COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

Turns out when these guys aren't infecting veterans with Hepatitis C, and letting legitimate VA disability claims go unprocessed for months and months on end, they're giving out $24 million in taxpayer money to government employees in efficiency and performance bonuses.
Quick! Let's put the federal government in charge of health care right away!

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Government, soldiers' issues, VA, veterans

... And covers it up.

Had the government responded more aggressively, it might have uncovered a rogue cancer unit at the hospital, one that operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years — and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records.

The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show.

More:

The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care worked, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Peer review, a staple of every good hospital, in which colleagues examine one another’s work, did not exist in the unit. The V.A.’s radiation safety program; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the use of all nuclear materials; and the Joint Commission, a group that accredited the hospital, all failed to intervene; either their inspections had been limited or they had not acted decisively upon finding problems.

Over all, the implant program lacked a “safety culture,” the nuclear commission found. Dr. Kao and other members of his team, the commission said, were not properly supervised or trained in what constitutes a substandard implant and the need to report it. Dr. Kao declined to comment for this article.

Quick! Let's put government employees in charge of everyone's medical care, right away!

Labels: Government, health care, soldiers' issues, veterans

Via Megan McArdle comes this illustration of Obama's 100 Million Dollar Joke.

Labels: budget, Economics, finance, Government, Obama

I have an idea: Let's spend money we don't have and socialize healthcare across the country right away!

Labels: Government, health care, medicine, Obama, socialism, stupid

Damn damn damn damn damn.

The Wan.

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.
But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

Surprised at the volume of business?

What, did he think being President was simply a bunch of ribbon cuttings, photo ops, and state dinners? Well, welcome to the world of actually having executive responsibility, Mr. President.

It's kind of like campaigning, except you don't get to hire a campaign director to run it for you.

Seriously, this is one of many problems with liberals. They think government has to provide solutions for everything, and so they run themselves ragged trying to create government solutions for everything, instead of simply steering the ship and keeping government out of the damned way.

The Wan himself is more arrogant than most... though I'm sure Kerry and Gore both would have given him a run for his money.

Being arrogant, and of course having hired a romper room cabinet, The Wan feels he must micromanage everything. That's how top-level executives become overwhelmed. The feel they have to provide direction and guidance and get in the weeds on every little stupid thing, and they forget that their most important job is to THINK.

The Wan, never having held any real executive responsibility in his life, has yet to learn this lesson.

Hell, not only has The Wan never held any real executive responsibility - he's never been in a position to learn from someone who has!

Who has he worked for or been mentored by whom he could have learned from and observed in action, day to day? Governor Blago? Mayor Daley? All his role models are activists, other legislators, or terrorists.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

This must be that "smarter approach to diplomacy" I've heard so much about.

A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. "I think it's right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn't quite understand the British concerns and didn't get what that was all about."

That's because The Wan's administration is a government of naive and unserious people for naive and unserious people. Don't we have any protocol officers left over on the White House staff?

The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

I don't know. Ronald Reagan somehow fucking managed it.

Then again, Ronald Reagan was a lot smarter than The Wan, and a better executive, to boot. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, libtards!

British diplomats insist the visit was a success, with officials getting the chance to develop closer links with Mr Obama's aides. They point out that the president has agreed to meet the prime minister for further one-to-one talks in London later this month, ahead of the G20 summit on April 2.

Good. I hear Target's having a sale on American Flag-themed bathmats!


Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Britain, Government, Leadership, Obama, stupid

Apparently, despite "working hard to get the right word," the Secretary of State doesn't have access to a competent Russian linguist.

God help us.

Despite the shoddy translation work on the U.S. side, Clinton and Lavrov emerged from their meeting a few hours later saying they had accomplished their initial goal—reducing the frostiness in U.S.-Russia relations that had taken hold by the end of the Bush administration.

Wow. A simple meeting could "reduce the frostiness" between the U.S. and Russia?

What the f-ck did we just give away to make that happen?

Can't anyone here play this game?

Splash, out

Jason

P.S. Condoleeza Rice was near fluent in Russian.

Hillary's a HUGE step down.

Labels: Government, Hillary, Obama, stupid