John McCain gets health care wrong; hobbled EPA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080428/pl_nm/usa_politics_mccain_dc_4

The Arizona senator criticized national government-run health plans in some European countries.

"I'm not going to do like the Europeans have and have expensive health care systems that are neither efficient or, frankly, the quality we have here in America," he said.

"Expensive" apparently means half the cost of the US while living longer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080428/ap_on_go_ot/epa_chemical_risks_2

GAO says the White House lets various agencies and non-scientists interfere with the EPA's assessment of chemical risks.

But remember, we have to vote Republican, or the terrorists will win!

War on terror

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080428/pl_nm/guantanamo_hearings_dc_4

I'd missed this. The chief prosecutor of the Guantanmo war crimes tribunals quit last year in protest at the tainted process.

Defense lawyers said Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser who was supposed to provide impartial advice to the trials' overseer, had effectively joined the prosecution team.

Davis has alleged Hartmann pushed prosecutors to file cases before they were ready and wanted "sexy" cases that "had blood on them," such as one where an Afghan prisoner was accused of throwing a grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers.

Davis said Hartmann tried to dictate which lawyer would try cases and overrode Davis' ban on filing charges that relied on evidence obtained through the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The Pentagon plans to try as many as 80 of the 280 prisoners in Guantanamo on war crimes charges, and 14 cases are currently pending. Since the United States began sending foreign captives to Guantanamo in 2002, only one case has been resolved, that of Australian former prisoner David Hicks.

Mmm, fair and speedy trials, untainted by torture. Wait, that's un-American.