My thanks to Think Progress for this story:

The other day, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann told us that we don't need Nancy Pelosi to save the planet. Jesus has it covered. Here's what she said:

"[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. ... We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."

It gets better.

Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.

I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.

But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is awfully proud of the controversy from the recent draft regulation on what he calls "Physician Conscience:"

"I'm delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog -- for the first time -- received more visits than my teenage son's MySpace page."

Congratulations, Mr. Leavitt! But what about our fear that your new regulation will redefine contraception as abortion -- and reduce access, especially among low-income women, to birth control?

On that topic this is all Mr. Leavitt had to say:

"This regulation would not be aimed at changing or redefining any of that."

[cross-posted from www.progressivefuture.org]

This weekend, the American Psychological Association will be holding their annual conference, but it won't be as harmonious as you would think: a group of psychologists are organizing to change the association's position on the presence of psychologists during interrogations of Guantanamo detainees. It's ironic that the ethics code of the APA explicitly states: "Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm."  Yet this organization has taken the controversial stance that the presence of psychologists makes the detainees at Guantanamo safer during interrogations.

And yet the evidence points in the other direction:

Even though state representative Myra Crownover is a Republican and an oil-drilling company owner, I still thought she had to be playing a joke on us when she posted an op-ed in the New York Sun, proclaiming oil drilling as the new 'clean' energy. In her opinion piece, Crownover made the baseless assertion that oil drilling in the Gulf has had no environmental impacts.

Unfortunately, Crownover was dead serious. I don't know who she thought she was fooling, but even among conservative circles, it's widely known that oil drilling causes significant environmental degradation.

Following the ins and outs of American health insurance policies can be tricky, we all have encountered the cryptic phrase "preexisting condition." The way that the insurance industry words it makes it seem like Americans are scheming to cash in on their health woes from insurance companies, but in fact this policy is causing a devastating trend in our country: Americans with chronic conditions being kicked off, refused by, or reaching the benefit limits of their health coverage.

The reality is that many uninsured Americans used to be insured, and couldn't receive further coverage due to their conditions. That means that many people who are in the most need for health care aren't receiving any. Nearly a quarter of these people reported that they hadn't been to a doctor in more than a year, and said that if they need medical care they will go to the emergency room.

No one knows exactly how many female veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been sexually assaulted while on duty. That's because it is estimated that half of all sexual assaults go unreported.

As it is, 15% of female veterans have screened positive for Military Sexual Trauma. At a jaw-dropping estimate of 1 in 3, the rate of sexual assault victims in the military is twice that of the civilian population, an eerie echo of the doubled rate of suicide among veterans compared to civilians.

I've already expressed outrage at the avoidable factors threatening our troops that don't come from battling with the enemy, factors like electrocution in showers to exposure to contaminated water. But imagine if the biggest threat you've encountered came from a fellow military member, someone living in close quarters with you, someone you worked with, ate with, and interacted with on a daily basis.

And imagine if the agency responsible for caring for your well-being refused to address this issue.

One time, back in 2007, a certain presidential candidate said, "Every four years somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the web. But the question we have to challenge ourselves is do we have the political will and the sense of urgency to actually get it done. I want to be held accountable for getting it done."

Well, the day's come to start the process of holding our leaders accountable for getting it done. And by 'it,' I mean showing us the country we've wanted to see for the past eight years. But we can't just leave it up to our elected officials; the push for change needs us to make sure our politicians are "gettin' it done."