Monday, February 9, 2009
Politics / Woods Bredesen Backlash Update: Revenge of the Do-gooders
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:56 AM
That aside, Bredesen is anathema to liberal health care advocates. They just can't manage to overlook all that blood splattering his Italian loafers from the TennCare massacre. And they've been raising a stink about his possible nomination, even going after the first lady. Politico's Mike Allen reports, "Opposition research has been circulated that outline that 2005 decision, and also highlights the fact that BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, a company with major state dealings, donated $150,000 to the renovation of the governor's mansion. In contrast, advocacy groups see Sebelius' eight year tenure as insurance commissioner as a significant asset to her candidacy." Bredesen aide Will Pinkston has been gamely defending the governor, who really wants this job: "The fact that someone worked in the managed care business 20 years ago shouldn't preclude the contributions and the ideas they have in the national health care reform debate." But it doesn't matter what Pinkston says. Bredesen's enemies aren't going away. To them, he's a heartless, penny-pinching bureaucrat.
The latest attack: "For Obama to select a conservative Democrat whose methods health care advocates have long denounced would be an inexplicable act of provocation towards his base and towards liberal activists that regard health care as one of the most important issues of the day."Advocacy groups don't know much about Sebelius' views on health care. But so what? With the advocates, at this point, it's anybody but Bredesen.
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Another factor of consideration is that both Democratic governors would turn their states over to Republican lt. governors. That's a tougher pill to swallow in Kansas. After all, Tennessee's anemic Democratic Party with its clueless chairman doesn't even have a candidate for governor in 2010. At best, they'll probably con a sacrificial lamb into running.
I also wonder if Obama might need a "Sistah Souljah moment" with the liberal health care crowd. Americans aren't completely comfortable with the idea of universal care yet. There might be some advantages to Obama of sending the message that he's not just a mouthpiece for the liberal advocates.
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But who is going to correct the critical errors under the past administration
and get the nation on track to prepare against a long-forseen (by honest scientists) catastrophic, "1 to 3 years", of Pandemic Flu?
H5N1 out of China is the threat, (not one of the "Biological terrorist attacks" on your officials' short list? Wonder why?) and we are still unprepared; this is the "gravest" -as the UK admitted- threat our nation has ever had.
We are all already supposed to be ready for a pandemic of influenza, "at any time"- all the states had pandemic flu Summits with HHS in 2006 saying, "no vaccine" for at least first 6 months of panflu, "no outside aid possible" yet, you see from the ice storms, Governors have done nothing to get the grid and the citizens more resilient! -and, the actions that work for all other "hazards" cannot be used during a 'virulent biological national event'
- Influenza is contagious Before symptoms,("temperature screening at airports" will let it in! Officials always want a 'do-over' of *previous* sneak attacks - and- ignore warnings about the next one!) and, H5N1 can go pandemic without magically turning -as "public health" "hopes"- into a mild, managable, (with an unwarned public and an unprepped nation) event.
"Moral Hazard": the people trusted to warn you felt their own day-to-day lives would be easier if information was kept "on the back burner" away from the public.
Re-read the pandemic plans for your municipality- if you have any- saying, "Airborne Ebola" instead of "flu" and see if you think those plans will give your neighbors and nation acceptable outcomes.
Ask what actual supplies people will need when supply chains are disrupted (more than the long-forseen financial meltdown has disrupted so far) -what critical supplies; people can't go a week without- or can't run some facet of critical infrastructure without- are physically "on hand" locally right now?
What happened to "prepare for the worst and hope for the best"?
"Hope" the worst "doesn't happen" and drop facts as, "too hard" to even discuss publically is just 'Planning to Fail'.
Is that Constitutional?
-Yet somehow our officials, who are supposed to have the best interests of our nation and our people at heart- seem to have went for, the "Big Lie gambit": say nothing to the public, and then claim later officals, "had no idea" it "would be so bad".
Most of the public doesn't even know we're in a killer flu alert, (nor that since July, 2006, the US State dept "warns" -too bad no PSAs! - oh- but that might have impacted Beijing's Olympics - or our Economy - better just put up the webpage quietly, title it "avian flu", and, reword it; the 2006 was too clear) that:
travellers may be "stranded" on short notice, for "duration of Pandemic", and will
Not get food, water, nor medicine at US embassies,
nor does the public understand that that there is no effective vaccine to hand out in the US, that we lack manufacturing capacity, and, import almost all of our daily critical medication needs, and too many components of our critical infrastructure, and, people haven't heard about nor read all the taxpayer-funded pages supposedly "warning" them (but, said documents and webpages don't get mentioned by politicans, nor the media).
The public reasons: 'the switch to digital tv' must be more a concern than 'how to prepare for H5N1/Panflu Year': otherwise, they'd hear about pandemic alert more!
It has been deliberatly downplayed for short-sighted, (to quote the WHO on why after Jan. 2006 they respond to contain increased threats without raising the Pandemic Phase Alert) "political and economic pressures" that, in some cases, do not fall far short of treason; given the Consequences. (Reminds me of the financial bailout and 'Comrade Paulson', too.)
(Even the "Consequence Management troops' leaders recently wrote the military can't even take care of their own, nor of the civilian critical infrastructure the military itself depends on, as things are now, come anything like Pandemic.) ("Virulent, national, biological event" seems to be the acceptable phrase, currently)
Officals like Gerberding and Leavitt should face public inquiries for telling "planners" to assume a 1968-pandemic fatality rate, or "1918-lite 2%" as, "worst-case" (when models show system failures even at 1 or 2% CFR - and- planning and response, are Not, as claimed, "identical" whether the survival rate is 98% or the fatality rate is 98%!
It does matter!
Current pandemic "plans" will do more damage than an enemy army ground onslaught would.(Why is that?)
Plans; to send responders and volunteers as their "duty" without BSL-3 PPE, and, workers must keep business-as-normal, and schools perhaps be kept open until X% of children are "out sick" -when we're supposed to be in Alert from a BSL 3 virus (or for practical purposes it's a BSL-4 virus: if we have bought no Tamiflu or if it become ineffective, and, antiviral has to start within @48 hours of symptoms, or they still die so far).
When H5N1 is still going (denials to the contrary) human-to-human, and, 100% fatal untreated with an efective antiviral in time, failing to speak up and give full and fair disclosure: to make sure the public and municipalities are actually preparing, is against our National Security;
what our HHS & CDC and Congressional "leaders" and past and current presidents have been doing, so far.
Where will we find our "good guards"?
The WHO Pandemic Alert Phase has been a Trojan Horse since after 2005.
Ignore it and go and get ready anyway.
Preparedness takes time, and once you know Pandemic started, preparedness time
will have just ended.
Reactions with "scarce resources
on hand", will result in (as the APHA said to itself- though, to the public APHA still only says, "3 days" of supplies on hand) "abject conditions".
Read around at
the PFI Pandemic Flu Information site:
http://homepage.mac.com/monotreme1/PFI_Main_New_Index.html
And despite your officials saying (in private), "there's nothing the public can do; we can't tell them; because there's no vaccine"
or, "the public has no need to know; they'll panic" (as if they won't when the govt can't meet their families' critical needs come panflu year?!)
or, "they can't afford even two weeks of food at home, so, we can't tell them they need to do more" - or, "our municipality can't afford to make Pandemic-specific contingency preparations" -
we certainly could have better afforded it back in 2005; if they had told the public when they were supposed to!
Spending priorities should have been put on a "war", or at least a "prudent", footing; make sure basics were resilient, first.
We had every reason to belive the good times were going to end (and an obvious housing bubble).
Have you read the 2005 Individuals' page http://pandemicflu.gov/plan/individual/index.html at pandemicflu.gov?
"Triage" started way back with who would get told about H5N1 panflu year alert and who would not.
This is worse than Madoff; hundreds of whistleblowers have been being ignored.
Govt. even prevented it from being a campaign issue, while all this time, human-to-human clusters of H5N1 continue to be being Contained; to delay pandemic start - supposedly to buy us all time to prepare; so any Mitigation is possible!
While the "critical roles" of both HHS and CDC are in transition, this is when secretive China, where H5N1 had its origin, suddenly start reporting cases?
Start reading from here, http://www.singtomeohmuse.com/viewtopic.php?t=2266&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1455
Whose staffers have been reading news like that?
Whose staffers have been encouraging plans to try and stop Panflu from crossing the N.American borders for as long as possible?
We might as well cease all mass transit security screening; that would do less damage to the US this year than letting an H5N1-like Panflu in would.
Why didn't Senators; Biden and Obama among them - listen to Laurie Garret when she warned them, Nov.2005,
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cjebk8
not to make garbage-in/garbage-out policy decisions, using the politically-motivated, not scientifically factual, numbers the WHO and CDC were putting out?
DHS wrote in their (April, 2007) "Best Practices and Model Protocols" pandemic document that, towards the (national and state) goals of reducing infections, suffering and deaths and keeping critical infrastructures functioning, they, when no prevention or treatment options exist, "may direct the public" to shelter-at-home "for up to 90 days" per wave of pandemic".
And how can families and communities be able to do that, if no one tells them
they must prepare to do this, pre-pandemic?
Officials wasted the years our tax dollars have been helping buy abroad.
We've been allowed to play 'russian roulette'; until one day cases or contacts are missed, or, H5N1 picks up the gene snip that "unprecedentedly" has turned up over the past year or two; in all the "seasonal flus" (the CDC won't show the full gene sequences either): making Tamiflu useless,
or, until the PRC, perhaps thinking they have a vaccine effective enough for their military, releases panflu; to prevent a revolt taking down their own govt; panflu taking down other nations, too?
Financial bubbles are still bursting.
At least China already stockpiled 30 days of food for its 35 top cities.
(Last I hear, the US sold off all its grain reserve.)
How have your investments done since the FBIIC financial sector had their Pandemic Flu exercise http://www.fspanfluexercise.com/exercise-info.aspx
late 2007?
There's a recent saying; "Gold is for optimisits; I'm diversifying into canned goods" - I think "Victory Gardens" and, rejecting some premises and doing your own homework on H5N1/Panflu Alert will give you good returns on your "investment".
See GetPandemicReady.org
"The purpose of this website is to inform citizens of what they can do
to prepare and protect themselves." http://getpandemicready.org/
Concerned citizens did it on their
own intitiative; because it was
the right thing to do (which is also why
the PFI Forum exists).
Can we get an HHS head who will
tell the public about Pandemic Alert, the GetPandemicReady.org site - ready to use, for free- and that,
"yes we can" become better prepared,
and, for future generations' sakes'
yes, we must prepare?
I'm not even going to pretend that I read all of the comment above mine.
As for Bredesen, do you suppose his name is being bandied about simply to hoist a local Democratic figure into the national spotlight, even if they don't honestly consider him the best candidate? As Jonathan points out, Sebelius and Bredesen are governors in two of the only states to have Republican gains in the last election. Maybe the Democratic party thinks giving Bredesen a little bit of spotlight might endear the party to Tennessee voters?
