Medical ethics group says physicians monitored 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and studied their effectiveness
Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto understood.
PHR says health professionals participated at every stage in the development, implementation and legal justification of what it calls the CIA's secret "torture programme".
The American Medical Association, the largest body of physicians in the US, said it was in open dialogue with the Obama administration and other government agencies over the role of doctors. "The participation of physicians in torture and interrogation is a violation of core ethical values," it said.
The most incendiary accusation of PHR's latest report, Aiding Torture, is that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent. The report concludes that such data gathering was "a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation".
Human experimentation without consent has been prohibited in any setting since 1947, when the Nuremberg Code, which resulted from the prosecution of Nazi doctors, set down 10 sacrosanct principles. The code states that voluntary consent of subjects is essential and that all unnecessary physical and mental suffering should be avoided.
The Geneva conventions also ban medical experiments on prisoners and prisoners of war, which they describe as "grave breaches". Under CIA guidelines, doctors and psychologists were required to be present during the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques on detainees.
In April, a leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross found that medical staff employed by the CIA had been present during waterboarding, and had even used what appeared to be a pulse oxymeter, placed on the prisoner's finger to monitor his oxygen saturation during the procedure. The Red Cross condemned such activities as a "gross breach of medical ethics". PHR has based its accusation of possible experimentation on the 2004 report of the CIA's own inspector general into the agency's interrogation methods, which was finally published two weeks ago after pressure from the courts.
An appendix to the report, marked "top secret", provides guidelines to employees of the CIA's internal Office of Medical Services "supporting the detention of terrorists turned over to the CIA for interrogation".
Medical workers are given the task of "assessing and monitoring the health of all agency detainees" subjected to enhanced techniques. These techniques include facial slaps, sleep deprivation, walling – where their padded heads are banged against walls – confinement in boxes, and waterboarding or simulated drowning.
The guidelines instruct doctors to carry out regular medical checks of detainees. They must ensure that prisoners receive enough food, though diet "need not be palatable", and monitor their body temperature when placed in "uncomfortably cool environments, ranging from hours to days".
The most controversial guideline refers to waterboarding, the technique where prisoners are made to feel as though they are drowning by having water poured over a cloth across their face. The guidelines stress that the method carries physical risks, particularly "by days three to five of an aggressive programme".
PHR is calling for an official investigation into the role of doctors in the CIA's now widely discredited programme. It wants to know exactly how many doctors participated, what they did, what records they kept and the science that they applied.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
China's national flag to go up in White House on Sept 20
The national flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC) will be hoisted at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on September 20, media reported Sunday.
Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC.
Chen Ronghua, chairman of Fujian Association of the United States, told reporters that their application was approved not only because of the sound Sino-US relations but also because China is a responsible country.
"Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing Olympics," said Chen.
More than 1,000 people will attend the ceremony and the performances held after it, according to Zhao Luqun, who will direct the performances.
Zhao said the performances will demonstrate the friendship, magnanimous spirit and kindness of modern Chinese people.
Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC.
Chen Ronghua, chairman of Fujian Association of the United States, told reporters that their application was approved not only because of the sound Sino-US relations but also because China is a responsible country.
"Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing Olympics," said Chen.
More than 1,000 people will attend the ceremony and the performances held after it, according to Zhao Luqun, who will direct the performances.
Zhao said the performances will demonstrate the friendship, magnanimous spirit and kindness of modern Chinese people.
Congress to lift restrictions on corporate campaign finance
The Supreme Court appears poised to wipe away limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions in time for next year's congressional elections in a case that began as a dispute over a movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The justices return to the bench Wednesday — nearly a month early — to consider whether to overrule two earlier decisions that restrict how and when corporations and unions can take part in federal campaigns. Laws that impose similar limits in 24 states also are threatened.
The court first heard arguments in March in the case of whether "Hillary: The Movie," a scathingly critical look at Clinton's presidential ambitions, could be regulated as a campaign ad. The emphasis has shifted away from the 90-minute film.
Now the justices could decide whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending. Restrictions on corporations have been around for more than 100 years; limits on unions date from the 1940s.
Deep corporate and labor pockets and the potential for corruption "amply justify treating corporate and union expenditures differently from those by individuals and ideological nonprofit groups," argued Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and other sponsors of a major campaign finance law who don't want any significant change to the restrictions.
But former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who six years ago defended the campaign finance provision he now is challenging, said the limits are strangling corporate and union freedom to speak out.
"Why is it easier to dance naked, burn a flag or wear a T-shirt profanely opposing the draft," Olson said at a Federalist Society event in July, "than it is to advocate the election or defeat of a president? That cannot be right."
Wednesday's unusual session — the court only rarely orders a case to be reargued — also will be the first to include the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor. In August, the 55-year-old New Yorker became the court's first Hispanic and third female justice ever.
It also will be the first argument for Solicitor General Elena Kagan, a finalist for the high court seat that went to Sotomayor. Yet another former solicitor general, Seth Waxman, is representing McCain and Feingold in an effort to preserve the 2003 provision that tightened limits on ads paid for by corporations and unions and broadcast close to an election.
Kagan, defending the law on the government's behalf, and Waxman will face skeptical conservative-leaning justices, who appear to hold the upper hand on this issue. The court's liberals generally have voted to uphold campaign finance laws. Sotomayor's ascension to the court did not change its ideological balance, giving opponents of the current campaign finance laws hope this court will strike them down.
The court could have decided the case narrowly following arguments on March 24. Instead, on the last day they met before their summer break, the justices said they would consider overruling part of their 2003 decision that upheld major portions of the McCain-Feingold law as well as a 1990 decision that upheld limits on corporate spending in elections.
Three justices on the court now — Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — already have signed minority opinions that advocated striking down both laws as unconstitutional restrictions on speech. Since the 2003 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have joined the court. Both have questioned the validity of campaign finance laws, but have not yet gone as far as their three conservative-leaning colleagues.
Roberts and Alito made clear during the original arguments how much they worried about the control the campaign finance laws give government over political speech.
"If Wal-Mart airs an advertisement that says, `We have candidate action figures for sale, come buy them,' that counts as an electioneering communication?" Roberts asked government lawyer Malcolm Stewart.
"If it's aired in the right place at the right time, that would be covered," Stewart said.
Stewart later added that campaign finance laws could be applied to mediums such as books and e-books. "That's pretty incredible," Alito said. "You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?"
Olson picked up on Alito's incredulity in his brief to the court. "Enough is enough. When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech, something has gone terribly wrong and it is as sure a sign as any that a return to first principles is in order," he said.
Olson is representing Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group that wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
The justices could have decided the case on narrow grounds this year, saying for example that movies aired on-demand are exempt from campaign finance laws.
The call for new arguments to address the broader limits on corporate and union spending makes supporters of those laws nervous.
"This has the potential to unleash massive corporate spending," said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime proponent of limiting money in politics. "It would be a disaster for democracy."
___
The case is Citizens United v. FEC, 08-205.
The justices return to the bench Wednesday — nearly a month early — to consider whether to overrule two earlier decisions that restrict how and when corporations and unions can take part in federal campaigns. Laws that impose similar limits in 24 states also are threatened.
The court first heard arguments in March in the case of whether "Hillary: The Movie," a scathingly critical look at Clinton's presidential ambitions, could be regulated as a campaign ad. The emphasis has shifted away from the 90-minute film.
Now the justices could decide whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending. Restrictions on corporations have been around for more than 100 years; limits on unions date from the 1940s.
Deep corporate and labor pockets and the potential for corruption "amply justify treating corporate and union expenditures differently from those by individuals and ideological nonprofit groups," argued Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and other sponsors of a major campaign finance law who don't want any significant change to the restrictions.
But former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who six years ago defended the campaign finance provision he now is challenging, said the limits are strangling corporate and union freedom to speak out.
"Why is it easier to dance naked, burn a flag or wear a T-shirt profanely opposing the draft," Olson said at a Federalist Society event in July, "than it is to advocate the election or defeat of a president? That cannot be right."
Wednesday's unusual session — the court only rarely orders a case to be reargued — also will be the first to include the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor. In August, the 55-year-old New Yorker became the court's first Hispanic and third female justice ever.
It also will be the first argument for Solicitor General Elena Kagan, a finalist for the high court seat that went to Sotomayor. Yet another former solicitor general, Seth Waxman, is representing McCain and Feingold in an effort to preserve the 2003 provision that tightened limits on ads paid for by corporations and unions and broadcast close to an election.
Kagan, defending the law on the government's behalf, and Waxman will face skeptical conservative-leaning justices, who appear to hold the upper hand on this issue. The court's liberals generally have voted to uphold campaign finance laws. Sotomayor's ascension to the court did not change its ideological balance, giving opponents of the current campaign finance laws hope this court will strike them down.
The court could have decided the case narrowly following arguments on March 24. Instead, on the last day they met before their summer break, the justices said they would consider overruling part of their 2003 decision that upheld major portions of the McCain-Feingold law as well as a 1990 decision that upheld limits on corporate spending in elections.
Three justices on the court now — Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — already have signed minority opinions that advocated striking down both laws as unconstitutional restrictions on speech. Since the 2003 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have joined the court. Both have questioned the validity of campaign finance laws, but have not yet gone as far as their three conservative-leaning colleagues.
Roberts and Alito made clear during the original arguments how much they worried about the control the campaign finance laws give government over political speech.
"If Wal-Mart airs an advertisement that says, `We have candidate action figures for sale, come buy them,' that counts as an electioneering communication?" Roberts asked government lawyer Malcolm Stewart.
"If it's aired in the right place at the right time, that would be covered," Stewart said.
Stewart later added that campaign finance laws could be applied to mediums such as books and e-books. "That's pretty incredible," Alito said. "You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?"
Olson picked up on Alito's incredulity in his brief to the court. "Enough is enough. When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech, something has gone terribly wrong and it is as sure a sign as any that a return to first principles is in order," he said.
Olson is representing Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group that wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
The justices could have decided the case on narrow grounds this year, saying for example that movies aired on-demand are exempt from campaign finance laws.
The call for new arguments to address the broader limits on corporate and union spending makes supporters of those laws nervous.
"This has the potential to unleash massive corporate spending," said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime proponent of limiting money in politics. "It would be a disaster for democracy."
___
The case is Citizens United v. FEC, 08-205.
Ashcroft can be sued over jailing post 9/11 'witnesses'
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be sued for damages for ordering Muslims jailed as material witnesses in criminal cases, allegedly as a pretext to investigate their possible links to terrorism, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Friday.
The 2-1 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the first of its kind in the nation, was a rebuke to the Bush administration's post-9/11 practice of using the material-witness law to hold people as suspected terrorists without evidence that they had committed crimes.
The government lacks "the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end ... merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing," Judge Milan Smith, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said in the majority opinion.
"We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history," Smith wrote.
Dissenting Judge Carlos Bea, also a Bush appointee, said Ashcroft had acted as a prosecutor and can't be sued for ordering the arrest of a potential witness, even if the arrest was a pretext for investigating the witness.
Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer for the Nevada man who sued Ashcroft and others over arrest, said the ruling is a blow to a government policy of "preventive detention" of people who have committed no crimes.
"A policy of that nature is unconstitutional and quite dangerous," Gelernt said.
Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the agency, which has defended Ashcroft, is reviewing the ruling.
Gelernt's client, Abdullah al-Kidd, is a U.S. citizen and former football star at the University of Idaho. He was arrested in March 2003, held at jails in three states for 16 days, then monitored while living at home for the next 15 months.
A court warrant named him as a material witness in the case of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, the alleged computer Webmaster of a radical Islamic organization. The FBI said al-Kidd had received $20,000 from Al-Hussayen and was about to fly to Saudi Arabia.
In fact, al-Kidd's lawyers said, he had cooperated with the FBI and had repeatedly told agents he was willing to testify.
He was not called as a witness against Al-Hussayen, who was acquitted in 2004 of providing support to terrorists.
Al-Kidd said he lost his job as a result of the arrest, hasn't found steady work since and has separated from his wife.
Under the material witness law, a person whose testimony is needed in a criminal case, and may be unavailable by subpoena, can be held for a reasonable period. Ashcroft, in an October 2001 press briefing, said that "aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses" was part of his strategy to prevent terrorist attacks.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress in 2003 that al-Kidd's arrest was one of the bureau's "major successes" in "identifying and dismantling terrorist networks."
But the court said the government never showed that al-Kidd was a terrorist and was not entitled to use the material witness law to hold him as a suspect.
Ashcroft's immunity from lawsuits extends only to his decisions to prosecute cases and not to a policy of ordering purported witnesses held for investigation, the court said.
The ruling is at links.sfgate.com/ZICQ.
The 2-1 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the first of its kind in the nation, was a rebuke to the Bush administration's post-9/11 practice of using the material-witness law to hold people as suspected terrorists without evidence that they had committed crimes.
The government lacks "the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end ... merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing," Judge Milan Smith, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said in the majority opinion.
"We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history," Smith wrote.
Dissenting Judge Carlos Bea, also a Bush appointee, said Ashcroft had acted as a prosecutor and can't be sued for ordering the arrest of a potential witness, even if the arrest was a pretext for investigating the witness.
Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer for the Nevada man who sued Ashcroft and others over arrest, said the ruling is a blow to a government policy of "preventive detention" of people who have committed no crimes.
"A policy of that nature is unconstitutional and quite dangerous," Gelernt said.
Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the agency, which has defended Ashcroft, is reviewing the ruling.
Gelernt's client, Abdullah al-Kidd, is a U.S. citizen and former football star at the University of Idaho. He was arrested in March 2003, held at jails in three states for 16 days, then monitored while living at home for the next 15 months.
A court warrant named him as a material witness in the case of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, the alleged computer Webmaster of a radical Islamic organization. The FBI said al-Kidd had received $20,000 from Al-Hussayen and was about to fly to Saudi Arabia.
In fact, al-Kidd's lawyers said, he had cooperated with the FBI and had repeatedly told agents he was willing to testify.
He was not called as a witness against Al-Hussayen, who was acquitted in 2004 of providing support to terrorists.
Al-Kidd said he lost his job as a result of the arrest, hasn't found steady work since and has separated from his wife.
Under the material witness law, a person whose testimony is needed in a criminal case, and may be unavailable by subpoena, can be held for a reasonable period. Ashcroft, in an October 2001 press briefing, said that "aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses" was part of his strategy to prevent terrorist attacks.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress in 2003 that al-Kidd's arrest was one of the bureau's "major successes" in "identifying and dismantling terrorist networks."
But the court said the government never showed that al-Kidd was a terrorist and was not entitled to use the material witness law to hold him as a suspect.
Ashcroft's immunity from lawsuits extends only to his decisions to prosecute cases and not to a policy of ordering purported witnesses held for investigation, the court said.
The ruling is at links.sfgate.com/ZICQ.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Green jobs czar signed 'truther' statement in 2004
President Obama’s “green jobs czar” Van Jones has been targeted again and again by conservatives for his controversial views and now they’ll have another item to use as fodder.
Mr. Jones signed a statement for 911Truth.org in 2004 demanding an investigation into what the Bush Administration may have done that “deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”
His name is listed with 99 other prominent signatories supporting such an investigation on the 911Truth.org website, including Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans, comedienne Janeane Garofalo, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and others. He's identified as the executive director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the statement, which he founded before going to the White House. The statement is available here. Mr. Jones is number 46.
Mike Berger, a spokesman for 911Truth.org, told the Washington Times over the phone that all of the signers had been verified by their group. He said 9/11Truth.org board members “spoke with each person on the list by phone or through email to individually confirm they had added their name to that list.”
“I think in most cases they spoke to them personally,” he added. “No one’s name was put on that list without them knowing it.”
Fox News personalty Glenn Beck has described Mr. Jones as a "radical" on his program and many conservative blogs have questioned his political tactics and strategies. Mr. Jones recently landed in hot water when a video surfaced of him calling Republicans a disparaging name at an energy lecture in Berkeley, California last February. He apologized for those remarks in an email to the Politico this week.
The White House has been contacted for comment and this blog will be updated with their statement when provided.
UPDATE: A response was provided to reporters Thursday evening. In it, Mr. Jones apologized for signing the statement and said he doesn't feel that way today and never has had such thoughts, although the 911Truth group claims to have personally confirmed support from all of their signers.
"In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago," Mr. Jones said. "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.
"My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources," he added.
Mr. Jones signed a statement for 911Truth.org in 2004 demanding an investigation into what the Bush Administration may have done that “deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”
His name is listed with 99 other prominent signatories supporting such an investigation on the 911Truth.org website, including Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans, comedienne Janeane Garofalo, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and others. He's identified as the executive director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the statement, which he founded before going to the White House. The statement is available here. Mr. Jones is number 46.
Mike Berger, a spokesman for 911Truth.org, told the Washington Times over the phone that all of the signers had been verified by their group. He said 9/11Truth.org board members “spoke with each person on the list by phone or through email to individually confirm they had added their name to that list.”
“I think in most cases they spoke to them personally,” he added. “No one’s name was put on that list without them knowing it.”
Fox News personalty Glenn Beck has described Mr. Jones as a "radical" on his program and many conservative blogs have questioned his political tactics and strategies. Mr. Jones recently landed in hot water when a video surfaced of him calling Republicans a disparaging name at an energy lecture in Berkeley, California last February. He apologized for those remarks in an email to the Politico this week.
The White House has been contacted for comment and this blog will be updated with their statement when provided.
UPDATE: A response was provided to reporters Thursday evening. In it, Mr. Jones apologized for signing the statement and said he doesn't feel that way today and never has had such thoughts, although the 911Truth group claims to have personally confirmed support from all of their signers.
"In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago," Mr. Jones said. "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.
"My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources," he added.
OBAMA 'GREEN CZAR' A '9-11 TRUTHER'
White House green jobs adviser Van Jones' past associations and remarks are stirring controversy at a time when the Obama administration is trying to keep controversy at a minimum.
President Obama's "green jobs" adviser could become a mounting liability for the Obama administration, as the latest revelation about Van Jones shows his belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks may have been an inside job.
Jones joined the "9/11 truther" movement by signing a statement in 2004 calling for then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others to launch an investigation into evidence that suggests "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
The statement asked a series of critical questions hinting at Bush administration involvement in the attacks and called for "deeper inquiry." It was also signed by former Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.
The discovery comes after Jones had to apologize Wednesday night for "offensive words" he uttered in February when he called Republicans "assholes." He said the remarks "do not reflect the views of this administration" and its bipartisan aims.
But such statements just scratch the surface of Jones' past commentary.
He also has consistently leaned on racially charged language, pointing the finger at "white polluters and the white environmentalists" for "steering poison" to minority communities, as he makes the case for lifting up low-income and minority communities with better environmental policy.
A declared "communist" during the 1990s, Jones once associated with a group that looked to Mao Zedong as an inspiration.
Jones' exceptional past is reminiscent of associations noted during the presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama doggedly fended off claims that he was tied to radicals and overzealous activists.
But with now-President Obama entering the perhaps trickiest phase of his young presidency -- building the kind of consensus around health care reform that President Clinton could not -- a divisive figure could prove disfiguring.
"In this environment, I think the Obama administration should be very careful of its dealings with anybody who can be labeled communist accurately," said Christopher C. Hull, an adjunct government professor at Georgetown University who runs the public affairs firm Issue Management.
"That's just going to play to the political sensibility that those on the right have that the Obama administration is socialist, literally socialist. ... It is unwise to bring in people who actually do label themselves socialist or communist."
Jones has mellowed considerably since the '90s. In some respects, he is about as mainstream as environmentalists come -- with recognition streaming in from high places over the past few years.
He's won plaudits from former Vice President Al Gore, who declared, "I love Van Jones," in an interview with The New Yorker.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio penned the write-up on Jones when the presidential adviser was featured in Time magazine's 100 "Most Influential People."
"Steadily -- by redefining green -- Jones is making sure that our planet and our people will not just survive but also thrive in a clean-energy economy," DiCaprio wrote.
Jones was also named one of the magazine's "Heroes of the Environment 2008." He's earned a slew of other recognitions from other publications and institutions. He was even named one of Salon.com's "Sexiest Men Living" in late 2008.
Plus he's the author of the 2008 New York Times best-seller, "The Green Collar Economy."
Now a member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, his book's central premise is that environmentalism and green jobs can lift up the economy and lift up low-income Americans.
He is the founder of Green for All, which focuses on creating green jobs in poor areas. He helped the city of Oakland pass a "green jobs corps" program in 2007. Green jobs is also one platform of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which he co-founded in 1996.
He also co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group that focuses on black issues, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Jones' history has drifted between mainstream activism surrounding issues of race, poverty and the environment, and activity he has described as "revolutionary."
Originally from Tennessee, Jones graduated from Yale Law School in 1993. But his life took a turn after he was swept up in arrests during a rally following the Rodney King verdict.
Jones has claimed he was monitoring police activity at the time, but that he met people in jail who changed his thinking.
"I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was like, 'This is what I need to be a part of,'" he said in a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express. Jones told the newspaper he stayed in San Francisco, and for the next 10 years worked with a lot of the people he met in jail. Months after the King verdict came down, Jones said, "I was a communist."
At the time he became involved with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which described itself as committed to Marxist and Leninist ideas. He also started putting pressure on police in San Francisco, monitoring and drawing attention to allegations of police brutality. He was quoted accusing the police department of "killing black people."
He became a vocal critic of the federal government during the Bush administration. He and groups he was associated with assailed "U.S. imperialism" after the Sept. 11 attacks and called the assumption that an Arab group was responsible a "rush to judgment." He later co-signed the petition calling for an investigation into government involvement in the attacks.
For conservative critics, he has -- as Hull warned -- served as a ready target.
"You can't nominate all of these czars ... and then say, well, you know, I'm not responsible for all these people," said conservative commentator Ann Coulter. "People will start to blame Obama."
The White House has voiced great confidence in Jones, announcing in March that the "green jobs visionary" would in his new role advance the goal of improving energy efficiency and tapping renewable resources.
President Obama's "green jobs" adviser could become a mounting liability for the Obama administration, as the latest revelation about Van Jones shows his belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks may have been an inside job.
Jones joined the "9/11 truther" movement by signing a statement in 2004 calling for then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others to launch an investigation into evidence that suggests "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
The statement asked a series of critical questions hinting at Bush administration involvement in the attacks and called for "deeper inquiry." It was also signed by former Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.
The discovery comes after Jones had to apologize Wednesday night for "offensive words" he uttered in February when he called Republicans "assholes." He said the remarks "do not reflect the views of this administration" and its bipartisan aims.
But such statements just scratch the surface of Jones' past commentary.
He also has consistently leaned on racially charged language, pointing the finger at "white polluters and the white environmentalists" for "steering poison" to minority communities, as he makes the case for lifting up low-income and minority communities with better environmental policy.
A declared "communist" during the 1990s, Jones once associated with a group that looked to Mao Zedong as an inspiration.
Jones' exceptional past is reminiscent of associations noted during the presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama doggedly fended off claims that he was tied to radicals and overzealous activists.
But with now-President Obama entering the perhaps trickiest phase of his young presidency -- building the kind of consensus around health care reform that President Clinton could not -- a divisive figure could prove disfiguring.
"In this environment, I think the Obama administration should be very careful of its dealings with anybody who can be labeled communist accurately," said Christopher C. Hull, an adjunct government professor at Georgetown University who runs the public affairs firm Issue Management.
"That's just going to play to the political sensibility that those on the right have that the Obama administration is socialist, literally socialist. ... It is unwise to bring in people who actually do label themselves socialist or communist."
Jones has mellowed considerably since the '90s. In some respects, he is about as mainstream as environmentalists come -- with recognition streaming in from high places over the past few years.
He's won plaudits from former Vice President Al Gore, who declared, "I love Van Jones," in an interview with The New Yorker.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio penned the write-up on Jones when the presidential adviser was featured in Time magazine's 100 "Most Influential People."
"Steadily -- by redefining green -- Jones is making sure that our planet and our people will not just survive but also thrive in a clean-energy economy," DiCaprio wrote.
Jones was also named one of the magazine's "Heroes of the Environment 2008." He's earned a slew of other recognitions from other publications and institutions. He was even named one of Salon.com's "Sexiest Men Living" in late 2008.
Plus he's the author of the 2008 New York Times best-seller, "The Green Collar Economy."
Now a member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, his book's central premise is that environmentalism and green jobs can lift up the economy and lift up low-income Americans.
He is the founder of Green for All, which focuses on creating green jobs in poor areas. He helped the city of Oakland pass a "green jobs corps" program in 2007. Green jobs is also one platform of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which he co-founded in 1996.
He also co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group that focuses on black issues, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Jones' history has drifted between mainstream activism surrounding issues of race, poverty and the environment, and activity he has described as "revolutionary."
Originally from Tennessee, Jones graduated from Yale Law School in 1993. But his life took a turn after he was swept up in arrests during a rally following the Rodney King verdict.
Jones has claimed he was monitoring police activity at the time, but that he met people in jail who changed his thinking.
"I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was like, 'This is what I need to be a part of,'" he said in a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express. Jones told the newspaper he stayed in San Francisco, and for the next 10 years worked with a lot of the people he met in jail. Months after the King verdict came down, Jones said, "I was a communist."
At the time he became involved with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which described itself as committed to Marxist and Leninist ideas. He also started putting pressure on police in San Francisco, monitoring and drawing attention to allegations of police brutality. He was quoted accusing the police department of "killing black people."
He became a vocal critic of the federal government during the Bush administration. He and groups he was associated with assailed "U.S. imperialism" after the Sept. 11 attacks and called the assumption that an Arab group was responsible a "rush to judgment." He later co-signed the petition calling for an investigation into government involvement in the attacks.
For conservative critics, he has -- as Hull warned -- served as a ready target.
"You can't nominate all of these czars ... and then say, well, you know, I'm not responsible for all these people," said conservative commentator Ann Coulter. "People will start to blame Obama."
The White House has voiced great confidence in Jones, announcing in March that the "green jobs visionary" would in his new role advance the goal of improving energy efficiency and tapping renewable resources.
IRS would become Obamacare's enforcer
There's been a lot of discussion about the new and powerful federal agencies that would be created by the passage of a national health care bill. The Health Choices Administration, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the Health Insurance Exchange — there are dozens in all.
But if the plan envisioned by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureaucracy responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service. Under the Democrats' health care proposals, the already powerful — and already feared — IRS would wield even more power and extend its reach even farther into the lives of ordinary Americans, and the presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy would have access to confidential IRS information about millions of individual taxpayers.
In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.
Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.
The Democrats' plan would require all Americans to have "acceptable" insurance coverage (the legislation includes long and complex definitions of "acceptable") and would designate the IRS as the agency charged with enforcing that requirement. On your yearly 1040 tax return, you would be required to attest that you have "acceptable" coverage. Of course, you might be lying, or simply confused about whether or not you are covered, so the IRS would need a way to check your claim for accuracy. Under current plans, insurers would be required to submit to the IRS something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income. The IRS would then check the information it receives from the insurers against what you have submitted on your tax form.
If it all matches up, you're fine. If it doesn't, you will hear from the IRS. And if you don't have "acceptable" coverage, you will be subject to substantial fines — fines that will be administered by the IRS.
Under some versions of health reform now circulating on Capitol Hill, the IRS would also be intimately involved in how you pay for insurance. Everyone would be required to buy coverage. The millions of Americans who can't afford it would receive a subsidy to pay for it. Under the version of the plan currently under negotiation in the Senate Finance Committee, that subsidy would come through the IRS in the form of a refundable tax credit. Under the House plan, the subsidy would come directly from the Health Choices Administration.
In either scenario, the IRS would be the key to making the system work. Before you could receive any subsidy, whether through the IRS or not, the Health Choices Administration would have to determine whether you are eligible for it. To do so, the bills under consideration would give the Health Choices Commissioner the authority to demand sensitive, confidential information from the IRS about individual taxpayers. The IRS would have to provide it.
Under current law, it is a felony for a government official to release taxpayer information in all but the most limited of circumstances. One such exception is for law enforcement; the IRS is allowed to give taxpayer information to prosecutors in criminal cases. The information can also, in some instances, be released to the Social Security Administration and the Veterans' Administration for the determination of benefits. The health care bills would change the Internal Revenue Code to permit the IRS to give similar information to the vast, new health care bureaucracy.
That means the personal tax information of millions of Americans would enter the system whether they want it to or not. "There's a mandate to buy insurance," says one Republican House aide. "You have to buy it. You have millions of people who can't buy it without a subsidy, so they will have no choice but to accept the subsidy in order to buy insurance, and then the Health Choices Commissioner will have access to their tax records."
"How many hands would this information go through?" asks a GOP source in the Senate. "What are the quality controls? This increases the risk of misusing this information."
Some versions of the bill even permit the release of confidential taxpayer information for decidedly less pressing reasons. In H.R. 3200, the IRS would be required to provide taxpayer information to the Social Security Administration for the purpose of helping Social Security officials find qualifying seniors who can then be encouraged to enroll in the prescription drug program.
"There is no precedent for using taxpayer information for the purpose of identifying people to go out and advertise to them," says the House expert.
So far, there has been little substantive public debate about the integral role of the IRS in nearly every aspect of the various national health care proposals. But people who are closely involved with the process are deeply concerned about what they view as a massive, and in some senses unprecedented, expansion of the Internal Revenue Service.
First, they wonder whether the IRS can handle the new demands. "There is a sense at the IRS that their purpose is to collect revenue and not to implement all sorts of other programs," says a second Senate GOP aide. "Also, the IRS isn't necessarily great at doing what it does already. How is it going to determine whether 300 million people have health insurance?"
Second, they are concerned about anticipated abuse of the system. "You're going to have lots of fraud," says the House source. "People claiming lots of affordability credits or refundable tax credits. The IRS is not going to have the resources and expertise to police this stuff."
Finally, there is a third concern, more fundamental than questions of whether the IRS can handle the job: Should the IRS be involved in health care enforcement in the first place? As seen in the town halls across the country in August, many Americans are concerned about the coercive nature of the proposed national health care system. Handing the IRS the power to monitor every American's place in the system worries them even more.
Backers of the Democratic bills are betting that the handouts involved — giving people money to buy health insurance — will outweigh concerns about privacy and coercive government. Perhaps. But before Congress makes any decision on national health care, voters should know just what it will involve.
But if the plan envisioned by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureaucracy responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service. Under the Democrats' health care proposals, the already powerful — and already feared — IRS would wield even more power and extend its reach even farther into the lives of ordinary Americans, and the presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy would have access to confidential IRS information about millions of individual taxpayers.
In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.
Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.
The Democrats' plan would require all Americans to have "acceptable" insurance coverage (the legislation includes long and complex definitions of "acceptable") and would designate the IRS as the agency charged with enforcing that requirement. On your yearly 1040 tax return, you would be required to attest that you have "acceptable" coverage. Of course, you might be lying, or simply confused about whether or not you are covered, so the IRS would need a way to check your claim for accuracy. Under current plans, insurers would be required to submit to the IRS something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income. The IRS would then check the information it receives from the insurers against what you have submitted on your tax form.
If it all matches up, you're fine. If it doesn't, you will hear from the IRS. And if you don't have "acceptable" coverage, you will be subject to substantial fines — fines that will be administered by the IRS.
Under some versions of health reform now circulating on Capitol Hill, the IRS would also be intimately involved in how you pay for insurance. Everyone would be required to buy coverage. The millions of Americans who can't afford it would receive a subsidy to pay for it. Under the version of the plan currently under negotiation in the Senate Finance Committee, that subsidy would come through the IRS in the form of a refundable tax credit. Under the House plan, the subsidy would come directly from the Health Choices Administration.
In either scenario, the IRS would be the key to making the system work. Before you could receive any subsidy, whether through the IRS or not, the Health Choices Administration would have to determine whether you are eligible for it. To do so, the bills under consideration would give the Health Choices Commissioner the authority to demand sensitive, confidential information from the IRS about individual taxpayers. The IRS would have to provide it.
Under current law, it is a felony for a government official to release taxpayer information in all but the most limited of circumstances. One such exception is for law enforcement; the IRS is allowed to give taxpayer information to prosecutors in criminal cases. The information can also, in some instances, be released to the Social Security Administration and the Veterans' Administration for the determination of benefits. The health care bills would change the Internal Revenue Code to permit the IRS to give similar information to the vast, new health care bureaucracy.
That means the personal tax information of millions of Americans would enter the system whether they want it to or not. "There's a mandate to buy insurance," says one Republican House aide. "You have to buy it. You have millions of people who can't buy it without a subsidy, so they will have no choice but to accept the subsidy in order to buy insurance, and then the Health Choices Commissioner will have access to their tax records."
"How many hands would this information go through?" asks a GOP source in the Senate. "What are the quality controls? This increases the risk of misusing this information."
Some versions of the bill even permit the release of confidential taxpayer information for decidedly less pressing reasons. In H.R. 3200, the IRS would be required to provide taxpayer information to the Social Security Administration for the purpose of helping Social Security officials find qualifying seniors who can then be encouraged to enroll in the prescription drug program.
"There is no precedent for using taxpayer information for the purpose of identifying people to go out and advertise to them," says the House expert.
So far, there has been little substantive public debate about the integral role of the IRS in nearly every aspect of the various national health care proposals. But people who are closely involved with the process are deeply concerned about what they view as a massive, and in some senses unprecedented, expansion of the Internal Revenue Service.
First, they wonder whether the IRS can handle the new demands. "There is a sense at the IRS that their purpose is to collect revenue and not to implement all sorts of other programs," says a second Senate GOP aide. "Also, the IRS isn't necessarily great at doing what it does already. How is it going to determine whether 300 million people have health insurance?"
Second, they are concerned about anticipated abuse of the system. "You're going to have lots of fraud," says the House source. "People claiming lots of affordability credits or refundable tax credits. The IRS is not going to have the resources and expertise to police this stuff."
Finally, there is a third concern, more fundamental than questions of whether the IRS can handle the job: Should the IRS be involved in health care enforcement in the first place? As seen in the town halls across the country in August, many Americans are concerned about the coercive nature of the proposed national health care system. Handing the IRS the power to monitor every American's place in the system worries them even more.
Backers of the Democratic bills are betting that the handouts involved — giving people money to buy health insurance — will outweigh concerns about privacy and coercive government. Perhaps. But before Congress makes any decision on national health care, voters should know just what it will involve.
Kabul U.S. Embassy Guard: Sexual Deviancy Required for Promotion
Whistleblower Says Bosses Required Sex Acts for Guards Seeking Best shift, Promotion
Private security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were pressured to participate in naked pool parties and perform sex acts to gain promotions or assignment to preferable shifts, according to one of 12 guards who have gone public with their complaints.
Slide Show
(Now I know where Seattle's bar The Cuff got their porn from.)
In an interview with ABC News for broadcast tonight on the "World News with Charles Gibson," the guard, a U.S. military veteran, said top supervisors of the ArmorGroup were not only aware of the "deviant sexual acts" but helped to organize them.
Watch Brian Ross' full report tonight on "World News with Charles Gibson" at 6:30pm.
"It was mostly the young guys fresh from the military who were told they had to participate," said the guard, who talked on a phone hook-up arranged by the Project on Government Oversight, which first revealed photographs of the parties.
"They were not gay but they knew what it took to get promoted," said the guard, spoke on condition that ABC News not publish his name.
The State Department said it was investigating the allegations and the circumstances surrounding the photographs which show naked and barely clothed men fondling one another. The guard who spoke with ABC News said the drunken parties had been held regularly for at least a year and a half.
The State Department renewed its contract with ArmorGroup to provide security at the Kabul embassy last month even though there have been a series of complaints about its performance.
In June 2007, the State Department warned "the security of the US embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy" because of "deficiencies" on the part of ArmorGroup.
Similar complaints were raised at a Senate hearing in June 2009 by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).
Sam Brinkley, vice-president of the ArmorGroup's corporate parent Wackenhut Services, defended the company's performance in Kabul.
"We are a guard company that prides itself in doing missions well," Brinkley testified.
Wackenhut did not immediately return requests for comment.
The photographs of the naked parties all involve one of four shifts assigned to the embassy, Charlie Shift, according to the guard who spoke with ABC News.
He said other shifts tried to complain about the activities but were ignored by officials from corporate headquarters who visited Kabul.
"It was demeaning, it was humiliating and that was the whole point of it all," the guard said.
Private security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were pressured to participate in naked pool parties and perform sex acts to gain promotions or assignment to preferable shifts, according to one of 12 guards who have gone public with their complaints.
Slide Show
(Now I know where Seattle's bar The Cuff got their porn from.)
In an interview with ABC News for broadcast tonight on the "World News with Charles Gibson," the guard, a U.S. military veteran, said top supervisors of the ArmorGroup were not only aware of the "deviant sexual acts" but helped to organize them.
Watch Brian Ross' full report tonight on "World News with Charles Gibson" at 6:30pm.
"It was mostly the young guys fresh from the military who were told they had to participate," said the guard, who talked on a phone hook-up arranged by the Project on Government Oversight, which first revealed photographs of the parties.
"They were not gay but they knew what it took to get promoted," said the guard, spoke on condition that ABC News not publish his name.
The State Department said it was investigating the allegations and the circumstances surrounding the photographs which show naked and barely clothed men fondling one another. The guard who spoke with ABC News said the drunken parties had been held regularly for at least a year and a half.
The State Department renewed its contract with ArmorGroup to provide security at the Kabul embassy last month even though there have been a series of complaints about its performance.
In June 2007, the State Department warned "the security of the US embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy" because of "deficiencies" on the part of ArmorGroup.
Similar complaints were raised at a Senate hearing in June 2009 by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).
Sam Brinkley, vice-president of the ArmorGroup's corporate parent Wackenhut Services, defended the company's performance in Kabul.
"We are a guard company that prides itself in doing missions well," Brinkley testified.
Wackenhut did not immediately return requests for comment.
The photographs of the naked parties all involve one of four shifts assigned to the embassy, Charlie Shift, according to the guard who spoke with ABC News.
He said other shifts tried to complain about the activities but were ignored by officials from corporate headquarters who visited Kabul.
"It was demeaning, it was humiliating and that was the whole point of it all," the guard said.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A message from Cynthia McKinney
I never want you to take the journey that I'm currently on. So, I want to tell you about it.
It starts on the front of the refrigerator. "The Healthiest Foods on Earth." A two-page primer from apple to watermelon, touting immunity to male fertility support. Inside the refrigerator, natural and organic foods only. On the countertop is the Jack LaLanne juicer, the Magic Bullet, the handy food chopper plus, the food saver vacuum sealer--all items familiar to us because they are constantly hawked on the midnight cable channels. Hanging from the kitchen cabinet door are plastic bags for recycling: one for plastics, the other for aluminum cans. The house and car are filled with reusable shopping bags made of recycled materials. By the way, a new car was in the works, and not because of the cash for clunkers program of the Federal Government. An American-made hybrid was preferred--keeping U.S. workers working. In the back seat of her Ford Focus is a booklet, "Living in a Healthy Body: A New Look at Health & Weight." What I'm trying to describe is someone working very hard at changing a typically indulgent "American" lifestyle into one more respectful and healthy for the body, healthy for our earth.
So, in an act of preventive medical care, my aunt Hazel went to the doctor to have a colonoscopy. We are all bombarded with television commercials advising us to have a colonoscopy. I know in the black media, those ads abound. And so, dutifully, my aunt abided by those suggestions for healthy choices and had her first colonoscopy. What the family knows is that her colon was perforated. That's when our journey took us on a wrong turn.
Unfortunately, the facility that performed the colonoscopy had told my aunt not to call before the results were published and that would take up to two weeks!!! When my aunt called them because she was feeling so bad, they told her that she'd be ok overnight and that they would call her in the morning. The hospital talked to her and her daughter. The hospital told my aunt to go to sleep overnight and they'd call her back in the morning. But my aunt-tee continued to deteriorate so badly that her daughter called 9-1-1 and by the morning, my aunt-tee was already in surgery at another hospital that was not too busy to care for her. This is when the perforation was discovered and repaired.
While my aunt was recovering in the second hospital, in intensive care, a letter was sent from the hospital where the colonoscopy was performed stating that they were the insured's provider and that the hospital performing the emergency surgery would not get paid. The hospital performing the mal-colostomy demanded my aunt-tee back. So, against the desires of the hospital providing the emergency surgery, my aunt, while still in intensive care, was forced to be transferred to the hospital that, in my opinion, committed a capital crime.
My aunt-tee deteriorated after the transfer, but fought like heck to live. Unfortunately, her body had been so poisoned by the doctor's failure to recognize that he had perforated her colon that her body became toxic. The third affront to my aunt-tee's health and life occurred when morphine was administered, ostensibly for pain and gave her such a blow to her vital statistics that the family objected to a second administration of morphine. But guess what!!! She was given morphine again, despite her children's complaints!!!! My aunt never recovered from that.
My aunt, a divorced mother of two, struggled to live righteously. Those of you in southern California know that she accompanied me almost everywhere I went. She was a hard-working woman, a proud homeowner in Watts, a student working on her Social Work degree, finally able to achieve her dreams after deferring them for so long in order to help her children realize theirs. She also took to the campaign trail too many times, traveling to Georgia to help my father and me realize ours. I can't even believe that she's gone--through no fault of her own--and I'm still wondering how the heck my aunt ended up in this place. Despite all the care she took of herself this is unfathomable to me. And sadly, too many families are arriving at this same place. Iraqi families devastated by U.S. occupation; Afghani families devastated by U.S. war; U.S. families also devastated by U.S. policy makers. Why?
For the last four years, I've spouted off the racial quality-of-life disparities that exist in our country. I've said it so much, it's as if no one heard me. Because even during my tenure in Congress, I gave floor speeches, but the policy change never came. I spoke at banquets and conventions about it, but the policy changes never came. Two steps forward always seemed to end with one step backward. If we got the money appropriated, in too many instances, black institutions couldn't be in charge of it, so only a trickle at best reached the community. I found that the "plantation" was alive and well in patterns of federal spending. So when Dr. David Satcher, President Clinton's Surgeon General, found in a 2005 study that over 83,000 blacks die unnecessary and premature deaths each year due to their treatment after they arrive in a doctor's office, among other factors, I added that datum to my panoply of quality-of-life stats. And now, my aunt factors in Dr. Satcher's numbers.
I have seen such betrayal and lack of principle in the current "health care" debate, I had no intention of getting into it. In our Power to the People campaign, I wrote a platform that included policy recommendations to eliminate all disparities still extant in our society, including for health care. A single-payer system is so obviously needed, it should be too politically costly for our Democratic majority in the Congress and our Democratic White House to do anything else. I recommended an end to war. I advocated public ownership of the Federal Reserve. I even anticipated the skullduggery of the bailouts and recommended that if the "powers that be" were intent on forcing Congress to give these bailouts to institutions that conducted what I would call criminal behavior, then at a minimum, a credible person like David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller, should audit all corporations and institutions receiving such funds. I suggested that Senator Obama use the power of his Senatorial pen to amend the bailout legislation to this effect. It didn't happen.
My aunt-tee had a policy of rarely voting for an incumbent. She understood that just as she was trying to change herself into a lifestyle that she could believe in, she wasn't going to get political, social, and economic change that she could believe in by voting like everyone else, for the same special interest candidates. Once she decided that it was necessary to step outside of the box of political conformity, she discovered that there were Independent, Green Party, Libertarian, and other political party candidates on her ballot that she had long ignored. She began to listen to them and learned to explore the totality of her options. It was glorious to watch my aunt-tee's liberation.
So why is she in the morgue now?
Not enough people took that journey with her. Not enough people saw her example. Not enough was done to change policy. At a time when the policy makers have never been so divorced from the reality borne by the average citizens that they govern, the American people have shown an amazing ability to accept graft, corruption, death, and destruction while continuing to believe that hope alone can produce real change. Why did Cindy Sheehan protest without thousands in front of President Obama's $50,000 a week vacation home?
I've tried to walk my talk. Just last week it came out that one "journalist" who called for my lynching was on the FBI payroll at the time of his comment. He claims to have been paid to say provocative things. I've withstood a lot--for the people. But now, I really don't know how much more walking or talking I'm able to do. I just wonder, how many more will have to experience this before more people write their own Declarations of Independence from this political disorder.
The phone just rang and it was the hospital that performed the botched colonoscopy on my aunt, that ignored her call for help, that demanded that she be transferred while she was in intensive care, that administered morphine twice, despite objections from the family and from which her vitals never recovered. They wanted to know how my aunt would rate their service. I told them poor on every count.
Thank you for reading this with empathy and I thank you all for your support. I apologize for any appointments that I've missed while I've been on the road to this place I'm in now.
P.S. My friend, David Josué, wrote a beautiful notice that I include in this message. Please click on the link at the end of his message because "dying while black" is real. My aunt is just the latest victim. The highlights are mine:
Cynthia McKinney lost a family member . . .
100,000 Unnecessary Black Deaths Per Year!
[09/01/09] It is with a heart full of sorrow that I have to inform you of the death of Cynthia's maternal aunt. Hazel was not sick and took all preventive measures to live a long life. She went to have a colonoscopy and her colon was punctured. What else went wrong during the procedure is still unknown to the family. Hazel survived Jim Crow but could not survive the health care system. Cynthia is deeply affected by this tragic event. She was very close to her aunt and Hazel loved her niece. Hazel was a fervent supporter of Cynthia's six terms in Congress and was so happy to see her niece run for President of the United States in 2008. Only last July the 4th she was in Atlanta with us while we were working around the clock to secure Cynthia's release from an Israeli jail. It is hard to accept that she is no more.
Please visit Professor Vernellia Randall's site http://www.dyingwhileblack.org/book.htm
Thank you
David Josué
It starts on the front of the refrigerator. "The Healthiest Foods on Earth." A two-page primer from apple to watermelon, touting immunity to male fertility support. Inside the refrigerator, natural and organic foods only. On the countertop is the Jack LaLanne juicer, the Magic Bullet, the handy food chopper plus, the food saver vacuum sealer--all items familiar to us because they are constantly hawked on the midnight cable channels. Hanging from the kitchen cabinet door are plastic bags for recycling: one for plastics, the other for aluminum cans. The house and car are filled with reusable shopping bags made of recycled materials. By the way, a new car was in the works, and not because of the cash for clunkers program of the Federal Government. An American-made hybrid was preferred--keeping U.S. workers working. In the back seat of her Ford Focus is a booklet, "Living in a Healthy Body: A New Look at Health & Weight." What I'm trying to describe is someone working very hard at changing a typically indulgent "American" lifestyle into one more respectful and healthy for the body, healthy for our earth.
So, in an act of preventive medical care, my aunt Hazel went to the doctor to have a colonoscopy. We are all bombarded with television commercials advising us to have a colonoscopy. I know in the black media, those ads abound. And so, dutifully, my aunt abided by those suggestions for healthy choices and had her first colonoscopy. What the family knows is that her colon was perforated. That's when our journey took us on a wrong turn.
Unfortunately, the facility that performed the colonoscopy had told my aunt not to call before the results were published and that would take up to two weeks!!! When my aunt called them because she was feeling so bad, they told her that she'd be ok overnight and that they would call her in the morning. The hospital talked to her and her daughter. The hospital told my aunt to go to sleep overnight and they'd call her back in the morning. But my aunt-tee continued to deteriorate so badly that her daughter called 9-1-1 and by the morning, my aunt-tee was already in surgery at another hospital that was not too busy to care for her. This is when the perforation was discovered and repaired.
While my aunt was recovering in the second hospital, in intensive care, a letter was sent from the hospital where the colonoscopy was performed stating that they were the insured's provider and that the hospital performing the emergency surgery would not get paid. The hospital performing the mal-colostomy demanded my aunt-tee back. So, against the desires of the hospital providing the emergency surgery, my aunt, while still in intensive care, was forced to be transferred to the hospital that, in my opinion, committed a capital crime.
My aunt-tee deteriorated after the transfer, but fought like heck to live. Unfortunately, her body had been so poisoned by the doctor's failure to recognize that he had perforated her colon that her body became toxic. The third affront to my aunt-tee's health and life occurred when morphine was administered, ostensibly for pain and gave her such a blow to her vital statistics that the family objected to a second administration of morphine. But guess what!!! She was given morphine again, despite her children's complaints!!!! My aunt never recovered from that.
My aunt, a divorced mother of two, struggled to live righteously. Those of you in southern California know that she accompanied me almost everywhere I went. She was a hard-working woman, a proud homeowner in Watts, a student working on her Social Work degree, finally able to achieve her dreams after deferring them for so long in order to help her children realize theirs. She also took to the campaign trail too many times, traveling to Georgia to help my father and me realize ours. I can't even believe that she's gone--through no fault of her own--and I'm still wondering how the heck my aunt ended up in this place. Despite all the care she took of herself this is unfathomable to me. And sadly, too many families are arriving at this same place. Iraqi families devastated by U.S. occupation; Afghani families devastated by U.S. war; U.S. families also devastated by U.S. policy makers. Why?
For the last four years, I've spouted off the racial quality-of-life disparities that exist in our country. I've said it so much, it's as if no one heard me. Because even during my tenure in Congress, I gave floor speeches, but the policy change never came. I spoke at banquets and conventions about it, but the policy changes never came. Two steps forward always seemed to end with one step backward. If we got the money appropriated, in too many instances, black institutions couldn't be in charge of it, so only a trickle at best reached the community. I found that the "plantation" was alive and well in patterns of federal spending. So when Dr. David Satcher, President Clinton's Surgeon General, found in a 2005 study that over 83,000 blacks die unnecessary and premature deaths each year due to their treatment after they arrive in a doctor's office, among other factors, I added that datum to my panoply of quality-of-life stats. And now, my aunt factors in Dr. Satcher's numbers.
I have seen such betrayal and lack of principle in the current "health care" debate, I had no intention of getting into it. In our Power to the People campaign, I wrote a platform that included policy recommendations to eliminate all disparities still extant in our society, including for health care. A single-payer system is so obviously needed, it should be too politically costly for our Democratic majority in the Congress and our Democratic White House to do anything else. I recommended an end to war. I advocated public ownership of the Federal Reserve. I even anticipated the skullduggery of the bailouts and recommended that if the "powers that be" were intent on forcing Congress to give these bailouts to institutions that conducted what I would call criminal behavior, then at a minimum, a credible person like David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller, should audit all corporations and institutions receiving such funds. I suggested that Senator Obama use the power of his Senatorial pen to amend the bailout legislation to this effect. It didn't happen.
My aunt-tee had a policy of rarely voting for an incumbent. She understood that just as she was trying to change herself into a lifestyle that she could believe in, she wasn't going to get political, social, and economic change that she could believe in by voting like everyone else, for the same special interest candidates. Once she decided that it was necessary to step outside of the box of political conformity, she discovered that there were Independent, Green Party, Libertarian, and other political party candidates on her ballot that she had long ignored. She began to listen to them and learned to explore the totality of her options. It was glorious to watch my aunt-tee's liberation.
So why is she in the morgue now?
Not enough people took that journey with her. Not enough people saw her example. Not enough was done to change policy. At a time when the policy makers have never been so divorced from the reality borne by the average citizens that they govern, the American people have shown an amazing ability to accept graft, corruption, death, and destruction while continuing to believe that hope alone can produce real change. Why did Cindy Sheehan protest without thousands in front of President Obama's $50,000 a week vacation home?
I've tried to walk my talk. Just last week it came out that one "journalist" who called for my lynching was on the FBI payroll at the time of his comment. He claims to have been paid to say provocative things. I've withstood a lot--for the people. But now, I really don't know how much more walking or talking I'm able to do. I just wonder, how many more will have to experience this before more people write their own Declarations of Independence from this political disorder.
The phone just rang and it was the hospital that performed the botched colonoscopy on my aunt, that ignored her call for help, that demanded that she be transferred while she was in intensive care, that administered morphine twice, despite objections from the family and from which her vitals never recovered. They wanted to know how my aunt would rate their service. I told them poor on every count.
Thank you for reading this with empathy and I thank you all for your support. I apologize for any appointments that I've missed while I've been on the road to this place I'm in now.
P.S. My friend, David Josué, wrote a beautiful notice that I include in this message. Please click on the link at the end of his message because "dying while black" is real. My aunt is just the latest victim. The highlights are mine:
Cynthia McKinney lost a family member . . .
100,000 Unnecessary Black Deaths Per Year!
[09/01/09] It is with a heart full of sorrow that I have to inform you of the death of Cynthia's maternal aunt. Hazel was not sick and took all preventive measures to live a long life. She went to have a colonoscopy and her colon was punctured. What else went wrong during the procedure is still unknown to the family. Hazel survived Jim Crow but could not survive the health care system. Cynthia is deeply affected by this tragic event. She was very close to her aunt and Hazel loved her niece. Hazel was a fervent supporter of Cynthia's six terms in Congress and was so happy to see her niece run for President of the United States in 2008. Only last July the 4th she was in Atlanta with us while we were working around the clock to secure Cynthia's release from an Israeli jail. It is hard to accept that she is no more.
Please visit Professor Vernellia Randall's site http://www.dyingwhileblack.org/book.htm
Thank you
David Josué
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Half of GPs refuse swine flu vaccine over testing fears
Up to half of family doctors do not want to be vaccinated against swine flu.
GPs will be first in the line for the jabs when they become available but many will decline, even though they will be offering the vaccine to their patients.
More than two thirds of those who will turn the jab down believe it has not been tested enough. Most also believe the flu has turned out to be so mild in the vast majority of cases that the vaccine is not needed.
Last night Government experts criticised GPs who decide not to have the jab, saying they will put vulnerable patients needlessly at risk.
A week ago, a poll of nurses showed that a third would turn down the opportunity of being vaccinated against swine flu.
News that medics are unconvinced by the need for a vaccine will cause grave concern to patients who will be invited for the jab over the next few months.
A poll of doctors for Pulse magazine found that 49 per cent would reject the vaccine with 9 per cent undecided.
A separate survey for GP magazine found that 29 per cent would definitely opt out of having the jab, while a further 29 per cent were unsure. Just 41 per cent said they would definitely have the jab.
Of those who said they did not want to jab, 71 per cent said it was because of safety concerns.
Richard Hoey, editor of Pulse, said: 'The medical profession has yet to be convinced by the Government's whole approach to swine flu, with most GPs now feeling that the Department of Health overreacted in its policy on blanket use of Tamiflu.
'Inevitably, that has coloured feelings about the planned immunisation campaign.
'The view among many doctors is that the Government hasn't yet made its case for why such a huge vaccination programme needs to be rushed in for what seems to be an unusually mild illness.'
But Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health's director of immunisation, told GP magazine that frontline health workers had a duty to themselves regarding vaccination.
'They have a duty to their patients not to infect their patients and they have a duty to their families,' he said.
The Pulse survey questioned 15 doctors, while GP spoke to 216.
The poll raised further questions over the Government's planned mass vaccination programme. The jab, currently being processed, will be fast tracked and will not be fully tested before it is administered to patients.
There are also concerns the jab can spark cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can lead to paralysis and even death.
A mass swine flu vaccination programme in the U.S. in 1976 caused far more deaths than the disease it was designed to combat, and the Health Protection Agency watchdog has asked doctors to look out for cases of GBS when the vaccinations begin.
Earlier this month, Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson announced that the jab will be given to people in high-risk groups, such as those with asthma or diabetes, as well as health workers such as GPs and nurses.
Some 14million people will be covered by the first wave of the vaccination programme, with everyone else following over the next few months.
The BMA is still negotiating with doctors over how they should be paid to give out the jabs. The union is demanding £7 for every injection.
A spokesman for the BMA said: 'The new vaccine has been thoroughly tested and we believe it should provide good protection against swine flu.
'It is important that doctors are among the first to be offered the vaccine as it will not only protect them but the patients they care for.
However, doctors like all individuals have the right to decide whether they are vaccinated or not.'
GPs will be first in the line for the jabs when they become available but many will decline, even though they will be offering the vaccine to their patients.
More than two thirds of those who will turn the jab down believe it has not been tested enough. Most also believe the flu has turned out to be so mild in the vast majority of cases that the vaccine is not needed.
Last night Government experts criticised GPs who decide not to have the jab, saying they will put vulnerable patients needlessly at risk.
A week ago, a poll of nurses showed that a third would turn down the opportunity of being vaccinated against swine flu.
News that medics are unconvinced by the need for a vaccine will cause grave concern to patients who will be invited for the jab over the next few months.
A poll of doctors for Pulse magazine found that 49 per cent would reject the vaccine with 9 per cent undecided.
A separate survey for GP magazine found that 29 per cent would definitely opt out of having the jab, while a further 29 per cent were unsure. Just 41 per cent said they would definitely have the jab.
Of those who said they did not want to jab, 71 per cent said it was because of safety concerns.
Richard Hoey, editor of Pulse, said: 'The medical profession has yet to be convinced by the Government's whole approach to swine flu, with most GPs now feeling that the Department of Health overreacted in its policy on blanket use of Tamiflu.
'Inevitably, that has coloured feelings about the planned immunisation campaign.
'The view among many doctors is that the Government hasn't yet made its case for why such a huge vaccination programme needs to be rushed in for what seems to be an unusually mild illness.'
But Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health's director of immunisation, told GP magazine that frontline health workers had a duty to themselves regarding vaccination.
'They have a duty to their patients not to infect their patients and they have a duty to their families,' he said.
The Pulse survey questioned 15 doctors, while GP spoke to 216.
The poll raised further questions over the Government's planned mass vaccination programme. The jab, currently being processed, will be fast tracked and will not be fully tested before it is administered to patients.
There are also concerns the jab can spark cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can lead to paralysis and even death.
A mass swine flu vaccination programme in the U.S. in 1976 caused far more deaths than the disease it was designed to combat, and the Health Protection Agency watchdog has asked doctors to look out for cases of GBS when the vaccinations begin.
Earlier this month, Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson announced that the jab will be given to people in high-risk groups, such as those with asthma or diabetes, as well as health workers such as GPs and nurses.
Some 14million people will be covered by the first wave of the vaccination programme, with everyone else following over the next few months.
The BMA is still negotiating with doctors over how they should be paid to give out the jabs. The union is demanding £7 for every injection.
A spokesman for the BMA said: 'The new vaccine has been thoroughly tested and we believe it should provide good protection against swine flu.
'It is important that doctors are among the first to be offered the vaccine as it will not only protect them but the patients they care for.
However, doctors like all individuals have the right to decide whether they are vaccinated or not.'
Teen Screen, Cynical Deception, Dangerous Illusion
By Allen Jones, Former Investigator, Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General
As human beings we have a strong natural impulse to protect our kids from harm. As a society we create norms, laws and institutions to protect, educate and nurture our young. Consciously and instinctively we safeguard our children.
Teen Screen is a bitter and cynical betrayal of this noble human impulse. Promoted as an aid to preventing suicide and identifying so-called mental disorders, Teen Screen is in fact a nefarious effort to recruit our children into the quagmire of biological psychiatry.
I believe the majority of parents who support Teen Screen are well meaning and genuinely have the best interests of children at heart. I believe they have been duped and beguiled by slick marketing that appealed to their better instincts while simultaneously defeating those instincts.
Teen Screen was developed and promoted by persons with deep financial ties to makers of psychiatric drugs. These drug companies have a profit-driven incentive to maximize the use of their drugs. Teen Screen furthers this corporate goal by following a psychiatric model intended to translate normal human experience into symptoms of mental illness.
Teen Screen’s centerpiece is a survey which claims to identify signs of mental illness and suicidality in children and adolescents. How does it do this? Teen Screen identifies feelings and emotions experienced by children and adolescents. It then translates these feelings and emotions into “symptoms” of mental illness. In this way, Teen Screen is in lock-step with modern psychiatry.
The field of psychiatry has attached clinical pathology to the presence or absence of literally every mood or feeling in the normal range of human emotions. The diagnostic criteria outlined in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) essentially identify the presence or absence of feelings and subjectively determine if these feelings are “normal” or “abnormal.” If the feeling or emotion is considered inappropriate in intensity or context, that feeling becomes a “symptom” of “mental illness,” treatable by medication. After all, psychiatric drugs are designed to treat “symptoms” not cure illness.
Any child who lives life fully and freely will experience a full range of human emotions. They will experience sadness, gladness, apathy, energy, optimism, pessimism, fear, fearlessness, love, hate, suspicion, trust and myriad other feelings. Experiencing these feelings and learning to be guided appropriately by them is a vital part of growth and maturation. Teen Screen identifies these feelings, subtlety manipulates or ignores context and labels the feelings as possible “symptoms” of mental illness.
Imagine the emotional states experienced by a child before, during and after a major life event such as playing in the “Big Game” with an archrival school. The child might be distracted by excited anticipation for days before the event. He might have difficulty sleeping the night before the game. He might be unable to think of anything else on game day, even during classes. He will likely be very highly energized during the event. Depending on the game outcome, the child might be elated or saddened for days afterwards.
Now imagine the child later being asked questions such as these:
Have you ever felt so full of energy that it was difficult to sit still?
Have you ever felt anxious when you had to say or do something in front of people?
Have you ever been so concerned about something that you could not sleep?
Have you ever felt so happy that you could not concentrate?
Have you ever felt so sad that you could not focus on your school work?
The participant in the big game and the spectators of the big game might answer “yes” to most or all of the above questions. Following the creed of modern psychiatry, Teen Screen would determine the child to be at risk of mania, social anxiety disorder, depression and possibly bipolar disorder. The child would be flagged for further psychiatric evaluation.
The above scenario is not far-fetched. Things like this are happening every day. Teen Screen has been proven to have “false positive” rates as high as 84%.
Teen Screen is a device to distill “symptoms” from normal life experience and generate unlimited referrals to mental health professionals whose primary method of treatment involves drugging. Please do not be duped by this ferocious, Pharma-friendly wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Allen Jones, worked as an investigator in the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and gained widespread national and international attention as a whistleblower after uncovering pharmaceutical industry payments to government officials for the purpose of implementing a national mental health screening/psychotropic drug treatment plan based on the controversial Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP). In May, 2004 the British Medical Journal reported Jones had uncovered evidence major drug companies sought to influence government officials and that Jones was escorted out of his workplace on April 28, 2004, after OIG officials accused him of talking to the press. Jones chose to disclose his findings to the press precisely because of corrupt behavior by OIG officials themselves, alleging the OIG’s policy was “unconstitutional.”
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wake Up, America: Forced vaccinations, quarantine camps, health care interrogations and mandatory "decontaminations"
(NaturalNews) The United States of America is devolving into medical fascism and Massachusetts is leading the way with the passage of a new bill, the "Pandemic Response Bill" 2028, reportedly just passed by the MA state Senate and now awaiting approval in the House. This bill suspends virtually all Constitutional rights of Massachusetts citizens and forces anyone "suspected" of being infected to submit to interrogations, "decontaminations" and vaccines.
It's also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel. You can read the text yourself here: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/sen...
Here's some of the language contained in the bill:
(Violation of 4th Amendment: Illegal search and seizure)
During either type of declared emergency, a local public health authority... may exercise authority... to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises; to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be
decontaminated any building or facility; to destroy any material; to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(Violation of 14th Amendment; illegal arrest without a warrant)
...an officer authorized to serve criminal process may arrest without a warrant any person whom the officer has probable cause to believe has violated an order given to effectuate the purposes of this subsection and shall use reasonable diligence to enforce such order. [Gunpoint]
(Government price controls)
The attorney general, in consultation with the office of consumer affairs and business regulation, and upon the declaration by the governor that a supply emergency exists, shall take appropriate action to ensure that no person shall sell a product or service that is at a price that unreasonably exceeds the price charged before the emergency.
"Involuntary Transportation" (also known as kidnapping)
Law enforcement authorities, upon order of the commissioner or his agent or at the request of a local public health authority pursuant to such order, shall assist emergency medical technicians or other appropriate medical personnel in the involuntary transportation of such person to the tuberculosis treatment center.
$1,000 / day in fines
Any person who knowingly violates an order, as to which noncompliance
poses a serious danger to public health as determined by the commissioner or the local public health authority, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 30 days or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars per day that the violation continues, or both.
Forced vaccinations
Furthermore, when the commissioner or a local public health authority within its jurisdiction determines that either or both of the following measures are necessary to prevent a serious danger to the public health the commissioner or local public health authority may exercise the following authority: (1) to vaccinate or provide precautionary prophylaxis to individuals as protection against communicable disease...
Forced quarantine for those who refuse (illegal imprisonment without charge)
An individual who is unable or unwilling to submit to vaccination or treatment shall not be required to submit to such procedures but may be isolated or quarantined pursuant to section 96 of chapter 111 if his or her refusal poses a serious danger to public health or results in uncertainty whether he or she has been exposed to or is infected with a disease or condition that poses a serious danger to public health, as determined by the commissioner, or a local public health authority operating within its jurisdiction.
It's also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel. You can read the text yourself here: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/sen...
Here's some of the language contained in the bill:
(Violation of 4th Amendment: Illegal search and seizure)
During either type of declared emergency, a local public health authority... may exercise authority... to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises; to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be
decontaminated any building or facility; to destroy any material; to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(Violation of 14th Amendment; illegal arrest without a warrant)
...an officer authorized to serve criminal process may arrest without a warrant any person whom the officer has probable cause to believe has violated an order given to effectuate the purposes of this subsection and shall use reasonable diligence to enforce such order. [Gunpoint]
(Government price controls)
The attorney general, in consultation with the office of consumer affairs and business regulation, and upon the declaration by the governor that a supply emergency exists, shall take appropriate action to ensure that no person shall sell a product or service that is at a price that unreasonably exceeds the price charged before the emergency.
"Involuntary Transportation" (also known as kidnapping)
Law enforcement authorities, upon order of the commissioner or his agent or at the request of a local public health authority pursuant to such order, shall assist emergency medical technicians or other appropriate medical personnel in the involuntary transportation of such person to the tuberculosis treatment center.
$1,000 / day in fines
Any person who knowingly violates an order, as to which noncompliance
poses a serious danger to public health as determined by the commissioner or the local public health authority, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 30 days or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars per day that the violation continues, or both.
Forced vaccinations
Furthermore, when the commissioner or a local public health authority within its jurisdiction determines that either or both of the following measures are necessary to prevent a serious danger to the public health the commissioner or local public health authority may exercise the following authority: (1) to vaccinate or provide precautionary prophylaxis to individuals as protection against communicable disease...
Forced quarantine for those who refuse (illegal imprisonment without charge)
An individual who is unable or unwilling to submit to vaccination or treatment shall not be required to submit to such procedures but may be isolated or quarantined pursuant to section 96 of chapter 111 if his or her refusal poses a serious danger to public health or results in uncertainty whether he or she has been exposed to or is infected with a disease or condition that poses a serious danger to public health, as determined by the commissioner, or a local public health authority operating within its jurisdiction.
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
By JOHN MACKEY
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both
Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby
Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not
sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will
create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our
health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less
government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health
care for everyone:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts
(HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-
care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours
or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to
$1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as
they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own
health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates
incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while
providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the
same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not.
This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal
right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance
wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost
of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual
customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars
per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total
cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing
how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact
reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of
people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to
doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have
more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually
beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal
any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are
told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All
countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a
hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8
million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian
and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they
can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-
care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in
either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with
the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third
are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer,
stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol
consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat
will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to
live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and
that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle
choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and
use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create
a vibrant and sustainable American society.
—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both
Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby
Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not
sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will
create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our
health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less
government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health
care for everyone:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts
(HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-
care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours
or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to
$1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as
they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own
health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates
incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while
providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the
same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not.
This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal
right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance
wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost
of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual
customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars
per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total
cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing
how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact
reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of
people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to
doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have
more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually
beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal
any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are
told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All
countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a
hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8
million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian
and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they
can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-
care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in
either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with
the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third
are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer,
stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol
consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat
will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to
live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and
that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle
choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and
use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create
a vibrant and sustainable American society.
—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress
If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote.
Overall, these numbers are little changed since last October. When Congress was passing the unpopular $700-billion bailout plan in the heat of a presidential campaign and a seeming financial industry meltdown, 59% wanted to throw them all out. At that time, just 17% wanted to keep them.
There has been a bit of a partisan shift since last fall. With Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, it's not surprising to find that the number of Democrats who would vote to keep the entire Congress has grown from 25% last fall to 43% today. In fact, a modest plurality of Democrats would now vote to keep the legislators. Last fall, a plurality of Democrats were ready to throw them all out.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
While Democrats have become more supportive of the legislators, voters not affiliated with either major party have moved in the opposite direction. Today, 70% of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62% last year.
Republicans, not surprisingly, overwhelmingly support replacing everyone in the Congress. Their views have not changed. But Republican voters are disenchanted with their team as much as the Congress itself: 69% of GOP Voters say Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the party base.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) now believe that members of Congress are overpaid. That’s up 10 percentage points from last October. Just five percent (5%) think their Congress member is paid too little. Thirty percent (30%) think the pay is about right.
One reason for this attitude may be that most voters say they understand the health care legislation better than Congress. Just 22% think the legislature has a good understanding of the issue. Three-out-of-four (74%) trust their own economic judgment more than Congress’.
Just 14% give Congress good or excellent review for their overall performance, while only 16% believe it’s Very Likely that Congress will address the most important problems facing our nation. Seventy-five percent (75%) say members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than they are in helping people. On the brighter side, just 37% say most in Congress have extramarital affairs.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans believe that when members of Congress meet with regulators and other government officials, they do so to help their friends and hurt their political opponents. Most believe that’s why politicians are able to solicit contributions from business leaders. Most, however, say it’s generally a good investment because political donors get more than their money’s worth. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of American adults say political donors get more than their money back in terms of favors from members of Congress.
Despite these reviews, more than 90% of Congress routinely gets reelected every two years. It’s a shock when any incumbent loses. One explanation for this phenomenon frequently heard in Washington, D.C. is that “people hate Congress but love their own congressman.”
Voters have a different perspective, and 50% say 'rigged' election rules explain high reelection rate for Congress.
When the Constitution was written, the nation’s founders expected that there would be a 50% turnover in the House of Representatives every election cycle. That was the experience they witnessed in state legislatures at the time (and most of the state legislatures offered just one-year terms). For well over 100 years after the Constitution was adopted, the turnover averaged in the 50% range as expected.
In the 20th century, turnover began to decline. As power and prestige flowed to Washington during the New Deal era, fewer and fewer members of Congress wanted to leave. In 1968, congressional turnover fell to single digits for the first time ever, and it has remained very low ever since.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote.
Overall, these numbers are little changed since last October. When Congress was passing the unpopular $700-billion bailout plan in the heat of a presidential campaign and a seeming financial industry meltdown, 59% wanted to throw them all out. At that time, just 17% wanted to keep them.
There has been a bit of a partisan shift since last fall. With Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, it's not surprising to find that the number of Democrats who would vote to keep the entire Congress has grown from 25% last fall to 43% today. In fact, a modest plurality of Democrats would now vote to keep the legislators. Last fall, a plurality of Democrats were ready to throw them all out.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
While Democrats have become more supportive of the legislators, voters not affiliated with either major party have moved in the opposite direction. Today, 70% of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62% last year.
Republicans, not surprisingly, overwhelmingly support replacing everyone in the Congress. Their views have not changed. But Republican voters are disenchanted with their team as much as the Congress itself: 69% of GOP Voters say Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the party base.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) now believe that members of Congress are overpaid. That’s up 10 percentage points from last October. Just five percent (5%) think their Congress member is paid too little. Thirty percent (30%) think the pay is about right.
One reason for this attitude may be that most voters say they understand the health care legislation better than Congress. Just 22% think the legislature has a good understanding of the issue. Three-out-of-four (74%) trust their own economic judgment more than Congress’.
Just 14% give Congress good or excellent review for their overall performance, while only 16% believe it’s Very Likely that Congress will address the most important problems facing our nation. Seventy-five percent (75%) say members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than they are in helping people. On the brighter side, just 37% say most in Congress have extramarital affairs.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans believe that when members of Congress meet with regulators and other government officials, they do so to help their friends and hurt their political opponents. Most believe that’s why politicians are able to solicit contributions from business leaders. Most, however, say it’s generally a good investment because political donors get more than their money’s worth. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of American adults say political donors get more than their money back in terms of favors from members of Congress.
Despite these reviews, more than 90% of Congress routinely gets reelected every two years. It’s a shock when any incumbent loses. One explanation for this phenomenon frequently heard in Washington, D.C. is that “people hate Congress but love their own congressman.”
Voters have a different perspective, and 50% say 'rigged' election rules explain high reelection rate for Congress.
When the Constitution was written, the nation’s founders expected that there would be a 50% turnover in the House of Representatives every election cycle. That was the experience they witnessed in state legislatures at the time (and most of the state legislatures offered just one-year terms). For well over 100 years after the Constitution was adopted, the turnover averaged in the 50% range as expected.
In the 20th century, turnover began to decline. As power and prestige flowed to Washington during the New Deal era, fewer and fewer members of Congress wanted to leave. In 1968, congressional turnover fell to single digits for the first time ever, and it has remained very low ever since.
Rep. Frank eyes Fed audit, emergency lending curbs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said he plans legislation to restrict the Federal Reserve's emergency lending powers and subject the central bank to a "complete audit."
At a recent town hall meeting, Frank said the House would pass a bill to use an audit to crack open the central bank's books more widely, but in a way that will not encroach on the central bank's monetary policy independence.
In addition, he said the House would move to rein in the authority that allows the Fed to lend to a wide range of non-bank firms in "unusual and exigent circumstances."
A bill sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would allow the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, to audit Fed interest-rate decisions has won the co-sponsorship of more than half of the House.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the bill would compromise the U.S. central bank's policy-making independence and could undermine financial markets and the economy.
Frank said he has been working with Paul on compromise language. "He agrees that we don't want to have the audit appear as if it is influencing monetary policy because that would be inflationary," Frank told constituents. A video of his remarks was posted on the popular video file-sharing website YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2DX9Iu4wNo
Steven Adamske, a spokesman for Frank, told Reuters compromise language had not yet been written. He provided no further details. A spokesman for Paul could not be reached.
OCTOBER TARGET
Frank said the audit and emergency lending provisions would be incorporated in broader legislation to revamp U.S. financial regulation that would likely pass the House in October. By seeking a compromise with Paul, Frank could strengthen the broader legislation's chance at passage.
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank is a key player in the effort to overhaul U.S. financial regulation.
The Obama administration has proposed giving the Fed responsibility for overseeing firms whose collapse could endanger the entire financial system. At the same time, it wants to strip the central bank of its consumer protection function, and invest that authority in a new agency.
Frank expressed unease at what he called the Fed's power to "lend money to anybody they want" in emergency circumstances. "We are going to curtail that lending power. We are going to put some restraints on it," he said.
Since the financial crisis struck two years, the Fed has used this emergency authority to prop up a number of non-bank financial firms with billions of dollars in loans, including insurer American International Group.
The Fed's actions have angered many lawmakers who are concerned the central bank has put taxpayer money at risk. Fed officials have defended their actions as necessary to prevent a deeper credit crisis and widespread damage to the economy.
Bernanke, who President Barack Obama nominated this week to serve a second four-year term at the helm of the central bank, told lawmakers in July that the Fed understands the need to be accountable to taxpayers but that monetary policy decisions needed to be shielded from political interference.
In congressional testimony on July 22, he signaled a willingness to work toward a middle ground. "We are quite willing to work with Congress to try to figure out exactly where the line should be," he said.
Frank said the House legislation would pave the way for an audit to look into what the central bank "buys and sells," but he said the data would be released after a period of several months to avoid impacting financial markets.
Bernanke is widely expected to win needed Senate backing for a new term as Fed chairman, but the central bank's aggressive efforts to stem the financial crisis have stirred controversy that is likely to color his re-nomination hearing.
His current term expires on January 31, 2010.
At a recent town hall meeting, Frank said the House would pass a bill to use an audit to crack open the central bank's books more widely, but in a way that will not encroach on the central bank's monetary policy independence.
In addition, he said the House would move to rein in the authority that allows the Fed to lend to a wide range of non-bank firms in "unusual and exigent circumstances."
A bill sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would allow the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, to audit Fed interest-rate decisions has won the co-sponsorship of more than half of the House.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the bill would compromise the U.S. central bank's policy-making independence and could undermine financial markets and the economy.
Frank said he has been working with Paul on compromise language. "He agrees that we don't want to have the audit appear as if it is influencing monetary policy because that would be inflationary," Frank told constituents. A video of his remarks was posted on the popular video file-sharing website YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2DX9Iu4wNo
Steven Adamske, a spokesman for Frank, told Reuters compromise language had not yet been written. He provided no further details. A spokesman for Paul could not be reached.
OCTOBER TARGET
Frank said the audit and emergency lending provisions would be incorporated in broader legislation to revamp U.S. financial regulation that would likely pass the House in October. By seeking a compromise with Paul, Frank could strengthen the broader legislation's chance at passage.
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank is a key player in the effort to overhaul U.S. financial regulation.
The Obama administration has proposed giving the Fed responsibility for overseeing firms whose collapse could endanger the entire financial system. At the same time, it wants to strip the central bank of its consumer protection function, and invest that authority in a new agency.
Frank expressed unease at what he called the Fed's power to "lend money to anybody they want" in emergency circumstances. "We are going to curtail that lending power. We are going to put some restraints on it," he said.
Since the financial crisis struck two years, the Fed has used this emergency authority to prop up a number of non-bank financial firms with billions of dollars in loans, including insurer American International Group.
The Fed's actions have angered many lawmakers who are concerned the central bank has put taxpayer money at risk. Fed officials have defended their actions as necessary to prevent a deeper credit crisis and widespread damage to the economy.
Bernanke, who President Barack Obama nominated this week to serve a second four-year term at the helm of the central bank, told lawmakers in July that the Fed understands the need to be accountable to taxpayers but that monetary policy decisions needed to be shielded from political interference.
In congressional testimony on July 22, he signaled a willingness to work toward a middle ground. "We are quite willing to work with Congress to try to figure out exactly where the line should be," he said.
Frank said the House legislation would pave the way for an audit to look into what the central bank "buys and sells," but he said the data would be released after a period of several months to avoid impacting financial markets.
Bernanke is widely expected to win needed Senate backing for a new term as Fed chairman, but the central bank's aggressive efforts to stem the financial crisis have stirred controversy that is likely to color his re-nomination hearing.
His current term expires on January 31, 2010.
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