A link to a story in the New London (CT) Day (story will be available for only a few days) arrived in my e-mail yesterday thanks to a Google alert:

Deed Gives NL Building A New Address
Italian Dramatic Club outlived street it used to be on in fort area

The story stands as a bitter reminder of the blatant favoritism that took place during the sad saga of Susette Kelo and her neighbors in the Ft. Trumbull area of that Connecticut town.

Ms. Kelo and her neighbors had their homes condemned, and ultimately lost in appeals that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where in June 2005 that court’s majority ruled that when our Founders wrote “public use” in the Constitution’s 5th Amendment (i.e., building a bridge, or a road, or a school), they really meant “public purpose” (doing anything the government deems to be a worthy cause, including taking someone’s property and conveying it to another for a worthy “development” cause).

As you can see from the following Google Earth map image that is probably about two years old, the Italian Dramatic Club (IDC) sits virtually alone at 79 Chelsea Street:

The remaining houses seen near the bottom on Wabash Street were vacant, and have probably been demolished. If I recall correctly, Susette Kelo’s pink house was at the corner of East Street and Wabash. The home of other final holdouts, the Cristofaros, was next door to the IDC.

The IDC is a private social club for well-connected political elites in the surrounding area. Key paragraphs from the Day’s story explain why it’s still there:

It’s been nearly 10 years since the New London Development Corp. decided to spare a private social club in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood while razing nearly all other houses, stores, churches and office buildings.

….. When the Fort Trumbull Municipal Development plan was approved in 1999, the club, which was built in 1922 by Italians from the region of Fano, Italy, was supposed to be torn down along with the rest of the neighborhood. But the club, which offers monthly dinners to its members and guests, was spared demolition. Aldo Valentini, the late trustee of the club, said in 2000 that the 108 members were ready to fight to keep the wrecking ball away but were soon told by the NLDC that they could stay.

Jay Levin, a New London attorney who is a friend of several members of the club, worked with the NLDC to spare the club.

”We were hearing the place was going to be torn down. But I never believed that would be the case,” he said at the time. “I think the NLDC recognized that as the city changes, aspects of the city’s heritage have to remain sacrosanct.”

….. years later, after litigation that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, property owners lost their fight. Today, every building on the 90-acre site is gone, except for a relatively new office building at 1 Chelsea St. and the IDC.

Notice how careful the Day is to avoid mentioning what seems to have become its own version of a four-letter word: Kelo.

The national media almost never mentioned the IDC’s free pass, which I consider an epic fail given the gravity of the case. A Google News Archive search on ["Italian Dramatic Club" New London] for 1998 through 2006 (typed as indicated within brackets) has only 14 results. Only two true news items are from 2001, when the IDC received its exemption, and they are local. There are excellent Jewish World Review columns by John Fund in 2001 and and Doug Bandow in 2002. There is an odious February 2005 Washington Post editorial that, while noting the blatant double standard, nonetheless says that “federal courts shouldn’t be second-guessing the city’s determination of how best to accomplish that very public goal (of development).” Otherwise, the coverage of this important element of the Kelo situation is almost as barren as the Ft. Trumbull area involved is today.

Oh, did I forget to note that a New York Times search on “Italian Dramatic Club” indicates that the paper never mentioned its exemption during the entire term of the case?

If the IDC’s exemption from the wrecking ball had been known to the public during the Kelo saga, I daresay that the attitudes of many who followed the case might have been more sympathetic to the litigants.

Meanwhile in the affected area, 2008 ended as 2007 and 2006 did, with nothing substantive done. But we’re still supposed to believe that government knows best, while it hands out perks to the favored and literally bulldozes over those who get in its way.

Also, don’t miss a couple of the choice comments left at the Day’s story.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Hoo boy. It’s here.

I am NOT responsible for the headline at PJM, which is of course free to put up, within reason, whatever headline they think will garner reader attention.

That said, a “boycott” to me implies a high-level, organized, and concerted effort. I am NOT advocating that, though of course others may choose that route. The word “boycott” only appears in the article text twice:

• in connection with a previous organized effort against Ford.
• as a futile suggestion relative to banks, which have virtually all taken the money Hank Paulson is giving them (or forcing on them).

The word “boycott” does not appear in connection with my take on what to do about GM and Chrysler.

I believe what is fairly likely to happen (and may be happening already, given Chrysler’s 53% sales drop in December, which included 12 bailout days) is that a significant-enough percentage of American individuals and families will independently, and without outside orchestration, reach the conclusion that they will not buy GM or Chrysler cars because of those two companies’ demands for and acceptance of government bailout money. They will instead go to Ford, which has not accepted government bailout money, if they want to buy from a US-headquartered company, or they will go elsewhere. I suppose that some will consider this a “self-directed boycott.”

Anyway, go read the whole thing. It will appear here at BizzyBlog on Friday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires, under my original title, “What’s a Bailout Opponent To Do?”

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Update, 10:55 a.m.: Expanding on the need not to support bailed-out entities — The New York Times is contending in its coverage of December’s results that sales are going to be quite a bit lower for quite a long time. If so, continuation of current market conditions makes ever more non-stop bailout installments inevitable — unless GM and Chrysler sales stay in the tank so deeply compared to the other makers that it’s obvious that car buyers are shunning the companies, and will continue to until they go the bankruptcy route and emerge truly transformed.

If it becomes clear that a turnaround isn’t possible, even the politicians will abandon ship. This could happen as early as March 31 if the shunning takes hold during the rest of the winter.

If all of this transpires, the $17 billion sent to GM and Chrysler by that time will be money sent down the drain. But:

a) Most of us already really know that to be the case, and
b) At least that will be the end of it. At about $60 for each person in the US, it will be a relatively inexpensive lesson learned.

That’s why not buying GM and Chrysler cars is in my opinion so important. It’s really the only actionable outlet available for consumer-taxpayers outraged at never-ending bailouts who want to put a stop to them.

….. But I don’t Have Any Time For:

• The Institute for Supply Management Data from the last few days has been grim, but the patient still has a pulse — The Manufacturing Index (covering about 15% of the economy) dropped again in December, this time to a pitiful 32.4%. The Non-Manufacturing Index (covering the rest) went up to 40.6%, but is still firmly in contraction mode (which is anything below 50%). If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the more important NMI walloped expectations that it would go down to 36.5% from November’s 37.3% (but Manufacturing trailed expectations badly).
• Ed Morrissey fired a rare blank yesterday at Hot Air in “Lesson not learned: SUV sales outpace sedans.” If families conclude that they need large vehicles and are willing to pay the (gas) price, what’s wrong with that? Besides, given current worldwide reserves, an unencumbered market for oil should be counted on to deliver sub-$2 gas for many, many years. It’s when the cartels and governments try to reduce consumption, pretend that we can live without oil, or pretend that we’re running out of it — when the reality is that they are obsessed with preventing us from getting what’s there — that prices rise steeply.
• The 149th Carnival of Ohio Politics, adroitly assembled by Dan Williamson of Buckeye RINO, is here.
• Thanks to the Anchoress for this squib — “Best Business Blog: For the life of me I don’t know why Bizzyblog isn’t in here.”
• Ted Strickland is clearly happy with Ohio’s 2008 early-voting fiasco as it went down, because he vetoed a bill that would have prevented same-day registration and voting. Glad that’s on the record. So is my unrefuted and backed-by-experience assertion that early voting is a travesty.
• From the “All Is Not Lost” Dept. — “Humana to add 700 jobs; Already moving nearly 1,200 employees into its new building in Walnut Hills (in Cincinnati), Humana Inc. will add up to 700 more jobs in the region during the next three years.”
• OK, regulation cheerleaders, regulate this — “A PIONEERING climate change project in Africa run by Robin Birley, the socialite, has been accused by the European commission, its main donor, of making unsubstantiated claims about its environmental impact. ….. The project attempts to offset an individual’s carbon footprint by paying poor farmers in Mozambique to plant trees …..” Go further, and you’ll see that the project is really causing trees to be cut down.
• After all the scare tactics employed at the prospect of people having control of their Social Security retirement funds three years ago, it’s nice to see that Americans, according to Rasmussen, favor giving people the right to opt out of the system by 46%-38% — which also proves as much as one poll can that this is a firmly center-right country. Unfortunately, the political class could care less.

To say that President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic is not liked by Euro-elitists is a grand understatement.

European media has generally bent over backwards to give European Union politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels respect and the benefit of the doubt. If there is a voter referendum that enhances EU power, the press is for it, and those in countries like Ireland who reject its advances towards smiley-faced socialism are unenlightened.

Even France’s widely disliked Nicolas Sarkozy received favorable treatment from the Europhile press during his 2008 stint as EU President.

That has changed now that Klaus, a fervent advocate of democracy and ardent opponent of statism, whatever its disguises — including “climate change” — has taken over that office.

David Charter, Europe correspondent for the UK Times Online, led the charge last Friday (the picture and caption above is from the Times’s story page), and reported that things are getting quite testy between Klaus and the Europe uber alles crowd:

EU’s new figurehead believes climate change is a myth

The European Union’s new figurehead believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the union to a Communist state.

The views of President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, 67, have left the government of Mirek Topolanek, his bitter opponent, determined to keep him as far away as possible from the EU presidency, which it took over from France yesterday.

The Czech president, who caused a diplomatic incident by dining with opponents of the EU’s Lisbon treaty on a recent visit to Ireland, has a largely ceremonial role.

But there are already fears that, after the dynamic EU presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy – including his hyper-active attempts at international diplomacy over the credit crisis and Georgia as well as an historic agreement to cut greenhouse gases – the Czech effort will be mired in infighting and overshadowed by the platform it will give to Mr Klaus and his controversial views.

Czech diplomats in Brussels insist that Mr Klaus is not a big part of their plans and are trying to limit him to one speech to the European Parliament in February and chairing one international summit, either the EU-Canada or EU-Russia meeting.

….. Tensions recently erupted between Mr Klaus and Brussels when a private meeting with senior MEPs descended into a slanging match after they presented him with an EU flag and said that they were not interested in his Eurosceptic views.

Mr Klaus responded: “No one has spoken to me in this style and tone in my six years here. I thought these methods ended for us 18 years ago. I see I was wrong.”

This led to a counter-attack from Mr Sarkozy in the European Parliament. He told MEPs: “The president of the European Parliament should not be treated like this and Europe’s symbols should not be treated like this, whatever people’s political engagement.”

What should not be lost in all of this is that Klaus is likely in better touch with the mood and outlook of average Europeans than the insulated bureaucrats and elitist politicians in Brussels. It’s no secret that the blowback against radical steps to fight the non-problem of “climate change” is continent-wide, and growing ever more fierce.

In fact, as CCNet’s Benny Peiser noted in the Wall Street Journal in mid-December, Europe has gone wobbly while the administration of the new president-elect of the US may be poised dive headfirst into the globaloney pool:

Participants at last week’s United Nations climate conference in Poznan, Poland, were taken aback by a world seemingly turned upside-down. The traditional villains and heroes of the international climate narrative, the wicked U.S. and the noble European Union, had unexpectedly swapped roles. For once, it was the EU that was criticized for backpedalling on its CO2 targets while Europe’s climate nemesis, the U.S., found itself commended for electing an environmental champion as president.

Thus, Klaus arrives at his supposed “figurehead” position at the EU just as European public opinion has swung dramatically his way. No wonder Europe’s media is going out of its way to aspersions on him. Expect US media either to follow suit or to somehow forget one of its favorite mantras — “we should be just like Europe” — for at least a while.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Why can’t everyone just settle down, get out of the way, get rid of the “distractions,” and let Barack Obama do his magic? That seems to be a recurring media meme during this presidential transition period.

Here are just a few examples in just the past 30 days:

• In a December 12 “analysis” piece at Reuters, Steve Holland opened by telling readers that “A political scandal that led to the arrest of Illinois’ governor has become an unwelcome distraction for President-elect Barack Obama as he tries to keep his focus on preparing to run the country.”
• Amanda Paulson’s Christian Science Monitor report on December 23 about Obama’s internal investigation of contacts between his team and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich fretted that “As the saga of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his alleged “political corruption crime spree” has played out over the past two weeks, it’s been an unwelcome distraction for another politician from Illinois: President-elect Obama.”
• And yesterday, Brent Baker of NewsBusters caught ABC World News Tonight anchor Dan Harris worrying that Bill Richardson’s unexpected withdrawal as Commerce Secretary nominee might be “a distraction in the key early days.”

AFP’s Jitendra Joshi offered up the latest example yesterday:

In distraction for Obama, chaos stalks new Senate

The new US Senate is set to convene in a swirl of allegations of corruption, voter fraud and dynastic nepotism that threatens to dog the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency.

….. The senatorial to-and-fro is an unwelcome distraction for Obama as he prepares to take office on January 20, reliant on a focused Congress to enact his ambitious plans including a mammoth economic stimulus package.

Republican blocking tactics in the Senate could undermine that agenda, especially if the Democrats’ provisional working majority of 59-41 is weakened by court challenges.

The circus surrounding Burris — and more specifically around Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich — is a distraction closer to home for the president-elect following his weekend move to Washington from Chicago.

You see, it’s such a shame that unimportant things like criminal investigations and election disputes are happening. Apparently, nothing should get in the way of Barack Obama and his appointed agenda.

By taking up precious column inches and bandwidth bellyaching about “distractions,” the press is also able to avoid explaining how different the agenda of Obama the president-elect appears to be in comparison to the agenda of Obama the candidate, and how remarkably fluid it seems to be on a nearly day-to-day basis.

Not so coincidentally, if that agenda, whatever it is, fails to materialize or to become law, the press can cite the distractions it has been dutifully qualifying as convenient excuses. After all, discussing what might have been wrong with the agenda in the first place would be so, well, distracting.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

“Citgo pulls $100M in oil donations to Citizens Energy” (HT Lucianne) — I guess the PR value for Hugo Chavez is no longer worth the cost. Instead of begging Chavez to change his mind, Citizens Energy head and dictator-coddling useful idiot Joe Kennedy should start doing what he should have been doing all along: working on helping us get more affordable domestic energy resources. It’s out there; we just have to have the national will to get it.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for media condemnation of Chavez for being so heartless smack dab in the middle of winter.

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Bankruptcy filings were up by a third in 2008 over 2007 — The dirty little secret of the day is that VP-elect Joe Biden (D-MBNA at the time, now D-Bank of America) was a big supporter of so-called bankruptcy “reform” in 2005. This “reform” has made filing more difficult in the sense of introducing time delays (mandatory pre-bankruptcy counseling and the like) and costly (increased fees to file).

It believe that these delays have in many cases given mortgage lenders time to foreclose, whereas under the old law many of those in financial distress filed for bankruptcy ahead of such filings. If I’m right, Slow Joe and others (mostly Republicans, but with quite a few Dems besides Biden) threw a bit of kindling onto an already-smoking fire, and have caused some who might otherwise have kept their homes to lose them.

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“Some US cities drop criminal-history question from job applications” — Let’s stipulate for the moment that maybe we’re too harsh on those who have served their time for their crimes, especially nonviolent offenders. That does NOT mean you don’t ask the necessary questions. You change hiring policies.

That said, ex-cons need to accept the idea that employers, including government employers, are naturally risk-averse, and that, all things being equal, a person with a criminal record will always have a harder time getting work than someone without one. Sorry.

The crazy thing is that an employer, government or otherwise, who doesn’t ask questions about criminal background is a sitting duck for lawsuits by fellow employees, customers, clients, or whoever is affected if the employee commits a criminal act on the job. Relying on background checks is not foolproof. And of course, when it becomes known that a given employer will hire ex-cons, that employer becomes an ex-con magnet.

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USA Today’s Understatement of the Day — “(former Clinton White House chief of staff) Leon Panetta is arelative outsider in the intelligence world.”

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Proving that he is among the prominent of the defeated defeatists, Harry “the war is lost” Reid is now Harry “Petraeus is a genius” Reid.

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Magically, Vaclav Klaus, this year’s EU President, who “just happens” to be a major globaloney critic, is now being called a “figurehead.” I don’t ever recall last year’s EU Prez Nicholas Sarkozy of France, ever getting that tag.

Klaus (as paraphrased by the link’s author) “believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the union to a Communist state.” Klaus is correct, and eloquent (see “Update and Elaboration” at link).

….. But I Don’t Have Any Time For:

• I think Michelle Malkin was quite right to do this in-your-face reaction to Michael Goldfarb’s contention at the Weekly Standard about the supposed lack of original reporting on right-of-center blogs. I appreciate being mentioned in Michelle’s mix for this post on Jeremiah Wright’s church bulletins last year. Someone needs to tell me where so much supposedly original reporting is taking place on left-side blogs. Someone also needs to ask Michael Goldfarb when the Weekly Standard will be hiring bloggers to supplement its bloviators.
• Apparently Barack Obama’s now-former Commerce Department Secretary nominee was not the Bill Richardson he thought he knew.
• Must-read: Patrick Poole’s “Top 10 Ohio Terrorism-Related Stories of 2008.” From here, it seems that the Strickland Administration has been hopelessly complacent, if not worse, while all this has been going on. Franklin County, the City of Columbus, and the Columbus Dispatch have been weak too.
• Al Gore, call your office (HT No Oil for Pacifists) — “Filling the atmosphere with Greenhouse gases associated with global warming could push the planet into a new ice age, scientists have warned.”
• There’s no accounting for why Biz Weak’s Business Exchange believed that an item about a supposed bailout for accountants by Warner Todd Huston at Stop the ACLU was real. But they did.
• James Hansen of NASA has finally admitted that globaloney is about spreading the wealth.
• Advice Barack Obama won’t take: Keep the tax cuts (pending review of specifics). Can the stimulus. Update: The best spectator sport of the next four years may be watching the far left slowly but surely (HT to an e-mailer) go nuts as Obama, who has morphed (for the moment) into a guy who cares about political survival more than any set of beliefs and appears to have absolutely no guiding set of principles, “proposes” (i.e., steals) conservatives ideas like tax cuts — an idea he derided as “selfish” just days before the election.

From Scunthorpe, Lincs, UK:

Last Updated: 4:37PM GMT 31 Dec 2008

A mother who was twice advised to have an abortion by doctors has gone on to have a ‘perfectly’ healthy son.

Gaynor Purdy was warned her first child could have a fatal chromosome defect and a life threatening heart condition.

But she rejected two suggestions to terminate the pregnancy and she and her husband Lee are celebrating life with their “perfect” ten-month-old son.

Mrs Purdy, 28, a quality control inspector, said: “We refused to give up on him, and decided throughout the pregnancy that as long as he was fighting, we would continue fighting with him.”

The couple from Scunthorpe, Lincs, were delighted when they discovered they had conceived shortly before their first wedding anniversary.

Four months into the pregnancy doctors told them that part of their unborn child’s heart was narrow and underdeveloped and would mean open heart surgery if the baby was born.

They were warned the condition could worsen and around Christmas last year, an immediate termination should be considered.

Further tests conducted a few days later on New Year’s Eve suggested the baby could also have Edwards Syndrome – the presence of an 18th chromosome – with a life expectancy of only up to four months if birth is survived.

Consultants again recommended the couple consider aborting the baby, fearing he would little to no quality of life once he was born.

For the second time, Mrs Purdy and her husband, a 29 year old forklift driver, declined the suggestion.

Kai was born six weeks premature on March 5 at Scunthorpe General Hospital weighing just 2lb 6oz and immediately admitted to intensive care, but was discharged within six weeks.

One side of his heart was slightly bigger than the other which may need an operation to correct in the future, but regular tests have been showing the condition is constantly improving.

The chromosome disorder, which affects growth, is also being closely monitored and he is due to undergo some corrective cosmetic surgery in the New Year.

Mrs Purdy added: “Doctors told us he was a little miracle baby. They said his heart must have been mending itself. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Washington:

Monday, December 22, 2008

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.

Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.

On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip – with reporters in tow – to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.

But the size and scope of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.

“People say, ‘Why would you do that?’” the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. “And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be – to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish.”

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching – balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin – that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

“I lean on the Almighty and Laura,” Mr. Bush said in the interview. “She has been very reassuring, very calming.”

Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.

The first lady said those private visits, many of which she also attended, took a heavy emotional toll, not just on the president, but on her as well.

“It is just so unbelievably emotional to be with the families, for everybody involved. I mean for us and for them and for everyone,” she said in a telephone interview with The Times on Saturday. “I’m very aware of how emotional it is and how draining it is for the president and for me, too. Both of us. But I think we do support each other, not by saying anything so much, but just by the comfort of each other’s presence, both when we are with the families and then afterward when we are alone.”

Mr. Cheney similarly has hosted numerous events, even sneaked away from the White House or his Naval Observatory home to meet troops at hospitals or elsewhere without a hint to the news media.

For instance, Mr. Cheney flew to North Carolina late last month and met with 500 special-operations soldiers for three hours on a Saturday night at a golf resort. The event was so secretive that the local newspaper didn’t even learn about it until three days after it happened.

Mr. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, also have hosted more than a half-dozen barbecues at their Naval Observatory home for wounded troops recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed and their spouses and children.

The vice president said Mr. Bush “feels a very special obligation to those who he has to send in harm’s way on behalf of the nation, and a very special obligation to their families, especially the families of those who don’t come home again.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Washington, via the Catholic News Agency:

Washington DC, Dec 19, 2008 / 09:01 pm

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday issued a final regulation explicitly clarifying the rights of health care providers to decline participation in services to which they object in conscience. The rule will help protect those individuals and institutions in the medical field who object to abortion.

An HHS press release reported that several statutes have been enacted by Congress to “safeguard the freedom of health care providers to practice according to their conscience.”

“The new regulation will increase awareness of and compliance with these laws,” it continued.

“Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. “This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience.”

“Many health care providers routinely face pressure to change their medical practice – often in direct opposition to their personal convictions,” said HHS Assistant Secretary of Health, Admiral Joxel Garcia, M.D. “During my practice as an OB-GYN, I witnessed this first-hand. Health care providers shouldn’t have to check their consciences at the hospital door.”

According to the HHS press release, the final rule clarifies that non-discrimination protections apply to institutional health care providers as well as individuals who work for recipients of HHS funds. Under the rule recipients of certain HHS funds will be required to certify their compliance with conscience protection laws.

The HHS Office for Civil Rights has been designated as the entity to receive violation complaints. If a state or local government or entity is in violation of the statutes, HHS officials may assist them in becoming compliant. If such efforts fail, the entity may be penalized by termination of funding and may be required to return funding already received.

The HHS also encourages providers to disclose to patients what services they do not provide.

Describing remarks received concerning the proposal, the HHS press release said “the comments consistently bore out the necessity of the regulation to implement the statutes enacted by Congress.”

“Many commenters exhibited a lack of understanding of these laws. Others articulated a general knowledge that conscience protections exist for providers, but the scope of these protections was not always widely understood. Still other comments came from health care workers relating personal experiences of what they perceived to be discrimination on the basis of their personal or religious beliefs.”

Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA), on Thursday welcomed the regulation, saying it will “protect patients and patient access to physicians who adhere to life-affirming ethical standards.”

“By protecting physicians and other healthcare professionals who still adhere to the Hippocratic Oath, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and other objective standards of medical ethics, this regulation serves to protect patients who want access to conscientious and compassionate care from life-affirming physicians,” he continued, adding “this regulation insures that physicians and others won’t be run out of the profession for upholding those standards.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised any more when a Bush-bad, Dems-good meme refuses to die in the face of withering facts.

Ken Ward Jr. played a now-familiar tune about mine safety at the Charleston Gazette-Mail yesterday:

Sago families look to Obama
Three years after fatal mine blast, reformers turn to new administration

….. Three years ago this morning, an explosion ripped through International Coal Group’s Sago Mine, located outside Buckhannon in Upshur County.

Within hours, the national media had focused on 13 missing miners. Twelve of those workers died before rescuers could reach them 40 hours later. Only Randal McCloy Jr. survived.

The disaster – West Virginia’s worst in nearly 40 years – was the first of four major coal-mining accidents over the next 18 months. Three weeks later, two more miners died in Massey Energy’s Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine.

In May 2006, five workers died in an explosion at the Kentucky Darby Mine. In August 2007, nine miners died in a cave-in at Murray Energy’s Crandall Canyon operation in Utah.

In response, there’s been a flurry of new laws, tougher regulations and demands for increased inspections and enforcement. Much progress has been made. Last year, for example, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration for the first time completed all of its mandated quarterly inspections of underground coal mines nationwide.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., pushed for additional funding to replace MSHA inspection jobs that had been cut by Bush.

….. And despite improvements, many critics say MSHA remains a troubled agency damaged by Bush administration budget cuts and efforts to replace tough enforcement with industry-friendly “compliance assistant” programs.

“President-elect Obama needs to re-orient MSHA entirely,” said Nathan Fetty, a mine safety lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. “MSHA needs leadership who wants to tackle the biggest health and safety problems facing miners without waiting for a court or Congress to tell the agency to act.”

This is about as clear-cut a case of not letting facts get in the way of a good story as you’ll ever see. It has been beaten to within an inch of its life at several BizzyBlog posts over the past few years, particularly this one from a couple of days after the Sago tragedy in January 2006.

Suffice it to say that there has never been a visible let-up in inspection effort, and the Bush record, when compared to the Clinton record in this hastily-assembled graphic, proves it:

Clinton responsibility goes through 2001 because his last budget controlled what the MSHA could do that year (if you gave 2001 to Bush, the Clinton record would look worse). Similarly, Bush will still have responsibility for 2009.

Not shown: 2008′s nearly-finalized total of 51 fatalities in all mining activities (29 coal; 22 metal/non-metal) is the lowest on record.

I have similar data with similar results relating to non-fatal injuries, and will have more to say on this topic in the coming days.

Parting shot: Didn’t the “someone” that the Sago families are looking to for “help” say something about bankrupting new coal mines? Why, yes he did.

Well, miners will certainly be “safe” if they’re not working, won’t they?

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UPDATE: While I’m in the neighborhood, let me remind Mr. Fetty that a federal government agency should only be doing things Congress has authorized it to do, not sit around dreaming up all kinds of things it might want to do.

UPDATE, Jan. 5 — Source data is from this page at the MSHA for coal fatalities and this one for metal/non-metal.
This is the detail, inelegantly presented:

From Great Britain (video is at link):

Jan. 2, 2009

A British couple has defied the odds again by giving birth to a second set of black and white twin girls.

“I was as blown away as the rest of them, you know, there is no easy way to explain it all. I feel like I’m still in shock myself even though the first ones were seven years ago. It’s amazing, but we just love them the same,” says Dean Durrant, the father.

As CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports, Alison Spooner and Durrant welcomed daughters Lauren and Hayleigh into the world seven years ago. Lauren takes after her white mother, while Hayleigh, takes after her father.

When the couple announced earlier this year that they were having another set of twins, they didn’t think lightening would strike twice.

“I honestly didn’t think that it would happen again.I thought that we’d have two of the same. Well I didn’t think that we’d have twins again for a start,” Spooner says.

This time, baby Miya has her father’s dark skin, while Leah looks like her mother.

Doctors say the phenomenon is so rare, that there are no statistics to illustrate the probability of it happening. …..

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