Currently viewing the tag: “Death’”
The situation in Syria continues to smolder:
Several deaths have been reported as anti-government protests got under way in several Syrian cities after Muslim prayers on Friday, activists have said. Protest marches against Baath Party rule demanding freedoms broke out in cities in the north and south, including the flashpoint city of Daraa. … Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, said at least four people were killed in the afternoon after government forces started using live fire against the protesters in the Douma suburb.
The rallies, taking place for the third week in succession after Friday prayers, come two days after Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, labelled them a foreign conspiracy. Assad defied expectations during his first public address since the protests began that he would announce sweeping changes.
Witnesses in Daraa, a southern town that has been one of the main focal points of rising dissent, said hundreds gathered after leaving a mosque shouting "death rather [than] humiliation" and "national unity".
Enduring America has tons more footage from today.
But not arrested?
Charges have been filed in an investigation of e-mailed death threats to Republican state Senators last month during the budget-repair debate — but oddly, no arrest has taken place. Prosecutors filed two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts against 26-year-old Katherine Windels of Cross Plains, Wisconsin, but only after the Wisconsin Department of Justice sent […]
We just received this shocking email from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Spokesperson Bill Cosh.
The DCI to which he refers is the Department of Justice’s Department of Criminal Investigation.
Beginning on February 21, 2011 DCI was asked to investigate multiple threats to various members of the Wisconsin Legislature due to the volume, our ability to fully analyze the many communications and our experience. I believe it’s also fair to say authorities believed we would be prompt in our efforts to investigate and take appropriate action given the nature of the threats and the climate at the time.
DCI immediately reviewed and analyzed what was sent. Every referral was investigated. In the judgment of investigators, some presented a need for more intense investigation; some did not. One case in particular, which was started upon the receipt of threats on March 9, 2011, the subject of whom is a Dane County resident, was thoroughly investigated.
Investigators concluded it did not present an imminent threat but presented sufficient probable cause that criminal behavior had occurred and on Friday, March 18, 2011 this matter was referred to the Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne who has sole jurisdiction and charging authority for a charging decision.
On Monday, March 23, 2011 the Department of Justice learned through press reports that the Dane County District Attorney had returned the referral to the Department citing clerical and administrative issues related to the reports transfer. Importantly the investigative reports themselves were not returned. It is important to note that this Department routinely refers investigative reports to District Attorneys, including the Dane County District Attorney, for their review and charging decisions.
This is where this matter currently sits.
We are concerned about the lack of action regarding this referral.
Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne isn’t twiddling this thumbs, however. In fact he has been quite busy lately.
He’s leading the charge to block the implementation of Wisconsin’s new labor law which limits the collective bargaining powers of Wisconsin government unions. The very same law which prompted the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol and the myriad of threats to Republican officials.
We just received this shocking email from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Spokesperson Bill Cosh.
The DCI to which he refers is the Department of Justice’s Department of Criminal Investigation.
Beginning on February 21, 2011 DCI was asked to investigate multiple threats to various members of the Wisconsin Legislature due to the volume, our ability to fully analyze the many communications and our experience. I believe it’s also fair to say authorities believed we would be prompt in our efforts to investigate and take appropriate action given the nature of the threats and the climate at the time.
DCI immediately reviewed and analyzed what was sent. Every referral was investigated. In the judgment of investigators, some presented a need for more intense investigation; some did not. One case in particular, which was started upon the receipt of threats on March 9, 2011, the subject of whom is a Dane County resident, was thoroughly investigated.
Investigators concluded it did not present an imminent threat but presented sufficient probable cause that criminal behavior had occurred and on Friday, March 18, 2011 this matter was referred to the Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne who has sole jurisdiction and charging authority for a charging decision.
On Monday, March 23, 2011 the Department of Justice learned through press reports that the Dane County District Attorney had returned the referral to the Department citing clerical and administrative issues related to the reports transfer. Importantly the investigative reports themselves were not returned. It is important to note that this Department routinely refers investigative reports to District Attorneys, including the Dane County District Attorney, for their review and charging decisions.
This is where this matter currently sits.
We are concerned about the lack of action regarding this referral.
Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne isn’t twiddling this thumbs, however. In fact he has been quite busy lately.
He’s leading the charge to block the implementation of Wisconsin’s new labor law which limits the collective bargaining powers of Wisconsin government unions. The very same law which prompted the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol and the myriad of threats to Republican officials.
A tragic example of Sharia perversity
American Thinker Blog
Woman’s rights in Islam …
A 14 year old girl, Hena Akhter, was sentenced to 101 lashes from the imam from the local mosque as punishment for adultery. She was brought out into public and lashed for her crimes. According to CNN, she dropped at 70 lashes. She dies a week later from her injuries declaring in her dying words to her mother that she was innocent.
Want to know what passes for female adultery? How about being raped. As stated at Patterico’s Pontifications, could there be a more barbaric interpretation to adultery. A woman to prove she was raped cannot do so without four witnesses to back her up. What!
Many months later on a winter night, as Hena’s sister Alya told it, Hena was walking from her room to an outdoor toilet when Mahbub Khan gagged her with cloth, forced her behind nearby shrubbery and beat and raped her.
Hena struggled to escape, Alya told CNN. Mahbub Khan’s wife heard Hena’s muffled screams and when she found Hena with her husband, she dragged the teenage girl back to her hut, beat her and trampled her on the floor.
The next day, the village elders met to discuss the case at Mahbub Khan’s house, Alya said. The imam pronounced his fatwa. Khan and Hena were found guilty of an illicit relationship. Her punishment under sharia or Islamic law was 101 lashes; his 201.
Dave Roberts interviews Alexis Madrigal about his new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. Alexis reflects on a failed turn-of-the-century electric car company:
To succeed, the electric cars of those days would have had to succeed as part of a greater all-electric transportation system. In fact it was attempted by the Electric Vehicle Company, which was run by a bunch of robber baron types, and failed. Not because the cars didn't work; not because they couldn't get you across Manhattan in an electric cab in 1900. The technology was the part that worked. The business is what failed. Unfortunately, that was a pretty high-profile failure. Like in the internet space, when something really high-profile fails, people say, oh, that'll never work. Until it does.
His bigger point:
There is this concept in technology history of technological momentum: once you get going down a path, once money starts flowing, all sorts of new innovations come about and all sorts of new businesses are built. The American innovation machine gets cranking down particular pathways.
It makes it really difficult to see: What kind of advances would we have seen around electric vehicles if that company had succeeded wildly? Which technologies win seems more inevitable in retrospect than it does to anyone at the time. That's a consistent lesson through all of the research I've done. Everyone has been convinced that their technology was going to win.
(Photo: "Detroit Electric car charging")
Dave Roberts interviews Alexis Madrigal about his new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. Alexis reflects on a failed turn-of-the-century electric car company:
To succeed, the electric cars of those days would have had to succeed as part of a greater all-electric transportation system. In fact it was attempted by the Electric Vehicle Company, which was run by a bunch of robber baron types, and failed. Not because the cars didn't work; not because they couldn't get you across Manhattan in an electric cab in 1900. The technology was the part that worked. The business is what failed. Unfortunately, that was a pretty high-profile failure. Like in the internet space, when something really high-profile fails, people say, oh, that'll never work. Until it does.
His bigger point:
There is this concept in technology history of technological momentum: once you get going down a path, once money starts flowing, all sorts of new innovations come about and all sorts of new businesses are built. The American innovation machine gets cranking down particular pathways.
It makes it really difficult to see: What kind of advances would we have seen around electric vehicles if that company had succeeded wildly? Which technologies win seems more inevitable in retrospect than it does to anyone at the time. That's a consistent lesson through all of the research I've done. Everyone has been convinced that their technology was going to win.
(Photo: "Detroit Electric car charging")
Amnesty International is drawing attention to capital punishment in the United States, with bad math and a credulous media on its side.
BBC (“Amnesty International: Global death penalty trend fall“):
Although 23 countries carried out executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, the number of people executed dropped from at least 714 to at least 527, the rights group said.
But that figure does not include China, whose executions are thought to be more than all other countries put together.
Gabon last year became the 139th country to cease the practice.
Mongolia declared a moratorium on the death penalty.
[…]
Amnesty secretary general Salil Shetty said: “In spite of some setbacks, developments in 2010 brought us closer to global abolition.”
But he added: “The minority of states that continue to systematically use the death penalty were responsible for thousands of executions in 2010, defying the global anti-death penalty trend.”
Andrew Sullivan approvingly links a FrumForum post by Michael P. Stafford which is no longer at the site:
From 1976 to today, more than 1200 offenders have been put to death in the United States. During this same period, almost 140 convicts on death row have been exonerated of their crimes. These figures are troubling. The number of individuals on death row that have been exonerated is almost 12% of the total number of offenders executed. As George Will noted in 2000, capital punishment in America “is a catalog of appalling miscarriages of justice, some of them nearly lethal. Their cumulative weight compels the conclusion that many innocent people are in prison, and innocent people have been executed.”
All three use the chart atop the post, which I gather was crafted by BBC using Amnesty report figures. Now, I happen to agree with George Will (and presumably Sullivan and Stafford) that the way the United States conducts its capital punishment regime is troubling. But the chart is dubious, to say the least.
First, the numbers are regime-provided figures for state executions. Of the listed countries, I trust precisely one-mine-to provide anything close to legitimate data. So, we’re comparing the full numbers for the United States with doubtless suppressed numbers from everyone else on the chart.
Second, raw numbers are absurd. China has 1.3 billion people and the United States some 310 million. Iran has something like 73 million, North Korea something like 24 million, and so forth. A non-propagandistic portrayal, then, would base the figures on a per-100,000 or other proportional basis.
Third-and most important-one of the points of these discussions is to spotlight how horrible the company is that we’re keeping. It’s the United States and some of the worst dictatorships on the planet!
But there’s a rather important difference in how our governments go about deciding who to put to death. Here, our worst criminals are tried by a jury of their peers, sentenced to death almost exclusively upon the recommendation of said peers, and executed only after an exhaustive set of appeals that span more than a decade. In most of the other countries on the list, government officials decide on their own authority who to kill-often for no greater crime than speaking out against said officials.
Written by Nadine Toukan
Friday night marked the violent defeat of protests that began on March 24 (#March24) in Amman, Jordan. On Thursday night, protesters for democratic reform had camped out at the Dakhliyeh Circle (Ministry of Interior Circle). Throughout Friday more and more citizens gathered at the Dakhliyeh Circle raising their voices for political reform. They were met with counter-demonstrators holding up pictures of Jordan's King Abdullah and throwing rocks.
As the crowds grew and tensions escalated, security forces (Police and the Gendarmerie) stormed the Dakhliyeh Circle with batons and a water canon, forcing people away from the area. “We emptied the area after confrontation between the two sides and to ensure their safety,” said a Public Security Department press release [ar]. Video of how some of the crowd was being dispersed as security got violent with protesters.
By the end of Friday, one man had died, Khairi Jameel AlSaad, 55, and more than 100 were injured.
Alimetalhead posted a video on YouTube from March 25 in Amman that shows stones flying towards protesters who created a barricade to protect themselves.
Blogger Naser_K wrote he thought the police was coming to protect them, until the water cannons were aimed at protesters and “hell broke loose.” He described being beaten and chased home.
@Naser_K: one policeman swinging his stick to hit me asked me: bedak esla7at dostooryeh ya a5u el#_/#/#? (You want constitutional reform you brother of a #_/#/#? )
There are photos and video from March 24 at 7iber.com, and Amer Sweidan has posted this photo set on Flickr.
A campaign of loyalty
Meanwhile on Friday, on the other side of Amman in the AlHussein Gardens, a festival of loyalty and allegiance brought together thousands of Jordanians over national song and dance. They were rallied through a mass media campaign over the past week called Neda' Watan (Call of a Country). Many have questioned who is driving and funding the campaign as it does not appear to be the work of any specific organization or group.
Eman Jaradat from the community media team of AmmanNet.net tweeted:
امبارح اتصلت في شخص اسمه امين ملحم من منظمي نداء وطن و ساعة و انا احاول افهم منه مين دافع حق الاعلانات و هو يقلي هاد جهد شبابي
@Frekeeh: Yesterday I spoke to a Ameen Milhem, one of the Neda' Watan organizers, and for an hour I tried to understand from him who's paying for the ads and media campaign, and he kept saying this is a youth effort.
Internet entrepreneur Samih Toukan said:
مظاهرات “نداء وطن” حق ونحن نؤيدها لكن من غير المقبول صرف الاف الدنايير للاعلان عنها من جيبة دافع الضرائب الاردني
@samihtoukan: The Neda' Watan demonstrations are a right, and we support that, however it is not acceptable to spend thousands of Dinars on the ad campaign from the pockets of the Jordanian taxpayer.
Blogger Tallouza said:
@tallouza: My gut feeling tells me #NidaaWatan sole purpose was 2 sabotage free & decent voices calling for genuine and meaningful change! #Jo #mar24
A sad day for Jordan
On Twitter, there were many regrets over the escalation of violence during protests for reform.
Children's book author Shaima Albishtawi said:
تم رشق الناس بالطوب .. الطوب الذي كان يجب استخدامه في اعمار الاردن
@shaima2: Mortar bricks were hurled at people…bricks that should have been used to build Jordan.
Jordanian blogger and journalist Mohamed Omar tweeted:
قبل هجوم البلطجة والدرك كنت بفكر اكتب عن الشباب المعتصمين بوانهم يشكلون مفخرة للبلد شباب منتمون واعون قلوبهم ع البلد
@mohomar: Before the attack of thugs and the Gendarmerie, I was thinking of writing about the demonstrating youth who are a pride for the country.
شباب كانوا يجسدون فهم متقدم لانتمائهم ووحدتهم ومدنيتهم كان المفترض بالحكومة تفخر بهيك شباب بس خسارة
@mohomar: Devoted, aware youth with their hearts on the country. Youth who demonstrated a progressive understanding of belonging, unity, and civic sense. The government should have taken pride in such youth, but alas.
On Twitter, many Jordanians condemned what they witnessed either first hand or through friends.
Blogger and photographer Amer Sweidan said:
@AmerSweidan: I am really pissed off, not because I was injured, but watching a man dying, his son hugged me and started crying. this is unbearable.
In an appearance on Jordan Television later Friday night, Prime Minister Marouf Al-Bakhit accused the Islamic Front of leading the unrest based on foreign intervention and collaboration, and then went on to speak broadly about economic issues; the 21,000 jobs the government has promised to secure, and the global financial crisis.
On Twitter, people were disappointed he spoke so briefly on the unrest.
@sama7ijawi: Albakhit thinks its important to talk about Jordan' economic story with globalization now, it took 3mins to finish comments on 2day's drama!
@SaHHHar: PM what r u going on about? Blood was spilled on the streets and you're lamenting y the media didn't highlight gov accomplishments? #ReformJO
In the name of the King?
There were also many questions on Friday about why King Abdullah delayed addressing the country in a painful moment. Many believe that thugs at protests voicing support for the monarchy have misinterpreted the wishes of the king, who himself launched a reform process at the beginning of February.
Computer engineer Hamzah Nassif said:
@HamzehN: King MUST address people! Nobody else but him can put these thugs in their place. They are using HIS name. HE MUST DENOUNCE THEM! #Mar24
Samih Toukan tweeted:
جلالة الملك اكد على حرية المظاهرات والاعتصام وطلب من الاجهزة الامنية حمايتهم.لماذا نخالف تعليماته باسمه؟
@samihtoukan: His Majesty the King insisted on the freedom of gathering and demonstrations, and asked the security system to keep people safe. Why do we disobey his instructions in his name?
Jordan's Foreign Minister, Nasser Judeh, tweeted about the unrest and promised to present “all facts”. He said six people were arrested (from both sides) and insisted to his followers that the rights of the opposition to demonstrate peacefully are guaranteed by the constitution. He said police went in to separate the two groups.
Labor rights activist Thoraya said (in a series of tweets) that she spoke to several protesters with sticks on Friday who appeared to have been manipulated into believing it was a Palestinian protest against the King.
This Aramram video [ar] compares previous words of His Majesty with clips of one small group of his supporters explaining their views.
(Transcript/Translation) “What the King says and what people understand”
King: Again I don't want to say a new beginning, because work is continuity. What we need is a new mechanism, and a new phase. And like I said during the opening of Parliament, there's no time to waste. Required is serious work, continuous evaluation, and rectifying mistakes and shortcomings. The mandate of the new government is clear. I want quick results when we speak of political reform. When we speak of political reform, we want true reform.
Interviewer: Hello guys. What happened? Tell me what happened with you. Come, tell us what happened.
Young men: We are with the country, and with King Abdullah. In my name and in the name of my tribe, I send glorious congratulations to His Majesty, and we tell him, our souls are for you. And those who confront him, we will throw them out of this country.
Interviewer: Question, His Majesty said he wants reforms, he said so.
Young men: Yes, correct. Reforms he will decide what they are. Not us and the people to decide, he will decide. He rules this Kingdom, he will decide what he wants, and we are right behind him in a straight line.
Interviewer: So the King says he wants reforms, and the people on Dakhliyeh Circle want reforms…
Young men: Who are these people?
Interviewer: Who are they, you tell me?
Young men: Those who are from the Muslim Brotherhood?
Interviewer: No, not the Muslim Brotherhood. There are many people.
Young men: It is not for the Muslim Brotherhood nor us the people of this country to decide. He who decides is the owner of this Kingdom, he who rules it, it is him who decides. We walk behind him in a straight line.
Young men: Long live the great King. Long live. Long live the great King. Long live. Long live the great King. Long live. Long live. Long live. Long live.
King: And what I want to say today is that there is nothing that may affect the policy of openness, and the spirit of forgiveness, and the culture of pluralism, and the acceptance of all sincere opinions. Because these are the Jordanian constants that do not change.
What happens next?
Fifteen members of a newly formed multilateral National Dialog Committee established by Jordan's government to bring about reform resigned on Friday, issuing a statement that the provocative and aggressive behavior of security forces is proof that any official talk about political reform is insincere and futile.
@Tallouza: Taher Masri (Head of the Senate, and appointed to lead the National Dialog Committee) seemed totally stressed & displeased tonite on JTV…obviously he knows something that everybody in gov't thinks we don't…#JO
After bearing witness to the unrest across the region, Jordan seems to have lost a golden opportunity this weekend. March 25 was a day witnessed the death of progressive conversation, the death of a little bit of hope, and the death of possibility. What will we do now to lead the country forward?
Thumbnail photo shared by Rana Yaghmour on yfrog.
Former California Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin, a self-described “right-wing Republican” who earned the nickname “the hanging judge” for the numerous death penalty sentences he handed out, penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times yesterday calling on California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and the state legislature to abolish the death penalty. Doing so, McCartin writes, would save the state “hundreds of millions of dollars” that could go toward filling the state’s $ 25 billion budget gap:
I watch today as Gov. Brown wrestles with the massive debt that is suffocating our state and hear him say he doesn’t want to “play games.” But I cringe when I learn that not playing games amounts to cuts to kindergarten, cuts to universities, cuts to people with special needs — and I hear no mention of the simple cut that would save hundreds of millions of dollars, countless man-hours, unimaginable court time and years of emotional torture for victim’s family members waiting for that magical sense of “closure” they’ve been falsely promised with death sentences that will never be carried out. […]
It’s time to stop playing the killing game. Let’s use the hundreds of millions of dollars we’ll save to protect some of those essential services now threatened with death. Let’s stop asking people like me to lie to those victim’s family members.
Indeed, the Northern California chapter of the ACLU estimates that California spends $ 137 million each year on death penalty cases, mostly on legal fees, including the mandatory appeals process. In contrast, “the alternative of permanent imprisonment would cost just $ 11 million.” In addition to saving $ 125 million each year, abolishing the death penalty would allow the state to forgo its plan to build a new $ 400 million death row facility at San Quentin State Prison, a project that was put on hold earlier this year, bringing total savings to more than $ 1 billion over the next five years.
With California considering deep cuts to a plethora of programs, including education, law enforcement, and the state college and university program, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that the $ 117 million alone could pay for 1,900 new California Highway Patrol officers, 2,100 new teachers, or help with tuition for 103,000 University of California students.
Several other states have considered abolishing the death penalty, including Kansas, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Montana, and Maryland. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signed a law abolishing the state’s death penalty earlier this month, saving taxpayers an estimated $ 20 million annually.
There are numerous social justice arguments for the abolishment of the death penalty. But with lawmakers across the country facing daunting budget gaps, cutting the death penalty should be an obvious choice.
Former California Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin, a self-described “right-wing Republican” who earned the nickname “the hanging judge” for the numerous death penalty sentences he handed out, penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times yesterday calling on California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and the state legislature to abolish the death penalty. Doing so, McCartin writes, would save the state “hundreds of millions of dollars” that could go toward filling the state’s $ 25 billion budget gap:
I watch today as Gov. Brown wrestles with the massive debt that is suffocating our state and hear him say he doesn’t want to “play games.” But I cringe when I learn that not playing games amounts to cuts to kindergarten, cuts to universities, cuts to people with special needs — and I hear no mention of the simple cut that would save hundreds of millions of dollars, countless man-hours, unimaginable court time and years of emotional torture for victim’s family members waiting for that magical sense of “closure” they’ve been falsely promised with death sentences that will never be carried out. […]
It’s time to stop playing the killing game. Let’s use the hundreds of millions of dollars we’ll save to protect some of those essential services now threatened with death. Let’s stop asking people like me to lie to those victim’s family members.
Indeed, the Northern California chapter of the ACLU estimates that California spends $ 137 million each year on death penalty cases, mostly on legal fees, including the mandatory appeals process. In contrast, “the alternative of permanent imprisonment would cost just $ 11 million.” In addition to saving $ 125 million each year, abolishing the death penalty would allow the state to forgo its plan to build a new $ 400 million death row facility at San Quentin State Prison, a project that was put on hold earlier this year, bringing total savings to more than $ 1 billion over the next five years.
With California considering deep cuts to a plethora of programs, including education, law enforcement, and the state college and university program, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that the $ 117 million alone could pay for 1,900 new California Highway Patrol officers, 2,100 new teachers, or help with tuition for 103,000 University of California students.
Several other states have considered abolishing the death penalty, including Kansas, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Montana, and Maryland. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signed a law abolishing the state’s death penalty earlier this month, saving taxpayers an estimated $ 20 million annually.
There are numerous social justice arguments for the abolishment of the death penalty. But with lawmakers across the country facing daunting budget gaps, cutting the death penalty should be an obvious choice.
Villa Park, California city councilwoman Deborah Pauly allegedly violated the rules of decorum by using the phrase “pure, unadulterated evil” in a discussion of Islam and the mayhem it inspires. The Muslim–moonbat alliance rebutted this in the traditional manner — death threats:
Say No to Hate — or they’ll slit your throat. Meanwhile the local media weeps piteously for the Muslim who lives in terror because somebody might look at her “in a special way.”
On a tip from Smorfia48.
The GOP’s instance on repealing the entire health care law would, among other things, eliminate dependent coverage for children on their parent’s plan, re-open the Medicare Part D doughnut hole and increase taxes on small businesses currently receiving tax creditits for providing health insurance coverage to their workers. Today, McClatchy Newspaper’s James Rosen reports that the Republicans’ efforts to put political ideology ahead of good policy is also jeopardizing the development of money-saving medical technology:
Dr. David Cull, a prominent vascular surgeon in Greenville, had invented a small valve system that, if it works, could spare 300,000 dialysis patients across the country enormous suffering and save U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.
But Cull’s hometown senator, Jim DeMint, would not write a letter supporting the surgeon’s application for a federal grant under the landmark health care bill that President Barack Obama signed into law a year ago today. […] Backing a grant application under the law — even for a constituent who lives in the same Upstate town as DeMint — would leave the senator open to charges of hypocrisy, staffers say.
Cull received the $ 249,479 grant without DeMint’s support and believes that his device could eliminate the need for dialysis patients to “undergo 10 to 12 operations over a lifetime to treat complications from the stents.” “Such surgeries cost taxpayers a fifth — $ 15,000 — of the $ 75,000 a year the federal program pays per person with acute kidney failure.” “This is money … very well spent,” Cull said. “If our valve doesn’t work, the government will have lost $ 250,000. If it does work, they will have saved a gazillion dollars.”
For DeMint — who regularly criticizes the Affordable Care Act for failing to lower health care costs and rails against “wasteful spending” — to oppose a measure that could save Medicare millions of dollars is at best dishonest and at worst hypocritical. Republicans who maintain that ‘Obamacare’ will ration care and slow the development of life-saving medical devices shouldn’t undercut private innovation that could improve the livelihoods of millions of Americans. That would, in their words, “death panel” the sickest among us.
Matt Barber Claims Death Threats Over Comments On LGBT Youth Suicides
UNRELATED: Both Barber and Porno Pete have complained about the above “trick photo” I regularly use on Barber-related posts, claiming that Barber’s fey pose was created with “special camera tricks.” Seriously.
Joe. My. God.