Overlooked Savings from Single-Payer Healthcare

Ask any Republican, “If you could pass a tax cut that saved the average American $10-$30,000 a year and the average corporation millions of dollars a year, would you do it?” What do you think their answer would be?

It’s harder to argue against a “Single-Payer” healthcare system when you phrase it in those terms, and let’s be honest, “framing is everything“. Sadly, Democrats often allow the Republican minority and a handful of Conservative DINOs beholden to the insurance lobby to frame the debate against healthcare reform with fictitious horror stories of “Socialized Medicine”. They’ve been doing it for years:
 

 

I couldn’t help but notice that one of Reagan’s chief arguments was how the government could tell some doctors that they couldn’t practice in a town because they didn’t need any more doctors there. Funny, but I don’t remember a time when a medical degree was a guarantee of employment in the town of your choice. Then again, I wasn’t alive in the 1950’s. Maybe it was different back then <snark>.

The debate over Health Care is shaping up to be the most contentious battle in Washington since “Bush v. Gore” in 2000, except this time billions (trillions?) of dollars and thousands of American lives are at stake (arguably, in retrospect, it was in 2000 as well, we just didn’t know it). But sadly, just as in 2000, we see a dozen or so milquetoast Democrats conceding that “maybe the Republicans have a point”; unwilling to fight for their position as hard as the ideologues on the Right, watering down their position to try and please a bunch of WATB’s that even a majority of Republicans don’t support on this particular issue. Following the absolute disaster of the Bush Administration, failing to prevent 9/11, attacking Iraq before completing Afghanistan, unable to end either war, the failure of Katrina, economic collapse, collapse of the U.S. auto industry, Wall Street run amok requiring a Trillion dollar bailout, record unemployment not seen since The Great Depression, all while adding another $5T to the National Debt… the American people SO rejected the Republican way of doing things, they voted in a Democratic president with a Super-Majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress. If the American people have ever spoken louder in one voice to reject the Republican way of doing things, I haven’t seen it in my lifetime (since LBJ). Yet STILL we have President Obama and Democrats in Congress concerned with “bipartisanship”, kowtowing to the Concerns of Republicans. We desperately need a National Healthcare System in this country if for no other reason than to pay for a spine transplant for all the gutless Democrats.

BY FAR, the most comprehensive, all-inclusive, most cost-efficient healthcare solution is a system known as “Single Payer”, where the Federal government pays the healthcare bills for each and every American (typically paid for with taxes). Denmark, Sweden, and Canada are example of countries with single payer financing of health care. England and France, where every doctor is a Federal employee and every hospital is owned by the government, are not (theirs is a true “Socialized” system). But the latter is what Republicans WANT you to believe “Single Payer” is. President Obama is advocating NEITHER. His is a third choice called “the public option”, where a government “health insurance company” competes for your business just like any other insurance company, but with lower overhead (such as advertising costs), no shareholders to pay dividends to or huge CEO bonuses to pay.

Republican arguments against “Single Payer” are truly absurd. They tell us a “government option” would simultaneously be a huge failure, cost a trillion dollars, provide worse care and still leave millions uninsured (warning: that last link is to Sen. Boehner’s homepage), WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY threaten to put private insurance companies out of business because it would be SO GOOD and SO CHEAP that private insurance companies would be “unable to compete“, resulting in millions of Americans giving up their private insurance for the cheaper/better government option (which shows were their true loyalties lie).

****************
I can’t help but think of “FedEx” every time I hear this bizarre argument. Isn’t “the US Mail vs. FedEx” the perfect metaphor for the “Public Option”? I remember when people argued that a company like “Federal Express”, whose entire business revolved around “overnight mail delivery”, would NEVER be able to compete with the USPS with its “unfair advantage” of being able to ship packages on any airline (not just their own planes) and delivered by their own postal carriers. And yet, FedEx is an enormously successful corporation competing against the government in the “Express mail” business.

UPS and their fleet of Big Brown Trucks was founded in 1907 and has successfully competed with government-run package delivery for over 100 years.

Now argue “private” insurance companies won’t be able to compete with the government. Funny how little faith “free market Republicans” truly have in “the free market”.
 

Currently, the popular “compromise” on Capitol Hill is something called a “co-op“, being put forth by DINO’s like Kent Conrad and DiFi (Sen. ”Diane Feinstein” of California). A “co-op” is basically a group of individuals that pool their money to cover each others healthcare costs. Of course, to have any leverage, you’re not going to control costs and/or be solvent enough to cover the extended hospital stays of very many members at once with just a few dozen… or even a few hundred members. No, to have that kind of leverage & security, were talking about a co-op with hundreds of thousands of members, like “Group Health” in Washington and Idaho, a co-op with some 600,000 members. That’s not a “co-op”, that’s an insurance company! When you get that big, who’s going to Administrate it? We’re talking a full time job. Now you’ve got administrative costs, hiring bonuses to attract top talent, and (most importantly) a profit motive and plenty reason to deny coverage. This is their idea of a compromise???

Government-run “Single Payer” health insurance has numerous obvious advantages:

• Dramatically lower costs: With no profit motive, advertising costs, shareholders or bonuses to pay, single-payer would cost less. And if private insurance wants to compete, they’re going to have to cut those expenses or else lose customers.
• No “pre-existing condition” exemptions: No one can be denied coverage because of a “pre-existing condition”.
• See any doctor you like: Unlike an HMO or other closed system where you can only see “in-network” doctors, you can continue to see your current doctor or any other doctor of your choosing. (Excuse me, but doesn’t an HMO do EXACTLY what Republicans claim a government system would do… tell you “what doctor you may see” and “whether or not they’ll cover a particular procedure“? Apparently, “socialized medicine” is just fine when the private sector does it.)

But there is a plethora of “hidden” benefits from insuring every single American that are not immediately obvious and go unmentioned on the Network News (I know, big surprise):

• No more need for Workman’s Comp - with every single American receiving guaranteed injury protection coverage that can not be denied for any reason, companies will no longer have to carry costly “injury-protection” on their policies (though they may still need coverage for “negligence”), thus saving businesses billions each year.
• Ditto on your car insurance. No more need for injury liability coverage on your car insurance. - I have a minimal policy that covers only around “$25,000 per person, one driver and up to two passengers” if someone I hit is injured in a car accident. At today’s healthcare prices, a ride in an ambulance for a trip to the ER could burn through that $25,000 maximum in minutes. I would then have to make up the difference out-of-pocket. But with every person having full medical coverage, you won’t need “injury protection” on your car insurance any more, and rates should drop considerably (but before you shed tears for the insurance companies losing all that money in premiums, I’ve had to sacrifice better “collision” coverage, and have a high deductible, to cover those injury costs. I’d likely increase the coverage of my car so that my insurance pays for more of the damage, rather than take the savings and run if my rates were to go down significantly.
• More people would be able to afford health insurance while unemployed or under-employed. - While hard numbers are difficult to come by, it is not uncommon for health insurance to cost between $800 and $2000 (or more) a month per person, an amount extremely difficult to afford even in the best of times with a well-paying job. With lower rates under a national program, many people who suddenly find themselves without a job (or a low-paying job) won’t necessarily have to give up their health insurance because it is too costly. This means fewer people relying on the costly Emergency Room for their medical needs… an expense that explodes insurance costs for all Americans.
• According to a Harvard Medical School study earlier this month, over 60% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical bills either because their illness/disability exceeded their coverage or disallowed by their insurer. With “Single Payer” public health coverage, as long as a treatment is ruled “medically necessary”, it must be covered. And if private insurance companies expect to survive, they’re going to have to do the same or else risk losing that customer to the Public Option.
• Malpractice insurance would no longer need to cover the expense of a lifetime of medical care resulting from negligence, thus driving down malpractice insurance rates that then get passed on to the patient. (Some Republicans think the healthcare crisis can be solved through tort reform. Not only do malpractice lawsuits account for only two percent of healthcare costs (according to an April, 2006 AARP report), tort reform would result in a savings of just 0.4 to 0.5 percent, while limiting the jury award to the victim, possibly disabled for life, by some arbitrary cap pulled out of the air by some Conservative bureaucrat. A reduction in malpractice insurance rates would do far more to reduce costs across-the-board than tort reform.)
• I am presently unable to find figures on the costs associated with “lost productivity” for the time employees are out sick or function at less than full capacity if they come to work sick because they can’t afford to take time off, but I’m sure it’s significant.

In January, The National Coalition on Healthcare issued a report that (among other things) listed some of the costs created by the uninsured population:

• The United States spends nearly $100 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis.
• Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year.
• Another $37 billion is paid by private and public payers for health services for the uninsured and $26 billion is paid out-of-pocket by those who lack coverage.
• The uninsured are 30 to 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stay estimated to be about $3,300.
• The increasing reliance of the uninsured on the emergency department has serious economic implications, since the cost of treating patients is higher in the emergency department than in other outpatient clinics and medical practices.
• A study found that 29 percent of people who had health insurance were “underinsured” with coverage so meager they often postponed medical care because of costs.
• Nearly 50 percent overall, and 43 percent of people with health coverage, said they were “somewhat” to “completely” unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency over the coming year.

We don’t have a “HEALTH CARE” System in America, we have a “DISEASE TREATMENT” System. We don’t treat people when they are healthy to keep them that way for low cost, we have a “Wellness” system where people put off going to the doctor until they’re already symptomatic, needing treatment at a far greater expense.

The need for “extreme profits” (along with uncontrolled hospital and prescription costs) has caused insurance premiums to rise at twice the rate of inflation (according to the same NCHC report referenced above). Removing the “extreme profit motive” to payoff shareholders and award exorbitant bonuses will encourage researchers to focus on REAL cures for serious illnesses and not just the next high-profit diet pill or (no joke) a drug to grow longer eyelashes (and, perhaps the perfect metaphor for the big money to be made from such inane cosmeceuticals: the preceding link pulls up a slick, professionally done, big-budget website).

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of benefits we can expect from Universal heath insurance that guarantees coverage for each & every American, but I think I’ve hit many of the most significant points, as well as highlight some of the stupidity, cluelessness and rank hypocrisy on the Right… people claiming to be concerned over making healthcare affordable for everyone, while proposing “solutions” that do little or nothing to actually fix the problem.

Some light reading for those looking for more “meat”:

Read “Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America“, entire book is online.

The Obama Healthcare Plan was posted online (pre-election). It hasn’t changed as much as you might think, and at only 9 pages (8 plus appendix), it’s worth a read.
 

Postscript: Tuesday is the big handover of Iraqi security to the people of Iraq, and the removal of thousands of American troops from the streets of some of Iraq’s biggest cities. While tens of thousands of American soldiers will remain in the country for months to come, it will be mostly in an “advisory roll” with the Iraqi government in charge and U.S. forces no longer calling the shots (no more American-led missions inside Iraq unless specifically requested by the Iraqi government). This will be a historic shift in the Iraq War and (I hope), will reveal that a quicker exit than “the end of 2010″ is possible. A recent uptick in violence in just the past few weeks appears to be… not a sense of what’s to come after we leave… but a pitiful attempt by groups like alQaeda that hope to “trick” America into reneging on its pledge to leave so they can say, “Look! We told you they’d never leave!” They also know Iraq is a distraction from Afghanistan/Pakistan and is costing the hurting U.S. economy billions of dollars a month.

Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7 users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!

WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

Quick update.

Hello all. Often, I wish I could update this blog a dozen times a day like “Think Progress”, “DailyKOS” or “Crooks & Liars”, ad infinitum. But those sites all have a staff of writers and contributors providing content that I just don’t have. So I must be satisfied with weekly Op/Ed’s (if holidays don’t get in the way like it did last weekend).

I’m currently working on a big report on the unseen advantages of “Single Payer” healthcare for next Monday, but I wanted to get “on the record” regarding the revelation that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who disappeared over Father’s Day weekend; admitting he was actually in South America visiting a married Argentinian woman he “had known for some eight years” but had been having an affair with only within the past six months, and went to see her “to convince her to return to her husband” because “it is what God would want her to do”. Sanford claims his wife has known of the affair for the past two years (you know, the affair that’s only 6 months old?) and was aware of his whereabouts (unlike his Lieutenant Governor and personal staff) for the days he went missing.

Okay, forget the fact that yet another “Family Values” Republican that criticized Bill Clinton for his affair on moral grounds, was caught being a monster hypocrite. And forget how NOW he’s suddenly concerned about “what God wants”… I just want to get this on the record:
 

There is only ONE reason a wife would allow the father of her children to visit his mistress over Fathers Day weekend: There’s a kid involved.

He’s known this woman for “eight years”? Then this kid is several years old and he has missed every single Father’s Day this poor child has ever had. Feeling guilty about it, he convinced his wife to let him spend at least one Father’s Day with his illegitimate love-child on the condition he “break it off” with the mother while he’s there.

I’m calling it now that in the next few days, this will be the next big revelation in the “Sanford Affair”. Mark my words. - Mugsy
 

Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7 users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!

WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

 

Iran’s Stolen Election Reminds Us Bush Gone But Not Forgotten

It’s Deja Vu all over again.

Despite long lines at the polls that extended well into the night, Iranian election officials declared that current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won reelection in a landslide only hours after the polls closed, carrying not only 2/3rds of the vote in a race pollsters said was a dead heat, but even winning his opponent’s (Mousavi) hometown of Tabriz with more than 60% of the vote (sorry, but even Mondale won his home state in his 49-1 loss to Reagan in 1984).

Iran proudly proclaimed a “record turnout” of over 35 million voters (84% of 46 million eligible) casting their ballot in the highly contested election Friday night. Iran has no electronic voting machines, so every vote must be counted by hand. Despite this, the election was called for Ahmadinejad less than two hours after polls closed.

Why does this all seem so familiar? People waiting in long lines well into the night just to vote for the status quo? I don’t think so. Even if you started counting ballots within minutes of them being cast, you’re still not going to count 35 million ballots by hand in the same day.

Ahmadinejad is a relic of The Bush Era, who rose to power in response to George W’s invasion of neighboring Iraq, labeling Iran part of “The Axis of Evil”, and saber-rattling over the possibility of an invasion if they didn’t cease their nuclear program. Enter crazy, belligerent Islamic hardliner Ahmadinejad. A man for which there is ample evidence was one of the U.S. Embassy hostage-takers during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. (”We’ll meet your extremist, militant religious zealot Bush and raise you an anti-Semite.”) Ahmadinejad was a product of The Bush Doctrine (recommended reading for Sarah Palin.) But even though Bush is now gone, Iran is going to be slow to trust Obama as long as troops remain in neighboring Iraq. Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who campaigned on stronger ties to the West and answering U.S. President Obama’s call for peaceful negotiations, held enormous appeal for Iran’s majority “under-30″ voter population. But evidently, the powers-that-be in Iran (the ruling Mullah’s) decided it was too soon to start trusting the West, and “certified” the election for Ahmadinejad.

George Bush may be gone, but as Iran’s election this weekend proved (and the economic disaster here at home continues to prove), we’ll be dealing with his legacy of damage, destruction & distrust for years… perhaps even decades… to come.

Postscript: During ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, former GOP Presidential candidate and partisan douchbag Mitt Romney conceded that the Iranian election did indeed appear to be stolen, and YET, simultaneously argued that President Obama’s outreach to the people of the Middle East was having “no effect” and was thus wasted effort. M’kay. Don’t you just love how they try to have it both ways?

ADDENDUM> This morning, the BBC is reporting: Since the overwhelming election victory for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad there have been reports of opposition members being arrested, newspapers being censored and banned and internet sites being blocked.

Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7 users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!

WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

 

Bush wanted to try Gitmo detainees in U.S. courts (video)

After reading another of Liz Cheney’s ridiculous assertions during her most recent “don’t convict my Daddy” tour, this time denying that President Bush ever suggested putting Gitmo detainees on trial in a U.S. Court of Law, I decided to hunt for video of the comment myself.

Since the stated objective of our YouTube page is “Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it“, I thought this was one clip that desperately needed inclusion in our archive as the Right-wing goes into its usual hysterics over President Obama’s stated plan to “close Gitmo and try the detainees in U.S. courts.”

It only took a quick Google search to confirm that President Bush did indeed express his desire to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and put the detainees on trial in the U.S. court system during the EU World Summit on June 21, 2006. I quickly found the full video and clipped the comment in question:
 

 

Someone needs to tells these Conservative morons that we live in the age of video tape.

Petition: Censure Senator Inhofe (UPDATED)

I‘m sure you’ve noticed that Republican hate-speech has become more and more strident in recent weeks. Here is a sampling of just the past few weeks:
 

o Former Vice President Dick Cheney claimed “Obama policies make U.S. less safe“.

o Newt Gingrich: “I think people should be afraid” (regarding Obama’s policies and the closure of Gitmo).

o Gov. Sarah Palin, always good for paranoid hyperbole, says: the government wants to “control people“.

o “Tea Parties” sent hundreds of angry deluded Conservatives into the streets, often spouting racist remarks toward President Obama.

o And let us not overlook day-after-day of racists/sexist attacks toward Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
 

And now the latest from Senator Jim “Global Warming is a fraud” Inhofe (R-OK):

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said Thursday that President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world was “un-American” because he referred to the war in Iraq as “a war of choice” and didn’t criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

Inhofe also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, “There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo” (despite photos and eye-witness testimony).

“I just don’t know whose side he’s on,” Inhofe said of the president. - June 4, 2009

It’s comments like this that lead paranoid, xenophobes that already believe themselves to be part of some imagined oppressed minority, who are being told by Right-wing hate talk radio and cable TV hosts that their President is a “secret Muslim” that “pals around with terrorists”, “coddles terrorists” and (according to Rush Limbaugh on 6/04) “is doing a better job of destroying the U.S. than al Qaeda“, that can have the unintended (or intended?) consequence of pushing them to violence. Such is the growing level of vitriol towards a president that has been in office for less than 150 days.

In the months leading up to the 2008 election and in the months since, outrageous Republican rhetoric such as this has been reaching a fever pitch. Such talk harnesses hate and (as we’ve seen in recent weeks) can have deadly consequences, as it did in the murder of one of three remaining emergency medical late-term abortion doctors left in the U.S. while at church and in front of his wife singing in the choir.

Senator Inhofe already has a reputation as one of the most extremist, narrow-minded, deluded Right-wing ideologues in all of Washington.

I’ve started an online petition asking Congress to take a very public stand against such rhetoric by calling for the Censure of Senator Inhofe for his inflammatory remarks toward the President of the United States. Please add your name at the preceding link and pass it on to everyone you know.
 

===================================
(UPDATE)
 

Since I felt it is necessary to act while Inhofe’s comments were still fresh, rather than wait until enough signatures were collected, I sent the following letter to both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) (whom I felt was more likely to take action). I did NOT bother to contact either of my own state senators, both of whom are Republican. The following is a copy of my letter to Senator Reid (shorter is better, so I tried to keep it brief):

Dear Sen. Reid,

Last Thursday, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) made the following comment regarding President Obama’s speech in Cairo:

“I just don’t know whose side he’s on.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/05/obama-muslim-speech-inhofe/

In those same comments, Sen. Inhofe called the President “un-American” for calling the invasion of Iraq “a war of choice”, and claimed “There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo” (despite photos and eye-witness testimony).

I’m trying to imagine the howls of outrage had a Democratic Senator of made such comments about President Bush (especially while overseas).

These same people have already accused the President of being “a secret Muslim”, “a Marxist”, “helping the terrorists” and (according to Rush Limbaugh last week) “doing more damage to America than al Qaeda.”

This is the kind of reckless rhetoric that provokes already angry people to commit acts of violence and MUST be denounced.

Please, I STRONGLY urge you to Censure Senator Inhofe for making such offensive and potentially dangerous comments.

Health Insurance costs are killing the car companies.

Sometime today, General Motors (GM) is expected to declare bankruptcy, joining fellow U.S. automaker Chrysler, who should announce its emergence from the bankruptcy declared barely one month ago as it is bought out by Italian automaker Fiat. Ford, the third of the “Big Three”, in what I believe was a shrewd marketing ploy more than anything else, deemed itself healthy enough to reject Federal Bailout money and avoided declaring bankruptcy (despite losing nearly $30 Billion over the last three years, a whopping $8.7 Billion in the second quarter of 2008 and has continued to lose an additional $1.4 Billion in the first quarter of this year.

I have mentioned the fact “GM spends more on health insurance than it does on steel” numerous times here on Mugsy’s Rap Sheet, and it bears repeating yet again. The global recession has hurt auto sales worldwide, with even Toyota posting its first annual loss in history last December… between $1.5 and $1.7 Billion for the entire year.

I began this Op/Ed planning to deunk myths of “American quality” vs. “Japanese Quality” in automobiles, which, for the most part is true. But as I dug deeper, I found many “bargain” American vehicles deserved their bad reputations… typically because of “cost-cutting” moves necessary to compete with cheaper foreign-made cars. A growing number of “American” economy cars are assembled in Mexico, where the labor is cheaper, using cheaper materials, all in an attempt to get the price low enough to compete with vehicles made in countries with low labor costs.

This “cheap labor” defense has many Republicans demonizing Unions, specifically the UAW (United Auto Workers), making outrageous claims of workers making $70/hour in combined pay and benefits (a ridiculous myth MediaMatters debunked last December), calling for their dissolution. Of course, none of it is true. But no one can argue that American workers are paid more than workers in Mexico or Korea, where the standard of living it a pittance compared to the U.S.. Apparently, Republicans won’t be satisfied until the American standard of living is on par with that of India (home of “Tata Motors”, who just released the worlds cheapest car, the Nano, selling for the equivalent of $2,000 American dollars). But anyone that has seen the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” has seen the slums in which many impoverished Indian workers live.

If you want to cut the cost of American-made products, we need to lift the financial burden of providing ever-increasing health care costs from American businesses that are forced to compete against auto manufacturers in countries with Federally funded National Health Care systems. A government report on the cost of employer-based health insurance in the United States found:

In 2006, the average single premium in the private sector for employer-sponsored health insurance was $4,118, while the average premium for family coverage was $11,381.

Last year (before many of the recent layoffs), GM had approximately “266,000 American employees” (though not all of whom receive employer-based health coverage). If we estimate (no hard figures could be found) that 60% of them receive health benefits, that’s roughly 160,000 employees.

Doing the math…

If we assume 75% of them have at least one additional insured family member, that’s 120,000 employees receiving roughly $5700 in health benefits a year, plus another 40,000 single/unattached employees receiving the $4,000/year figure estimated above:

(120K x $5,700) + (40K x $4,000) = $844 million dollars a year in heath benefits.

Now, I have no way of confirming whether or not each of the Big Three automakers are laying out anywhere from $750,000 - $1 billion dollars a year just to insure its employees, but one thing is painfully clear: that relieving them of that burden would go a long way to restoring them to fiscal health.
 

I hope to post a more detailed follow-up in the near future. - Mugsy

Republicans don’t understand how torture and abuse radicalizes our enemies. (UPDATED)

Sometimes I just have to ask: “Do they REALLY not understand something so simple or are they being deliberately obtuse just to gin up support from their base?” Such was my thinking last week as former Vice President Dick Cheney went on his “Please don’t prosecute me” Tour to accuse President Obama of making the country “less safe” than we were under the previous Administration that failed to prevent the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil to take place on their watch.

President Obama gave an inspiring speech last Thursday explaining the necessity of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp… a legal black-hole where detainees were tortured… ASAP as it only serves as a recruiting tool for our enemies. Minutes later, former VP Cheney gave a “rebuttal” speech criticizing President Obama for “caring more about terrorists” than “the security of the American people”. Part of the former VP’s defense was that “terrorism existed long before Gitmo” and therefore, is not responsible for prolonging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

(Video updated with normalized audio and clips of Petraeus and Powell added.)
 

 

(UPDATE: See the interview with Maj. Alexander that Durbin refers to in the above video: here.)

(UPDATE 2: Full video of CentCom commander and Republican hero General David Petraeus arguing in favor or closing Gitmo and condemning torture available at Crooks & Liars.)

I would like to point out at this point that President Obama is not doing anything he didn’t already tell us he was going to do when he began his campaign for President in early 2007. Now, Cheney is going around saying President Obama’s policies are making us “less safe”. Well then, why didn’t Cheney feel the need to run for President if he thought Obama would endanger the country? Why? Because he knew he’d get squashed like a bug in an election that would of made the ‘84 Reagan/Mondale race look close (49 to 1+DC). And now that the election is over, Cheney is running around accusing a President (who had been in office a mere 121 days at the time of his speech last Thursday) of endangering the country.

Dick Cheney is a coward. Just as he went to extreme lengths to avoid serving in Vietnam, he likewise didn’t run for President despite (supposedly) having “serious concern” that Democratic policies would endanger our National Security, because he knew he’d lose in a humiliating landslide.

No, the only person Dick Cheney is worried about is Dick Cheney. He calls it “enhanced interrogation” instead of “torture”, because torture is a crime. He (and his daughter Liz) even try to convince us “waterboarding”… a 500-year old torture technique and war-crime the U.S. itself has executed soldiers for using on American POW’s after WWII… “is not torture”. Because the moment he does, he admits to a war-crime that he can and should be prosecuted for. He’s running scared, and both he and the GOP know it.

Does Chairman Steel even understand role of Supreme Court?

On May 1st, President Obama announced he considered “empathy” a key quality when considering the kind of nominee he would be seek to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Naturally, Republican’s went into hyperbole wondering just what the president meant by an “empathic” judge. RNC Chairman Michael Steele criticized the very idea of a judge that might “look at a petitioners circumstances” rather than “strict adherence to the Constitution”, stating:

“I don’t need some judge up there feeling bad for my opponent because of their life circumstances or their condition, and short-changing me and my opportunity to get fair treatment under the law. Crazy nonsense [this] “empathetic”.”“

Sunday on “Meet the Press”, Steele was asked about his comment regarding President Obama considering “empathy” a qualification to be a justice on the Supreme Court. Steele reiterated that he and his Party disapproved of judges that “consider the defendants circumstances”, and doesn’t “strictly interpret the Constitution.”

Ironically, Steele chose the 55th anniversary of “Brown vs. Board of Education”… the ruling that declared segregation (”separate but equal”) to be unconstitutional… as the day to condemn judges showing “empathy” towards defendants:
 

 

Re-read Steele’s comment above in the context of “Brown vs. Board of Education”. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

What the Chairman (and Republicans in general) seem blissfully unaware of is the fact that a case doesn’t even reach the Supreme Court unless the Constitutionality of the law itself comes into question. But to make that argument on the 55th anniversary of “Brown v Ed” goes well beyond “blissfully unaware” into “total cluelessness”.

Soldier kills five troops. Why was he still there? (plus note on Cheney)

While this is NOT a story decrying the continuing sin of “Stop-Loss”, it very well could be as Sgt. John Russell, who shot and killed five of his fellow soldiers Monday while serving at Camp Liberty in Baghdad was on his THIRD tour of duty at the time. But this isn’t a story about Stop-Loss.

No, as it turns out, the military was aware Russell was having emotional difficulty BEFORE the tragedy ever took place. Judged a potential danger to himself and others a week before the incident, Russell’s weapon was confiscated and he was admitted to an on-base mental health facility there in Baghdad where (according to the military) he was due to return home “soon”. I’m sure he’d heard that before… at least twice before. The investigation now is “where did he get the weapon” he used to shoot his fellow soldiers.” But that’s not MY question.

My question is, “why was he still there at all?” Once you’ve confiscated his weapon and hospitalized him, what good is he to you in Iraq? If he’s mentally unfit to the point where he needs to be hospitalized, SEND. HIM. HOME.

So I’m wondering, “why do they even have a mental hospital ON Camp Liberty? I can understand having psychiatrists and therapists there on base to help troops deal with the stresses of combat, threat of injury from IED’s, the loss of friends killed in the line of duty… any of the myriad of nightmares soldiers must deal with on a daily basis. But why a “mental hospital“??? I can only assume someone believed that “hospitalized” soldiers could be rehabilitated to the point of being returned to combat. So even if Russell was “hospitalized” and his weapon confiscated, Russell had no reason to trust that he wouldn’t be sent back into combat despite Army claims he was “due to return home soon”. And what now happens when all those troubled soldiers come home? These tragedies that are confined to the warzone(s) will start taking place in homes, streets and workplaces across the country.

President Obama has said that he wants all troops out of Iraq by August of next year. But not all of those troops will be coming home. Many of them will simply be redeployed to Afghanistan… the second of two wars left to us by the Bush Administration… which brings me to point #2: Dick Cheney going around claiming the Bush Administration’s policies “made us safer” and President Obama’s policies are making us “less safe”.

Okay,,, if we’re so much safer today, why are we still at war nearly eight years after 9/11? Seriously. Is our security so good today that we no longer need to send troops to the Middle East? Pakistan… a nuclear armed country… is in threat of political collapse, with a resurgent Taliban looking to take over. Legions of angry Muslim men (and women) that might of otherwise of remained neutral, have been radicalized by a war without end by an invading force that defends the use of torture and bombs civilian populations.

The mortal threat to America and Americans has never been greater. This is Cheney’s definition of “success“?

Keep on attacking President Obama, you tool. PLEASE tick him off to the point he opens an investigation and prosecutes your a$$ for war crimes.
 

Some “quick hit” responses to some Right-wing stupidity:

Rove: Ending Torture Gives Terrorists ‘A Tool To Make It More Attractive To Recruit People’

• No, the use of torture RADICALIZES the enemy. The use of torture at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and secret detention facilities around the world, were used as a recruiting tool. Rove needs to explain why “suicide bombers” and Jihadists that believe there is no greater honor than to martyr themselves care about capture?
   
  These people aren’t worried about getting caught. Those who are, are less likely to surrender and are more likely to fight to the death. Knowledge that the U.S. treats its prisoners well led to the early surrender of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers… not only hastening the end of the 1991 Gulf War… but (as even Fox News reported) continued on into the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Fox Condemns Sykes’s Act: If A Talk Radio Host Compared Obama To A Terrorist, He Would Be Fired

• OMG, this is almost too stupid to even respond to. Coming from a network that spent the bulk of the 2008 Presidential campaign accusing Sen. Obama of “paling around with terrorists“, being a “secret Muslim“, and he and his wife of sharing a “terrorist fist jab“, to now be whining about a joke told by a comedian during a “roast”, is beyond hypocritical and into the realm of hopelessly clueless.

‘Smokey’ Joe Barton: Regulating CO2 Could ‘Close Down The New York And Boston Marathons’

• TX state Rep. Joe Barton picks up the “Obama thinks CO₂ is a pollutant” idiocy we’ve been hearing lately (most notably from John Boehner, who suggested the Obama Administration would have to regulate “cow farts” as greenhouse gas emissions) to suggest we might have to close the New York and Boston Marathons because “if you put 20,000 marathoners into a confined area, you could consider that a single source of pollution, and you could regulate it”.
   
  Sometimes the stupidity is SO dumb you almost want to scream: “My God, these Luddites are representing millions of people???” I mean, REALLY! Are these people REALLY that stupid or do they KNOW what they’re saying is complete nonsense simply to make some unintelligible point? I pray it’s that later.
   
  You know, water is “natural” and necessary to promote life. But no one can survive having a firehose shoved down their throat and turned on full blast. And in response to Barton’s particularly unique and spectacularly stupid comment, I’d be willing to bet those “20,000 runners” will be exhaling a whole lot less CO₂ than all the cars taken off the street to make room for the marathon that day.

 

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go scream into a pillow right now. Thanks.

If A=B and B=C, why doesn’t A=C? Condi Admits Bush Authorized Torture.

What should of been a major news event last week, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice actually argued that their use of “torture” was not “illegal” because things authorized by the President are, by definition, “not illegal”. (eerily reminiscent of Nixon’s, “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.“) No surprise coming from an administration that contained more former Nixon proteges than Granola has nuts.
 

Let us not overlook the fact Bush’s own Secretary of State just implicated him personally as authorizing the use of torture on detainees in U.S. custody. Not Cheney. Not some DoA lackey or CIA official. President Bush authorized the use of torture (in and of itself, not exactly news, since the FBI announced Bush himself authorized the use of torture way back in December 2004). Cenk (pronounced “Jenk”) Uygur of “The Young Turks” broke the story when a Stanford University video surfaced last Thursday of students questioning the former Secretary on the legality of torture. Cenk caught the “Nixonian” comment, but my attention was drawn to Condi’s clear admission that President Bush himself authorized the use of torture, something former Bush Administration members and Republican apologists have been working hard to deny for years now (and let’s not forget Bush himself denying the use of torture).
 

 

Let’s do some math: “does A=B?” i.e. “Is Waterboarding torture?” According to these people, Yes, absolutely:
 

President Obama: Waterboarding is torture

 

Iraq War supporter Christopher Hitchens submits himself to be waterboarded

 

Former CIA agent Bob Baer, says “Yes, no question”.

 

Republican Minority Leader says the Bush Administration was engaging in “torture”.

 

Okay, so we’ve established “A=B”. Democrats, Independents, CIA agents trained in the technique, and Republicans all agree “Waterboarding=torture”.

Next: “Does B=C?” i.e.: “Is torture a crime?”

Well, it was when we prosecuted… and executed… Japanese soldiers for doing it to American troops during WWII. And now the International Community is weighing in.
 

Canadian lawyer says Canada is legally obligated to investigate Bush for War Crimes

 

A UN investigation concluded the Bush Administration was torturing prisoners at Gitmo. The International Red Cross says the Bush Administration engaged in the use of torture, “a flagrant violation of international law.”

Spain, a member of Bush’s “coalition of the willing”, felt obligated to open an investigation into whether or not the Bush Administration used torture on Gitmo detainees.

So the international consensus is unequivocal: “B=C”: “Torture is a crime”.
 

Next we have a couple of variables: “1. Did Bush authorize the use of waterboarding?” and “2. Was our ‘waterboarding’ somehow different from so-called normal criminal waterboarding?”

I call these “variables” because you can not dispute the first two proofs (”A=B” & “B=C”). The only defense Bush-apologists have left it to argue these two variables. Either Bush was “out of the loop” or “stopped short of authorizing (yet another) crime” But there really is nothing to argue. They waterboarded. Period. Only the most fringe neocons might still be arguing “no one was ever waterboarded.” If it never took place at all, they’d be using that as their defense. They’re not. To the contrary. When President Obama released “the Bybee Torture Memos” (pdf) last month, pro-torture advocates went on a publicity binge arguing that “revealing our torture techniques” aides the enemy.
 

Former NSA Director Hayden says “Torture saved lives.” (total BS btw)

 

So, no question we engaged in the use of torture. Strike variable one.

Second variable: “Was it the same kind of waterboarding?” Well, there’s really only one way to waterboard. And if it didn’t actually do what waterboarding does, it would be “easier to resist”, “less effective” and “take longer”… which flies completely in the face of their “ticking timebomb” defense for the use of torture. The only way to know for sure if the waterboarding we used was the same waterboarding classified as “torture”, we would need actual video footage of a prisoner being “interrogated” using the technique, and that footage, which did exist at one point, was conveniently destroyed by the CIA when the CIA’s own Inspector General classified torture as illegal in 2004.

We may not have the footage, but Prosecutors would call their act of destroying the tapes, “Consciousness of guilt”. Translation, if you did nothing wrong, then there’d be no need to destroy the evidence. I think even without the footage, we can safely conclude the “interrogation methods” used were indeed what we would classify as “illegal torture”.
 

So, now we have our equation: Waterboarding=torture. Torture=warcrime. Bush authorized the use of torture (Condi argued that what Bush authorized “wasn’t torture” (variable 2), but clearly suggests Bush himself authorized it). So then, how is former President George W. Bush not guilty of warcrimes? How does one not prosecute a war criminal?”

Countdown’s Kieth Olberman also found former Secretary Rice’s comments disturbing and worthy of investigation. We’ll see, but the fact Rice’s videotaped confession was not worthy of even the slightest mention on ANY of the Sunday talkshows yesterday… I’m not holding my breath.
 

PS: To any Freepers out there reading this wondering why anyone would be concerned about what we do to “terrorists” that want to “destroy America”, I direct you to my letter to Fox News at the bottom of my April 20th column. Among those reasons: “torture” serves as a great recruiting/radicalizing tool for our enemies, and combatants afraid of capture are more likely to fight to the death, prolonging wars, costing lives and tax dollars.

Quick Thought: What Saddam NOT being tortured tells us.

Hi all, just a quick mid-week thought on the latest news.

This past week, a parade of former Bush Administration hacks, such as former NSA Director Hayden and VP Cheney himself are going around telling us “torture works”. Nonsense, of course, but if they truly believe that (and it appears they do), then what does the fact they never tortured Saddam Hussein tell us?
 

It suddenly struck me this morning: If they REALLY believed all that crap about Saddam’s WMD’s and ties to al Qaeda (if not 9/11 itself), why didn’t they torture him to reveal, “What did you do with the weapons of mass destruction?” and “what was your involvement with al Qaeda?”
 

Think about that for a moment. Saddam was captured just months after the invasion of Iraq, when the possibility that “stockpiles” of WMD’s they insisted existed pre-invasion may have simply been moved or hidden prior to the invasion. Yet, they never tortured him to find out what he had done with them. This tells us they they NEVER believed the WMD’s ever existed. Nor did they torture Saddam to find out what contacts he had with al Qaeda. In fact, quite the opposite:
 

 

Again, clearly, because they already knew none of it was true.

Return of the 90’s Wackos?

Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7 users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!

WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

 

They’re Baa-ack! If you thought the departure of Bill Clinton from office in 2001 was the end of Right-wing lunatics who spent the better part of the decade ramping up baseless hysteria and paranoia… think again. Last month, I observed the fact that the Right appeared to be losing touch with reality when I wrote, “Tuesday’s Presser Shows Right is Coming Unhinged“. Paranoia and bizarre conspiracy theories, once relegated to fringe elements like neo-Nazi’s and the McCarthy-ite “John Birch Society” are reemerging as mainstream Conservatism. But since Barack Obama was elected President… and not narrowly but with a legitimate “mandate” (taking 12 “Red” states from the GOP)… what was once considered “fringe” is quickly becoming the defining characteristic of an entire political Party. Paranoid (”He’s a secret Muslim”), xenophobic (”helping the terrorists”), homophobic (a gay marriage “stormfront“), racist (be it Obama’s own race or frenzied concern over “illegal aliens flooding across the Mexican border”), and apocalyptic (your usual Religious nuts seeing end-times prophecy in every major event). Of course, none of this is new.

Just over a year ago, prior to the Iowa Caucus, a mentally disturbed man committed suicide outside Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters (reportedly) in hopes of bringing attention to the need for “mental health coverage” in her National Health Care plan. My first thought was, “Here we go again. The return of Clinton derangement syndrome” (a term co-opted by the Right when Bush was crowned President in 2000) which I wrote about in “Remembering the Clinton-era Wackos” back in 2007.

The 90’s was the first time I remember a parade of Conservative extremists on a fairly annual basis committing some bizarre act of violence against a government they were certain was “out to get them” (I’m old enough to remember the Carter Administration. Plenty of outrage, but overt acts of violence and paranoia were rare).

First, there was the “Waco Siege” of the “Branch Davidians”, a gun-running apocalyptic religious cult. (Many Conservatives cite “Ruby Ridge” as an earlier example of Clinton’s anti-gunowner persecution. But the incident at Ruby Ridge took place in 1992 under Bush-41 before Clinton even entered office.) President Clinton had been in office a mere 38 days when the BATF (”Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms”) decided to act on a year-long investigation of the Davidians. But it was Clinton’s newly appointed AG Janet Reno that was in charge of the botched raid at the time, resulting in a daily month-long spectacle that played into the worst fears of both gun-nuts and religious fundamentalists… the core of today’s GOP… which helped define the Democratic Party in their eyes to this day. After Waco there was the man who dive-bombed his Cessna 150 single engine plane into the side of the White House (September 12, 1994), followed a month later by another man who shot up the front of the Clinton White House with a Chinese SKS assault rifle (interestingly, he purchased the weapon on September 13th, the day Clinton signed the Assault Weapons Ban… what is it about that month that brings out the lunatics?), a militia group calling themselves “The Republic of Texas” took two people hostage demanding the release of their Leader from jail and holed themselves up in a bunker demanding Texas secession (yes, it’s spelled right) from the union in 1997 (I once had the audio of their hilarious call for help over shortwave radio to every militia group in the country, but have long since lost it. BTW: no one “came to their rescue”. Probably because no one knew where the “country of Texas” was.)

Yesterday, April 19th, was the 14th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing where a Right-wing former military, government-despising lunatic (whose name I won’t repeat here but we all know) drove a rented moving-van filled with a homemade ammonium-nitrate & diesel-fuel bomb to the front of the OKC Federal Building, that killed 168 people in what is still to this day the worst act of domestic terrorism in history. The reason cited for the bombing: retribution for the Waco siege two years earlier (The FBI and BATF had offices in the building). Why April 19th? Because it was Hitler’s Birthday (technically, the 20th).

April 20th, 1999, two more gun-crazed social misfits planted homemade bombs (that mysteriously were never detonated) and started gunning down people they hated (”jocks” and other “popular kids”) at Columbine High School. Where did they get their guns? Mom & Dad, who gave one of the boys his first rifle when it was taller than he was. And once again, “Hitler’s Birthday” was chosen for their day of destruction.

Then George W. Bush became President and went on a Constitutional law breaking and privacy violating binge. BUT, he lifted Clinton’s ban on assault weapons, and suddenly we learned all that talk about “privacy” and “the government violating our rights” was just that: talk. Their President was wiretapping them, declared the right to detain American citizens indefinitely without charge or Habeas Corpus rights, demanded passage of “The Patriot Act” that gave them the right to search your home… and even confiscate items within it (including guns)… without even an ex post facto warrant, and erected “free speech zones” at political events to stifle dissent, all while doubling the National Debt and turning a balanced budget into a $600Trillion dollar yearly deficit. And NOT ONCE did we see a single “tea party” on the evening news.

Rational Americans, appalled by these events, showed their displeasure by giving Democrats a mandate in 2006 that only grew with the election of Barack Obama and even more Democrats to Congress in 2008. The remaining irrational fringe Conservatives… all that are left of the GOP… apparently suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of all these Democrats back in charge of Washington because they’ve been spewing a non-stop torrent of false accusations and paranoid delusions since before President Obama even took office.

I’ve already recently spoken of Fox News’ latest rubber-room candidate Glenn Beck who believes there are “FEMA Concentration Camps” in existence (no, seriously!) ready to incarcerate any Conservative that dare speak out against the Obama Administration (although to be fair, he’s not 100% sure these nonexistent camps actually exist. More like just 99% sure). The fact Beck appears to be confusing his paranoia with a scene from the 1998 X-Files movie (once on YouTube, since pulled) doesn’t appear to matter to his compatriots at Fox “News”.

Of course, Beck isn’t the only whack-a-doodle that believes in government “reeducation camps for Conservatives” that don’t exist. Enter recurring rising star on Planet Wingnuttia Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who shares Beck’s paranoia over camps she knows exist, but can’t actually find any evidence of. Add this to a growing laundry-list of “Bachman-isms” (yes, I just made that up. Let’s see if it catches on) such as the non-existent “global currency” and accusing fellow Congress members who’ve dedicated their lives to serving their state of being “anti-American“.

Last week, the Department of “Homeland” Security (can we PLEASE change that name now? It gives me the creeps) released a report (PDF) based upon a yearlong investigation on dangerous “far Right” radical fringe groups targeting disillusioned, PTSD-stressed, weapons-trained returning Iraq/Afghan war veterans for recruitment. Their use of the term “far Right” sent Conservative pundits into hysterics, complaining that Obama’s DHS was “targeting Republicans”. Ignoring for the moment the fact the report was commissioned… and research began… under the Bush Administration, one can’t help but sense a Freudian slip when Conservatives equate “far Right fringe radicals” with the Republican Party. Innocent mistake I suppose. I can’t tell the difference myself sometimes.

Last week, a Pittsburgh gunman (again, no names) shot and killed three police officers after they arrived to evict him from his mother’s house (when Mom is calling the cops to have you evicted, you KNOW you’ve crossed a line somewhere). The gunman had posted numerous rants online regarding his fears of “Obama coming to take our guns away” and the looming “New World Order”. The source feeding much of his paranoia? Fox News of course (along with Conspiracy Theorist and radio personality Alex Jones, author of “The Obama Deception”, which our gunman read and oft quoted.) It deserves mention that in the DHS report noted above, our Pittsburgh gunman is the ONLY person mentioned BY NAME.

Amid the current/growing economic crisis (which I intend to cover in more detail in the coming weeks), the recent well-spring of feigned Republican outrage being fostered by Conservative media, followed by acts of violence so early in Obama’s Presidency, already has me fearful of 90’s-era gun-toting, government-despising Right-wing lunatics making a deadly & destructive comeback.
 
———————–
 

Postscript: Last week, the Obama Administration released a report detailing illegal torture methods used by the CIA under the previous administration. Outraged Conservatives took to the airwaves all last week to accuse President Obama of “jeopardizing national security” by letting the terrorists know our interrogation techniques and how to prepare for them. The Obama Administration’s response: “Let them train. We’re no longer using torture, so the information is useless.” This is good. What no one in the OA has actually said is the fact that “by releasing this info, we’ve rendered the techniques useless for FUTURE administrations as well.” Releasing the info was a way to help ensure that we never again engage in torture, even after he’s out of office. The man is playing chess when everyone else is playing checkers.

During yesterday’s “Fox News Sunday”, their Conservative “Power Panel” was vocally upset over the release of the “Torture Memos”, repeating the argument that not being allowed to torture has made us “less safe”. Chief windbag at Fox News, Brit Hume, challenged token Moderate Juan Williams’ assertion that releasing these torture memos helps us more than it might hurt us (not the greatest defense). Hume snapped back, “How does revealing torture techniques and telling them we won’t torture help us?” (not an exact quote). Williams failed to give a convincing response, so I sent my own in to the show:

We tortured *innocent* people who were later released. Do you think maybe THEY might have revealed these techniques already?

Abu Ghraib was used as a recruiting tool, which prolonged the fighting and cost more lives.

Fighters afraid of capture are less likely to surrender and more likely to fight to the death.

If you are depending upon the enemy for your intel, you’ve ALREADY failed. For decades, this country relied on robust intelligence gathering to defend this country. We won WWII without resorting to torture. Instead, we PROSECUTED Japan for waterboarding. Defending our own use of these techniques now in disgusting.

I’ll let you know if they read it on the air. Don’t hold your breath.