Bad Deeds for 3/9/2010

 

New Reason to Pass Healthcare: Rush Limbaugh Promises to Leave U.S.!

CALLER: If the health care bill passes, where would you go for health care yourself?
LIMBAUGH: … I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.

What happens when Rush realizes that Costa Rica has universal health care? Costa Rica has better health statistics than the U.S. and spends less. They have one of the world’s most successful universal health care systems. 100% of their population is given equal comprehensive public health insurance with equal access to services.

Given that Costa Rica’s successful “cradle to grave” universal health care system is not just for Costa Ricans, but even for foreigners in the country, I’d like to suggest Rush try Somalia instead.

 

Wall Street Journal Recommends That Phil Gramm Be Appointed to the Bipartisan Budget Deficit Commission – Gramm is the guy who said during the 2008 presidential campaign that we were just in a “mental recession.” He was pointman for the law that repealed hunks of the Glass-Steagall Act that had prevented commercial banks from operating as investment banks and from entering the insurance business. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall which allowed the financial conglomerates such as AIG and Citigroup. He and his wife are responsible for the Enron loophole and derivatives deregulation. He also blocked legislation that would have cracked down on off-shore tax havens, a law that might, just might, have had an impact on reducing federal deficits. And he is now vice chairman of the scandal-plagued UBS investment firm.

 

Liz Chaney’s Attacks Are So Out-of-Bounds That They Have Been Rebuked by Twenty Conservative Attorneys – Twenty conservative attorneys including Bill Clinton’s prosecutor, Ken Starr, have rebuked Cheney’s ad campaign suggesting that a number of Justice Department officials are terrorist sympathizers for having represented detainees during the Bush administration. The spot labels them the “Al-Qaeda 7” and questions their “values.” Here are excerpts from the letter:

“The past several days have seen a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in previous legal practice, either represented Guantánamo detainees or advocated for changes to detention policy. As attorneys, former officials, and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues, we consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications.”

“The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’s representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre. People come to serve in the Justice Department with a diverse array of prior private clients; that is one of the department’s strengths.”

“To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.”

Actual letter

 

City Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn to Save Water – On Tuesday, Quan and Angelina Ha are scheduled to appear in Orange County Superior Court. City codes require that live landscaping cover 40% of the yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. The Has say their water use has dropped 80% since they replaced the grass with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants.

They said they were trying to do something good for the environment. “We’ve got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,” said Quan Ha.

Regards,

Jim