Not only are they dumb, they are getting incredible bad luck.
First Jindal comes out and tries to mock Volcano Monitoring. Before we finished comparing Jindal to Kenneth The Page, Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted. We are now finding out that volcano monitoring was not the only public safety program the republicans fought against. They basically fought against anything that had to do with PREVENTION.
"Let's wait until it happens first." This has been their attitude for decades now, and they stayed true to their 20th century principles.
The house version of the stimulus included money for pandemic preparation. When it got to the Senate, republicans of course wanted that portion and many other out of the bill. In order to gain a couple votes from them to pass the stimulus, pandemic preparation and other public health funding were removed.
THANK YOU GOP. You better pray this stays in control otherwise MANY will hold you responsible if we don't have money and/or time to control this one, or any other one that may erupt in a near future.
That's not the only SABOTAGING the GOP is doing. We don't have a Health Secretary. The GOP is blocking an up or down vote on this key position because some anti-abortion groups are telling them to do so. It's not a matter of 'if Sebelius' will be confirmed. She will be, and they know it. Meanwhile, they are playing politics while we have a pandemic coming at us. Instead of the HHS doing its job, we have the Homeland Security running the show on a Health problem.
Thanks GOP. Keep it up.
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Comments: 30
That's an article headline off the Street this morning.
Obama and the dems anticipated and tried to deal with our lack of preparation for major disasters. Once again, the GOP forced flu prep out of the debate, mocked it and ridiculed it as not belong in the stimulus package. This would have provided EXTRA jobs for people making the vaccines, devising plans for the response, update the radio equipment THAT DID NOT WORK ON 9/11 and so forth.
...and once again, the dems were right.
The Republicans don't seem to understand the economy at all. They don't know that the mere threat of us not being ready to deal with a pandemic can hit an economy that is really fragile. They stand for nothing but obstructionism and every time we listen to them, we end up getting screwed as a country.
Jared, thanks for the post.
American swine flu cases climb to 40
The U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country by air, land and sea.
And Besser said a new U.S. travel advisory was being prepared suggesting "nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided."
The quickening pace of developments in the United States in response to some nearly 2,000 swine flu infections in neighboring Mexico — with a suspected 149 deaths — was accompanied by a host of varying responses around the world. The European Union advised against nonessential travel to the U.S. and Mexico, while China, Taiwan and Russia considered quarantines and several Asian countries scrutinized visitors arriving at their airports.
Reporting that "President Obama went golfing and the Department of Health and Human Services is short a secretary, so other U.S. officials took the controls" dealing with the swine flu, FoxNews.com omitted Senate Republicans' role in delaying Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as HHS secretary.
"The head of the Republican Party called on President Barack Obama to withdraw Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as health secretary unless she answers more questions on abortion."
(laughs)
(I wonder what the last flu outbreak at the end of WW1 did to their economy?)
Carol, there is no time to pass a single bill for every single problem. The stimulus PACKAGE, and I remember the adminstration emphasizing package was designed to put some people to work while adressing some need such as roads, bridges, and schools. The question was what is needed, and does it put people to work. The GOP decided that volcano monitoring is a joke, emergency prepardness does not provide jobs and is not something the country needed at the time. Go to Susan Collins website. Up to this morning she was bragging about getting out the stimulus.
The stimulus should have been, was intended to be only, about identifying shovel-ready project that put people to work for a year or two until the economy rebounds. That's the basic principle about governmental economic intervention. The GOP does not believe in that, and the dems were too griddy. Like kids in a candy store.
Obviously the pandemic preparation and other emergency preparations do that. They needed a compromise and cut a deal with Susan Collins who wanted it out. This is all on Susan Collins, a dem ally, not the GOP. The GOP did not want anything to do with the stimulus.
Anyone remember what happened in 1976, the last time the "swine flu" raised it's silly snout???
Wouldn't it be funny if Rush died from Swine flu, after all, he is a swine.
Following the confirmation of swine flu cases in the United States, radio hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Fred Thompson purported to detect possible political motivations in the U.S. and United Nations' handling of the situation, with Limbaugh suggesting on his April 27 show that the official response "is designed to expand the role and power of governments and schools" and accusing the media of "falling right in line here with amplifying the nature of the crisis."
Also on April 27, Beck asserted that there are "only two ways to look at" the government's response to the swine flu. First, he claimed that it "could be that because Barack Obama's administration is so incredibly efficient, could be that they know that this is much worse than we think it is." Second, Beck claimed the administration's response to the crisis "could be to move his Health and Human Services person [Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius] into the office rapidly." He added: "She can be confirmed right out of the gate because of this swine flu. So don't look over here, look at the swine flu, look at the swine flu, look at the swine flu. And she just goes right through the gate."
The website for Westwood One's Fred Thompson Show displayed a poll question that asked: "Do you feel the Obama administration is overreacting to the swine flu for political purposes?"
Following an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and subsequent confirmation of dozens of cases in the United States, conservative media personalities have baselessly blamed Mexican immigrants for spreading the disease across the border, continuing their long-standing trend of scapegoating immigrants while discussing major news stories.
The stalling on the acceptance of whoever is nominated for the Secretary of Health and Human Services probably IS politically motivated, but will backfire in the end.
http://www.pandemicflu.gov
who else ya gonna blame ??? *chuckle*
the virus dies as soon as it dries, without a respiratory tract to live in....
who is doing the coughing, sneezing, etc., that spreads the virus, if not mexicans ??
Mexico, as it pertains to the possibility of Americans contracting the virus, is ground zero ace.....
You hurt your own argument when you publish articles like this!
As it turns out, not so ill fated...