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Posts Tagged ‘Associated Press’

As a Republican do you believe a Democratic administration would deny health care to Republicans?

April 16th, 2011 24 comments

GOP hints Dems would deny Republicans health care
From Associated Press
August 28, 2009 1:42 PM EDT
WASHINGTON – The Republican national party has mailed a fundraising appeal suggesting Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans.

A questionnaire accompanying the appeal says the government could check voting registration records, "prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system."

It asks, "Does this possibility concern you?"

Katie Wright, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said the question was "inartfully worded."

But she said people should worry because government officials would have access to personal financial and medical data.

"The RNC doesn’t try to scare people," said Wright. "We’re just trying to get the facts out on health care. And that’s what we do every day."

Jon Vogel, executive director of the Democratic House campaign organization, called the GOP letter "shameless fear-mongering."

In a fundraising e-mail of his own seeking to raise $100,000 by Aug. 31, Vogel wrote the Republican accusation was "just a preview of the falsehoods, fabrications and outright lies Republicans will be pushing when Congress returns in September."

The allegation is the latest instance in which some critics of the health care effort have made inflammatory unfounded claims – such as conservatives who claimed the legislation would create "death panels" that they said could lead to euthanizing elderly people.

The suggestion that Republicans might not receive care is included in a "Future of American Health Care Survey" containing 13 questions, most of which are critical of the Democratic health care effort. The technique, referred to as a "push poll," is used often in political campaigns by both parties and is designed to spread negative information, not to sample public opinion.

Another question asks, "Do you believe it is justified to ration health care regardless of whether an individual has contributed to the cost of the treatment?"

The survey is accompanied by a two-page letter signed by Michael Steele, chairman of the national Republican party. The letter accuses Democrats of "moving swiftly to bring European-style socialized medicine here," but makes no mention of the possibility that Republicans might be denied coverage.

Wright did not immediately respond when asked who had crafted the wording of the survey questions, and which GOP officials had signed off on it.

The questionnaire was first reported by The Washington Independent, a progressive-leaning nonprofit news and politics Web site based in Washington.

No I do not but however it is an intriguing idea not without merit.Its obvious appeal would be that self-professed sturdy REAL AMERICANS
could put into practice values of self-reliance which they so cherish.Unless these exponents of LIBERTY have not noticed medical care is already rationed by INSURANCE COMPANIES whose only allegiance is to profit realized by denying health care and treatment.

Officials: Financial crisis can lead to violence. Your thoughts?

April 11th, 2010 2 comments

By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 43 minutes ago

An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.

In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family’s mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I’ll be dead."

Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.

Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation’s financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full.

"I’ve had a number of people say that this is the thing most reminiscent of 9/11 that’s happened here since then," said the Rev. Canon Ann Malonee, vicar at Trinity Church in the heart of New York’s financial district. "It’s that sense of having the rug pulled out from under them."

With nowhere else to turn, many people are calling suicide-prevention hot lines. The Samaritans of New York have seen calls rise more than 16 percent in the past year, many of them money-related. The Switchboard of Miami has recorded more than 500 foreclosure-related calls this year.

"A lot of people are telling us they are losing everything. They’re losing their homes, they’re going into foreclosure, they’ve lost their jobs," said Virginia Cervasio, executive director of a suicide resource enter in southwest Florida’s Lee County.

Suicide. Family homicides. Beyond scary! ( o _ 0 )

It leads to alot of things. This is not gonna be pretty by any means.

Doesn’t it seem Bush likes to be part of someone’s death?

March 24th, 2010 4 comments

Only a few years ago he was at an interview and was chuckling about a woman’s imminent killing on death row. Bush has the govenor’s of Texas record of death row killings and now he’s taking this to the presidency.

VANCOUVER (CBC) – U.S. President George W. Bush became the first American president in 51 years to approve the execution of a soldier on Monday.

Administration officials said Bush signed the paperwork approving the military’s request to execute an army private who has been on death row since 1988, the Associated Press reported……..
SORRY bUSTER — I gave you no thumbs either down or up.
I agree. He should be put to death. But that wasn’t the question. You must, also, remember that the death penalty in most forward thing developed countries is considered barbaric. I can see their point.

The man killed 4 people and raped 8 others

He should have died years ago

He is a disgrace to the military

was the death of Marine Lance Cpl Dustin Canham a accident?

December 11th, 2009 4 comments

Was this a cover-up by the USMC or was it an accident read the story:Family raises questions about Marine’s death in Africa

Zoom

By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
On the afternoon of March 23, two superiors took a 21-year-old Marine, Lance Cpl. Dustin Canham, into a tent at Camp Lemonier, a U.S. base in the rocky desert of the Horn of Africa.

Exactly what happened inside remains unclear, except this: Canham died.

In letters, the Marines told Canham’s family he collapsed while exercising. His father and his 19-year-old widow believe that’s half the story. They were told by Canham’s fellow Marines that he was being punished for accidentally chipping another Marine’s tooth. They suspect he might have dropped dead from being forced to work out too hard.

A military autopsy determined the manner of death to be "natural" and said Canham had a mildly enlarged heart. But the medical examiners were not told the circumstances of Canham’s death and thus did not consider heat exhaustion as a possible cause, The Associated Press has learned.

After the AP raised questions last week, Armed Forces Medical Examiner Craig T. Mallak and the deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy, Cmdr. Timothy D. Monaghan, told the family they would take another look at Canham’s case.

"They try to make it sound routine, but there’s nothing routine about taking one Marine aside," said Canham’s widow, Devyn. "Why wouldn’t they be doing their daily exercises together?"

The AP has also learned that one of the two superiors who brought Canham into the tent, Sgt. Jesus Diaz, was reassigned out of the platoon following the death.

A spokeswoman at Marine Corps headquarters declined to comment, citing the continuing investigation, as did representatives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is conducting its own inquiry. The AP was unable to locate contact information for Diaz or the other superior, Cpl. Richard Abril.

Canham, 21, of Lake Stevens, had arrived at Camp Lemonier, in the African nation of Djibouti, about a week earlier. The U.S. maintains the 500-acre base for its Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, which blends traditional security and training roles with humanitarian efforts to combat terrorism.

Canham was assigned to the Marine Forces Reserve’s 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, out of Portland, Ore., but was primarily based at Fort Lewis. In Djibouti, he was serving with the 8th Provisional Security Company, installing and repairing fuel equipment.

None of his platoon mates would comment when contacted by the AP. But some did speak with Devyn, telling her that earlier in the day, Dustin was unloading a truck with other Marines when they began joking around and throwing rocks at each other. Dustin chipped another Marine’s tooth, she said.

Shortly before 4 p.m., Diaz and Abril brought Canham into a tent. Dustin soon collapsed; other Marines saw Diaz run out of the tent to get help, Devyn said. Resuscitation efforts failed. He was pronounced dead at the camp’s medical clinic at 5:12 p.m.

One letter to the family, written by Lt. Col. J.R. Hill of the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, said, "Dustin was in his air-conditioned quarters while exercising when he unexpectedly collapsed," and added that "the Marines who found him" immediately called for help.

Another, written by Lt. Col. Thomas E. Foos, commanding officer of 8th Provisional Security Company, and Capt. Craig E. Harris, commander of Alpha Company at Lemonier, said, "Dustin was exercising with his fire team leader in his tent doing what we call the Daily Seven" _ an exercise routine that includes push-ups and core-body work _ and that he collapsed after just two or three minutes.

None of the letters explained why Canham was in the tent with two superiors. Devyn Canham said three Marines told her it was not Dustin’s own tent, but another that might not have been air-conditioned. The high temperature that afternoon neared the mid-90s.

Dustin’s father, Mark Canham, said an investigator confirmed to him that Dustin was doing physical training in lieu of receiving a black mark on his record, typically referred to as a "page 11," when he died. Devyn said no military officials have told her that.

The nine-page autopsy report makes no mention of Canham exercising; it says merely that he collapsed while in his quarters. Canham’s heart weighed 450 grams, at the top of the normal range.

The medical examiner listed the cause of death as a thickening of the left ventricular wall, a condition sometimes found in endurance athletes. Canham was in excellent shape, his family said.

"His enlarged heart and hypertrophic left ventricular wall left him vulnerable to disruption of life-sustaining cardiac rhythms," Monaghan concluded.

Heat exhaustion can cause such a disruption.

Dr. Allen Burke, director of the Kernan Hospital Pathology Laboratory at the University of Maryland, provided a consultation for the autopsy. He agreed with the finding about Dustin’s heart condition, but said examination did "not disclose an anatomic cause of death."

Although Mark Canham signed a privacy waiver authorizing the military to discuss the autopsy with the AP, the military would not allow an interview with the pathologists. The AP instead gave its questions to Mark Canham, who asked them of Monaghan last week.

According to Mark Canham, Monaghan said that he was unaware Dustin had been exercising or that he was being punished when he died, and that he had no reason to suspect heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Mallak confirmed that, Devyn and her lawyer said.

Mark Canham has spent the past two months trying to contact his son’s friends in the Marines, investigators and members of Congress to pry loose any information he can.

"I just want to know what happened," he said. "I wish I could let the whole thing go. But that would be a grave injustice to my son."

(© 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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It sounds like he was being punished–if true–physical training is not something that is routine when you are out of a training enviroment–but it is not unheard of–

It is possible this was happening–but it does not sound like it is anything more than that–It does not sound like murder–it sounds like an accident.

High school athletes die just like this –all the time.

They are working out and their heart gives out–because of some undiagnosed heart condition.

I feel sorry for the family but it does not sound like it was premeditated.