Tommy Thompson served as President Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services from January 2001 to 2005. It was during his tenure, after the 9/11 attacks, that the Bush administration largely ignored the health risks facing first responders at the World Trade Center site.
Doctors concluded that the dust there was basically a “toxic soup,” leading to serious health problems for workers. Then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman was also accused of lying about the air quality. Approximately 40,000 people were exposed to the dust, and “71,000 have enrolled in a long-term health monitoring program for people with and without health problems.”
Yet apparently, the Bush administration believes Thompson did a hecukva job dealing with the aftermath of 9/11. The Centers for Disease Control has awarded Thompson an $11 million contract to treat some of those very same workers who became sick on Thompson’s watch:
The contract awarded by the Centers for Disease Control is aimed at tracking the health of between 4,000 and 6,000 workers who live outside the New York City area, where a separate health monitoring program is in place. The CDC is part of the Health and Human Services Department, which Thompson headed in Bush’s first term.
Internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press show that the one-year contract went to Logistics Health, Inc., a La Crosse, Wis.-based company where Thompson is president.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) responded, “It is ironic that former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson’s firm won the contract to provide the services, given the history of delay from the Bush administration when he was secretary and now.”
Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sent a letter to invite Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to join him “in participating in town hall meetings across the country to discuss the most important issues facing Americans.” Later today, McCain told reporters that he “prefer[s]” town hall style discussions, saying he “would never have been able to win in New Hampshire if we hadn’t have conducted 102 town hall meetings.”
After learning of the proposal, media figures took him at face value, simply repeating McCain’s claim that he is well-suited for the town hall meetings:
– MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: “One of the points there is to take advantage of McCain’s presumed strength in the town hall format and in loose conversations.”
– MSNBC’s Monica Novotny: “So it seems that these town halls would work to his strength.”
– Fox News’s Juan Williams: “That’s his strength. That format, when you get John McCain doing town hall meetings, he’s at his best.”
Watch it:
Really? Are town hall meetings really good for McCain? Does the town hall format create space for the presumptive Republican nominee to shine? Not exactly. Here are some lowlights of McCain “at his best” during various town hall meetings this GOP primary season:
– SUPPORTER: “Another man [base ']Äî wondering if an attack on Iran is in the works [base ']Äî wanted to know when America is going to ’send an air mail message to Tehran.’” McCAIN: “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”
– QUESTION: “President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years [base ']Äî [cut off by McCain].” McCAIN: “Maybe a hundred.”
– Student on McCain’s position on gay marriage: “I came here looking to see a leader. I don’t.”
– McCain called a student asking about his age “a little jerk,” adding, “You’re drafted.”
The media has seemed to be operating in the “if McCain says it, it must be true” mode for most of this campaign season. McCain has not only benefited from “very friendly” press coverage over the years but numerous reporters have said they’re unsure when they’ll start scrutinizing his record and what he says.
Troops, when they battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam,
are placed in "atrocity producing situations." Being surrounded by
a hostile population makes simple acts, such as going to a store to buy a can
of Coke, dangerous. The fear and stress push troops to view everyone around
them as the enemy. The hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is
elusive, shadowy and hard to find. The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb
explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed,
London - Excitement about Barack Obama emerged as a global phenomenon Wednesday
as commentators and citizens around the world welcomed the news that he had
sealed the Democratic presidential nomination.
The excitement was less about Obama's foreign policies - which remain vague
on many fronts - than a sense that the candidacy of a black American with relatives
in Africa and childhood friends in Asia marks a historic moment.
If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his
own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that
the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight,
according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.
Federal prosecutors are no longer seeking stiffer prison sentences for former Alabama governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.
Prosecutors filed a motion this week with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking that their appeals of the sentences be dropped. Their appeal had called for a longer prison term than Siegelman’s more than seven-year sentence and Scrushy’s almost seven-year sentence.
The latest filing does not say why prosecutors want to drop their appeal.
Today, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight held a hearing on detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay, focusing on a recent FBI inspector general (IG) report documenting abusive practices at the facility. The report describes, among other things, a “war crimes file” created by FBI agents concerned about the interrogation tactics they witnessed at Guantanamo.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), however, sees nothing wrong with the accounts of abuse. While questioning IG Glenn Fine today, Rohrabacher insisted the report documented nothing more than “fraternity boy pranks and hazing pranks,” and hardly constituted torture:
ROHRABACHER: They seem like more like pranks, hazing pranks from some fraternity than some well-thought-out policy of how do you torture someone and get information from them. […]
I will have to tell you, when most people hear the word “torture,” which has been bandied around here, I don’t believe that they think of it as holding a growling dog near somebody but not the growling dog — you know, it’s one thing to have the growling dog eating someone’s leg or arm versus — which is absolute torture. It’s another thing to have a growling dog around, or putting panties on someone’s head, or discussing — telling him he had repressed homosexual tendencies in his presence. I mean, I’m sorry, these are acts of humiliation.
Watch a compilation of Rohrabacher’s outrageous claims:
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Rohrabacher is right to call these “acts of humiliation.” Of course, the Geneva Conventions specifically outlaw “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating or degrading treatment.”
Rohrabacher mocked the FBI for taking what he called a “holier than thou” stance against harsh interrogations. Yet Fine repeatedly reminded Rohrabacher that the FBI found the interrogations not only abusive, but also “in their view, ineffective.” Rohrabacher admitted, “I don’t know what’s effective and what’s not,” but continued to insist the documented instances of abuse were “fraternity boy pranks and hazing pranks” that “certainly don’t fit into the category of torture.”
Rohrabacher joins a long list of right-wingtortureapologists who refuse to heed the words even of Gen. David Petraeus, who unequivocally rejected torture as producing information of only “questionable value.”
In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air on Monday, host Terri Gross asked former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan if controversial pastor John Hagee had “much sway within the Bush administration.” In response, McClellan said Hagee was just “one of a number of evangelical pastors, social conservative” that “had a heavy influence on some of the White House policies.”
Pressed by Gross about Hagee’s specific influence, McClellan acknowledged that “yes,” he “certainly had some influence“:
GROSS: So Pastor Hagee was influential within the Bush administration?
Mr. McCLELLAN: I’d say he was one of a number that certainly had some influence and was able to quickly get someone on the phone at the White House. So yes.
Listen here:
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Hagee, whose endorsement Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was forced to reject after audio surfaced of him saying that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will, has a long history with President Bush. As Sarah Posner has reported, when he was first running for president, Bush “enlisted Hagee to recruit other pastors to sign on to the Bush campaign effort.”
In fact, Hagee became such an enthusiastic Bush booster that he endorsed him in 2000 by writing a book titled God’s Candidate for America. According to Posner, Hagee was “unequivocal” in the book “that Jesus would vote for Bush“:
Despite accusing Bush Sr. of collaboration with the Antichrist, Hagee delivered for George W. Bush in his 2000 book, God’s Candidate for America. In that book, Hagee was unequivocal that Jesus would vote for Bush. “If you are concerned about the sort of America your children and grandchildren will grow up within,” Hagee wrote, “then you need to cast your vote for George W. Bush and the Republican Party.”
It appears that, according to McClellan, Hagee’s efforts paid off and Bush rewarded him by giving him “sway” in the White House.
Tommy Thompson served as President Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services from 
In an 
