Shooting From the Hip:
02/07/10:
The Real MVP:
Yeah, Drew Brees was named MVP in a super Super Bowl game Sunday night, but for my money, the guy who deserved it was his coach, Sean Payton.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
Mike Keefe, The Denver Post
Commentary:
01/30/10
Sorry, Can’t Help You:
There are many ways to measure the serious shortcomings in America’s broken healthcare system. From costs that are far too high to the uninsured that are far too many, the problems in providing affordable healthcare to everyone have proven to be insurmountable. If nothing else, that’s what Americans have learned from the bizarre and perpetual puppet show in Congress, where the strings are pulled with deft precision by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Healthcare Reform? It’s merely a cruel oxymoron.
Now we can add still another outward sign of how broken is America’s healthcare system. On Friday, January 29, the U.S. military stopped the mercy flights out of Haiti that were ferrying Haitian citizens aboard C-130 planes to the United States to be treated for life-threatening injuries suffered in the Armageddon-like earthquake that ruined an already impoverished nation January 12. The reason for suspending the flights? The cost, specifically who’s going to pay for the treatment. Most of the mercy flights were going to Florida, where Republican Governor Charlie Crist complained that his state couldn’t afford it and that the federal government has to pay. What’s wrong Governor Crist? Can’t the system in which you and every Republican puts their faith, the “Free Enterprise” system pay for it? I thought you didn’t want “interference” from the federal government.
As in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, here is another example of how America’s current healthcare system makes life-saving decisions a crass bottom-line function, not a humanitarian one. As every other western nation knows from practical experience, the only nondiscriminatory system that works, the only system that provides healthcare for everyone, regardless of station in life or catastrophic circumstance, is a single-payer system. Since the interests of the American people are subordinated to the interests of corporations, tellingly reinforced by the recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporate America to buy any politician they want to, there is no way that sane and effective healthcare reform on any level, much less a single-payer system, will ever see the light of day.
So, once again, the United States of America is telling the rest of the world that we can’t provide life-saving medical care because we can’t afford it, because America’s system of healthcare is only concerned about the profits that can be made in treating those who can pay for it, and not about anything remotely resembling a humanitarian concern for anyone truly in need. The Haitian people should understand that this is how we treat our own people. Why should they expect to be treated differently?
While they and we wait to see who’s going to pay, which, according to the rules of our current healthcare system really means who’s going to make a buck from other people’s misery, Haitians who are suffering horrific burns, spinal cord injuries, crushed internal organs and myriad other injuries, were left to die.
UPDATE: Responding to an uproar over the cancellation fo the mercy flights, the White House intervened on Sunday and ordered the U.S. military to resume the airlift of Injured Haitians Monday. It was still not clear how already overcrowded U.S. medical facilities were going to handle the incoming patients, or who was going to pay for their medical care.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
Brian Fairrington / Cagle Cartoons
J.D. Crowe, the Mobile, Alabama Register
Shooting From the Hip:
01/24/10
TV'S Vast Wasteland:
I miss the days when there were only three TV networks to choose from. You spent a lot less time deciding there was nothing good to watch.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
01/20/10
The Phony Family Man:
Dr. James Dobson, founder of the ultra-conservative political interest group, “Focus on the Family” is leaving his post at the age of 73. No, he’s not retiring. He’s going to start up a new radio program with his 39-year-old son, Ryan, himself a Christian fundamentalist preacher.
Apparently, Dr. Dobson has little choice in the matter. It turns out that son Ryan was not focusing on his family. He’s divorced.
Note to Dr. Dobson: You’ve still got time to stop being such a hypocrite. Why not put your Ph.d. in psychology to some good use for a change? Why not call your new venture “Focus on the Fractured Family,” or maybe “Focus on the Extended Family”?
Of course, he won’t. There are still big bucks to be made in the discriminatory ideological-peddling business.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
01/17/10
Mr. Awareness:
President Barack Obama asked former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to head up a national effort to assist the people of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Bush said his job was to “raise awareness.” Too bad his “awareness” wasn’t aroused before, during or after Hurricane Katrina. Haitians should give thanks that Mr. Awareness is not in the White House anymore. If he were, they would now be feeling first hand the effects of a key policy of his Administration—abandonment.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
01/10/10
Resolutions:
(The following was forwarded to us by a friend)
“As part of my New Year resolutions, I sat my kids down for a frank chat about my living will. I made it very clear to them that I did not want to spend my final days in a vegetative state, totally dependent on a machine and fluids from a bottle to keep me alive. I told them that when the time comes, to pull the plug.
They said they fully understood. So they got up, disconnected my computer, and poured all of my wine down the drain.”
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
01/08/10:
Self-destructing Democrats:
If there is any way that Democrats can make the Republicans in Congress feel better about the 2010 elections in November, rest assured, they will find it.
Just when the Democrats were getting their act together, reaching a certain comfort level with their barely filibuster-proof power in the Senate, comes news of a crack in their armor—well, two of them actually. Senators Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd, both Democrats, have announced they will not run for reelection. They both made known their intentions to throw in the towel on the same day that a Democratic Governor, Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, announced that he is not re-upping either. And, demonstrating that party unity has always been hard to come by, the Democrats have lost a House seat to a flipper. Parker Griffith of Alabama announced December 22 that he would rather be associated with the party of elephants than with the one of donkeys, which is not that big a leap for a Blue Dog anyway. Personally speaking, I think he’s a jackass. His entire staff thought so too, quitting en masse. Of course, Griffith is not the only one. Another party defector, Repubindecrat, Joe Lieberman, one of the most unctuous and insipid politicians of all time, qualifies as a jackass too.
The point is, Democrats just love shooting themselves in the foot, which is just fine with Republicans who love to shoot them in the foot as well.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
01/06/10:
You Get What They Pay For:
Following months and months of caving in to the desires of their campaign contribution managers, namely the insurance and pharmaceutical locusts that have overrun “K” street, members of Congress are getting closer and closer to forging a new health care reform proposal that they can send to the Obama White House. The legislation will proudly bear the following title:
The Comprehensive Health Care Reform Prevention Act of 2010.
John Wydra, WydeWorld.com
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Cam Cardow / Ottawa Citizen
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Joe Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette
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What Hath Bush Wrought?
To sample the book by reading the first page from each chapter,
click on "Excerpts from New Book"
For Back Cover quotes, see below
AVAILABLE FROM WEBSITE BOOKSELLERS,
INCLUDING AMAZON.COM AND BORDERS.COM
(For hyperlinks, see below)
Can anyone from the Bush Administration face war crimes charges for torturing “enemy combatants?” Was the Iraq invasion planned as far back as 1992? How did the radical Religious Right infiltrate a key federal agency and dictate U.S. policy? Were there insidious reasons when the government of the United States of America turned its back on its own citizens after Hurricane Katrina? Was 9/11 allowed to happen?
These questions and much more are addressed in John Wydra’s new book: What Hath Bush Wrought? Using Bush’s own words and naming names in a neoconservative/Religious Right conspiracy that hijacked the U.S. government, Wydra meticulously recounts the numerous “crimes and misdemeanors” of the “Unitary Presidency” of George W. Bush.
If Attorney General Eric Holder is looking for reasons why he should initiate proceedings against a number of former Bush Administration officials, he can find them in this book. Leavened with sarcasm and humor, Wydra documents the legacy of the most disastrous presidency in U.S. history.
There was more to it than just the approval of the illegal and immoral use of torture, a war crime. There was more to it than launching an unjust war against Iraq, also a war crime. There was more to it than just the mishandling of the aftermath of Katrina, a crime against humanity. Chillingly, it was worse, much worse than anyone thought.
The ultimate question remains: Why has no one been held responsible?
ISBN: 0-7414-5269-3 ©2009
Price: $34.95
Book Size: 5.5'' x 8.5'' , 653 pages
Category/Subject: POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory
**************************************************************************************
QUOTES FROM BACK COVER:
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the (Bush) Administration (has) committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether or not those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Antonio Taguba, Major General, U.S. Army, retired
"Who would have thought that in the United States of America, in the 21st Century, the top officials in the (Bush) Executive Branch would routinely gather in the White House to approve torture?"
Senator Edward Kennedy
"The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy...for Iraq, for the U.S., for the U.N., for truth and human dignity."
Hans Blix, former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector
"The invasion of Iraq was...an illegal act that contravened the U.N. Charter."
Kofi Annan, former U.N. Secretary General
"History will not judge us kindly."
John Ashcroft, former U.S. Attorney General
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