was calling from a pay phone outside the hospital, his tone increasingly desperate as he described how his 43-year-old girlfriend was spitting up blood.

That's what's on the news out here. Well, sometimes you don't die on the floor in the emergency room. You might get dumped out of a van in Skid Row.

But Digby flagged an even more obscene remark the president made today:

I like the idea of people making decisions that are -- that will, one, enhance their health, and two, save money. The doc told me that -- we were looking at one of these brilliant heart guys working for him. You're not going to believe the technology in this hospital, by the way. If you're a Cleveland resident, you ought to be proud of this hospital. It's unbelievable. (Applause.)

He said something pretty wise, though. He said, you can have all the technology that man can conceivably create, but if you continue to smoke, we're going backwards. If you're not exercising, if you're not taking care of the body yourself, all the technology isn't going to save your life. In other words, there is a certain responsibility that we have as citizens to take care of ourselves.

Have we ever had a president who has been more of an obstacle to average Americans' ability to make informed decisions about the food and products they consume? Or a president who has been less interested in protecting average Americans from dangerous products and food?

He sure talks like he cares. Remember this, from the second 2004 Bush-Kerry debate?

HORSTMAN: Mr. President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and inexpensive drugs from Canada which would have cut 40 to 60 percent off of the cost?

BUSH: I haven't yet. Just want to make sure they're safe. When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you.

And that's why the FDA and that's why the surgeon general are looking very carefully to make sure it can be done in a safe way. I've got an obligation to make sure our government does everything we can to protect you.

Despite his talk about personal responsibility, the president sure feels obligated to "protect" us when the drug companies' profits are a factor in the equation.

And what about the clear mandate his FDA and Surgeon General have to inform the public about risks? Just today we heard from former Surgeon General Richard Carmona:

[A]lthough most Americans believe that their Surgeon General has the ability to impact the course of public health as "the nation's doctor," the reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas. Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried.

Don't expect to learn anything about the health of the planet, either. In fact, don't expect the government to tell you anything pertinent about your health, even if you are trying to save lives after a terrorist attack.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA, "EPA's Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes and Areas for Improvement."

No, it's up to you to make informed decisions without the government telling you anything you need to know. That's not Bush's job. That's for the private sector to do.

Except the Bush administration is working harder than ever to rescue the private sector from having to act responsibly or tell you anything.

Chris Waldrop, Consumer Federation of America-Food Policy Institute, Deputy Director, appeared on C-Span's Washington Journal last week:

The FDA has been underfunded drastically over the past five years. They can't keep up with the amount of imports coming into this country.

[...]

As an example, since 2003, the people in the field have... Those numbers have been cut by 12 percent. The imports that have come in, starting in 2003, there were 45 billion for food imports. They're now up to 65 billion and the FDA hasn't even gotten the money that's allowed them to keep steady with inflation rates.

That's the FDA that Bush tasked to work with his muzzled Surgeon General to keep us safe. Is your dinner made in China? Are any ingredients from China? Who knows? Nobody required to tell you does. There are no requirements that anybody tell you where your food comes from.

Don't expect the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do much for your health, either. The three-person board has been paralyzed with a vacancy since January and the former lobbyist Bush tried to put there withdrew his nomination because we finally have a Democratic Congress. And if you expect the Bush administration to do anything at all, expect it to just make things worse. Kevin Drum today points out that Bush is trying to loosen regulations on lead. Lead, fer crying out loud.

So when Bush says it's up to us to make smart decisions about how we treat our bodies, it's really up to us. For example, you could buy organic food:

WASHINGTON, DC, June 25, 2007 (ENS) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, has changed the rules governing organic foods to allow 38 non-organic, agricultural ingredients to be used in foods that bear the government's "USDA Organic" label.

[...]

The Organic Consumers Association, OCA, says the new rule means that Anheuser Busch will be allowed to sell its "Organic Wild Hops Beer" without using any organic hops at all.

Sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" are now allowed to contain intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics, the OCA says.

"It's disheartening to see how profit motivated businesses like Kraft, Wal-Mart and Anheuser-Busch have more sway over the U.S. Department of Agriculture than family farmers, independent organic producers, and consumers," said OCA National Director Ronnie Cummins.

Ouch.

Or you could avoid buying some old meat that was given the equivalent of several million chest X-rays and put back on the shelf. Just look for the irradiation label:

WASHINGTON - The government proposed today relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called “pasteurized.” The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Examples includes changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food.

Ouch.

Well, what if the private sector actually wants to tell Americans their products are safe?

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

George Bush, handed everything in life, has some nerve telling America that "there is a certain responsibility that we have as citizens to take care of ourselves." That rotten son of privilege has done nothing but make it harder for Americans to actually lead healthier lives on a healthy planet.

UPDATE: Bush video here at Crooks & Liars.

From one Issa to another

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) voted against allowing the federal government to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare in January 2007 and against the reimportation of prescription drugs in 2003, a year in which he received a dismal 12% rating from the American Public Health Association.

Yesterday, he made an appearance at the screening of Michael Moore's Sicko on Capitol Hill:

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- In an atmosphere that was part political rally and part tent revival, film director Michael Moore brought his scathing healthcare critique, "Sicko," to Congress Wednesday.

[...]

At the Capitol, Moore showed clips of the film and threw his support behind a House bill -- which has gotten little traction since it was introduced in 2003 -- that would eliminate private insurance companies altogether in favor of extending Medicare-like coverage to all Americans.

Surrounded by a host of supportive representatives and vocal activists, Moore pulled no punches when it came to criticizing health insurance executives and pharmaceutical company lobbyists.

[...]

The chamber briefly cooled with the unexpected arrival of Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican who represents the area around San Diego.

Chiding the Democrats for not inviting him, Issa called for universal healthcare coverage but stopped short of endorsing the state-run system spelled out by the bill.

"It is a bipartisan issue," he said. "We may agree to disagree on nuances, but we must act."

Spectators fell silent, but Issa was given a firm handshake by Moore after Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., invited him to become the first Republican co-sponsor of the legislation.

Poor Darrell Issa wasn't invited to the movie. It's just not fair. After the largest health care legislation in decades was written behind closed doors, without any Democratic input whatsoever, put up for a vote before anybody could possibly read the 678-page bill and was passed after the GOP-controlled Congress bent the rules to keep the 15-minute vote going for three hours, Darrell Issa is whining that the Democrats didn't invite him and his lousy voting record to see a movie about the crisis for which he's partly responsible.

DB has some traveling to do and I always try to leave a good poem in my absence. This one isn't long, but I think it fits:

No doubt about it
by Kobayashi Issa

No doubt about it,
the mountain cuckoo
is a crybaby.

Debates: Health care, stem cells and science

It's hard to believe this was a presidential debate in the 21st Century.

Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee all raised their hands to say they don't believe in evolution. That's simply a deal-breaker for DB.

This was all former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson had to say about his plan to modernize health care for America:

I would transform the health care system a lot different than the president's talking about.

Sign me up.

John McCain, who wants a $3000 tax cut for health care, was the only one firmly supporting federal funding for stem cells. There were some others of various levels of support. Mitt Romney had the most interesting answer:

Altered Nuclear Transfer creates embryo-like cells that can be used for stem cell research. In my view, that's the most promising source. I have a deep concern about curing disease. I have a wife that has a serious disease that could be affected by stem cell research and others, but I will not create new embryos through cloning or through embryo farming because that would be creating life for the purpose of destroying it.

As far as health care goes, we learned that Mitt loves his plan and hates Hillary Clinton's. What exactly is Romney's plan? Who knows?

Rudy Giuliani hates Clinton's plan, too. His solution? Fix health care with optimism.

We're a country that has the greatest health-care system in the world.

It's flawed. It needs to be fixed, but we should fix it from our strengths. We shouldn't turn it into socialized medicine. Those are the things that Ronald Reagan taught us. You lead from optimism.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, cloning is bad.

Personalize it

Over at The Next Hurrah, emptywheel gives a great example of something DB considers to be an important shortcoming in the way in which Democrats use language:

One of the most effective ways I've used to convince fairly rational fiscally conservative people to hate Republicans is by reciting how much they've spent on a stupid Republican boondoggle.

"You've spent $1,500 this year to bomb Afghans. Did you know that? Oh wait. I forgot, you make twice the median income. Make that $3,000 to bomb Afghans."

(Of course, now I'd have to say, "they just took out a $5,000 dollar loan in your name with which to bomb Iraqi civilians.")

Works like a charm, with the added advantage that people believe dollars are a more real sign than other facts. They think of all the added features they could have had on their last car with that $5,000 and it feels "real" to them.

So why aren't we asking people, "Say, did you hear the Republicans just put an accused money-launderer in charge of your pocket-book?"

Right on target. But let's take it even further, this theme of personalization.

DB thinks that personalization is a crucial part of communicating with voters, in any discussion. For example, John Kerry mentioned over and over in the 2004 campaign that 45 million Americans lacked health insurance. That's a big number, but for 250 million Americans, that's a big number of other people.

Why not say, "That's one in six Americans. The next time you get on an airplane and breathe that recycled air, look at the two people sitting next to you and the three sitting right behind you and ask yourself which one of those people hasn't been to a doctor in over a year."

Or maybe, "Who hasn't been to a doctor in over a year? Your waiter? The person who just refilled your water? The guy who tossed the salad you're eating? Or maybe the person cooking your dinner?"

Not to get too Howard Hughes on everybody here, but there's a way of stating problems so they sound huge and insurmountable and then there's ways of stating them so they have some sort of relationship to the people you are trying to reach.