With millions of Americans out of work, House Republicans are focusing in on real priorities: decimating private abortion coverage and crippling public funding for abortion, as Jessica Arons reports in RH Reality Check.
In AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte notes that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3, also redefines rape as "forcible rape" in order to determine whether a patient is eligible for a Medicaid-funded abortion. Under the Hyde Amendment, government-funded insurance programs can only cover abortions in cases of rape and incest, or to save the life of the mother. Note that the term "forcible rape" is legally meaningless. Supporters of the bill just want to go on the record as saying that a poor 13-year-old girl pregnant by a 30-year-old should be forced to give birth.
Feminist blogger Sady Doyle has launched a twitter campaign against the bill under the hashtag #dearjohn, a reference to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Tweet to let him know how you feel about a bill that discriminates against 70% of rape victims because their rapes weren't violent enough for @johnboehner, append the hashtag #dearjohn.
Everybody chill out
A federal judge in Florida ruled the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional on Monday. However, as political scientist and court watcher Scott Lemieux explains at TAPPED, the ruling is not necessarily a death blow to health care reform:
[T]his ruling is less important than the controversy it will generate might suggest. Many cornerstone programs of the New Deal were held unconstitutional by lower courts before being upheld by the Supreme Court. This ruling tells us nothing we didn't already know: There is a faction of conservative judges who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Unless this view has the support of five members of the Supreme Court -- which I still consider very unlikely -- it won't matter; Vinson's reasoning would have a much greater impact if adopted by the Court, but for this reason it is even less likely to be adopted by higher courts.
In a follow-up post, Lemieux explains the shaky legal reasoning behind Judge Robert Vinson's decision. The judge asserts bizarrely that being uninsured has no effect on interstate commerce. That premise is objectively false. Health insurers operate across state lines and the size and composition of their risk pools directly affects their business.
Given the glaring factual inaccuracies, Judge Vinson's decision may be overturned by a higher court before it gets to the Supreme Court.
Scamming Medicare
Terry J. Allen of In These Times win's the headline of the week award for an article entitled "Urology's Golden Revenue Stream." She reports that increasing numbers of urologists are investing millions on machines to irradiate prostate cancer in the office. The doctors can bill Medicare up to $40,000 per treatment, but they have to use the machines a lot to recoup the initial investment. So what does this mean for patients? Allen explains:
Rather than accessing centralized equipment and sharing costs, physicians are concentrating their own profits by buying expensive in-practice technologies that pay off only if regularly used. One result is overtreatment, which is driving up health care costs, exposing patients to unnecessary radiation and surgeries, and is frequently no better than cheaper approaches.
One third of Medicare patients with prostate cancer undergo the expensive IMRT therapy, as the procedure is known. In 2008, Medicare shelled out over a billion dollars on a treatment that has not shown to be any better for patients than less expensive therapies.
Obstetric fistula in the developing world
Reproductive Health Reality Check is running a special series on the human rights implications of obstetric fistula. Fistula is a devastating complication of unrelieved obstructed labor in which the baby's head gets stuck in the birth canal and presses against the soft tissues of the pelvis. If labor goes on long enough, the pressure will starve the pelvic tissues of blood, and they will die, creating a hole between the vagina and the bladder, and/or between the vagina and the rectum. Fistula patients face lifelong incontinence, chronic pain, and social ostracism.
The condition is virtually unknown in the developed world, where women with obstructed labor have access to cesarean delivery. However, an estimated 2 million women, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, have untreated fistulas with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year. Without reconstructive surgery, these women will be incontinent for life.
Sarah Omega, a fistula survivor from Kenya, tells her story. Omega sustained a fistula when she delivered her first child at the age of 19. She suffered for 12 years before she finally obtained the surgery she needed. As Agnes Odhiambo explains in another installment in the series, fistula is a symptom of a dysfunctional health care system. Women suffer needlessly because they can't get access to quality health care.
The most likely victims of fistula are the most vulnerable members of their respective communities. Early childbearing increases a woman's risk of fistula. Pregnant rape victims may face even greater barriers to a safe delivery, thanks to the social stigma that accrues to victims of sexual violence in many societies. (Not to mention any names, House Republicans...)
Preventing and repairing obstetric fistula is a major human rights issue. The U.S. should make this effort a high priority for foreign aid.
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If you were with us on Christmas Day you heard the story of Betsie Gallardo, who, unless something changes quickly, is going to be intentionally starved to death in a Florida prison after being convicted of spitting on a cop.
In fairness, the State did not decide simply to starve her; instead, the Department of Corrections (DOC) first chose to withhold any further treatment for her inoperable cancer...and then they decided to starve her to death.
Her adopted mother is trying to get her released on humanitarian grounds; the DOC recommended in October that she be allowed to go home and die, the Florida Parole Commission refused.
Governor Charlie Crist chairs the Executive Clemency Board, who could also agree to let her go...and so far, they've also refused to take action.
Funny thing is, the Governor and his Board have been more than willing to step in when other Floridians requested pardons and commutations, even in situations that seemed a lot less dire.
Today, we're going to look at that history-and to be honest, as with many things in the Sunshine State, from the outside...it all looks a bit bizarre.
There are many gifts to be given and received this holiday season; some that you can wrap and put under a tree, and some so intangible and ethereal that they cannot be held within the boundaries of paper and ribbon.
Instead, they exist within the boundaries of our hearts.
Among those intangible presents, few matter more than the chance to be with those we love-and at the time of our death, it's the most important thing of all.
We have a chance to bring all of this to a dying woman and her family-but the only way it can happen is if we convince the Florida Department of Corrections not to kill her first.
It's not a tale of light and joy-but if we get lucky, there could still be a happy ending.
Over a decade ago, I read a very remarkable book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks At Cancer And The Environment by Sandra Steingraber. As a young woman, Steingraber was diagnosed with cancer. It was not that surprising, since there was a history of cancer in her family.
Just one thing, though. Steingraber was adopted.
That key biographical is the turning point away from the conventional cancer treatment establishment, and toward an ecological understanding of cancer that rreveals how all of us are "living downstream" from the unconscious poisoning of entire planetary ecosystem. The book has now been turned into a movie, which is beginning to be shown on the festival circuit. Here is the trailer for the film:
And here is a brief presentation by Steingraber at the 2008 Bioneers conference, the final passage of which is transcribed below:
I believe our grandchildren will look back at us now and marvel that our economy was once dependent on chemicals that were killing the planet and killing ourselves, and they will think of it as unthinkable.
Now I am willing to concede the point that this environmental human rights movement that I am betting on is less an evidence-based prediction than a mother's fervent hope that my children will never have to fear the phone ringing on a Sunday afternoon, and it's bringing bad news from the pathology lab.
I am willing to admit that this bet is a wish that my children will grow up in a world with a functioning jet stream and some ice caps and a few coral reefs and some octopi for my daughter to write her first book about, and some honeybees to help my son the farmer grow some apples. It's a wish that his polar bear Halloween costume not outlast the species.
Wishful or not, I am not willing to be wrong about this bet. Because my children's lives are inextricably bound to the abiding ecology of this planet, which is worth everything I have. An environmental human rights movement is the vision under which I labor, from which I am not free to desist, and which may, if we all work together in concert, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. May it be so.
This is the business we need to be about. And it is so far beyond the business that preocupies Versailles that is almost impossible to think that we are living on the same planet, much less in the same country.
Because, in fact, we are not.
For information on screenings and events, go here.
It's been a long time since the days when it was common for middle-class, adult white women in the US to die from desperate, illegal abortions, so the nation forgets how bad it used to be. Stupak has capitalized on that, on the acceptability of misogyny, in order to turn himself from 'Bart who?' to the man that's helping Catholic Bishops all over the country change the subject away from their decades-long tolerance of pedophilia and towards their attempt to impose theocracy.
Though if you were looking, you'd be able to tell that banning abortion was a cruel, abuse-enabling, sometimes deadly thing to do to women. Stupak doesn't care about that, nor does much of the rest of Congress. The president doesn't seem very bothered by it, either.
But hey, most of them can't get pregnant, so why should they give a damn?
I'm Glad More Men Are Getting Breast Cancer. When It's Only The Women Who Are Doing The Dying, Nobody Seems To Care.
It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For some reason, the color for this national awareness month is pink. I guess that's because pink is a girl's color, and most of the victims of breast cancer are female. Pink ribbons, folded at the edges, are the symbols for the national breast cancer awareness month. Yogurt lids and box tops and bottle caps and receipts or proofs of purchase are collected and mailed by women from every state to get donations for research. Lots of groups have fund raisers and lunches, wear pink T-shirts and scarfs, sponsor walk-a-thons and run-a-thons to raise money.
The apparent primary goal of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is to raise money for research for a cure, which is well and good for people who have enough money to afford healthcare. All the research in the world isn't going to help women who have no healthcare, can't afford a mammogram, can't afford treatment even if cancer is found. But our country refuses to pay for women to have mammograms, and pay for treatment for breast cancer.
Women always have to do the bake-sale to try to raise money for anything that is important. Do your children need money to buy schoolbooks? The women will have a bakesale. Does your church want to raise money to help the poor and homeless? The women will have a bakesale. We always have to hold bakesales to raise money for ourselves, for our children, education, healthcare, anything of value. We get nothing from society or from our government. They let us die. So we make things and sell things, and try to raise money for the things that really matter.
In an effort to raise money to do research to find a cure for breast cancer, there is a national bakesale conducted by women every year in the entire month of October. You can buy all sorts of things, and if there is a pink ribbon anywhere near the display in a store, it probably means the seller will give a little money to breast cancer research.
When you think of it, it's kind of odd to ask people to contribute money so the medical industry can find a cure for breast cancer, but then most of us won't be able to afford it. It's like we're pitching in to find a cure for rich women. Like the Real Housewives of some upscale exclusive community. We should collect bottle caps to find a cure for them. For ourselves, it probably will be too expensive if they come up with something.
I support the idea of research, free mammograms, free treatment. But the key issues remain undercover, not mentioned in polite society. Breast cancer among women is an epidemic in the U.S. WTF is going on? It is most likely being caused by chemical and poisoned compounds used by U.S. corporations, inserted into the genetically modified food that they sell us, injected into the building materials and carpets and drapes in our homes and the plastics that surround us. So why not spend a few of those bucks that are raised every October to nail down the cause of this radical increase in this disease that is killing so many women. And then once it's nailed down, let's sue the companies who have caused these increases and caused these deaths, and make them pay.
Just for example, millions of women were all but force-fed hormones by their doctors starting at the age of 40. They were told that the hormones would protect them from heart disease, osteoporosis, wrinkles, weight-gain, hot flashes, dowager's hump, and everything else that women dread as part of the aging process. Any woman over the age of 40 who did not take hormones was considered un-american.
Until, that is, it started coming out that instead of helping women, the hormones were killing them. They increased the incidence of breast cancer dramatically, caused heart attacks and strokes, had no effect whatsoever on strengthening bones despite these bullshit claims by the drug dealers. As for the wrinkles, who cares if somebody's got wrinkles if they're dead?
How much money has been paid out to the families of the women who were killed by these hormone drug pushers? Not a penny, as far as I know. Oops. Lots of dead women. Oops. My bad. Nobody cares when it's women who are doing the dying.
In 1950, a U.S. woman had one chance in 20 that she would ever get breast cancer. Today that number has increased to 1 chance in 8. If we keep going at this rate, soon we will be able to guarantee that all U.S. women will get breast cancer. Of course since the Democrats refuse to pass a national healthcare program, many women can't even afford to get a mammogram never mind afford treatment for breast cancer to save their own lives.
During the 40 year period from 1950 to 1990, the rate of breast cancer among white women in the U.S. increased by 53%. Is that an epidemic? I'd say so. That's a 1% increase annually.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women, and the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 40 and 55.
Over 200,000 women in this country are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and at least 50,000 women die every year from breast cancer.
So why is this happening? And exactly what is being done to stop this plague against women in this country?
Most of the research that is done in the field of health is done for the benefit of white men. They are the wealthiest and most powerful group of people in this country since they tend to exclude women and non-whites from well-paying jobs. The white men also tend to have health insurance so they can pay for whatever expensive treatments the medical industry comes up with to prolong the lives of white men.
For example, much of our national health research has been directed at heart disease in white men. And much progress has been made in helping white men with that disease. But the research has traditionally excluded women, and the same types of treatments that save men's lives are not so successful when it comes to women with heart disease.
Black men are 40% more likely than are white men in this country to get cancer. And guess what? They're also generally poorer, have more periods of unemployment, fewer assets, and are less likely to have healthcare. So when they get cancer, they just die.
You can buy oreos that have pink on them, and some money will be given from that bake sale for breast cancer research. That's part of our bakesale that we women have to carry on every year because our government won't pay for us to have mammograms, breast cancer treatment, and research to find out what is causing this increase in breast cancer in women in this country.
You know how the politicians keep saying that "we" have the best healthcare system in the world? Well, don't get too excited about that. Maybe the politicians should say that "they" have the best healthcare. For the rest of us, things pretty much suck.
You know how they keep suggesting that "we" will beat cancer in our lifetime, which implies that things are getting better every year in our "war" against cancer. Well, that's just another lie. Like the war on terror, war on drugs. All a lie. None of them are working.
From the National Cancer Institute, the facts show that cancer keeps rising, other than the decrease in lung cancer associated with the reduction in the number of people who smoke. For everybody else, your situation gets bleaker every year.
You can buy a bracelet for your women friends, a breast cancer bracelet, and some of what you spend will be given to some group to do research on breast cancer. Men have bracelets too. Their bracelets are blue. That's a boy's color. They sell bracelets to raise money for research into prostrate cancer. They have their own form of yearly bakesale because the government won't give men free prostrate cancer screenings and treatment, and the government won't do the investigation that is necessary to find out why so many men are getting prostrate cancer. So men have bake sales too. And they die from cancer too.
Here are a few facts from the government's 2007 "progress" report on cancer. http://progressreport.cancer.g... That term "progress" suggests a move forward to beat cancer. But the facts don't support that.
"The nation is making progress toward major cancer-related Healthy People 2010 targets."
"Death rates for the four most common cancers (prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal), as well as for all cancers combined, continue to decline."
[Then they talk about a decline in smoking].
"The nation is losing ground in other important areas that demand attention." See that? We're going in the wrong direction. The headline is that the nation is "making progress," but the facts are that things are getting worse. There is actually an increase in most cancers in our country. That's not what I would call progress.
"The incidence rates of cancer of the liver, pancreas, kidney, esophagus, and thyroid have continued to rise, as have the rates of new cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, myeloma, and childhood cancers. The incidence rates of cancer of the brain and bladder and melanoma of the skin in women, and testicular cancer in men, are rising."
"Lung cancer death rates in women continue to rise, but not as rapidly as before. Death rates for cancer of the esophagus and thyroid in men, as well as of the liver, are increasing."
Poor people and black people have both the highest rates of cancer and the highest death rates for cancer:
"Unexplained cancer-related health disparities remain among population subgroups. For example, Blacks and people with low socioeconomic status have the highest rates of both new cancers and cancer deaths."
While breast cancer rates have risen dramatically since 1950 (with a radical 15% drop when the medical industry stopped telling women to use hormone drugs), fewer women get mammograms. Of course they're expensive, and our nation refuses to provide women with free mammograms and breast cancer treatment to save their lives. Like I said, I'm glad more men are getting breast cancer, because when it's only the women doing the dying, nobody seems to care.
"Mammography rates dropped slightly between 2003-2005, especially for women 50-64."
One of the common deadly cancers in this country is colon cancer. The most effective screening for that is a colonoscopy, recommended by most doctors for patients at 50, and every 5 years thereafter. That test costs well over $1,000, and most people cannot afford it, and do not have insurance that will cover it. So people die from colon cancer because our country refuses to provide all our citizens with free colonoscopies and treatment for colon cancer:
"Screening for colorectal cancer remains low, despite its proven effectiveness, though use is increasing. " Notice the tone of this statement, as if the author can't really figure out why more people aren't doing this, given its proven effectiveness. Psst: most people can't afford it, that's why.
You can buy a watch, a breast cancer watch, if you want to count the minutes until you or your sister or wife or mother or daughter will likely become another victim to this disease. Or die from it. But don't ask the government to pay for your mammogram, or your mother's mammogram, or their breast cancer treatment. Don't ask the politicians to get up off their fat corrupt lazy asses and do some real investigations into what is causing these increases in cancer in our country, so that we can protect future generations. Our government gives all our money to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and to war. So buy your breast cancer watch, send in the boxtops, save the yogurt lids, hope for a miracle but don't bet on one, and count off the minutes until another woman dies from this disease.
For an entire day in September 2008, the cable news networks reported on "Lipstickgate" -- an episode that will forever be a blemish on journalism.
Today, I have to ask: Where's the media outrage over a true scandal, Arlen Specter's Cancergate? (Yes, I'm coining that term -- to describe Specter tricking the public into donating to a cancer cure website that actually funds his political campaign.)
Also today, I believe I'm first to break some news: Arlen Specter's campaign has quietly changed his "Specter for the Cure" website after initially denying it was a scandal. And I have the screenshots to prove it.
First, the back story. The hint of scandal was first dropped Sunday, May 3, in a Fort Worth Star Telegram article quoting OpenSecrets.org's Sheila Krumholz:
As an example of a misleading Web site, she cites www.Specterforthecure.com. It appears to be a fundraising site for a reform movement to help Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., fund programs that will seek cures for major diseases and illnesses.
Actually, it’s a fundraising arm for the re-election of Specter, who last week switched parties from Republican to Democratic.
Unfortunately, "Watchdog" reporter Dave Lieber completely buried the lead in paragraph 23, potentially dooming it to obscurity. Until...the same publication resurrected the item the next day and put it in a headline, "Arlen Specter and his confusing web site." This story elevates some important details:
A Specter spokeswoman told The Watchdog: "Specterforthecure.com is explicit throughout — including the name itself — that the site raises money for a candidate.
The same morning [Dave Lieber's original] column ran, Specter was on CBS' Face The Nation to talk about his recent defection to the Democrats. Specter took a moment to mention SpecterForTheCure.com. See if you can figure out what the site's purpose is from his remarks:
"And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research. I’ve been the spear carrier to increase medical research. And I’ve even established a Web site, Specterforthecure.com, to try to get people to put more pressure on Congress to join me in getting more funding." (Full transcript here.)
[Bold added to emphasize, ahem, lies.]
Here is a screenshot of SpecterForTheCure.com, taken yesterday (Friday, May 8) at about 5pm EST. If your mother or grandmother heard Arlen Specter on CBS and went to this site, what would they think they were contributing to?
Finally, the very real possibility that McCain may not live through a term or two of the Presidency and that he won't disclose his medical records hits the front pages of the New York Times.
The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) asked the Justice Department on Friday to allow an existing special prosecutor to probe the possible collaboration between the Bush administration and the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in generating what Obama aides charge are spurious allegations and investigations of voter fraud.
In the letter, and in a conference call, Obama officials charged that government leaks about FBI investigations into possible voter fraud point to a potential collaboration between the administration and the campaign.
Ah, the Family Guy does McCain/Palin.
Vint Cerf, one of the creators of the internet, has endorsed Obama. He's often mentioned as a possible CTO for the US.
California's energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000, according to a study to be released Monday.
The study, conducted by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, found that while the state's policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion.
Built into that figure were increases of $1.2 billion in the light industrial sector, $11.2 billion in wholesale and retail trade, $7.3 billion in the financial and insurance sectors and $17.8 billion in the service sector.
"Consumers were able to reduce energy spending," the study said, adding that "these savings were diverted to other demand."
Eco-extremists!
Lunsford is really making a go at Mitch McConnell. He really could take the Minority Leader of the Senate out.
Obama has 3.1 million donors. Goldwater had a million, Kerry had over a million. Still, Obama is blowing up the records here, and political fundraising is not likely to ever be the same.
Despite the stage-managed non-release of his medical records back in May, McCain's complicated health history continues to crop up as a campaign issue in these final weeks of the election season. This weekend, in a new, two-part series called "Fit to Lead" (as in, "Is the next president....?"), CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta "uncovers the health secrets of presidents past....and future."
The debut episode will follow Dr. Sanjay Gupta as he investigates the health and medical fitness of past, present and future presidents.
Dr. Gupta will interview former presidential press secretaries Ari Fleischer (George W. Bush), Joe Lockhart (Bill Clinton), Ron Nessen (Gerald Ford) and Jody Powell (Jimmy Carter), as well as three presidential physicians, as part of his inquiry into what it takes to be medically fit for the presidency.
The Daily Show did something on McCain's melanoma. Pundits on MSNBC last night after the debate kept talking about how old and sick McCain looked. And CNN?
Clips of McCain making supposed age-related gaffes circulate on the Internet. Last month, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and a supporter of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said McCain's age and skin cancer history were fair game as a campaign issue. "We're talking about a reality here that we have to face." A few days ago, a liberal activist group, Brave New Films, ran a full-page ad in the New York Times, accompanied by a petition signed by more than 2,700 physicians calling on McCain to release his full medical records.
These are all reasonable questions and concerns for the Presidency, considering Reagan's legacy of having dementia while in office. It's good to see them out there so the public has a choice on the matter.
Senator Chuck Schumer calls on McCain to release his medical records.
Senator Harry Reid calls on McCain to release his medical records.
John Aravosis noted that McCain didn't tell anyone he had cancer surgery during the Republican primary, but waited until after he won to admit he had surgery to remove cancerous cells. 1,954 doctors have already signed the open letter to McCain asking him to release his medical records (via KathyG). And I took video of Senator Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer calling on McCain to release his medical records. Here's the transcript:
Question: What do you think the relevance of John McCain's cancer is on this election?
Schumer: I don't know the relevance but I will say this. When you're running for President everything should be public including your full medical records. I believe in the right to privacy but when you're running for President which is such an important job the need of the public to know supercedes it.
Question: What is the relevance of John McCain's cancer to this election?
Answer: When we're talking about the President of the United States, health issues are extremely important. We learned that going back a long time ago, when you guys weren't around, when Tom Eagleton because of his depression had had shock treatment. So this isn't something we just dreamed up, it's important, Eagleton had to drop out, and select a new Vice Presidential nominee. So I think there should be total transparency when a person is running for President of the United States. And it may be when President Bush went and had some things burned off of his head or John McCain a month ago had a little thing burned off his face. I think it's important.
I just got back from a dermatologist for a check-up (growing up in Miami with outdoor summers requires this), and I asked her about McCain and skin cancer. He's had various types of the disease and I wanted to get a sense of whether he's really in danger or if this is one of those treatable forms of cancer. And she told me that basically, some skin cancers are not that bad, but malignant melanoma - the kind McCain has had in two separate places - is not one of those. It's bad. Real bad. And unlike most cancers, it doesn't really go away, even after years in remission. Sam Donaldson had it on his ankle, and thirteen years later it returned in the same spot. McCain has had it on two separate 'primaries' (not recurrences, which aren't as bad), and you can clearly see the post-surgical scars of having his lymph nodes checked (and partially removed). This is not a healthy guy, this is a 72 year old man with a fairly high likelihood of serious illness and death within the next few years.
I asked Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, about John McCain's cancer, and he said that McCain is in remission. The video is above. You can see above that Kyl is taken aback, but he says that he trusts what John McCain told him. But why? That might be good enough for a Republican Senator, but why should that be the test for the voters? Why should we trust McCain on his medical past? It's not just that McCain has stretched the truth in this campaign, as even Karl Rove noted, or that he's acted as desperately as you'd expect a dying man to act when stretching for his lifelong dream of the Presidency, it's that McCain has simply refused to release his medical records to the public and confined select members of the press to a three hour window with no electronic equipment to examine his records. Brave New Films is on this question, and more than a thousand doctors have signed up to ask him to release his medical records. You should sign this petition and watch the video, it is downright scary. While this race is between Obama and McCain, President Palin is not an unlikely outcome (as Matt Damon noted).
He's now discussing his captivity. I respect and honor his service from forty years ago.
... McCain is talking about how he was worked over by his captors and how his brother POWs were there for him and encouraged him to fight for his country.
... This is boring. Bring back Palin!
... The crowd is cheering but their heart isn't in it. Not enough hatred towards Democrats and coded racial slurs. Bring back Palin!
... "Fight with me"... Is that a question?
... He's winding up for the big finish. Can't Palin do the big finish?
... It's over. And a big ole country song is next. Gotta end with a culture war signpost.
Hope you found this live-blogging mavericky, my friends. shrug
McCain said the 'me first country second crowd' should be aware that change is coming, and now he's praising Palin again. Um, dude, you're at the top of the ticket.
... "I understand who I work for. I don't work a party, I don't work for a special interest, I don't work for myself, I work for you." Good line.
... "I'd rather lose an election than see my country lose a war." And now he's praising Petraeus.
... As he talks about people who are struggling it sounds different than his discussion of the surge and war. He clearly doesn't care about this stuff.
... "We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptation of corruption... we lost their trust." He goes after Obama passing a corporate welfare bill for oil companies.
... A culture of life. "Personal responsibility. The rule of law and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench."
MAVERICK!
... I will keep taxes low, my opponent will raise them. Spending, trade, health care - Obama will eat your BABIES!!!
... Is he really going to go after unemployment insurance? Yes, he is.
... Best line from Ben Coffey Clark tweet: "This crowd response is lamer than a naughty be nature reunion tour trying to get crowd to scream heeeey. Hoooooo in rhythmn".
... He's going on about failing schools. Boring. Bring back Palin!
... Let's fire teachers! Yeah! Bomb those failing schools! That's mavericky.
... Obama wants schools that EAT YOUR BABIES, McCain wants schools that bomb the enemy.
... We'll drill those wells offshore and we'll drill them NOW!
... Browser froze. Grrr. Lots of stuff about Al Qaeda, Russia, Georgia, tough talk on the Russians trying to reassemble their empire. Now he's talking about Vietnam.
"I hate war, it's terrible beyond imagination."
... "In America we change things that need changing." Really? "Americans like things that are likeable."
He's now talking about needing to bring American institutions into a global economy, and railing against partisanship as a symptom of people who go to Washington to work for themselves and "not you."
... I'll reach across the aisle to get things done, my Democratic opponent won't!
... "I won't care who gets the credit."
... "I was blessed by misfortune." "I witnessed a thousand acts of compassion and courage and love."
.... There are protesters in the convention hall with signs that say 'you can't win an occupation'. Awesome. They also say 'McCain votes against vets'.
The GOP delegates are chanting 'USA, USA, USA'.
...Wow the protesters aren't stopping. Where are they?
...McCain is talking about his wife, and he says that she's more his inspiration than he is hers. She's concerned about those born in poverty and victimized by landmines and she'll make a great Stepford first lady.
...Why is McCain behind a green screen? This is weird.
...Now McCain is saying he respects and admires Barack Obama. "Much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans."
...Corn fields in the background? Really?
... Ore protesters. This one's a woman in pink. Awesome. Mccain is so awkward.
... He's saying that times are tough and people are shouting 'USA USA USA', it's so bizarre that McCain has lost control of his convention.
... Clearly the Republican delegates LOVE Sarah Palin and are giving her a standing O. She's such a mean girl.
... This has become a tribute to Sarah Palin and protesters. It's like McCain is a aging prop.
STATE BLOGS
