It's not what people think, though Mr. Cheney should be worried about his role in U.S. torture policy, even if he'll likely never be held to account. So, it's not that. Though we may get the "holy grail" evidence Cheney keeps talking about soon. What Cheney, Dick or Liz, won't talk about is the detainee who gave false information(under Egyptian torture) that sent us to war in Iraq, and disgraced Colin Powell. Because Al-Libi just committed suicide in a Libyan prison.
If we get hit again it's going to be blamed on torture, Rush said on his show yesterday.
So why is Dick Cheney on this media tour?
Mr. Cheney wants to draw a line in the sand where Pres. Obama began dismantling the torture policies of Bush-Cheney, which Cheney postulates is making us "less safe."
"That means, in the future, we will not have the same safeguards..." - Vice President Dick Cheney
Cheney knows that we will be hit at some moment in the future, something experts have said is inevitable, whether it's before Obama is out of office or not isn't the issue. Cheney's bet is that when this happens the legacy of Bush-Cheney must be solidified as the Administration who after 9/11 "kept us safe." He wants Americans to remember the moment those policies were dismantled. It happened on the Democrats' watch.
Mr. Cheney along with his fan club, headed by Rush Limbaugh, is betting that the American people need to be reminded of who kept us safe and when those safety policies were destroyed, believing that Americans won't care about torture anymore when the next attack lands.
Nothing Dick Cheney does is by accident. This is a calculated plan to weave a narrative before it happens into the political blood stream, with the attempt of casting blame in advance. Call it preemptive marketing.
It's the same tactic with a new twist, with Cheney finding a new line of attack on the old standard that Democrats are weak on national security. Considering what Bush-Cheney has cost us internationally this takes incredible gall. But when you think of how low Dick Cheney is thought of in this country, what has he got to lose? Since the Obama administration doesn't have the stomach to do anything about what has gone before, the answer is nothing. Considering the Cheneys are the strongest advocates on TV today for a policy that should have us all hanging our heads in shame, it makes you wonder who's really in power.
So, even as Cheney draws a line that he believes will eventually lead the Republicans back to power, Cheney's cynical bet that Obama and the Democrats will be blamed is one he's more than willing to let ride.
Doctors protest exclusion of single-payer at Senate Finance Committee
For Immediate Release May 5, 2009
WASHINGTON - Doctors and other advocates of a national single-payer health system - also known as an improved Medicare for All - directly confronted senators at a Senate Finance Committee “roundtable” on health reform today.
One-by-one, eight single-payer advocates in the audience stood up during the opening comments of the hearing and asked why single-payer experts were being excluded from the proceedings. They each spoke out in turn until they were removed from the committee hearing room and arrested, one-by-one, by U.S. Capitol police.
The doctors and others said that a publicly funded, privately delivered single-payer system is the only solution to the crisis plaguing our nation’s non-system of health care, noting that single-payer national health insurance would guarantee coverage for everyone and contains costs.
Despite polling that shows a clear majority of public and physician support for a single-payer system, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has stated on multiple occasions that single payer is “off the table” of health reform.
Today’s round table, the second of three, consisted of 15 witnesses with no single-payer advocates among them. By contrast, several witnesses have direct ties to the for-profit, private health insurance industry.
The doctors and activists were dressed in black, which they said was in memory of the 22,000 people who die every year due to lack of health insurance. They represented a coalition of single-payer advocacy organizations including Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Healthcare-NOW, Single Payer Action, Private Health Insurance Must Go, the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics, Prosperity Agenda, and Health Care for the Homeless.
“Health insurance administrators are practicing medicine without a medical license,” said Dr. Margaret Flowers, co-chair of Maryland chapter of PNHP. “The result is the suffering and death of thousands of patients for the sake of private profit. The private health insurance industry has a solid grip on patients, providers and legislators. It is time to stand up and declare that health care is a human right.”
Much to the frustration of Baucus, the multiple disruptions demanding single-payer be on the table set the tone for the second of three roundtables on Health Reform by the Senate Finance Committee.
Katie Robbins, assistant national coordinator of Healthcare-NOW, said: “The current discussion on health reform is political theater at its best. Our elected officials are hosting these events to go through the motions of what developing effective national health policy should look like. There is a big difference between getting health policy experts in the room and the witnesses here today who would profit the most from reform. That difference means our hard-earned dollars will go to further insurance industry profits, not to guarantee health care to the American people.”
“It’s a pretty spectacular display of raw political power,” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. “The health insurance industry demands that not one of the 15 people who testified today shall be a single-payer advocate. And the industry gets what it wants. It’s time for the American people to storm the gates and demand - put single payer on the table.”
Single payer is successfully implemented in the United States’ own Medicare system providing comprehensive care to the elderly, as well as in many of the best health care systems in the world. A single-payer system, as embodied in legislation H.R. 676 and S. 703, would provide guaranteed, quality care to all Americans with no increase in U.S. health spending.
The single-payer advocates said they will continue to use direct actions and nonviolent civil disobedience to urge the inclusion of a publicly funded, privately delivered system.
Other methods of communication with elected officials have failed in delivering the demand for single-payer national health care as evidenced by the exclusion of single-payer advocates from official hearings on health reform.
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Healthcare-NOW! is a national grassroots advocacy organization in support of single-payer national health care with a network of activists in 42 states. More information can be found at www.healthcare-now.org
Single Payer Action is a nonprofit activist fueled organization. Find out more at www.singlepayeraction.org
Maryland Chapter Physicians for a National Health Program is a chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org), a nonprofit research and education organization of 16,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance. More information can be found at www.md.pnhp.org
Prosperity Agenda includes single payer national health care as one of the policy changes needed to create an economy that benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest. www.prosperityagenda.us. Prosperity Agenda is an economic justice project associated with The Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics (www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net).
Contact: Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action, (202) 468-8868, russellmokhiber@gmail.com Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW! (330) 618-6379, healthcarenow08@gmail.com Margaret Flowers, M.D., Physicians for a National Health Program - Maryland chapter, (410) 591-0892, nose1@aol.com Kevin Zeese, ProsperityAgenda.us, (301) 996-6582, kzeese@earthlink.net Mark Almberg, PNHP, (312) 782-6006, (312) 622-0996, mark@pnhp.org
VIDEO footage: Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) reacts to protesters, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI
Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action, speaks at hearing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5vhTtxad30
Margaret Flowers, MD & Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zOShsL4UJo
Carol Paris, MD, PNHP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIUcrVxGwA
Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1nl32aAh7M
Adam Schneider, Health Care for the Homeless http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I26EkvnjZuQ
Pat Salomon, MD & Kevin Zeese http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDHJH7W-ZEo
Urgent update on health care: Next week, Congress will begin making the actual decisions about what'll be in a health care reform bill.
Meanwhile, conservative groups have launched a new assault on the president's proposal, including a million-dollar ad campaign claiming that health care will be rationed and "bureaucrats" will "decide the treatments you receive."1
If real people like us don't get involved in this health care fight now, it could all fall apart. So we're holding an emergency online briefing on Monday night at 9 p.m. ET with Dr. Howard Dean to make sure we're all ready for the fight ahead, called "What we all need to know to win on health care this year."
If fixing our health care system is important to you, this is an event you shouldn't miss. All you need to join in is a computer with an internet connection. Can you join us?
Here are the details:
What: Emergency Online Briefing with Dr. Howard Dean (Organized by MoveOn and Democracy for America)
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