Monday, April 27, 2009

Swine flu, no HHS Secretary; Tough times for GOP.

Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest points out one major problem:

We face a potential swine flu pandemic, and we do not have the people in place in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that we need. Why not? The Republicans are blocking confirmation of Obama’s nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Why are they blocking this nomination? Because Gov. Sebelius won’t approve Kansas Republican bills to block abortion even if the abortion will save the mother’s life. They say she is “an enemy of the unborn,” because she thinks doctors should be able to save the mother’s life.

So as you worry about this possible flu pandemic, think about why your government is not yet fully up and running to do its part and protect us.

As we saw when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, government-hating Republicans destroyed our ability to respond to emergencies, and instead set up a system where contracts were awarded to cronies who collected the cash but never delivered the services. And now they continue to block our government’s ability to protect us, because they think that a mother’s life is not as important as a fetus.

The Republicans fought hard and got all of the money for pandemic flu preparedness taken out of the stimulus package. Quick, before it is taken down, here is Republican Senator Collins' website bragging that she led the fight to remove "$780 million for pandemic-flu preparedness" from the stimulus package! And here is Karl Rove, with talking points attacking the stimulus package spending on "$462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations."

1 comment:

airJackie said...

Every time they open their mouth it turns out wrong and makes them look like the idiots they are. Now they will have to pass the Heath Secretary Post. It is interesting on how quickly this crisis was dealt with compared to now slow the Katrian Storm victims were treated. Yes I know Bush was busy playing in his coloring book for 5 days, while President Obama is doing the job 24/7.