Context is for when our guys say stupid things.
*** Update ***
Now it is viral.
This post is in: Media, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, General Stupidity
by Tim F| 18 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Another batch of Sergeant Schutzes uncovered, this time at the FDA.
In a report due to be released Friday, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson, said federal health officials did not know how many clinical trials were being conducted, audited fewer than 1 percent of the testing sites and, on the rare occasions when inspectors did appear, generally showed up long after the tests had been completed.
The F.D.A. has 200 inspectors, some of whom audit clinical trials part time, to police an estimated 350,000 testing sites. Even when those inspectors found serious problems in human trials, top drug officials in Washington downgraded their findings 68 percent of the time, the report found. Among the remaining cases, the agency almost never followed up with inspections to determine whether the corrective actions that the agency demanded had occurred, the report found.
“In many ways, rats and mice get greater protection as research subjects in the United States than do humans,” said Arthur L. Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Charming. I suppose the next administration will have the pleasant job of figuring out how many recently-approved drugs don’t work or have ridiculously dangerous side effects. But look on the bright side! The brouhaha that follows could put more trial lawyers’ kids through college than asbestos.
by John Cole| 46 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics, General Stupidity
Imagine how amused I am watching Captain Ed and alleged libertarian McQ get upset about this story:
Starting today, state Department of Revenue agents will begin stopping Tennessee motorists spotted buying large quantities of cigarettes in border states, then charging them with a crime and, in some cases, seizing their cars.
Critics say the new “cigarette surveillance program” amounts to the use of “police state” tactics and wrongfully interferes with interstate commerce. But state Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr says his department is simply doing its job, enforcing a valid state law while protecting Tennessee retailers who properly pay state taxes.
Agents have already been watching out-of-state stores that sell cigarettes near the Tennessee border to “get a feel where problem areas are,” Farr said.
I don’t understand why this is such a big deal- after all, you guys allow the state to do anything when they are trying to protect us, and the guy clearly says he is doing just that.
After all- if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about! AMIRITE?
by Tim F| 55 Comments
This post is in: Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Facing a contracting embarrassment of abu Ghraib proportions, the State Department needs a credible oversight team now more than ever. Too bad for them the current Inspector General, Howard J. Krongard, already pulled up the drawbridge against accusations of fraud, corruption, mismanagement and (not kidding) slavery. An article in today’s WaPo covers that ground again, but in a shocking twist the reporters uncovered at least one case that IG Krongard does seem to care about:
The son and daughter-in-law of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard have asked a judge to issue a restraining order forcing him to stop sending “unprofessional and highly offensive” e-mails that suggested the family would be put “on the street” if they lost a lawsuit Krongard has filed against them, according to documents filed last week in a New Jersey court.
[…] Krongard filed suit last year against his son, Kenneth W. Krongard, and his daughter-in-law, Kristin, over a home loan that he said they had defaulted on. They paid back the full loan — then totaling about $320,000 — within weeks of his suit being filed.
But Krongard has demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional interest and penalties and a full repayment of his legal fees. One of the exhibits on file in the case show that Krongard has claimed he has already been billed nearly $114,000 in legal fees.
Your Bush administration. Class acts all.
by John Cole| 45 Comments
This post is in: Media, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
For those of you tantalized by the prospect of a Gingrich Presidential run, Newt will be on Captain Ed’s radio show today. Might be worth a listen.
I can not think of anything that would destroy Republican chances in 2008 more than a Gingrich run.
by John Cole| 68 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Previous Site Maintenance
Couldn’t sleep last night, so I ended up listening/watching/trying to fall asleep while watching the reruns of the Democratic Debate (normally I use C-Span on a 20 minute auto-timer shutoff on the tv, but the debates were on, so I said what the hell). Some observations:
1.) Kucinich has no chance at winning.
2.) Obama is not ready for primetime.
3.) Edwards seems almost to be trying too hard to be the outsider.
4.) It would not surprise me at all to hear Gavel, at some point in a future debate, yell “GET OFF MY GRASS.”
5.) I still like Dodd and Richardson.
6.) Biden came off better than usual last night, and had several moments of straightforward honesty (one thing he said that stuck me as true was when he was talking about Hillary having problems getting things done because she is Hillary and comes with all her baggage from the 90’s).
7.) Nothing is going to stop Hillary.
Consider this an open thread.
by Tim F| 91 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, War
Me, two days ago:
Does the Iraqi government have a home video showing mercenaries from the Blackwater firm firing wild into a crowd of Iraqi civilians? If so it could be very, very bad news. Words can inform but pictures, especially moving pictures, carry emotional impact in a way that written accounts almost never do. Fairly specific stories about what we did at abu Ghraib circulated from reporters like Seymour Hersh for quite some time before one CD of pictures blew the story wide open.
WaPo, today:
“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib…”
The Pentagon is furious, State has pushed the panic button and Condoleeza Rice finds herself inventing new privileges to dodge Congress. Read the whole scoop at TPM Muckraker.
Of the many lurid angles to this story, I keep coming back to Donald Rumsfeld’s abu Ghraib defense, which was to claim (falsely) that he knew nothink! and that he acted properly once it came to his attention. If the Blackwater scandal grows into another abu Ghraib-scale fuckup for America, I don’t think that Rice can even pretend to make that sort of defense. Rice plainly knows what happened and she knows that it keeps happening, yet (1) she steadfastly refuses to allow the faintest hint of oversight, (2) she openly refuses to allow consequences for the shooters, and (3) she goes on using Blackwater as if nothing has happened. When and if this story goes to hell Rice will be operating without Rumsfeld’s fig leaf of deniability.
Whether that even matters, though, is another story. An administration that kept Alberto Gonzales for months after most Republicans wrote him off can probably hang on to a disgraced Secretary of State for a surprisingly long time.