Palin & GOP Call Sebelius a "Death Panel of One" For Not Intervening in 10yo's Lung Transplant

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Wednesday June 05, 2013 · 12:39 PM PDT

2013/06/05 · 12:39

First they were mad that the Government would interfere in healthcare decisions by setting up death panels. Now they're mad because HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has declined to get involved in a medical decision involving a lung transplant for a 10 year old girl.

Sebelius, at a budget hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee, told lawmakers yesterday that she prefers a process set by “medical science and by medical experts” rather than politicians and policy makers.

The background on this story is that there is a 10 year old girl in PA with cystic fibrosis awaiting a lung transplant without which she will die in 3 to 5 weeks, and an adult lung is not medically suitable for anyone under 12 years of age. The girl's family has created a lot of publicity seeking the rules be changed for them, with a petition and social media campaign, and have politicized the issue by involving their Congressmen, who have petitioned Sebelius to waive the rules for them.

Headlines are now framing this as a '10 year old girl being 'denied' a transplant', as if there were a donor (adult or pediatric) ready and available for her, but bureuacracy is preventing her from getting it.

eXtina

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Monday June 03, 2013 · 9:49 PM PDT

2013/06/03 · 21:49

#politics #brothersengagementparty twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/s…
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) June 1, 2013

eXtina

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Monday June 03, 2013 · 8:23 AM PDT

2013/06/03 · 08:23

Is what David Plouffe tweeted about Darrell Issa yesterday.

Strong words from Mr Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance swindler. And loose ethically today.thehill.com/video/house/30…
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) June 2, 2013

eXtina

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Friday May 31, 2013 · 2:05 PM PDT

2013/05/31 · 14:05

Austerity has failed everywhere it’s been tried, not least in Northern Ireland. Budget cuts at home have hit domestic demand just as budget cuts to the south have hit foreign demand. (Whether it was 2010 or 2011 or 2012 or 2013, Very Serious People were convinced, just convinced that the Celtic tiger had reinvented itself as the austerity tiger—just give it a few more months!—and every time they have been wrong). On either side of the Emerald Isle, deficit-cutting hasn’t been a path to prosperity, except of the Potemkin variety.

It's the new Potemkin Village. The town of Eniskillen in Northern Ireland is preparing for the G8 Summit by putting photorgaphs of previously occupied storefronts into the vacant ones to make it look as if the town (and country) is not suffering in the grips of the first recession since the 1980's.

But officials have been accused of going too far after they plastered large stickers across boarded up shops in order to give them the appearance of still-thriving businesses.
Locals in the area have criticised the move, which they say masks the effects of the economic downturn and is a waste of resources.
The large stickers have been fixed to closed down stores near to the Lough Erne resort, in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, which will host next month’s meeting of the leaders of eight of the world’s richest countries, among them Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and François Hollande.

There is a butcher shop that has been vacant for well over a year which has pictures of meat, sausages, etc. in the front window. It even has a photograph of an open door to make it appear as if it is occupied.
Read More

13 yo Spectator Thrown Out of Australian Football Stadium For Calling Player an "Ape"

eXtina

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Monday May 27, 2013 · 8:10 AM PDT

2013/05/27 · 08:10

A 13 year old heckler was escorted from a football stadium after she directed a racist remark towards one of the players.

An Australian rules footballer has received praise for his stoic but stern reaction to a heckler who, at this past weekend’s match, shouted out a “racist” remark at him as his team was about to win the match.
Sydney Swans star forward Adam Goodes is an Aboriginal Australian. As the final moments of a game against rival Collingwood dwindled down, he was called an “ape” by a young female spectator as he ran past her seated in the front row. As soon as he heard the epithet, Goodes turned around, pointed her out to security, and had her escorted from the Melbourne arena.

eXtina

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Sunday May 26, 2013 · 3:07 PM PDT

2013/05/26 · 15:07

From the party that brought you the discussion on how much torture is acceptable comes this:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) on Sunday blasted President Barack Obama for taking a “moral tone” in shaping U.S. counterterrorism policy.
In the first major speech of his second term on Thursday, the president highlighted the need to restrict the use of unnamed drones, close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and eventually end the war on terror.

During an ABC News panel discussion on Sunday, King said he was offended that Obama would change U.S. policy for “moral reasons.”

“That’s what bothered me about the president’s speech, this moral anguish that he was going through,” he explained. “Listen, every soldier, every cop who is faced with a decision to make, life or death, does the best he or she can and I think our country has done more than any country in the history of the world to limit civilian casualties so that just offended me, that whole tone of it.”

King added that “this policy basically has worked,” but there may be ways to “put more emphasis on clandestine activity of actually gathering intelligence rather than relying so much on drones.”

“But for me, I don’t think the president really addressed that in the speech. I think he was coming at it from a more from this moral tone which I just think was misplaced. I don’t think it’s called for.”

The transcription does not do justice to the Congressman's dismissive tone when he spits out the word 'morality' with a shrug and grimace, as if the very word is distasteful to his tongue. Read More

CBS Reporter to OK Lt. Gov: "Are You Getting Everything You Need From the Federal Government?"

eXtina

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Tuesday May 21, 2013 · 8:36 AM PDT

2013/05/21 · 08:36

About 8:30 AM today, CBS's Norah O'Donnell interviewed Oklahoma's Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb about the devastation and disaster suffered in his state.

O'DONNELL: Are you getting everything you need from the Federal Government?
LAMB: We are. I was with the governor yesterday when she talked to the President. I was with the Governor yesterday when she made the request from FEMA. Everything the Governor has requested, Oklahoma has received.

This occurred at 8:30 AM this morning, less than 24 hours after the tornado struck at 3PM the previous day. The state of OK had already received everything they had asked for from the government.

O'Donnell's first instinct was to ask whether Oklahoma's requests for assistance had been acknowledged. Implicit in her question is the assumption that this is the expectation by the state of what the Federal Government should do, and inquiring as to whether the government was fulfilling its obligations to its citizenry.

The LT. Gov. assures her that yes, indeed the government is taking care of Oklahomans.

Not a word about finding ways to pay for it by cutting other equally important parts of the budget. Unlike the Senator from his own state.

eXtina

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Wednesday May 15, 2013 · 8:14 PM PDT

2013/05/15 · 20:14

This is a terrible shame. An ancient Mayan pyramid was bulldozed by a construction crew building a road project in Belize, for road fill. Not the least of the shame is that archeoligists believe the road crew was fully aware of the historical significance of the site and such treasures are protected by the government even when located on private property. The pyramid lacked the straight sloping sides associated with better known examples but was nonetheless one of the largest such examples.

Head of the Belizean Institute of Archaeology Jaime Awe said the Noh Mul temple was levelled by a road-building company seeking gravel for road filler.
The Mayan temple dates back to pre-Columbian times and is estimated to be 2,300 year old. Only a small core of the pyramid was left standing.

Police said they were investigating the incident.

Archaeologists said this was not the first incident of its kind.

"Bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize," Prof Normand Hammond told the Associated Press news agency.

Archaeologists said they were alerted to the destruction late last week.

The Maya complex lies on private land but under Belizean law, any pre-Hispanic ruins come under government protection.

Dr John Morris of the Belizean Institute of Archaeology said the workers would have been aware of what they were doing.

There's no doubt the construction crew knew what they were doing.

Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids. But Awe said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet (30 meters) tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.
"These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It's just bloody laziness," Awe said.

eXtina

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Friday May 10, 2013 · 2:20 PM PDT

2013/05/10 · 14:20

A national Iowa-based conservative group is running ads showing 'ordinary New Hampshire moms' supporting Kelly Ayotte's vote against minimal background checks in the proposed gun control legislation that recently failed in the Senate.

Ayotte is under fire for her vote in her state in which there is 91% support for some form of background checks.

Problem is, they couldn't find anyone that actually supported her vote so they made this phony ad using GOP activists as actors claiming to support Ayotte's vote.

eXtina

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Friday May 10, 2013 · 9:47 AM PDT

2013/05/10 · 09:47

LINK

A woman is rescued from the rubble of the Rana Plaza building 17 days after the building collapsed in Savar May 10, 2013. Rescuers pulled the woman, identified by Bangladeshi media only as Reshma, on Friday from the rubble of the Bangladesh garment factory, astonishing workmen who had been searching for bodies of victims of a disaster that has killed more than 1,000 people.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer

eXtina

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Wednesday May 08, 2013 · 12:57 PM PDT

2013/05/08 · 12:57

Darth Vader speaks:

They should have been ready before anything ever happened,' Cheney told MailOnline exclusively during a party in Georgetown celebrating the launch of a new book by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

(Because everybody wants to know what Rumsfeld now has to say).

'When we were there, on our watch, we were always ready on 9/11, on the anniversary,' he recalled. 'We always anticipated they were coming for us, especially in that part of the world.'
'I cannot understand why they weren't ready to go,' the former two-term vice president said of the Obama administration.
'You've got units in the Defense Department that are superb. They practice for this contingency. And they didn't have anybody in the area,'

'The [Benghazi] hearing should be damned interesting,' Cheney predicted.

eXtina

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Wednesday May 08, 2013 · 12:22 PM PDT

2013/05/08 · 12:22

The factory collapse in Bangladesh has now claimed upward of 700 lives, making it the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh and the most deadly one in the history of the garment industry. As has been widely reported, workers were hesitant to enter the building on the day of the collapse due to visible cracks in the building.

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Palin & GOP Call Sebelius a "Death Panel of One" For Not Intervening in 10yo's Lung Transplant

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Candy Crowley Takes Down Darrel Issa's Claim That IRS "Targeting" Came from White House

Northern Ireland Builds Fake Town for G8 To Make It Look Like Austerity Works

13 yo Spectator Thrown Out of Australian Football Stadium For Calling Player an "Ape"

Peter King Offended By President Obama's Incessant "Moralizing" on Drones and Gitmo

CBS Reporter to OK Lt. Gov: "Are You Getting Everything You Need From the Federal Government?"

2,300 Year Old Mayan Pyramid Bulldozed for Belize Road Project

GOP Activists Masquerade as NH Moms 'Supporting' Ayotte's Vote Against Background Checks

Woman Rescued Alive After 17 Days Trapped in Bangladesh Factory Rubble

Surprise! Cheney Slams Obama's Benghazi 'Performance' As a Failure of Leadership

Are 700 Lives Worth 10 Cents?