Disqus - Latest Comments for billwendt

Re: Meeting Our Edge With Awareness

billwendt — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 03:31:39 -0000

"You really don't get started with this process until you want to leave"

Robert Hoover

Re: OPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye

billwendt — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 18:32:27 -0000

He's conservative scum. This is propaganda.

Re: OPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye

billwendt — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:11:01 -0000

I was right. The column's author, Douglas Schoen, "FOX-News Democrat"

Schoen became a political analyst for Fox News[6] and a columnist for Newsmax. In 2010, he authored a book on the Tea Party movement with Scott Rasmussen.[6]

Schoen has identified as a member of the Democratic party, but has frequently criticized the party and taken positions on various political topics at odds with the party's views. Schoen's critics have called his identification as a Democrat "phony" and calculated to help his Fox news career.[11] Steve Benen called Schoen the quintessential "Fox News democrat" and said he is "actively hostile towards [Democrats] and the party’s agenda."[12]

Schoen says that lower taxes would be a successful Democratic strategy, opposed President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, argued that the Democratic Party should reject the Occupy Wall Street protests, and said that President Obama not run for reelection in 2012.[13][14]

He has stated that the President has divided the country along partisan lines, and said that the Affordable Care Act had been a "disaster" for the Democratic Party.[13][14]

Schoen has been critical of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he wrote, "President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election."[13][15] He believes that the protesters represent "an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence," and that their common bond is "a deep commitment to left-wing policies."[13][15] Schoen believes that the Democratic Party should not appeal to voters who support taxing oil companies and the rich, but rather to voters in the middle who want lower taxes.[13][16][17][18] On October 30, 2016, Schoen pulled his support of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, citing his concern of a "constitutional crisis" due to Secretary Clinton's email scandal if elected.

Re: David Barton – Extremist ‘Historian’ for the Christian Right

billwendt — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:48:20 -0000

Well, Thomas Nelson was "afraid" of losing credibility so they pulled Barton's book on Thomas Jefferson.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/th...

Re: David Barton – Extremist ‘Historian’ for the Christian Right

billwendt — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:40:13 -0000

Oh, it's more twisted than that, Jonas. You see, Christians don't love Israel. Israel has to be there because it fits an end times scenario. That's what is f**ked up about it.

Re: David Barton – Extremist ‘Historian’ for the Christian Right

billwendt — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:38:37 -0000

Don't like that pesky light of day, do you Ron?

Re: October 27 | Day of Mindfulness in Vietnamese

billwendt — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:31:13 -0000

Leaving Fremont in the morning. Can take three people.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:14:48 -0000

I'm not defending it. I think it's a problem that should be solved. There are more recent rankings (by others) than 2000 but the pattern has been there for a long time, it's uncontroversial.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:10:21 -0000

I don't know what to think after reading Craig_Sipple1's post. Clearly, you two have history.

If we don't have advancement of America as our goal, we won't have much agreement. If we don't have advancement of the rest of the World as our goal, we won't have much agreement either. We're running behind. We need to catch up. When those opposed to health-care-for-all start talking about "death panels", how else can you respond but with derision?

It's insane talking about the "death panels", like there is any deliberation at all??? The Obama secret decoder ring, laser bracelet "1984" squad just randomly vaporizes people on the street. I thought everyone knew that. There is no meeting, they just start shooting at the first person they see.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:34:51 -0000

You suggested that people "investigate for themselves". I investigated and found that your source is not objective.

Care to tell me why the CIA's rankings and the WHO rankings are similar? Care to tell me how "socialized medicine" is getting better results for less money than our "private enterprise" system? That result is not in controversy.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:11:32 -0000

TexasConservative,

National Center for Policy Analysis is a conservative think tank. They get their money from insurance companies. They were also famously opposed to global warming.

You're not investigating truth. You're parroting public relations from those who wish to maintain the status quo.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:39:11 -0000

TexasConservative,

We're trying to get American health care higher in the world rankings. We're trying to get more people covered. That seems to be a worthwhile goal. The World Health Organization's rankings aren't the only rankings where we are deficient. The Central Intelligence Agency also has rankings. Perhaps you can tell us how we are doing there?

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:54:04 -0000

Heart-lung transplants are the norm for that reason. The problem was the hospital, ethically, continued to misrepresent the quality of services multiple time after this scandal. They had no problem with this behavior.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:04:06 -0000

All participants are still practicing. Didn't miss a day of work. The cardiologist and transplant coordinator who told the roster of patients <for months=""> that they would be getting a heart "real soon now", are still working.

The hospital tried to start lung transplantation services after this scandal. Lung transplantation services <without> heart transplantation services because they had been demonstrated to have been deceptive to the public. And they would have gotten approval for this procedure if I had not contacted HHS and blown the whistle on that too.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:25:15 -0000

Why haven't they offered to fuse those vertebrate? That would solve many problems. There is something called "Harrington rods" which can shoulder the load those vertebrate carry.

Re: Do you have a personal horror story from your own experiences with CIGNA or United Health Group?

billwendt — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:51:17 -0000

Have you heard of a University hospital that fired the head of its Cardiothoracic Surgery Intensive Care Unit abruptly and told the successful Cardiothoracic surgeon that he would have to recover his patients in an inferior Intensive Care Unit? Did you know that two heart surgeons quit of this decision?

Problem is, those surgeons performed heart transplant surgery. Successfully. The hospital was stuck with a stable of patients with cardiomyopathy, awaiting hearts. Those patients were very sick but they did not die quickly. Since they were very sick, they required hospitalization. Hospitalization that can be charged for. $$$. Of course, when the surgeons who are going to be performing the surgery leave rather than endure substandard conditions, the patients don't need to be told. If they knew, they would leave for a hospital two miles away that could provide that service. Money would stop coming in. People started to die, awaiting hearts that would never come.

The hospital has a problem.

The hospital brought in a surgeon from the other side of the city. He was a heart surgeon but he didn't have such a good record in heart transplantation. In fact, UNOS refused to certify him as a heart transplant surgeon. The patients weren't told. They were told that the hospital was still UNOS certified (it wasn't). The new surgeon performs one cardiac transplant surgery and lied in the local paper to the family about why that patient died six hours after the surgery. The patient died because the new heart had some difficulties before it left the donor body. It tried to die.

At this point, the charade was over. The Attorney General for the State was helpful. She covered it up. Kept people's names out of reports. Made sure that no one went to jail. Etc.

Of course, the physicians who were involved stepped right up and fought to prevent this tragedy. They fought to report this tragedy after it happened. They fought to prevent it from happening in the future.

Riiiiiight.

I was the person who blew the whistle to the family of the dead guy. Later on, the same hospital lost all cardiac surgery services and did not tell patients. They had to quickly buy half the surgery services at a local hospital and build a $70,000,000 building to cover up this deficit before anyone noticed.

The local paper was cooperative. The medical editor of the paper called me to confirm the story and I had to ask him, "Well, I brought you the dead heart into a transplant recipient" story and you suppressed it. I was fired and made to be a "criminal trespasser" and you think I know about this current scandal?

"Well, that was suppressed from higher up"

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