Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I've heard of rationing fuel, food and phone time, but this is utterly ridiculous:

It seems hard to imagine a presidential candidate, running in the midst of two wars, openly speculate about cutting back on veterans’ healthcare. And yet, here we are.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain appeared Tuesday to suggest rationing of veterans’ health care may be needed so combat veterans can receive the care they deserve.

At a town hall meeting in Dover, N.H., McCain talked about the need to “concentrate” veterans’ health care on people with injuries that “are a direct result of combat.”

“Right now, there are people who drive a long way and they stand in line to stand in line to get an appointment to get an appointment[sic],” McCain said.

McCain’s campaign press office did not return a telephone call asking for clarification of the remarks.

Well, that’s not good at all.

Ration health care for veterans? Seriously?

McCain's record on veterans' issues gets worser and worser. He doesn't want them to get money for an education because they might leave the service, and now that they've sacrificed their health and future for this country, he thinks their health care should be rationed? Here's what this would look like: you have medical issues from a combat injury, you're supposedly first in line. You have medical issues from, say, a gun going off while you're cleaning it, you're bumped. And he thinks this is a good policy to suggest in the midst of a presidential campaign.

Brilliant. Thanks for helping the Democrats win.

McCain's going full-speed ahead with the stupid. Here he is flapping his yap on Iraq, a subject he seems to know less and less about with each passing day:

It doesn’t much matter what the root cause of John McCain’s confusion is. Maybe he’s confused because he’s old. Perhaps he’s pretending to be confused to impress the Republican base. It’s possible he’s confused because he just isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. I don’t know, and frankly, don’t much care.

Whatever the source, the bottom line remains the same: when it comes to Iraq, John McCain is hopelessly incoherent about the basics. To be sure, geo-political crises can be complicated, but McCain isn’t flubbing policy minutiae at an advanced seminar on foreign policy. As of yesterday, he doesn’t seem to even know what the surge is.

Kate Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.

Remember, according to McCain, he’s an expert on foreign policy. The basis of his entire presidential campaign is his ability to handle matters like the war in Iraq, and the notion that his unparalleled expertise makes him uniquely qualified.

Except the man is shockingly confused, and embarrasses himself more and more with each passing day.

[snip]

As has become far too common lately, McCain has the entire story backwards.In 2006, Gen. Sean MacFarland, the commander of the
1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, explained in September 2006 — months before Bush even decided to launch the surge — that the Awakening was already underway.

Spencer Ackerman, noting MacFarland’s remarks, added, “For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.”

Remember: this is the same fuckwit who thinks Pakistan borders Iraq and that Czechoslovakia still exists, who can't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shia, and who thinks that the solution to every international problem is bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. Professional malpractice indeed.

Speaking of malpractice, check out the Bush regime's attempt to redefine chemistry to protect their polluting corporate friends:

Earlier this month, former EPA official Jason Burnett wrote to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) with explosive revelations on how the White House has neutered climate change science to protect corporate interests. For example, OMB general counsel Jeffrey Rosen asked for multiple memos on whether carbon dioxide (CO2) from cars and plants could be regulated differently.

In a Senate hearing today, Burnett further explained that under the Clear Air Act, “after a pollutant is a regulated pollutant, controls are required on a variety of sources.” During the “inter-agency process,” Burnett said, OMB officials looked for ways to define CO2 from power plants as different from CO2 from automobiles, in order to shield industrial power plants from regulation under the landmark Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA:

BURNETT: There was quite a bit of effort and interest to see whether the Supreme Court case itself and regulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from automobiles be restricted to just automobiles. … So there’s an interest to determine whether we could define CO2 from automobiles as somehow different than CO2 from power plants, for example –

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Do you think that’s possible?

BURNETT: Clearly it wasn’t supportable.

Heh heh, yeah, clearly not. Drat those pesky laws of nature! Haven't they ever heard of the Republicon desire to define reality as whatever they want it to be?