MiseryWatch

Does America Really Want More of This?

Latest on Federal Response to Fires

President Bush's photo-op visit to fire-ravaged San Diego caused aggravation for homeowners and firefighters.  The presidential motorcade blocked access to residents who had just been allowed to return to their homes and prevented firefighters from getting to showers and meals.

As for the Bush administration's spin machine overdrive, FEMA hit a new low.  It hastily scheduled a last-minute news conference where it had its own employees pose as reporters to ask softball questions.

Fingerpointing is still going on about the grounded copters which were delayed for days.  Some blame federal and state red tape and bureaucracy while a defensive Governor Schwarzenegger and federal officials blame the winds.   But our earlier reports of federal red tape at customs to get Canadian equipment here, as well as federal officials ignoring early wind warnings and delaying approvals for firefighting assets, we are well aware of the federal shortcomings.  Of course, Governor Schwarzenegger is taking a page out of Bush's book by being defiant and impatient at any suggestion the state has bungled firefighting efforts.

In addition to the lapdog media supporting the Bush administration's version of events, the right wing wingnuts are now saying that compared to New Orleans the more orderly evacuation efforts in San Diego are because the city is primarily white and Republican.

People Getting Dumber; Then Will Split Into Two Species?

American kids are now "dumber than dirt" with worrying implications on the intelligence of the next generation.   We commented on this last year with our report on the wrong people having babies, leading to a future idiocracy.

Going one step further, scientists are speculating that the human race may split into two species, one smart and the other dumb.   

What does Bush think about this?  Well, possibly nothing, because one columnist suggests Bush might actually be psychotic.

Criticism Mounts of Poor Federal Efforts in California Wildfires

Today's San Diego Union-Tribune continued its coverage of the poor federal response to the wildfires that have devastated much of the county.  Customs delays to get a Canadian firefighting aircraft in, red tape in joining Marine corps forces with California firefighters, and delays in sending equipment, some of which wasn't sent until the worst of the fires were past.

Of course, now that the worst has passed, Bush is visiting San Diego for a well-planned dog and pony show.  The lapdog media will no doubt do its part to make the administration appear in its best possible light.

Late Again

Not surprisingly, federal help was  late to support fighting the wildfires in Southern California.  According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Why weren't U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard planes already at nearby airfields and ready to drop water or retardant, by prearrangement of the Pentagon and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Instead, The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon's OK of the governor's request for such planes to help in San Diego County did not come until yesterday morning. The planes won't join the fight until this morning – six days after experts first warned of a possible Santa Ana-fueled conflagration and nearly three days after the Witch Creek blaze began its rampage from Ramona west to Rancho Santa Fe and south to Poway. This is inexplicable.

Surprising from this usually pro-military paper, but of  course they've been directly affected.  Don't expect much of this from the other lapdog media.

Fake Crybaby

Ellen is Wrong

We have never talked about celebrity news.  We rail against it as part of what is dumbing down this country.  But we do care a thing or two about animal shelters so we are weighing in on this. 

Talk about vengeful.  Ellen DeGeneres has caused a small, not-for-profit, all-volunteer rescue organization unimaginable grief because of her non-stop harangues on her daily TV show "Ellen."  The rescue's owner has received death threats and she had to pull her website because the mailbox has been inundated with hate mail.  At minimum it is interfering in the care of the animals in the shelter, and at worse she may even have to close down because of all of this. 

All because Ellen decided she didn't like a puppy, didn't give it a chance and refused to follow the adoption rules of the rescue organization.

Ellen is angry and having a public hissy fit because she didn't get her way after she didn't adhere to her end of the contract.  So she is blaming Mutts and Moms, the rescue organization, and causing them this grief.  Not only is she using her place in the media to hassle them, but behind the scenes as well her lawyers and publicists have threatened the small shelter. 

And this is a self-described "animal lover?"   No.  It's been reported that Ellen and her lover Portia have done this many times before; some accounts say up to nine times (we will be sourcing the data).  Right:  nine adopted puppies she's discarded all because they somehow didn't work out for her and didn't give them a chance.  She performed in an American Express commercial with "trained" animals when it is known that pain is used to get these animals to "perform."

Some quick words of background:  Most causes of neglect, abuse and unnecessary surrender of pets are  because prospective petowners and their homes were never screened in the first place.  Screening owners and homes is simply not possible for most rescue organizations because they do not have the resources.  Pet shops and puppy mills don't care because they want to sell as many as possible.  But high-end breeders or select rescue shelters do indeed interview prospective pet owners and screen their homes.  Mutts and Moms has their policy,  rules which Ellen agreed to.  She could have gone anywhere else if she didn't like their rules.   Further, that rescue has another rule that pets are not placed in homes where there are children under the age of 14.  So Ellen actually broke two rules she had agreed to.  The fact is, if Ellen thought there was a chance that she might be discarding the animal soon she could have adopted elsewhere; she knew the rules in advance.

Send Ellen an e-mail and tell her this isn't acceptable.  Tell her to quit picking on a small, defenseless organization and to grow up.

Misery Roundup

Inept President, Greedy Corporations, and U.S. Debt

Bush's sham climate conference -- which the lapdog media in the U.S. dutifully reported the way the white house wanted them to -- is already generating criticism around the world for its failures to mandate any meaningful targets for countries, instead relying on "voluntary" targets by the countries themselves.  Bush is still with the "it will hurt the economy" nonsense, and the Union of Concerned Scientists is saying enough is enough.

The U.S. was accused of killing women and children in its air strike on a neighborhood in Baghdad.  By the way, the Spanish newspaper El Universal had an expose on a conversation between Bush and then-Spanish prime minister Aznar in the period before the Iraq war when we were ostensibly waiting for the UN inspectors to do their work that asserts that Bush told Aznar there would be war with Iraq regardless of what the UN finds (article is in Spanish).

Also on Iraq, the U.S. has quietly given another contract to Blackwater, despite all of the turmoil surrounding them.  Did you hear this in any of the American mainstream lapdog media?

Corporate greed is alive and well.  Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo sold large quantities of Countrywide stock as the mortgage crisis was in its infancy, having changed his stock plan more than once to accommodate his intentions to sell  There are already shareholder suits against him alleging that the company misled investors.

Starbucks is also a proud torch bearer of greed.  In Ethiopia on one of its contract plantations coffee workers earn $1 per day, and neighboring indigenous peoples'  are being told to alter their traditional ways of life.

Last, remember the outrageous debt that keeps mounting?  The press doesn't say much about it.  But grumblings in Asia -- including China, which owns much of our debt -- are growing louder and the U.S. should take notice.

Childrens

"Childrens do learn."  At this point, we know only one public figure could utter that one.  Yes, it's your president's eloquence at work again.  At an education event, no less.  Of course, the extra 's' was removed from the official white house transcript. 

Childrens also don't get health coverage.   What with Bush readying to veto a bill that would expand health care to more children, the administration is trying to throw the lapdog media off track and counter with its push to get the "No Child Left Behind" act renewed, a program the administration believes is a good track record regarding children.  Never mind that the president failed to fund $56 billion towards the program, or that the improvements in test scores they tout are selective and not across the board.

Brain Injuries and Iraq War Vets

The U.S. Army is testing the brains of troops to be newly deployed in Iraq to help them "baseline" a soldier's cognitive abilities and thus make it easier to diagnose and treat possible head injuries incurred later while stationed in Iraq.  The program is mandatory at the 101st Airborne Division in Kentucky and will spread elsewhere in the coming months.  This program is not as it appears.

First, some background.  Traumatic brain injury, or "TBI" is one of the worst and most common traumas coming out of Iraq, earning it the title of "signature injury" with an estimated one in five expected to come back with some form of brain injury.  Symptoms are difficult to pinpoint for the patient and evaluation and testing is challenging for doctors.  In fact, sometimes there are no symptoms initially, yet the damage is very severe nonetheless.   For the first time, there are more head injuries than abdominal injuries.

TBI is devastating for the sufferer.  In addition to impairing cognitive abilities, it causes anxiety, stress, night terrors, headaches, blurred vision, etc.  Meaningful employment is out.  So severe are these injuries sufferers are sometimes called "dead men walking."    Families also carry much of the burden.

Well, the Bush administration has responded in its usual fashion.  First it cut funding for the Center for War Related Brain Injuries last year when the GOP still had control of congress.    Next, it ignored concerns that misdiagnoses were being made on returning vets.   "Maybe it's politics, maybe it's negligence, maybe it's incompetence,  I don't know. I just know that it's taking too long to take things like brain injury seriously," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.   Then, following the short-lived scandal over conditions at Walter Reed, the administration created a commission to look into the brain injury problem, coming up with the predictable conclusions to look at foisting the problem off on the private sector.  So slow has been the administration's response that states are taking matters into their own hands.

Add to this the administration's reluctance to provide necessary armor and protection for the troops, and you have a factory for producing young men with head trauma with no meaningful follow up care.  So much for Bush "supporting our troops."

This usual mistreatment of our troops and vets by the Bush administration has immense costs for us all.  Many of these young soldiers with TBI will require years -- possibly a lifetime -- of highly specialized care, not to mention assistance is they are unable to work.  As many as 400,000 veterans of the "war on terror" are expected to file for some form of disability.

Back to these tests.  We believe that the administration decided to institute this test to "baseline" soldiers' abilities strictly to protect themselves; to point to data that says "well, he only performed this well on these tests before he left, so it can't possibly be anything that happened in Iraq."   

One veterans' rights champion is already concerned that this is a ploy to deny care to future vets based on a pre-existing condition.  “We certainly think these tests should not be used to reduce the responsibility that the Army has to treat the soldiers who have served,” said Jason Forrester, director of policy for Veterans for America.

Idiocy and Cowardice

Which is worse?  Idiocy or cowardice? 

The Democrats are displaying both.  This whole bit with moveon.org and its "betray us - Petraeus" ad.

Perfect time to remind people of Swiftboat, and that the Republicans can "dish it but can't take it."

Perfect time to remind people that Bush had other Generals who had different views on Iraq, but got themselves fired.

Perfect time to remind people that just over a year ago was another big report, one that we all had to wait for before we could make a judgment on the war.  The Baker Report.  Remember that?  Oh, that's right.  The conclusions weren't what Bush wanted, so even that disappeared.

Perfect time to remind the public that a general should not be doing a politician's job, and that in and of itself makes his performance suspect.

But, no.  The Democrats caved in and voted to denounce moveon.org's ad, fearful that somehow not standing up against it would make them look weak when it came time for re-election?  Have they not learned yet that Americans want politicians to stand up for what they believe in?