On Saturday, October 24, 2009 the President announced that the spread of the H1N1 virus required that he declare a National Emergency. The stated goal of this declaration is to relieve certain procedural roadblocks in an effort to allow hospitals and medical facilities the ability to improve their effectiveness in dealing with this crisis. Since there is no actual documentation yet that spells out the scope or limitations of this “state of emergency”, it leaves those of us that are already skeptics of the administration wondering, what those limits are?
While influenza is no laughing matter, H1N1 just doesn’t appear to be as virulent as other strains. Infections have been reported nationwide and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is claiming that forty-seven states now show a wide-spread increase of infection. But is this is enough to declare a “National Emergency”?
There death toll associated with H1N1 (use of the name “Swine Flu” has been discouraged by the pork industry) has recently passed the one-thousand mark in the United States, so the President has taken a stance that this requires immediate attention. Well, U.S. Pneumonia deaths average nearly sixty-two thousand per year from all types. Auto accidents kill another forty-three thousand citizens annually and even deaths by falling, are roughly twenty-thousand a year. I am not claiming that we are not doing all that can be done to prevent these deaths, I’m sure we are. But I just don’t see the compelling data to support the claims of a national emergency with regards to H1N1.
There are other, clearly more preventable deaths that the President just doesn’t seem all that concerned about such as the nearly twenty-eight thousand deaths attributed to accidental poisoning in the United States every year. When I was younger, I remember there were many, many public service ad campaigns to educate people about this hazard and on how to secure household chemicals, particularly when children reside in the home. I don’t see those ads anymore even though the number of deaths attributed to this are still of a sufficient number to warrant a continued alert.
In addition, U.S. and U.K. deaths in the Afghan war are now at one thousand, four hundred and sixty seven. Obama’s hand-picked theater commander has warned that more are likely to be suffered without sufficient troop levels to affect a substantial change in the balance of power against the Taliban forces. For reasons unknown, the President is taking a “wait and see” attitude despite his campaign promise to support the effort in Afghanistan and to give American forces the materials and support they need to get the job done.
One of the prime examples of “Obama-care” is in Massachusetts where that state has a medical insurance program nearly identical to the Baucus bill, complete with insurance mandates and fines for not having insurance. So far, medical costs have not dropped as promised but instead, have soared forty-seven percent forcing Massachusetts to consider plans to cut what they call “non-essential” services and in addition, raise taxes even higher. Non-essential services will most likely be defined as those services not directly tied to healing the sick; in essence, the “well-care” services that are claimed to be the back bone of future saving in the President’s campaign for his reform plans. If you remember, the “well-care” services were going to reap huge savings in the future and would pay for a good portion of this massive plan through preventing illnesses that would then, not need to be treated. This certainly has not been proven out in the Massachusetts model.
Additionally, based on the CDC estimates of infections, patients in the commonwealth of Massachusetts are suffering more than 45,000 hospital-acquired infections and nearly 2,000 deaths each year. This is a disgrace and if it were reported as vigorously as the H1N1 “crisis” it would certainly result in a certificate of death for the President’s healthcare reform “scheme”.
It is clear there are far more critical dangers than the H1N1 virus but none of them are receiving the attention that the swine flu has. Could it be because none of them could ever be declared an emergency? Is it the emergency itself that the President is interested in? After all, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying that they should “never let a good crisis go to waste”. That is an idiotic statement no matter who utters it but when it comes from a White House official, it is not only significant, it is downright dangerous. It implies that these people apparently have no limit when it comes to what they would use to manipulate the American people.
So what use could a contrived emergency be to this administration? The easy answer is that this is a quick and simple way to show strength and decisive action from a President that has been labeled as weak and feckless. A national emergency is a bold move for any President and commands almost instantaneous attention as the press and people try to decipher the critical needs of the nation; that is until you actually look beyond the initial press release.
The vaccination program is already under fire for being woefully late in delivering a quantity of vaccine sufficient to keep pace with the demand; but this declaration does not address the rate of vaccine production and once infected, not even the lauded vaccine is of any use. As the infection rate climbs, hospitals may find it difficult to provide needed care but that is a matter of resources and not the “red tape” that the President claims this declaration is meant to mitigate.
Could there possibly be a deeper and more diabolical reason to declare a national emergency? It is well known that the administration is concerned about passage of the healthcare bill. Obama has spent an awful lot of his political capital on this and a failure to deliver on such a central part of his campaign this early in his administration would be disastrous. He is also irate that he is going to Copenhagen empty-handed. Try as he may, public support for the U.S. entering into an international climate accord that sacrifices our sovereignty, damages our economy and further degrades our industrial viability has been in sharp decline; support that he would need to guarantee ratification of any treaty he signs. Fortunately, the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom made it a constitutional provision that treaties can only be entered into after ratification by two-thirds of the Senate. There are no provisional “loopholes” to allow passage through reconciliation as they are threatening to do with healthcare. Without clear and overwhelming support from the American people, this treaty cannot pass.
So what in God’s name does the declaration of a national emergency have to do with this? As I stated earlier, the defined limits of the government’s power in conjunction with this declaration have not been made public yet. We know that Reid and Pelosi are trying to force the healthcare bill through before the Thanksgiving break to avoid having Congress face another round of town hall meetings and local protests before a vote can be taken. Since the Congress will not come to the people, the people have been coming to the Congress, staging Tea Parties and rallies in D.C. and across the country. What if, as a provision of this “National Health Emergency”, it is deemed “beneficial” to deny permits for mass assemblies so that the transmission of H1N1 can be mitigated? What then would happen to the healthcare vote if the protests were suddenly silenced; if the only measure of support that Congress still saw was data from slanted polls published by ABC or CNN?
I know that this is strictly a “what if” situation but can you honestly think of an administration more deserving of the reputation that makes this a question worth asking? Their recent efforts to silence Fox, the only news service that dares to question this President and his advisors, has backfired badly and Fox now has more viewers than ever before. Since they thought it was a good idea to try to silence Fox News, is it beyond the scope of possibility that since this plan failed, they would now seek to silence you? It's just another one of those things that make you go Hmmmmm?
Paul
While influenza is no laughing matter, H1N1 just doesn’t appear to be as virulent as other strains. Infections have been reported nationwide and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is claiming that forty-seven states now show a wide-spread increase of infection. But is this is enough to declare a “National Emergency”?
There death toll associated with H1N1 (use of the name “Swine Flu” has been discouraged by the pork industry) has recently passed the one-thousand mark in the United States, so the President has taken a stance that this requires immediate attention. Well, U.S. Pneumonia deaths average nearly sixty-two thousand per year from all types. Auto accidents kill another forty-three thousand citizens annually and even deaths by falling, are roughly twenty-thousand a year. I am not claiming that we are not doing all that can be done to prevent these deaths, I’m sure we are. But I just don’t see the compelling data to support the claims of a national emergency with regards to H1N1.
There are other, clearly more preventable deaths that the President just doesn’t seem all that concerned about such as the nearly twenty-eight thousand deaths attributed to accidental poisoning in the United States every year. When I was younger, I remember there were many, many public service ad campaigns to educate people about this hazard and on how to secure household chemicals, particularly when children reside in the home. I don’t see those ads anymore even though the number of deaths attributed to this are still of a sufficient number to warrant a continued alert.
In addition, U.S. and U.K. deaths in the Afghan war are now at one thousand, four hundred and sixty seven. Obama’s hand-picked theater commander has warned that more are likely to be suffered without sufficient troop levels to affect a substantial change in the balance of power against the Taliban forces. For reasons unknown, the President is taking a “wait and see” attitude despite his campaign promise to support the effort in Afghanistan and to give American forces the materials and support they need to get the job done.
One of the prime examples of “Obama-care” is in Massachusetts where that state has a medical insurance program nearly identical to the Baucus bill, complete with insurance mandates and fines for not having insurance. So far, medical costs have not dropped as promised but instead, have soared forty-seven percent forcing Massachusetts to consider plans to cut what they call “non-essential” services and in addition, raise taxes even higher. Non-essential services will most likely be defined as those services not directly tied to healing the sick; in essence, the “well-care” services that are claimed to be the back bone of future saving in the President’s campaign for his reform plans. If you remember, the “well-care” services were going to reap huge savings in the future and would pay for a good portion of this massive plan through preventing illnesses that would then, not need to be treated. This certainly has not been proven out in the Massachusetts model.
Additionally, based on the CDC estimates of infections, patients in the commonwealth of Massachusetts are suffering more than 45,000 hospital-acquired infections and nearly 2,000 deaths each year. This is a disgrace and if it were reported as vigorously as the H1N1 “crisis” it would certainly result in a certificate of death for the President’s healthcare reform “scheme”.
It is clear there are far more critical dangers than the H1N1 virus but none of them are receiving the attention that the swine flu has. Could it be because none of them could ever be declared an emergency? Is it the emergency itself that the President is interested in? After all, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying that they should “never let a good crisis go to waste”. That is an idiotic statement no matter who utters it but when it comes from a White House official, it is not only significant, it is downright dangerous. It implies that these people apparently have no limit when it comes to what they would use to manipulate the American people.
So what use could a contrived emergency be to this administration? The easy answer is that this is a quick and simple way to show strength and decisive action from a President that has been labeled as weak and feckless. A national emergency is a bold move for any President and commands almost instantaneous attention as the press and people try to decipher the critical needs of the nation; that is until you actually look beyond the initial press release.
The vaccination program is already under fire for being woefully late in delivering a quantity of vaccine sufficient to keep pace with the demand; but this declaration does not address the rate of vaccine production and once infected, not even the lauded vaccine is of any use. As the infection rate climbs, hospitals may find it difficult to provide needed care but that is a matter of resources and not the “red tape” that the President claims this declaration is meant to mitigate.
Could there possibly be a deeper and more diabolical reason to declare a national emergency? It is well known that the administration is concerned about passage of the healthcare bill. Obama has spent an awful lot of his political capital on this and a failure to deliver on such a central part of his campaign this early in his administration would be disastrous. He is also irate that he is going to Copenhagen empty-handed. Try as he may, public support for the U.S. entering into an international climate accord that sacrifices our sovereignty, damages our economy and further degrades our industrial viability has been in sharp decline; support that he would need to guarantee ratification of any treaty he signs. Fortunately, the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom made it a constitutional provision that treaties can only be entered into after ratification by two-thirds of the Senate. There are no provisional “loopholes” to allow passage through reconciliation as they are threatening to do with healthcare. Without clear and overwhelming support from the American people, this treaty cannot pass.
So what in God’s name does the declaration of a national emergency have to do with this? As I stated earlier, the defined limits of the government’s power in conjunction with this declaration have not been made public yet. We know that Reid and Pelosi are trying to force the healthcare bill through before the Thanksgiving break to avoid having Congress face another round of town hall meetings and local protests before a vote can be taken. Since the Congress will not come to the people, the people have been coming to the Congress, staging Tea Parties and rallies in D.C. and across the country. What if, as a provision of this “National Health Emergency”, it is deemed “beneficial” to deny permits for mass assemblies so that the transmission of H1N1 can be mitigated? What then would happen to the healthcare vote if the protests were suddenly silenced; if the only measure of support that Congress still saw was data from slanted polls published by ABC or CNN?
I know that this is strictly a “what if” situation but can you honestly think of an administration more deserving of the reputation that makes this a question worth asking? Their recent efforts to silence Fox, the only news service that dares to question this President and his advisors, has backfired badly and Fox now has more viewers than ever before. Since they thought it was a good idea to try to silence Fox News, is it beyond the scope of possibility that since this plan failed, they would now seek to silence you? It's just another one of those things that make you go Hmmmmm?
Paul
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