Bad Deeds for 01-09-2008

Government Health Care Keeps Cheney’s Evil Heart Beating – Unlike the average American, the president, vice president and members of Congress all enjoy government-financed health care with few restrictions or prohibitive fees. They are never turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied care for what an insurance company labels “experimental treatments.” Such are the benefits of what we call “CheneyCare.” Sign this petition to let the candidates know the rest of us deserve no less!

Cheney Had Role in Quashing California Emissions Standards According to EPA Staff – Multiple staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency said that Bush Administration appointee Stephen Johnson, who heads the agency, quashed California’s plan to regulate automobile emissions single-handedly, going against the wishes of nearly all of his staff. The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignored his staff’s written findings in denying California’s request for a waiver to implement its landmark law to slash greenhouse gases from vehicles. “California met every criteria . . . on the merits. The same criteria we have used for the last 40 years on all the other waivers,” said an EPA staffer. “We told him that. All the briefings we have given him laid out the facts.” California had sought a waiver from the federal emissions standards to implement a law which would further restrict emissions. According to Wilson, “Some staff members believe Johnson made his decision after auto executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney and after a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the White House outlining why neither California nor the EPA should be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases, among other reasons. The Detroit News reported Wednesday that chief executives of Ford and Chrysler met with Cheney last month.” “Clearly the White House said, ‘We’re going to get EPA out of the way and get California out of the way,” said a quoted EPA employee.

Ignoring the Law About Publishing History – This week marks the one year anniversary of the date when the US last published the latest print volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, “the official documentary record of U.S. foreign policy which dates back to the Abraham Lincoln Administration.” That volume covered the “Organization and Management of U.S. Foreign Policy” from 1969-1972. The volume’s publication is required by law, not more than 30 years later than the historical events. The journal of US foreign policy has long lagged behind its 30-year deadline, but the failure to print even a single volume is extraordinary and unprecedented in living memory.

Rudy Giuliani Secretly Sneaked Out More Than 2,000 Boxes of Records When He Left Office – Under an unprecedented agreement that didn’t become public until after he left office, Giuliani secreted out of City Hall the written, photographic and electronic record of his eight years in office _ more than 2,000 boxes.

U.S. Worst in Preventable Death Ranking – United States rated worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday. If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of the top three rated countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs. Researchers tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did. The large number of Americans who lack any type of health insurance — about 47 million people in a country of about 300 million, according to U.S. government estimates — probably was a key factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other industrialized nations in the study.

White House Spokesman Out-of-Touch on Economy – A reporter asked presidential spokesman Tony Fratto if the Bush administration was at all worried about a recession. He replied, “I don’t know of anyone predicting a recession.”

However, it appears that Fratto hasn’t been reading the news. Several of the nation’s leading economists continue to predict that the United States will slip into a recession:

Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein: We are now talking about [a recession happening] more likely than not. … I have been saying about 50 percent. This now pushes it up a bit above that.” [1/5/08]

Lawrence Summers: “[T]he odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis. Without stronger policy responses than have been observed to date, moreover, there is the risk that the adverse impacts will be felt for the rest of this decade and beyond.” [11/25/07]

National Association for Business Economics survey: “The number of economists forecasting the U.S. will slip into recession almost doubled over the last two months.” [11/19/07]

Warren Buffett: “If I had to pick the chances that we are going into a recession, I would say they are fairly significant.” [10/29/07]

CBO Director Peter Orszag: “The risk of a recession is clearly elevated.” [9/18/07]

McCain Falsely Claims He Has ‘Never Asked For A Single Earmark Or Pork Barrel Project’ For His State – In the Fox News GOP presidential forum, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attempted to argue that if elected president, he will eliminate “wasteful spending.” As evidence, he claimed that he has never asked for an earmark for his state of Arizona:

And I’m proud to tell you, Chris, in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state and I guarantee you I’ll veto those bills. I’ll ask for the line item veto and I’ll veto them and I’ll make the authors of them famous.

McCain’s claim is false. In 2006, the senator teamed up with fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (R) to funnel $10 million toward the University of Arizona for an academic center named after the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Even Arizona lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Flake (R), said he was planning to “lean against the measure.” The National Taxpayers Union, another traditional McCain ally, questioned why the senator was making federal taxpayers foot the bill for the center.

McCain: ‘I Dont Think Americans Are Concerned’ If We Stay In Iraq For ‘10,000 Years’ – Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said it “would be fine with” him if the U.S. military stayed in Iraq for “a hundred years” or even a “million years.” Fifty-nine percent say the U.S. should “stick to a withdrawal timetable” instead of keeping “a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years.” But on CBS’s Face the Nation, McCain claimed that Americans would not be “concerned” if the U.S. spends “10,000 years” in Iraq:

“The point is it’s American casualties. We’ve go to get American’s off the frontlines, have the Iraqis as part of the strategy, take over more and more of the responsibilities, and then I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for one hundred years or a thousand years or ten thousand years.”

Trent Lott Dodges Ethics Law by Bolting to Lobbying Firm – Three weeks after unexpectedly bolting from the Senate, Trent Lott has decided to go into business as a lobbyist. Lott denied that his quick resignation was motivated by a desire to avoid the new lobbying rules.

Second Night in a Row of Republicans Debating Provides Recycled Distortions – In the final debate before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary election, five Republican candidates appeared on Fox News. There was no shortage of recycled bunk, and a new twist or two:

• Huckabee repeated his claim to have made 94 tax cuts including the “first broad-based tax cut” in the history of Arkansas, though he actually signed tax bills that resulted in a net increase in taxes of $500 million.
• Romney said his increases in “fees” only amounted to $240 million in Massachusetts. But his own administration and others have put them higher. He also failed to mention $174 million in corporate tax “loophole” closings.
• Giuliani falsely claimed that one of his tax cuts more than paid for itself, and he generally used incorrect figures when boasting of his record on taxes in New York City. And he claimed credit for too large a reduction in welfare cases.
• Thompson said, “I never said that I was cutting Social Security.” That’s true, but he is proposing to slow the growth of benefits to those who retire in the future.
• McCain said he had never asked for a single “pork barrel project” for Arizona, but we find a few that could qualify for that characterization

Whoppers of the Year (and I’m not talking about burgers) – The year 2007 wasn’t a good one for political honesty. Though not even technically an election year, it provided a bumper crop of falsehoods and distortions nonetheless.

• Republican Rudy Giuliani made numerous false claims about his record as mayor of New York (adoption, number of police, crime rates, tax cuts), and even one about England’s health care system.
• Democrat Bill Richardson also mangled the facts repeatedly, claiming credit for creating more jobs as New Mexico’s governor than actually materialized and using a made-up figure about the performance of U.S. students, among other misstatements.
• Republican Mitt Romney claimed undeserved credit for himself as governor of Massachusetts and made false or misleading claims about two of his rivals.
• Democrat Hillary Clinton ran an ad claiming that National Guard and Reserve troops had no health insurance before she went to work, when in fact most of them did.
• Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee repeatedly twisted the facts when talking about his record on taxes in Arkansas and other subjects. And there were plenty of other howlers from the large field of candidates.
• Democrats made false promises about their Medicare drug bill in January.
• President Bush made a false claim about a Democratic effort to expand health care coverage for children in low-income families.
• Advocates of the so-called “FairTax” claimed a 23 percent national sales tax can replace both the federal income tax and Social Security taxes. In truth, the actual rate would have to be at least 34 percent even if it fell on new homes, mortgage and credit-card interest and a host of other products and services not usually subject to state or local sales taxes.
• A labor union group ran an ad supporting Democrat John Edwards that left the impression that jobs from a closed Iowa plant had gone overseas, when really they had gone to Ohio.
• A business group ran an ad falsely claiming that “lawsuit abuse” costs families thousands of dollars per year, which isn’t true.

Department of Homeland Security Finalizing Plans for Domestic Spy Satellite Program – A plan to dramatically widen US law enforcement agencies’ access to data from powerful spy satellites is moving toward implementation, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a charter for the program this week, according to a new report. Chertoff insists the scheme to turn spy satellites — that were originally designed for foreign surveillance — on Americans is legal, although a House committee that would approve the program has not been updated on the program for three months.

Regards,

Jim