United States News Digest

Firedoglake: Use 25th Amendment To Impeach Obama

April 3 (EIRNS)—The left-liberal website FireDogLake.com prominently posted a piece by blogger Bin Quick on March 31 calling for President Obama to be ousted via Section 4 of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution:

"Barack Obama's failure to stand up to the Republican Party has endangered America's economy, social safety-net, and national security. Barack Obama is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and he doesn't have the required leadership qualities to lead the Democratic Party or America. I urge Vice President Biden and the Cabinet to remove Barack Obama under the provisions of the 25th Amendment, Section 4. In the event Vice President Biden and the Cabinet fail, I beg Sec. Hillary Clinton to resign immediately and announce her candidacy for President in 2012."

The article, entitled "My Pledge to the Democratic Party," was initially posted on the Bin Quick blog on Dec. 3, 2010.

Cost-Cutting Breakthrough: Assisted Suicides Up in Washington, Oregon

April 2 (EIRNS)—In what could be viewed as a pilot project for the death counselling promoted by Obama's Medicare administrator Sir Donald Berwick, 51 people were killed under Washington State's assisted-suicide law in 2010, after taking lethal medications prescribed by doctors. In Oregon, the only other state with a physician-assisted suicide law, 65 patients died last year after taking suicide concoctions prescribed by doctors.

In a press release, the Hemlock Society, aka Compassion & Choices of Oregon, boasts that suicide is becoming "a normal part of end-of-life care options."

But Margaret Dore, an attorney who has campaigned against assisted suicide, suggests that this "normalization" is precisely the problem. "With the normalization of suicide under the Oregon and Washington [physician-assisted suicide laws], other suicides became normalized as well," she is quoted as saying in the National Catholic Register.

AARP: An Extension of the Inter-Alpha Empire

April 2 (EIRNS)—The AARP is not a do-good association of retired persons: It is a bought-and-paid-for front for Nazi health-care leader UnitedHealth. As of 2009, income generated by AARP from its huge membership base of over 35 million, constituted only about 17% of its revenue, because income from royalties was 46% of its revenue, from selling rights to use its logo to the big private, for-profit health insurance outfits, the biggest being British-run UnitedHealth.

This was one of the revelations made in a staff report released yesterday, during a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee. According to the report:

"United is AARP's largest business partner. As part of the United and AARP business agreement, all three of the Medicare insurance product lines are marketed under the AARP name brand. From 2007 to 2009, United's royalty payments to AARP have grown from $284 million in 2007 to $427 million in 2009, a 50% increase."

"Since 2002, income generated from AARP membership dues has increased 32%, or $60 million. However, during this same period, income derived from AARP's business relationships, primarily with insurance companies, nearly tripled, increasing by $417 million."

NICE Comes to U.S.A.—Kidney Disease Sufferers Targeted To Die

April 1 (EIRNS)—A law passed by Congress in 1972, which provides nearly free care to almost all patients who need kidney dialysis, is now under attack in order to cut this treatment back for elderly patients under Medicare. A New York Times article today features various groups, such as a committee of the Renal Physicians Association, discussing guidelines to use when dialysis is "appropriate," rather than providing it to all in need. One question doctors are told to ask: Would I be surprised if this patient is dead within a year?

There are 400,000 dialysis patients in the United States—and more than one-third of them are 65 or over. The cost of providing dialysis is thus increasing, now estimated at $40 to 50 billion this year. One doctor, Peter Aronson at Yale University School of Medicine, is quoted calling the program "so emblematic of good intentions misapplied. The question is how to dial it back."

In reality, this soft "human interest" report is a cover for the compulsory Hitler health policy for cutting treatment for the elderly, as the Blair-British NICE policy does. NICE mandates treating chronic kidney disease according to a "what is your life worth" calculus, and is notorious for denying dialysis for older patients with multiple illnesses. NICE-lover Dr. Donald Berwick, head of the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has followed suit. On Dec. 29, CMS decreed a new framework for paying for dialysis, which applies a point system depending upon "quality standards."

That's sophistical language for saying the elderly, who will never return to full health, should be denied dialysis, and die.

Did Obama's Pet Michelle Rhee Cheat on D.C. Schools' Test Scores?

March 29 (EIRNS)—In an October 2008 campaign debate, Obama called Michelle Rhee, "Washington's wonderful new superintendent." Indeed, when Michelle Rhee brought her school "reform" program to Washington, D.C. schools, along with her mass firings of teachers and closing of schools, there were immediate apparent successes.

But now, USAToday has exposed that those sudden, drastic improvements in test scores were likely all faked. The USAToday investigation focused on Noyes Middle School, a school whose performance was so good that Rhee twice in three years bestowed huge cash bonuses on both teachers ($8,000 apiece) and principal ($10,000). In 2009, Noyes was one of 264 schools nationwide to earn a "blue ribbon" award; in 2010, D.C. schools got $75 million from Obama's Race to the Top program, which is mostly based on test scores.

Through FOIA releases, USAToday discovered that there was a pattern of "erasures" on Noyes and other schools' tests, that showed a statistically improbable percentage of wrong answers being changed to right ones. In one 7th grade reading exam in 2009, correct erasures occurred an average of 12.7 times per student, per test, while the national average in 1 time per test. System wide, 103 schools or over half of the schools in the DC system, showed deviations above the national average at least once since 2008.

Unfortunately, the real losers in this drama are the children—the future. Since the enraged voters of Washington, D.C. drove Rhee out of office last Fall, the test scores of Noyes students have suddenly dropped off, just as fast as they rose. In 2008, math proficiency at Noyes jumped 22%, to 84%. In 2010, these same students tested at only 52% proficiency.

On to the HBPA: Judge Halts 1,700 Foreclosures!

March 28 (EIRNS)—Cook County, Ill. Circuit Court Judge Moshe Jacobius has taken the unusual step of temporarily halting over 1,700 mortgage foreclosures, some dating as far back as 2001, after a law firm told the court that the cases contained altered documents. Cook County's major city is Chicago.

In a perverted sequel to the "robo-signing" scandal, Fisher and Shapiro, one of three "white shoe" law firms representing the "servicers," somehow admitted in open court that documents were altered after being signed by homebuyers. In what the Chicago Tribune refers to as a case of "sloppy paperwork," altered documents included, "addition of attorney fees, insurance costs, preservation costs, inspection costs and taxes on the property, costs that may have been incurred before or after the servicer signed the original affidavit." In many cases, signature pages were removed, then replaced after falsified documents were inserted. "Sloppy," indeed.

Not that this case was necessary to stress the importance of LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. Last year, Cook County had over 50,000 initial mortgage default notices filed; at year's end, over 70,000 active cases remained. Judge Jacobius has ordered law firm Fisher and Shapiro to notify affected homeowners, although it is not clear whether they have done so. Facts point to the law firms as the guilty parties, but the individual cases cannot be removed from the swill of the entire foreclosure mess. The stay on the 1,700 cases is not permanent; in fact, legal actions to clear it could start as early as April 4.