BAM!!!!
This is the same healthcare that HilaryCare was trying to sneak into us in her last Presidency.
Pray for W and Our Troops
ping
Good one!
Oh, the woman is a master of sublety.
And not to hard to look at, either.
Ann.
Not the "shrew" in the front.
She makes some great points -- I'd been wondering about unions, work rules, etc. for the maintenance and cleaning staffs at Walter Reed because from the hysteria of the 'Rats and the DBM you'd think any military officer could have made changes as they wished -- but I'll bet that the work rules and union control were rather stifling, as Coulter asserts.....
I am not certain but my understanding was that the maintenece at Walter Reed is done by a private contractor.
Democrats have leapt on reports of mold, rats and bureaucratic hurdles at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as further proof of President George Bush's failed war policies.
To the contrary, the problems at Walter Reed are further proof of the Democrats' failed domestic policies – to wit, the civil service rules that prevent government employees from ever being fired (a policy that also may account for Robert Byrd's longevity as a U.S. senator).
Thanks to the Democrats, government employees have the world's most complicated set of job protection rules outside of the old East Germany. Oddly enough, this has not led to a dynamic workforce in the nation's capital.
Noticeably, the problems at Walter Reed are not with the doctors or medical care. The problems are with basic maintenance at the facility.
Unless U.S. Army generals are supposed to be spraying fungicide on the walls and crawling under beds to set rattraps, the slovenly conditions at Walter Reed are not their fault. The military is nominally in charge of Walter Reed, but – because of civil service rules put into place by Democrats – the maintenance crew can't be fired.
If the general "in charge" can't fire the people not doing their jobs, I don't know why he is being held responsible for them not doing their jobs.
You will find the exact same problems anyplace market forces have been artificially removed by the government and there is a total absence of incentives, competition, effective oversight, cost controls and so on. It's almost like a cause-and-effect thing.
The Washington Post could have done the same report on any government facility in the Washington, D.C., area.
In a typical story from the nation's capital, last year, a 38-year-old woman died at the hospital after her blood pressure dropped and a D.C. ambulance took 90 minutes to pick her up and take her to a hospital that was five minutes away. For 90 minutes, the 911 operator repeatedly assured the woman's sister that the ambulance was on its way.
You read these stories every few months in Washington.
New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum also died in Washington last year after being treated to the famed work ethic of the average government employee. Rosenbaum was mugged near his house and hit on the head with a pipe. A neighbor found him lying on the sidewalk and immediately called 911.
First, the ambulance got lost on the way to Rosenbaum. Then, instead of taking him to the closest emergency room, the ambulance took him to Howard University Hospital, nearly 30 minutes away, because one of the "emergency medical technicians" had personal business in the area.
Once he finally arrived at the hospital, Rosenbaum was left unattended on a gurney for 90 minutes because the "emergency medical technicians" had completely missed his head injury and listed him as "drunk" and "low priority."
Months later, the deputy mayor for public safety told the Washington Post that "to the best of his knowledge, no one involved in the incident had been fired."
No one has any authority over civil service employees in the nation's capital. Bush probably lives in terror of White House janitors. The White House bathroom could be flooding and he'd be told: "I'll get to you when I get to you. Listen, fella, you're fifth on my list. I'm not making any promises; just don't flush for the next week."
It's especially adorable how Democrats and the media are acting like these are the first rats ever sighted in the Washington, D.C., area. There are rats in the Capitol building. There are rats in the Washington Post building. Bush has seen rats. But let's leave Chuck Hagel out of this for now.
On "ABC News" last year, a CBS radio reporter described a rat jumping off the camera in the White House press briefing room in the middle of a press conference. (And a shrew sits right in the front!) The Washington Post called the White House press room – located between the residence and the Oval Office – "a broken-down, rat-infested fire trap." During David Gregory's stand-up report on MSNBC about the damage done to Republicans by conditions at Walter Reed, rats appeared to be scurrying on the ground behind him.
Instead of an investigative report on the problems at Walter Reed, how about an investigative report on what happens when the head of janitorial services at Walter Reed is told about the dirt, mold and rats at the facility? If it's before 2:30 in the afternoon and he's still at work and he hasn't taken a "sick day," a "vacation day," a "personal day" or a "mental health day," I predict the answer will be: "I'm on my break."
The Democrats' response is: We must pass even more stringent rules to ensure that all government employees get every single break so that public-sector unions will continue giving massive campaign donations to the Democrats.
This was, you will recall, the precise issue that led to a partisan battle over the Homeland Security bill a few years ago: Whether employees at an emergency terrorist response agency could be fired – as Republicans wanted – or if they would be subject to civil service rules and unfireable – as the Democrats wanted.
HELLO? HOMELAND SECURITY? THERE'S A BOMB IN THE WELL OF THE SENATE!
Sorry, not my job. Try the Department of Public Works.
When Republican Saxby Chambliss challenged Democrat Max Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, he ran an ad attacking Cleland for demanding civil service protections for workers at the Homeland Security Department. Naturally, Republicans were accused of hating veterans for mentioning Cleland's vote on the Homeland Security bill.
Now that the Democrats are once again pretending to give a damn about the troops by wailing about conditions at Walter Reed, how about some Republican – maybe Chambliss! – introduce a bill to remove civil service protections from employees at Walter Reed and all veterans' hospitals? You know, a bill that would actually address the problem.
And don't worry about the useless, slothful government employees who can only hold jobs from which they cannot be fired. We'll get them jobs at the EPA and Department of Education.
BAM!!!!
Mold growth is not caused by failure to spray fungicide or to clean thoroughly. It's caused by moisture, usually from roof leaks or plumbing problems. The problem is apparently one of infrastructure deterioration.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Unmentioned is 3rd party maintenance personal no doubt mostly democrats too.. The government workers UNION is a Political PARTY.. along with the contractors.. Obscenely incestuous.. Federal, State and local governments and contractors of all types are Socialism Central..
Federal State and local governments should be SHOT..
They are ridden with LICE.... and liberal diseases..
....yeah, but are they FAGS...???
As always, Miss Coulter is precise, biting, and right on target.
What a great ability it is to see so clearly through all of the liberal nonsense.
She is an American treasure.
Ilove what she said at the end about Cleland and Chambliss. It was a pleasure to boot Cleland out of office....he's been burning bridges and showing his true colors ever since.
First, the ambulance got lost on the way to Rosenbaum. Then, instead of taking him to the closest emergency room, the ambulance took him to Howard University Hospital, nearly 30 minutes away, because one of the "emergency medical technicians" had personal business in the area.
Once he finally arrived at the hospital, Rosenbaum was left unattended on a gurney for 90 minutes because the "emergency medical technicians" had completely missed his head injury and listed him as "drunk" and "low priority."
Months later, the deputy mayor for public safety told The Washington Post that "to the best of his knowledge, no one involved in the incident had been fired."
Great of Ann to put in this nice section so liberals would have a chance to "relate". Coulter's great.
As a member of the DC Chapter and a weekly volunteer at Walter Reed, I would like to point out a couple of things.
First, anyone with a heart would like to see soldiers having relief from bureaucratic nightmares regarding their paperwork and medical care. However, I venture to say that there are few people in the United States with comparable injuries who have not also experienced a bureaucratic nightmare with their hospital and insurance company.
Secondly, the Washington Post articles citing mold and rats referred to Building 18. That building is not a medical care facility, it is a barracks. It is not on the main 116-acre campus of Walter Reed; it is a former motel across the 6-lane avenue that was purchased as an overflow residence.
Of all the approximately 120 rooms in Building 18, only 7 of them were affected by mold according to my sources, representing about 5% of the rooms in Building 18, which is only one of many, many barracks and residences associated with the Walter Reed base. The mold was caused by a bathtub overflow. The men who stay in Building 18 are on MedHold -- they are either outpatients whose injuries are not serious enough to require hospitalization or who are healed up and awaiting orders to go home or to go back into their units. Some times they drink and party on the weekends, leave pizza boxes around and other mess that would attract vermin in any city in the United States, as Coulter illustrated in her column.
Several concerned soldiers held a press conference last week attended by all the major news outlets. They wanted to set the record straight and tell their side of the story -- that they feel they are receiving great care at Walter Reed and that the original series of articles contained serious flaws and misleading claims. Did you see any articles or televised stories as a result of their news conference, which lasted over an hour? Neither did I. Even FoxNews only did a less-than-one-minute clip, according to my sources who were at the conference.
I would also like to point out that when I have been talking with soldiers at Walter Reed, I have heard complaints from two of the head-injury patients that they believed that WR does not understand the needs of head injury patients as well as those of amputees.
Two of the soldiers whose complaints were quoted in the Washington Post were head injury patients. I was fairly well acquainted with one of them and knew the other one in passing. I have also known a few civilian head injury patients over the years, including one who went on to do graduate work in brain injury and who discussed the topic with me at length; I was working as a writer about medical issues at the time.
We need to take into account that the brain is not a mechanical part like a leg or arm that may be rebuilt or to which a prosthesis may be attached. It can be greatly more difficult to assess and repair a head injury than a limb injury. Furthermore, many head injury patients experience bouts of combativeness and rage. While understandable from a psychological point of view, rage after head injury may also be a physiological response that takes an indeterminate amount of time and pharmaceutical intervention to manage and resolve. Therefore, we should allow a wider margin of credibility when evaluating the comments by Walter Reed head injury patients about their care. Instead, their angry responses have been taken as gospel by the sensationalizing news reports and waves of chatter afterwards, including on this forum.
And finally, as a householder with a nice middle-class life, I must nevertheless admit that I have had mice in both the houses I have owned at one time or another, that the mice in the City were bigger than the ones in the suburbs; and that once I had a City water main break that dumped two feet of water into my basement, rusted out my heater and clothes dryer and ruined my stored business records and clothing and my kid's baby furniture. We had rot and mold problems afterwards that took us months to clean up – none of which State Farm would cover. Yet no one took my child away nor threatened to impeach me as a parent. And no congressional oversight committee denounced anyone, nor demanded that I be repaid by the City or the insurer, because there was nothing to be gained politically by it. But there has been plenty to be gained by the fame-seeking reporters and the grandstanding politicians who could easily have visited Walter Reed countless times during the past 5 years of war – but didn't.
The exposé articles were written to embarrass the Bush administration, to worry and harass the soldiers, to give aid and comfort to the Democrat quislings in Congress and to discourage enlistments. Don't think for a moment the authoresses cared one bit about the troops. The troops were just Pulitzer-fodder for another generation of Woodward 'n' Bernstein wannabes.