Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Proving My Point Exactly

In case you did not read the comments from my previous posting regarding Cindy Sheehan, I wanted to bring attention to the first response I received from John Wolf, a Director of the Crawford Peace House. Wolf was unable to prove that the organization did not inappropriately spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations or refute the fact that Sheehan was no longer a Director of the organization. At the same time, Wolf did provide evidence to show the Crawford Peace House is now in compliance with the office of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (http://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/servlet/cpa.app.coa.CoaGetTp?Pg=tpid&Search_Nm=the%20crawford%20texas%20peace%20house%20&Button=search&Search_ID=32012425925). However, if you do a little research and click on the "Certification of Account Status" box, you will see that the Crawford Peace House finally satisfied the compliance requirements but after my initial posting.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Battle of the Underqualified

Cindy Sheehan, who has actively protested against the Iraq War and Bush administration, announced her plans to seek the congressional seat of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unless Pelosi introduces articles of impeachment against Mr. Bush in the next two weeks. Now in Sheehan's case, I definitely sympathize in the fact that her son was killed in the war and applaud her political activism and the attention she has brought to her causes. However, Sheehan is no more fit to serve in the United States Congress than Pelosi is to continue doing so. Why do I say that? Let's examine some of the things Sheehan has said and done:

1. On September 24, 2005, Sheehan objected to the media's supposed excessive coverage of Hurricane Rita: "I am watching CNN and it is 100 percent Rita...even though it is a little wind and a little rain...it is bad but there are other things going on in this country today...and in the world!!!!"
2. During a trip to Venezuela in January 2006, Sheehan praised Hugo Chavez, the country's dictatorial President by stating "I admire President Chavez for his strength to resist the United States".
3. On May 26, 2006 in front of the offices of the Liberal Party of Australia in Melbourne, Sheehan attended a rally to support the release of David Hicks. Serving the remainder of his sentence in a high security ward in the city of Adelaide, Hicks pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism, including attending advanced al-Qaeda training camps and performing surveillance on the embassies of the United States and other countries.
4. Sheehan is a director of the Crawford Peace House, an anti-war activist organization which has been under scrutiny since March 2007 after hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations were unaccounted for. The organization has also failed to submit the necessary paperwork for retaining their corporate charter since May 2006.

Recent Medical News

On Saturday, five polyps were removed from Mr. Bush during a routine colonoscopy. The participating doctors also found Mr. Bush's head, which is where it has unfortunately been during the last 7 years.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Feeling a Little Guilty, Are We?

On Michael Moore's web site, you can view a confidential internal memo (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=215) written by Barclay Fitzpatrick, the Vice President of Corporate Communications for Capital BlueCross, regarding Moore's movie, "SiCKO". Thankfully provided to Moore by a Capital BlueCross employee, this memo discusses the movie's content, supposed "inaccuracies", takeaways and strategic talking points. (By the way, aside from Moore's own evidence posted on his web site, numerous media outlets, including CNN and USA Today, have performed extensive research and successfully verified the movie's facts and figures.)

It is entirely obvious from just the length of this memo that "SiCKO" is definitely making an enormous impact and hitting home with the health care companies. I can only imagine the number of these types of memos currently circulating throughout those companies. However, I find it amazing that one of Fitzpatrick's talking points centers around the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association's efforts to "work with consumers, providers, employers and the government to provide Americans with the health care services and information they need to lead full, healthy lives". With that being said, I am sure that there are a handful of individuals profiled in the movie who had Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance but would probably disagree with that talking point (among others), including:

  • Amanda Barcus, a young woman who was rejected by BCBSA because her body mass index was too high. Amanda was about 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed approximately 175 pounds but apparently BCBSA felt she was "too fat" to qualify for health care coverage.
  • Although a cousin recently passed away from a brain tumor and she was experiencing similar symptoms, Blue Shield of California denied the requests of Maria Watanabe for an MRI or a visit to a specialist. However, while on vacation in Japan, a physician performed an MRI on Maria and a benign cyst was discovered. As a result, a jury determined that Blue Shield of California had breached its contract with Maria.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Recommendation of the Year

If you have not yet seen "SiCKO", the new film by Michael Moore, then I strongly implore you to do so. In case you have been living under a rock for the last few months, "SiCKO" is a brutal and necessary attack on the current state of affairs of health care in the United States. Now certain upstanding organizations, such as FOX News, are attempting to claim that "SiCKO" is filled with inaccuracies. However, with all of Moore's films, including "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine", the content is supported by evidence from audio clips, video footage, court documents and government articles and publications. To view this evidence or learn more about "SiCKO", please go to http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Pathetic Family Tree of the Week

First, the son:
After being indicted on June 19th on federal cocaine charges, Thomas Ravenel was suspended from his position as South Carolina Treasurer and resigned as the State Chairman for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.

Ravenel is accused of purchasing nearly 500 grams of cocaine with the intent to distribute in late 2005, U.S. Attorney Reggie Lloyd said. This charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and a fine of up to $1 million.

Next, the father:
Even after his son's recent legal troubles, Arthur Ravenel was included on a list of regional chairpersons for Giuliani's campaign in South Carolina.

In January 2000, the elder Ravenel (and Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time) addressed a crowd of several thousand supporters on the steps of the South Carolina statehouse to advocate flying the Confederate flag. During this event, Ravenel asked the cheering crowd: "Can you believe that there are those who think that the General Assembly of South Carolina is going to knuckle under, roll over and do the bidding of that organization known as the National Association for Retarded People?" (Ravenel was actually referring to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I am not sure which is more depressing: Ravenel's insult of the NAACP or the fact that he probably does not realize NAACP would not be an appropriate acronym for the "National Association for Retarded People".) Ravenel then stated that he had apologized to the mentally challenged for comparing those individuals to members of the NAACP: "I didn't apologize to the NAACP. I apologized to the retarded folks of the world for equating them to the national NAACP." Trying to further explain his comments to The Post and Courier in Charleston, SC, Avenel continued by saying that "It was a slip of the tongue. I have never said the NAACP was retarded. I made a rhetorical slip and they want to lynch me for it." (Nice choice of the word "lynch", especially considering the fact that Avenel was discussing the NAACP.) Last but not least, during his tenure as a member of the U.S. Congress, Ravenel also commented about white committee chairpersons operating on "black time". Ravenel admitted this term translated into being fashionably late.