Of course: Swine flu is all the evil GOP’s fault!
Well, it didn’t take long for partisan Democrats to blame the swine flu outbreak on the Republican Party.
Here’s the line: Since House Republicans all opposed the trillion-dollar-porkulus, which included funding for pandemic preparations, it’s all. Our. Fault.
No, really:
When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.
Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.
But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.
Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey’s attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.
And his partisan attacks on his efforts seem not just creepy, but dangerous.
So any natural disaster or bio-catastrophe that comes along, for which fiscal conservatives refused to support funding for in an economic recovery package, will now be all. Our. Fault.
And President Obama can once again invoke his time-tested alibi: He inherited the problem.
Don Surber properly calls this ploy what it is: A distraction.
“President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His choice to run the Food and Drug Administration awaits confirmation,” Politico reported.
In all, 19 positions and the secretary are empty desks.
Maybe if Obama did something more than preen and pat himself on the back for his first 100 days in office, we would actually have a government that did more than just blame Republicans for all the troubles of the world.
***
Pssst. GOP-bashers, meet CHARLES “Flu pandemic funding = pork” SCHUMER.
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Categories: fiscal stimulus,Southern Border
Redstate
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ahahahahahahhahaah,
There are so many things to say here. I digress.
Well, we all know Jindal made that volcano go off in Alaska.
How about if all of you in congress (both sides of the aisle) actually took immigration and border security seriously we would not have this problem. I also saw where some European countries are telling their citizens to avoid not only Mexico, but the US too.
IF it was that important – the democrats don’t need a single Republican vote to pass anything – especially in the House!!
What’s wrong, obey couldn’t get it out of his own committee??
If only we’d throw all our money in a great big bonfire, nothing bad would ever happen.
Why blame Jindal when Sarah Palin lives in Alaska!
George BushBarrack Obama Hates Sick people!Pigs Feet Dupree “Has The Swine Flu Blues”
Since Obama has not seen it important enough to even have a head of the Centers for Disease Control, clearly he has no ‘moral’ high ground.
Look for Obama/Gibbs to blame someone else for Obama’s foolishness this week.
Every day a new crisis, every day another reason to blame somebody else for your own incompetance, every day another reason to confiscate more tax dollars. Wait and see, we’re going to need to pony up more just to help the poor and starving in another country survive an outbreak of flu.
Swine flu is coming from Mexico. The same Mexico that the open borders Democrats refuse to do anything about because they want their “undocumented Americans” here for their vote.
You can’t believe a word out of a democrats mouth. Lying pieces of crap every one of them.
I heard George Bush blew up the Titanic and sank the Hindenburg, too. I know those things happened before he was born, but that’s just how evil he is.
Or instead of doing flying circus tricks in Air Farce One over the Statue of liberty scarring the crap out of New Yorkers.
I was close.. I bet they are hard at work finding a way to link not supporting porkulus to global warming to the bug.. You watch.
Bein’ that he’s “messianic” an’ all, why doesn’t Barry just raise his arms and declare an end to this “swine flu” pandemic?
/sarc
Actually, Truesoldier has it right. By not securing our borders and cracking down on immigration [both legal, and illegal], we are inviting both illnesses and disease [not to mention crime and terrorism] into our society. Political pandering in order to “buy” votes…at the expense of the lives and health of the legal citizenry.
Was it one of my dreams, or didn’t W spend a billion on stock-piles of drugs and vaccines against the possibility of a pandemic or bio attack?
Did I miss that…??
Once again, Democrat criminal malfeasance and misfeasance moving into the realm of capital crimes. How much longer is this to be tolerated? Childish political games are one thing, this is quite another.
Got a boo boo? Puts some Methiolate on it! Got the sniffles? Shove some Vick’s vapor rub up your nose! Then take your cryin butt outside and don’t come back until supper time! Always worked for my parents.
The Dems are pathetic on this issue..and it will grow as Obama’s time increases.
Their idea of a connection between spending and pandemic protection is unbelievably weak.
That was for the bird flu, so not terribly useful for this strain, but yes, you are correct.
No border, no US.
sniffle, sniffle, yachewwwww. I like to
call this the democrat’s sWHINE flu.
As noble as preparing for a pnademic is, it is a health issue, not an economic one. Put the funding in a health related bill, and let the people have a chance to read it (or at least give Congress a chance to read it.)
I did see that they are checking people at the border for symptoms. Good plan, except there is an incubation period. And that still doesn’t stop sick people from crossing illegally and spreading the flu on their way to free health care in a Tuscon hospital.
And yes I realize that was a racist statement. /sarc
Good! Maybe they’ll listen to the Euro weenies and fix our borders! Ha! sometimes I just kill myself!
From the linked article -
” Did Rove, Collins and their compatriots want a pandemic?
Of course not. “
It is a mischaracteriztion to suggest that “Swine flu is all the evil GOP’s fault!”
Anyone saying so, or repeating it, is pandering to our worst fears, and making the issue political.
The more accurate thing to say is that money for dealing with potential pandemics was reduce in the stimulus package. Where it should not have been in the first place. So many of the items in the stimulus package should not have been there.
The actual flu itself is no one individual’s fault, or responsibility. Putting the money into the budget properly, is the fault of both parties.
With the econony tanking; Pakistan losing control of its country; Iran making a nuclear bomb; the potential spread of deadly swine flu; pirates holding ships and their crews for ransom; terrorists still trying to attack us; – all our distinguished Senators and Congressmen have to do is worry about waterboarding and prosecuting members of the Bush Administration for authorizing it.
Or, they spin their wheels having hearings based on global warming junk science trying to figure out how best to tax its citizens to fight it. And while they’re at it, they’ll be creating self-imposed shortages on energy sources all in the name of fighting the climate. A battle they will lose. Man will never control the climate and its cyclical nature.
These so-called elected officials have lost touch with what is important and what’s not.
Heaven help us.
No crisis left unexploited.
I should try that here at work. I won’t do a damn thing and when somebody questions me, I’ll blame my predecessor or one of my co-workers. I wonder how long I’d last?
P.S. It’s a private sector job.
I tried to go over the pathophysiology on flu on my site earlier, hoping to clear up some confusion. Unfortunately as I looked at my post today, I may have written it for a medically trained audience. Anyway, there is no good evidence that this particular flu outbreak will be any worse than the last flu epidemic we experienced earlier this year. If you develop symptoms, you should drink plenty of fluids and see a doctor. Sometimes the flu can lead to a secondary bacterial infection which needs to be treated with antibiotics. When the smoke clears in Mexican deaths, you will most likely see that those deaths were from Pneumonia.
Another reassuring thought is that people in this country who were exposed to this same virus as the people in Mexico, are having milder symptoms. The only thing I can think of to explain this disparity is that Americans were much more likely to be immunized against the flu every year. Even if they say this year’s immunization doesn’t offer complete immunity, there may be partial immunity. Furthermore, immunizations from prior years may also offer you some immunity.
If anyone wants to read a detailed explanation of how symptoms of the flu develop you can see it on my site. Just click on my name. I will try to rewrite the article to make it easier to follow later this evening.
Were anti-virals not part of the mix? I sure thought so…
Yes. You are correct.
Yes, that’s why they are releasing 25 million doses of tamiflu…Bought and paid for under Evil Bush and those dastardly Republicans.
Well, the Mexican Archiologist who died, died AFTER shaking the hands of Obama. That makes it Obama’s fault. In fact maybe he is the guy who has been spreading the swine flu. Could Perez have gotten the bug fro Obama? I wonder.
We need to investigate
Then its probably really poison!
So now The Legacy of the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration(TM) is also responsible for the flu, hmm?
Just goes to show that in the axiomatic expression, “Liberals know only one enemy for all occasions,” the word “all” is no exaggeration.
If we were invaded by space aliens tomorrow, you can be sure that donks would be too busy playing “Six Degrees of George W. Bush” to fight the invaders.
“My country, may it always be right; but my party right or wrong!”
- The Official Motto of today’s donkey party
“Swine Flu”
“Pelosi Flu”
Different Strain, same results.
I think the swine flu originated in Washington DC, all that pork spending has had repercussions…
Mister P – Zero inherited the virus from the previous administration. Please don’t blame him for things that happened when he was three years old.
I don’t think we can pin the open borders on the dems alone, remember fighting Bush and McCain over shamnesty last year? I agree that the dems are now fully in charge, but I bet that they will not get much af a fight from many repubs if they start pushing shamnesty again.
Those extremist veterans probably created the flu in a secret underground lair while, plotting the overthrow of the Mexican government…
Fixed it…
The longer Obama can go without butts in those seats, the longer he can blame the former butts…
If you have faith in the messiah, you will be healed!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=96138
Look at the picture.
Swine flu in Mexico? We need more gun control to stop its spread. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Or, Republican Sarah Palin shouldn’t have made that statement about lipstick on a pig – now the swine are paying us back. /sarc
I’m thinking the failed Obama Administration will go down in history known as the Culture of Blame.
Lax immigration policies.
Open borders.
Overburdened healthcare facilities.
Reverend Wright: “America’s chickens, are coming home to roost!”
After much consideration, I still don’t buy into this flu “outbreak”. It is too easy to fan the normal government campaign of flu awareness into hysteria.
And I don’t believe in coincidences. Today is the day Geithner is scheduled to release the results of the bank stress tests. Instead we have a government-spawned flu hysteria without any compelling evidence. We are having a stress test of another sort.
I am sticking with my theory that we are in a period of “government by perpetual hysteria”. The Age of Reason is dead. We have no need for calm, sober, competent and reasonable people in government.
Obama has spent his entire first 100 days either blaming the previous administration or passing the buck somewhere. He does not take any responsbility for anything!! Anyone surprised?
All areas of governance and civil discourse have now become politicized for the sake of the Obama Nation.
Please stand by for the next government transmission. Do as you are told. That is all.
In the words of Fred Thompson – President Barack Obama is revealing his “naivete, ineptitude and arrogance” as he deals with matters of national security.
If the threat of pandemic was major, the capital markets would have sold off big on the open. They didn’t. Opinions are one thing but backing it up with blood money is another.
I have seen nothing that is so out of the normal to warrant the hysteria we read and hear in the media. Flu is real and eventually, a particularly dangerous strain of flu will break through where we will not be prepared despite our best efforts. These managed panics are very counter-productive.
Didn’t you learn to take these things seriously? What if people had ignored the SARS outbreak? Or the MRSA outbreak?
Sure, they turned out to be duds, but you never know, so panic already so we can ban public gatherings like the tea parties.
The democratic play book…nothing more. nothing less. True republicans need to fight, dirty just like their lefty opponents and stop going along to get along.
I agree with that theory. Too many crises, too much coverup, too coincidental!!
To paraphrase a famous saying…”When the going gets tough, the president goes golfing.”
I’ll give you something to panic about…
(‘Mom’ mode off)
…or has a party. Or changes the subject. Whatever.
Oh obama, hallowed be thy name,
Thy healthcare come, they will be done,
As it is in washington, let it be done in my town,
Give us this day, anything we ask for,
Ask not of us any taxation,
Or any actual action,
Thy messaengers reid and pelosi be prasied,
Amen
High preist sonofdy of the obama cult.
Give me a break. The Republicans may have protested it being in the stimulus but they didn’t keep it out, they couldn’t have, they didn’t have the votes. They weren’t even present in the final meetings btwn Senate/House to reconcile the bill. The only reason it wasn’t in there is fellow Dems blocked it. C’mon Obey, name them!
John Deaux:
All they did with the MRSA outbreak was to make it non-reportable. It used to be as reportable as aids or smallpox.
Hey presto, no problem anymore.
SARS? Well there are already 5 times the number of cases of Swine Flu as there was SARS in the US.
And MRSA? Are you really saying that wasn’t/isn’t a huge issue? It killed about 18,000 people in the US in 2005, you know.
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
I’m the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality
Living Color says it all…
Nope, he’s democrat.
This flu has killed 103 people in its first stage in about 10 days. It also spread world wide in the same time.
Thats at least 103 times more deadly than SARS. If you aren’t paying attention, you need to be.
John Deaux: I sense a new dance coming out of this. We’ll call it the “Achy Baracky Panick”. Our TOTUS can premiere the new dance on “Ellen”.
Hey! This is really serious – the AP is reporting that Obammy’s teleprompter booked a flight to Rio…
WHO declined to raise the flu alert status of Mexico due to…political considerations. Don’t want to scare the tourists, don’t ya know…
I am not suggesting people panic, but we have a every quickly spreading flu that kills, and we have no leadership in the American health system. We need to be aware and smart about this.
But, so far, it is less than 5% lethal.
It is responding very well to treatment here in the US, even with the immuno-compromised victim in CA.
Do not leave your reason behind as you learn about this.
Maybe Mexico can send the saick to Cuba…It does have great health-care according to fat Mike.
Mexican Swine flu, just doing the job American flues won’t do.
Maybe Mexico can send the sick to Cuba…It does have great health-care according to fat Mike.
From now until the end of this crisis I pledge, and encourage everyone here to do the same, to wash my hands with warm water and soap before each and every comment I make.
No one is not paying attention. But the statistics you cite are not out of the normal for the annual flu season as far as I can tell.
While swine flu is not a fiction, it is also not new. The scientific community that deals with these things fears that a new mutation of flu will appear eventually and that pigs and poultry are the most likely source. That is not a phony issue. What I object to is this automatic government response of hysteria to everything. As a country, we have dealt with much worse more calmly. We can handle this too.
One of these days, the threat will be real and no one will believe it. Our government needs to show more respect for our intelligence and stop pandering to the lowest common denominator.
It isn’t just the government. The media seems to create frenzies just to boost their ratings.
Next week they will probably blame Republicans for the existence of carbon dioxide…..yawn.
Say what you want about their health care in general, but Cuba does well with treatable communicable diseases. They were one of the very first nations to eradicate polio in its populations.
Did you read the title of the article you linked? More than twice as many people died of car accidents in 2005.
Yes, it’s something we need to pay attention to, but let’s not forget that people don’t watch the news to hear that they’re safe and everything’s fine. Politicians don’t get huge donations and re-elected by pointing out that there were no problems to address during their tenure.
Crichton was right about the politico-legal-media complex. The bad thing about the boy who cried wolf situation is you never know if it really is a wolf.
Both PP and you are right, of course. They (government and media) are responding to human nature. Look at some of the comments on these threads, or go to a grocery store. I was in one here in Texas that was as picked-over as before Ike hit us.
People tend to react, instead of think. Politicians and the media know that, and they exploit it. You can’t blame them. But you can take that lever away from them.
In retaliation for Rove causing Hurricane Katrina.
True. Nobody would assert that totalitarian regimes have no advantages over free societies.
Addendum: why is the government response to such a pandemic outbreak limited to spreading hysteria without any actions that would be consistent to the degree of that hysteria?
Oh, I dunno…. According to the official (belated) White House position, it is WE who need to calm down. Again, I just don’t believe in coincidences.
The flu might slow down the border drug war or it might have employers less likely to hire illegals coming from Mexico.
Well of course it’s our fault.
90% of the swine smuggled into Mexico comes from the United States.
–
(Sound of jingling keys…) Quick! Don’t look over there, look over here!
Swine flu-porkulus bill? Pig with lipstick in the white house? I get it.
Sarah tried to warn us.
Democrat control of Congress. Blame Bush. Someone needs to wake up and smell the bacon. When pigs fly!
FIFY
What the heck does that have to do with anything?
MRSA is a HUGE, and largely preventable, drain on our health care system, not only with respect to the people it kills, but the increased length of hospital syats for the hundreds of thousands of others infected. It is hardly a “dud.”
These are the end times. Obama’s rise was predicted in our bible, and will set the final days in motion. We are experiencing war, natural disasters, and soon pandamic. Prepare for the final battles.
Boo!
And to wash your mouth out with soap after some of the comments you make.
It doesn’t make for interesting news and it doesn’t further an agenda like AIDS does. AIDS is 100% preventable, yet it keeps spreading.
MRSA made news back in the 80s when it was the “flesh-eating bacteria”, then quietly faded away until another slow news cycle. How fascinating was Chandra Levy after 9/11? Just wait, there will be some other newsworthy item that requires us to be afraid and politicians to take action in another few weeks.
Republicans made fun of preparedness for flu epidemics. Nobody is laughing now.
Off topic, but over at sitfu.com this just in
Could it actually be common sense rising to the surface?
Please ignore lgm.
Out.
Furthering the “end of times” case, God just threw another bomb at Mexico with a 6.0 earthquake.
Why bother washing my hands? What’s the point?
Sometimes, necessity displaces doctrine.
You can count on doctrine making a come-back after reality ceases to be so demanding…
swine flu blues
http://www.wabcradio.com/Article.asp?id=1294299&spid=22807
I will now make up facts and draw conclusions from it to support my ideological views.
Liberal mantra.
tre: Did Bush blow up the Titanic before or after he led the Luftwaffe on its attack of Pearl Harbor?
I vividly recall President Clinton’s cry from the Honolulu Hilton…“Oh, the humanity!!!!”
yeah we need another repeat of the 1976 swine flu fiasco, where more people died from the vaccine than from the flu itself…
The problem with the Dems and their zealous liberals money grabbers is that they can only scapegoat a certain political party, belief, or group of people for so long before it is expected that they walk to the plate and DO THEIR JOB.
Why hasn’t Obummer hired a freaking CDC head and Surgeon General already? Who’s running the show? While they’re busy reversing policy on embryonic stem cell research they should’ve taken steps protecting the US from potential pandemics. You don’t need stimulus to at least put a policy and plan in place to prepare for a pandemic.
You can only blame the GOP for so long before people are going to expect results…. not the same old thing.
No LGM, you are so completely wrong it hurts. Republicans didn’t make fun of flu preparedness. Democrats made fun of Republicans for pushing flu and other disaster preparedness. If it weren’t for Republicans and their irrational overreaction to avian flu, the available stocks of Tamiflu would be a fraction of what they are today. I remember very clearly the accusations by Dems that Republicans were using the avian flu issue to bolster the power of DHS and keep the 9/11 panic flowing..
I am sure you will have a great reaction to this. Don’t care.
done feeding you.
They played on our fears!
Shrieked Al Gore. (the master of playing
Godon peoples fears)Lesson. Beware of Government claims and beware of shrieking politicians.