Things That Just Piss Me Off

Anyone who still says that Bush is not one-sided in favor of big business is just lying to themselves. Once again, he gets his way and big business benefits while people suffer.

Justices Shield Medical Devices From Lawsuits
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Makers of medical devices like implantable defibrillators or breast implants are immune from liability for personal injuries as long as the Food and Drug Administration approved the device before it was marketed and it meets the agency’s specifications, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The 8-to-1 decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which for years has sought broad authority to pre-empt tougher state regulation.

In 2004, the administration reversed longstanding federal policy and began arguing that “premarket approval” of a new medical device by the F.D.A. overrides most claims for damages under state law. Because federal law makes no provision for damage suits against device makers, injured patients have turned to state law and have won substantial awards.

The Bush administration will continue its push for pre-emption in another F.D.A. case that the court has accepted for its next term, on whether the agency’s approval of a drug, as opposed to a device, pre-empts personal injury suits. Drugs and medical devices are regulated under separate laws.

There have been numerous cases where these manufacturers have put shoddy workmanship into their devices and caused people to die. They put their bottom line against the health of the people who have to use them.

These people do not get to choose which brand of device goes into them. That means free market principles, which cause manufacturers to make better products in order to make more sales, does not apply.

All they have to do is pay doctors and hospitals to use their products. They pay these doctors by hiring them as consultants. In return the doctors use their products in their patients. The patient is not asked, “Which brand of defibrillator do you want us to use in case you have a heart attack?

So this law shields the manufacturers from any liability if the FDA approved them before marketing the product. So after the approval, the manufacturer can downgrade how they manufacture the product or how they do quality control and they cannot be sued.

Another victory for Bush. Another victory for Big Business. Another loss for the people that live in this country and have no choice what medical device is implanted into them.

Justices Add Legal Complications to Debate on F.D.A.’s Competence By GARDINER HARRIS

The Institute of Medicine, the Government Accountability Office and the F.D.A.’s own science board have all issued reports concluding that poor management and scientific inadequacies have made the agency incapable of protecting the country against unsafe drugs, medical devices and food. Randall Lutter, the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for policy, said that the agency was responding to reports of its deficiencies and improving.

Before President Bush took office, F.D.A. officials said that courts provided patients additional protection. In a 1997 brief, the agency’s chief lawyer wrote that “even the most thorough regulation of a product such as a critical medical device may fail to identify potential problems.”

With Wednesday’s ruling, those efforts proved successful for device makers. Two more cases, one to be argued Monday and the other in October, will determine whether drug makers will benefit as well. In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the F.D.A.’s interpretation of its rules deserves “substantial deference.” Since the administration now interprets those rules to provide similar liability protection to drug makers, Justice Scalia’s opinion suggests that the court may soon provide a liability shield to pharmaceutical companies, too.

Now Bush wants this to apply to drugs that pharmacuetical companies push on us through doctors that they also hire as consultants and give trips and bonuses to for prescibing them.

Bush got congress to approve a law that said that senior citizens cannot negotiate on the price they pay for drugs, now he wants to make sure that when bad drugs are sold by the pharmaceutical companies that kill people, no one can sue them.

I can’t wait to see Bush get out of the white house. it will take years to repair the damage he has done to all of us and to this country.

Cmon, who really listens to this idiot and believes anything he says. John Edwards says there are 200,000 homeless veterans. Bill O’Reilly said there are not 200,000 homeless veterans. He gets proven wrong and finds out there are after calling Edwards a liar and now says Edwards owes HIM the apology.

The following is a transcript of the show where Bill O’Reilly is proven to be a liar but refuses to admit he is wrong no matter what.

O’REILLY: To hype up this class warfare, Edwards is now bringing in homeless veterans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARDS: Tonight, across this country, 200,000 men and women who wore our uniform and can serve this country patriotically, veterans, will go to sleep under bridges and on grates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: Now I’ve said on this program that we will pay for homeless veterans to be taken to the Edwards mansion in North Carolina for shelter. Of course, that’s an immature remark, I know that, but there’s a reason I’m saying it.

Certainly there are homeless veterans, but it’s not because of the economy. It’s mostly because of addiction and mental illness, something politicians can do little about.

Some people, including veterans, do become homeless because of the economy. They lose their jobs and become homeless. It happens. It is not because of mental illness or addiction for everyone who becomes homeless nor is that the only way veterans become homeless.

Bill O’Reilly the pinhead will distort any fact to make his point and to get people to believe he actually knows something.

Then he says politicians can do nothing about homeless veterans. regardless of why these veterans are homeless, the government could and should be doing more to help them. To claim that politicians can do nothing to help them is ridiculous.

These veterans served our country and deserve better than what they are getting when they return home. If they are mentally ill or addicted to alcohol or drugs then we should pay for everything that needs to be done to help them overcome it. We should do whatever we have to do to be sure they are not sleeping on the streets, period.

Bush does nothing for the veterans and he has rush limbaugh and pinhead o’reilly covering it up and trying to convince people no problem exists. By convincing people there is no problem bsuh and other politicians won’t be held accountable for the poor treatment of our veterans.

But if Edwards admits the truth, it takes away the class warfare issue, which is his only issue. […]

Right there is no diversity that causes the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer. This doesn’t even have anything to do with bush or republicans or democrats. This has to do with people rich enough to make sure everyone else remains their own private labor pool. It’s a fact.

O’REILLY: Yet according to the government census, poor households in America have lots of stuff. 97 percent have a color TV, 78 percent a DVD player, 80 percent an air conditioner, 73 percent a car or truck, 63 percent cable or satellite TV, and 43 percent of poor households in the USA own the home they are living in.

Here is a great example of how pinhead o’reilly distorts the truth and distracts his listeners or viewers. The statistics he just mentioned show percentages of “households” that have stuff. The homeless are not included in those statisitics. They don’t have households.

If you added the number of people who are homeless to those statistics, people aho have no color tvs and dvd players, those percentages would be cut by at least 1/4. So about 75% of americans have the color tv and 55% a dvd player and so on.

But pinhead o’reilly uses statistics that have nothing to do with the homeless veterans he was mistaken about. He is using those to distract viewers.

So if the poor are not destitute in America, and they obviously are not, why are so many veterans sleeping under bridges, John Edwards? The answer again they’re mostly addicted or mentally ill. It has nothing to do with the economy.

Again, not all homeless veterans are addicts. Those who are should be getting treatment in a hospital, not sleeping under a bridge. All homeless veterans are not mentally ill. Of those who are, most of them have a mental illness due to their service to our country. They sho0uld be receiving the help they need but they don’t. There are actually homeless veterans who are not addicts or mentally ill and that is due to the economy. So pinhead is wrong and he is a liar.

Edwards is a charlatan, a man either too uninformed or too dishonest to be elected to anything. I am tired of hearing this nonsense from him and other callow politicians. We deal with facts here on The Factor, not fiction. John Edwards owes us an apology. […]

Facts, O’reilly, and fox news should never be used in the same sentence. O’reilly owes America and every veteran in America an apology.

JOSEPH CALIFANO: We have 200,000 veterans who are homeless.

O’REILLY: Right. […]

Oops. You mean there really are 200,000 homeless veterans and o’reilly was wrong? Will he admit it? Tune in and see.

O’REILLY: But this is wrong for a major presidential candidate to demagogue this issue and try to tell the people it’s America’s economic system that’s causing this problem, is a lie, it’s wrong, he should be called on it. […]

Hey! Pinhead O’Reilly. You just got called on your lie and you don’t admit it nor do you apologize to our veterans, so why do you still insist it’s edwards who lied?

CALIFANO: This is not the only issue that happens to, Bill. Let me just say there’s enormous denial about this.

O’REILLY: I’m not in denial. I don’t think any…[…]

CALIFANO: I - well, they don’t want - they don’t to - they don’t recognize that substance abuse…

O’REILLY: They recognize.

CALIFANO: Drives all our social ills.

O’REILLY: Edwards knows this. He’s lying. He’s lying. He knows it. Everybody knows it.

CALIFANO: I don’t believe that John Edwards is lying.

O’REILLY: Then he’s dumb.

CALIFANO: No, he’s not.

O’REILLY: One or the other. […]

O’REILLY: But I hope you understand my anger. It’s an anger that if you want to solve the problem for the veterans, let’s be honest about it. Let’s not demagogue it like Edwards is doing.

Why don’t you be honest about it Mr. Pinhead. You slammed the veterans and you do not apologize. You are trying to save face because you thought you knew everything and found out you didn’t know anything about the homeless veteran problem

Admit you made a mistake. Admit you lied. Admit you insulted a lot of homeless veterans by saying they are all mentally ill and addicts. Admit that our government, including the bush administration, treats our veterans poorly. I only added the bush administration because they are currently sending men and women over to fight in Iraq right now and I do not want them treated the same way when they return home.

But I guess pinhead o’reilly doesn’t care about them at all. His statements prove it.

This is ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with having to show ID in order to vote. It’s a safguard to make sure that the person voting is not voting more than once, which has happened, and it’s a safeguard to make sure that the person voting is a US citizen.

I don’t want people voting more than once, nor do I want non US citizens to be allowed to vote. That doesn’t seem like asking for too much.

Justices Indicate They May Uphold Voter ID Rules
By LINDA GREENHOUSE of the NYTimes

There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case, and by the end of an argument that was before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who were challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.

The justices’ questioning indicated that a majority did not accept the challengers’ basic argument — that voter-impersonation fraud is not a problem, so requiring voters to produce government-issued photo identification at the polls is an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.

Nowhere in the constitution does it guarantee the right to vote more than once nor does it say you don’t have to be a legal US citizen in order to vote. This is not a burden. If you are unwilling to get a state issued ID in order to be able to vote, you likely don’t take the trouble to study the issues either and you don’t need to vote.

In Texas the law says you can protect your property and your neighbor’s property from criminals. Gun control people want us to believe this is a bad law and that we should not be allowed to defend our property and our family.

Media coverage by liberal newspapers like the NYTimes slant the story to suit their agenda. rather than reporting the news, they choose to write it in a way that is intended to make you feel sorry for the criminals who were breaking into the house.

Questions and Doubts in a Texas Shooting Case
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

Even before the police called the night of Nov. 14, Stephanie Storey said, she knew that her fiancé of two days, Miguel Antonio DeJesus, was dead.

She knew it, Ms. Storey said, because she had not been able to reach him all day, and because she was watching the news at 9 o’clock when she saw his body.

It was lying on a front lawn decorated for Christmas in a middle-class subdivision in this Houston suburb ringed by refineries, not far from the body of his sometime construction partner and childhood friend from Cali, Colombia, Diego Ortiz.

Yes, just two poor childhood friends lying on a lawn.

Both men, illegal immigrants, one with a prison record, had been riddled with shotgun pellets fired by a retired computer manager, Joe Horn.

Disregarding the operator’s pleas to stay inside, (Horn) confronted the fleeing pair in his front yard and, saying “Move, you’re dead,” fired three blasts of 00 buckshot from his 12-gauge, striking them in their backs. Both ran short distances before collapsing and dying, leaving behind a tire iron used to break open a window, a lock-punch and a pillowcase holding jewelry and about $2,000 cash from the neighbors, a Vietnamese family that ran a local dry-cleaners.

Just two childhood friends hanging out.

“I knew it was getting hard for them,” said Ms. Storey, 39, a medical assistant from Katy, west of Houston. But she said she doubted that Mr. DeJesus, an avid salsa dancer who had courted her on and off for seven years and wore paint-splattered clothes to job hunts outside the Home Depot, had made a career of theft. But she said she knew he had another identity and false Puerto Rican papers; his real name was Hernando Riascos Torres.

Hard to doubt it when that tire iron, jewelry, and money were there. Let’s just ignore the whole illegal immigrant with a prison record and false papers thing. These were stand-up guys.

Either way, Ms. Storey said, they did not deserve to die. “We saw they were doing the crime; we can’t dispute that,” she said. “I’m not saying they were saints, but I’m sure they’d prefer to be behind bars than dead.”

This goes to having more concern what the criminals would prefer instead of the right to protect ourselves from criminals. This whole soft on the criminals thing carries over into the courtroom and the entire justice system.

There is a move against the death penalty even in extreme cases right now. Opponents of the death penalty claim it is not a deterrant against violent crime. It is a deterrant, but how do you measure how many people DID NOT murder anyone because they were afraid of the death penalty?

How many prosecutors have been able to use the death penalty to get someone to give them information by offering to not seek the death penalty in return for information they need to solve more serious cases and arrest more murderers?

This is directly related to the attacks on laws that are on the books that allow citizens to defend themselves, their families, and their property. The right to keep and bear arms is in the constitution and those who oppose that right are against the constitution, plain and simple.

I personally think Joe Horn could have used more restraint in this case. The police arrived just as he was firing his gun. In this case the criminals would have likely been caught without his action.

But to use this case to try and convince people that laws that allow us to protect ourselves should be appealed is ridiculous. If you are a criminal and in the process of committing a crime and you get shot, I find it very hard to feel sorry for you.

I totally agree that bloggers should have the right to be anonymous. Some countries would persecute bloggers otherwise. Whistleblowers would fear for their jobs if they could not be anonymous. I think some bloggers lose credibility by being anonymous and some use this to attack people for no reason or use it to stalk and harass people. But overall the reasons to allow bloggers to remain anonymous outweight the pitfalls. This judge obviously agrees.

Judge: Blogger identity is safe

MANALAPAN — The undisclosed identity of an Internet blogger whose comments targeted local officials will remain a mystery for now, a state Superior Court judge ruled Friday.

Judge Terence P. Flynn in Freehold ruled to quash a subpoena filed by Manalapan Township against Google, seeking the name and account information of the author of the blog ? daTruthSquad.blogspot.com ? calling the request “an unjust infringement on the blogger’s First Amendment rights.”

The subpoena is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed in June against Stuart Moskovitz, a former township attorney and mayor. The township contends Moskovitz botched negotiations for a recreational land purchase in 2005.

The record industry and the music industry must be reeling since this story came out. They work so hard to sue 13-year-olds for downloading music that they missed getting this one.

In Trade Ruling, Antigua Wins a Right to Piracy
By JAMES KANTER and GARY RIVLIN

In an unusual ruling on Friday at the World Trade Organization, the Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States — an award worth up to $21 million — as part of a dispute between the countries over online gambling.

Yet the ruling is significant in that it grants a rare form of compensation: the right of one country, in this case Antigua, to violate intellectual property laws of another — the United States — by allowing it to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products.

A W.T.O. panel first ruled against the United States in 2004, and its appellate body upheld that decision a year later. In April 2005, the trade body gave the United States a year to comply with its ruling.

That deadline passed with little more than a statement from Washington that it had decided it was in compliance.

More of we are America, so we must be right. This is the GWBush philosophy. We have legal gambling in 48 states, yet want to make it illegal to gamble online. It’s not a morals issue where bush thinks gambling is wrong or anything. It’s a move to make sure that only US Gambling Enterprises can make money from gambling.

PartyPoker.com is located in another country. They illegally offered US citizens a way to gamble. Warrants were even issued for the owners. Yet you can buy stock in there company on the New York stock exchange.

Does this mean that even though cocaine is illegal, that if the cartels became a corporation it would be ok to buy stock in the cocaine importing business?

People buy stock in AT&T and general Motors and ignore the fact they are or at least were the two biggest porn distributors in the US. GM owns or owned Direct TV and AT&T pipes porn into hotel room across the US through it’s cable systems. It’s a highly profitable part of their business.

I bet the stockholders don’t run around telling people at the country club how much they made in dicidends from porn.

It’s hypocracy to make gambling online illegal while gambling is legal in 48 states. It’s bigger hypocracy to say a corporation is acting illegally and let it sell stock on the stock exchange. So people in the US can’t gamble in their online casinos but they can gamble on their stock?

I am happy that the movie industry and the record companies took the hit though. Couldn’t think of a better recipient of this Christmas cheer.

You know the issue of illegal immigration is a mess when organizations that represent businesses in the US oppose making the hiring of illegal iimigrants illegal.

If you knowingly hired someone who is wanted for a crime, then you are guilty of harboring a fugitive and possibly aiding and abetting a criminal.

If you knowingly hire an illegal iimigrant, it’s the same thing. Don’t give me the bs about whether you think it should be illegal or not to cross the border illegally. The fact is that it is illegal and therefore the term illegal immigrant.

If an employer hire them and knows they are illegal, they are breaking the law. But let’s not be too ough on them right? After all this whole immigration thing is politically risky. We don’t want to be thought of as racist just because we believe in the laws of this country.

In Mexico you go to prison for being an illegal immigrant. In the US you only get deported. In Mexico, if a business hires illegal immigrants you can bet on them being shut down permanently.

From the NYTimes
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

A new Arizona law considered among the nation’s toughest against employers who hire illegal immigrants will go into effect on Jan. 1 after federal judges on Friday refused to block it.

The law calls for suspending the license of an employer found to have knowingly hired an illegal worker, and revocation for a second offense.

Both a United States district judge in Phoenix and a federal appeals court in San Francisco, ruling on separate lawsuits by business and civil rights groups, declined to stand in the way.

First of all it’s a shame that this is the toughest law in the US for hiring illegal immigrants. Secondly, business organizations fighting against it are not doing so to protect illegal immigrants from persecution, they are doing it so they don’t have to pay a decent living wage to people who work for them.

As for the civil rights groups, using fear of lawsuits to undermine upholding US law is wrong. If the immigrants applied for citizenship and were denied employement unfairly, then they need protection.

The laws that protect US citizens from unfairness are in place. it is part of the benefit of becoming a US citizen. If you want these protections, then apply for US citizenship. That simple.

If you choose to do it the illegal way instead, then you don’t get those protections. Why is that such a difficult concept?

The CIA destroyed the tapes of the terrorist interrogations, (code word for torture sessions). Congress decides to investigate why the tapes were destroyed to see if it was a criminal act to coverup illegal torture.

Congress is also investigating what involvement the Justice Department had in the destruction of the tapes.

So the justice department launches an investigation and claims the congress is interfering with their investigation. The justice department wants to investigate it’s own involvement without interference from congress.

Confused yet?

Delay Is Sought by Justice Dept. on C.I.A. Inquiry

First let me comment on that headline. I can’t resist. If you shorten it to “Delay is Sought by Justice Department”, it would have applied to a headline that should have been published back in the Tom Delay case. What ever happened to that anyway?

Ok, back on topic to the story from the NYTimes

By DAVID JOHNSTON and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 15, 2007

The Justice Department asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday to postpone its investigation into the destruction of videotapes by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005, saying the Congressional inquiry presented “significant risks” to its own preliminary investigation into the matter.

Significant risk of not covering it all up the same way the justice department will cover it up. Basically it’s like you and your friend getting caught at something and you want a chance to get your stories straight.

The department is taking an even harder line with other Congressional committees looking into the matter, and is refusing to provide information about any role it might have played in the destruction of the videotapes. The recordings covered hundreds of hours of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda.

The Justice Department and the C.I.A.’s inspector general have begun a preliminary inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said the department would not comply with Congressional requests for information now because of “our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence.”

That last line has to be one of the funniest things I’ve read lately. No, we have no perception that politics influences the justice department at all. Especially after the illegal firing of state’s attorneys at the white house’s request. But of course that never happened either.

The lawmakers, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, and Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, threatened to issue subpoenas to get testimony and other information from the C.I.A. “There is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work,” they said.

Sure there is. On the basis that GW Bush is president and you are not allowed to question mein fuhrer and his administration about anything.

The exchanges came as Republicans in the Senate moved on Friday to strip language from a bill that would have prohibited the C.I.A. from using what the White House has called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which allow the use of methods more aggressive than those permitted by other agencies. The House has approved a measure containing the prohibition, but the Senate action, together with a veto threat from President Bush, made it unlikely that it would become law.

Before any of you who support Bush answer or comment to this, ask yourself if you would be defending these actions if it were a democrat president. Think about the actual topics going on here and don’t just put your usual garbage in to defend King George at all costs. Give some real reasons you defend these actions, not just it must be right because george supports it.

Remember all of these powers you want to give george bush will soon be given to the next president. Do you trust Hilary Clinton or Barama with these same absolute powers?

Either that or continue to be served your cereal.

This is really a shame. People go online and do and say things they would never do or say in person. They believe that the Internet is so anonymous that they can get away with anything.

Unfortunately, it seems that in some cases they can.

A Hoax Turned Fatal Draws Anger but No Charges
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo., Nov. 21 — Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this world lived a boy named Josh Evans who hated her. He was 16, owned a pet snake, and she thought he was the cutest boyfriend she ever had.

Josh contacted Megan through her page on MySpace.com, the social networking Web site, said Megan’s mother, Tina Meier. They flirted for weeks, but only online — Josh said his family had no phone. On Oct. 15, 2006, Josh suddenly turned mean. He called Megan names, and later they traded insults for an hour.

The next day, in his final message, said Megan’s father, Ron Meier, Josh wrote, “The world would be a better place without you.”

Sobbing, Megan ran into her bedroom closet. Her mother found her there, hanging from a belt. She was 13.

Six weeks after Megan’s death, her parents learned that Josh Evans never existed. He was an online character created by Lori Drew, then 47, who lived four houses down the street in this rapidly growing community 35 miles northwest of St. Louis.

But a St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Lt. Craig McGuire, said that what Ms. Drew did “might’ve been rude, it might’ve been immature, but it wasn’t illegal.”