how long until you tjhink her staff gets worn down? Or can these people keep up the obnoxious all day?

Poor Senator Collins. You’d think she (and the rest of the Republicans) would learn the lesson that nothing that has been on the web ever seems to fully disappear.

I think there’s a brain block in Rethugs that prevents them from understanding anything more complex than a stick.

I wonder how many calls they’re getting?

Don’t forget to call Lieberman’s office while you’re at it, just to ask him how his pal Susan is doing.

Maybe we could call it the Susan Collins memorial Swine Flu.

@beerfart liberal:

they can’t take it. I called back an hour or two later and no one picked up the phone.

so i left a message telling them that i was so upset by their attitude problem, that i had forwarded the link to as many Maine newspapers as possible.

i also said i’d call back later to discuss how treating people you disagree with with disrespect and dishonesty has a way of blowing up in your face, and that maybe we could talk a little about phone manners.

If this nation gets hit with a major flu pandemic, her staffers will yell at it.

“swine flu sue”

Scribe cackles in insane delight at the raw nature of cosmic justice, expressing itself.

Well done, Brendan.

They only understand “stick” when used as a verb. Example: Republicans sure know how to stick their head in their ass…

Republicans read Orwell, and they just can’t figure out why the memory hole doesn’t work!

I’m so glad there are such good people out there ready to turn their own words against them.

Brendan,

Deee-lish!

Maybe Susan and Bobby are having a foot in mouth fest.

this scenario held some water until learning that she voted against the omnibus bill the flu money ended up in…

But I also think there’s a limit to how far this issue should be pushed for partisan gain. First of all, it’s undoubtedly true that the funding in the stimulus would have come far too late to have done anything for this particular outbreak. Second, Collins doesn’t oppose this kind of funding generally — she just believed it shouldn’t go in the stimulus. You can disagree with that (and, as I said, I do), but it’s not like she wants the federal government to go without the resources needed to fight against pandemics. …

Most people read Orwell as a cautionary tale. Republicans seem to have read it as a “How To” manual.

Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully this debacle will result in the sinking of the Maine (senator).

Most of them concluded reading is a Big Bother.

they tried to tell me it was included in the budget process… which of course is still ongoing. and then they got mad when i brought that up too.

“swine flu sue”

Susie the Flu-zy?

Oh, susie-flu, oh, susie-flu,
Oh, susie-flu, baby bile of you, susie-flu.

I like the way you balk, I like the way you squawk;
I like the way you balk, I like the way you squawk, susie-flu.

Well, say that you’ll be true, well, say that you’ll be true,
Well, say that you’ll be true, and never leave me suffering from fever and diarrhea and cold sweats, susie-flu.

Yea brendan!!!

credit goes to commenter Viola Lee a few threads back, for smoking out the artful dodge of Collins’ staff re the no vote.

Who knew Susie didn’t have a clue?

Used to have a protest sign in 2006 that read…

1984 – READ IT,
DON’T LIVE IT!!

This does sound like good fun, so off to the phones…

Great thread, thanks to all.

I hope she is going nuts. Good Job Brendan!

I called and got a guy named Winston Smith. He told me not to worry about it because it would be corrected in the next edition of Newspeak.

Republicans have put their heads together and concluded that the best way to battle a pandemic is with a round of tax cuts.

Maine Newspapers
courtesy firedog Boo Radley.

Had to leave a message!!

Very good!!

LOL

See, this is why I love the web! What is it with these repubs, they seem unaware, like Jindal, that if you tell a lie to the whole country, it will be found out – in no time flat!

Over and over the bloggers out the repub lies.

Will they never learn? I mean, seriously, these folks seem unable to learn!

This is a great thread, and a welcome break from the torture stuff.

I wonder if Susan Collins will need to be “out with the flu” soon… to avoid uncomfortable questions.

Since they aren’t answering phones, try the email page on her site…

http://collins.senate.gov/publ…..N=66118301

When Brendan posted his experience earlier, I gave him a standing ovation. (In my office.)

have left messages on DC Office phone –

has anyone tried via her Maine Offices ???

That and “Atlas Shrugged,” which is enjoying a resurgence in sales.

4:30, and they STILl don’t pick up the phone.

you can smell the accountability. NOT.

How funny and how very appropriate. Thanks for that. Makes me want to move to Maine so I can get in on the fun.

I’ve been searching for some mention of this story in the MSM. Found this at WaPo but had to dig for it.

There’s a real good reason to put flu pandemic preparedness into a stimulus bill, despite Swine Flu Sue’s statement that it doesn’t belong there. As we see the EU health minister make her “personal statement” that she would not travel to affected areas such as the USA and Mexico, the travel/tourism industry is going to be mighty unhappy. An economic slowdown coupled with a pandemic-flu scare could be a real disaster for our economy.

Not including pandemic flu preparedness was not moderate; it was showboating of the worst kind. She might as well go talk with John McCain about bear DNA or Sarah Palin about fruit-fly research. Science is a good thing, and the government pays for most of it. Pandering to the GOP’s skygod base may earn you some FOX attagirls, but when you end up with a nickname like Swine Flu Sue, it’s gonna be a tough rap to beat.

nicely done brendan

Republicans have put their heads together and concluded that the best way to battle a pandemic is with a round of tax cuts.

…for the rich.
(Any Republican plan can be better described by adding the phrase “…for the rich” at the end. It’s just like that old gag about fortune cookies.)

Thanks, Swine Flu Sue.

No money for research means the next flu will be harder to stop.

Notice how throughout the article the president is addressed as Mr. Obama whereas Sue gets the honorific Sen. added before her name.

“Atlas Shrugged” selling big time again? I didn’t realize there were still that many Americans out there who can read something longer than a graphic novel.

This is prime time for short term tourists in FL. Not cold and not too hot or humid.

presently unavailable due to unporcine circumstances :D

I checked…it’s back in if it was ever really missing… http://collins.senate.gov/publ…..N=23668062

They don’t seem to mind the 600 page thrillers with lots of violence and sex but no story worth remembering. I tried re-reading “Atlas” a while back. Boooooooring.

Poor Suzie-Q! Caught with her skirt up over her eyeballs again! What an ass. Push your skirt down, Suzie, you’re embarrassing Mainers and the country once again!

My mistake….they did scrub the quotes from Tamiflu Sue.

I found it remarkably dull when I read it 30+ years ago.

I did a blog on something related about 6 weeks ago. Here’s how I began

[The story below references a book where a corporation releases the bird flu into the population through immunizations. They don’t mention the book (maybe something by Michael Crichton?) and I haven’t read that, but I have read The Stand - same basic premise, which is that a lethal virus is released accidentally into the general population by the US military (instead of a corporation) and 99.4% of people will die of this illness. Now, you might say “conspiracy theory” and think that will end all discussion. But there is one corporation that would profit handsomely from a bird flu outbreak and 99.9% of the people reading this might have never heard of something called The Air Force 2025 Study written in 1996 which was a very educated, well thought out conjecture in world trends for the near future which specifically said …

Technology could not solve some old problems, as in 2009, when an influenza pandemic struck in southern China, then rapidly spread worldwide. Three hundred-thirty million people were affected and over thirty million died. No one ever determined if the virus was a natural mutation or bioengineered. Many feared the latter.

All that said: Maybe it was negligence, but the official story that the release is a mistake is very hard to believe when take into consideration biomedical safety protocols as you’ll read in more depth below, which weren’t followed and someone (many people) need/s to be fired and brought up on charges.

How can you honestly scrub what is supposed to be an article from the Wall Street Journal? Can anyone get the original article from the WSJ and send it to Olberman?

Now if the so-called msm just read the web to find out about the lies and reported on them, *then* we’d be in business! :-( Still and all the same, it sure beats BTW (before the web) when their lies just disappeared into the ether. Macaca (sp?) moments are sooooooo enjoyable.

Hit submit instead of preview. Du’oh!

Here’s a link to a mirror of the 2025 Study from FAS

Ok, they just changed it back… Page Info says the page was edited at 4:56 pm.

Sen. Susan Collins also cut out WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS among other things:

http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/…..hemselves/

http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/…..ulus-bill/

She doesn’t care about the average American. All she cares about is Bath Iron Works and other Military Industrial Complexes.

Just checked her website and the article is still there! (this can’t be my cache, I haven’t been to her site in many months). Not sure why I see it and others don’t.

In any case I posted a comment on the Bagor Daily News (the largest paper in the northern half of the state) website to the article of how Maine is preparing for the flu, with no help from her. Go here if you’d like to do that as well– you have to register, but it’s free.

Oh, I don’t know now…does anyone have a screen shot of the scrubbed version. It doesn’t look scrubbed now.

It’s possible that I checked after it was put back (it was right around 4:56).

HuffPo has the Repugs front and center right now

Sen. Susan Collins also cut out WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS among other things

Right, and one of the things was aid to state governments (Krugman mentioned that in a blog or article not long ago). Maine (and lots of other states) is heading for a massive budget shortfall next year. Thanks again, Susie!

Volcano monitoring and swine flu – who could have guessed!

fax,fax,fax

Schumer was against putting pandemic flu preparedness money in the stimulus too. I think he was too smart, or maybe some inner commmon sense made him too ashamed, to brag about it. But he said it was “porky”.

I think that comment makes Schumer look like a jackass and a nincompoop.

Sadly for us, many influential people in Congress and our state and national politicis generally, who are given respect as reasonable voices who deserve a hearing, are corrupt, incompetent goofballs who need to be retired from public live as soon as possible. Collins and Schumer are two examples.

A Daily Kos diary says most of the money got put back, so that is good. But people like Collins and Schumer need to feel some heat for saying really stupid things. I wonder why Collins is so touchy about it now -is her “hoocudanode?” not working anymore?

Breaking News:

Dick Boner, and Mitch McConnell, the Republican House and Senate leaders announced today that they believes in three strikes, and called for action by Pepsodent Obama.

They stated, Mexico has had its three strikes. They are unable to control our drug problem, unable to control the import of legal weapons from the US into Mexico, and finally unable to control their illegal migration into the US.

The latest episode that has damaged the US is the illegal viral immigrants that are now flooding over the US Border. The Republican leaders called for improving the border wall with Mexico to prevent this viral invasion, and recommended the Republican Viral File Company be given a no-bid contract, because the company was very effective at keeping virus out of the White House during the Bush administration. “There were no virus infections in the computers in the White House under the Bush/Chaney infection, as we fought them over there to keep us safe at home.” the Leader stated.

In a parting note, the Republican leaders emphasized that Illegal Immigration must be controlled, including viral infections, and proposed the Great American Firewall of the South (GAFS) be enhanced with Nuclear capabilities to enhance its protective effects. The leaders refuted the implication that the Containment Ordinance North Domestic Organization (CONDOM) would be effective, because it might be used for birth control, not viral immigrant control.

To close they made a definitave statement: “There are no Swine in the Republican Party, we don;t allow Pigs like that in our Party.”

This is a great feed! I found an interesting video about the affects of the Swine Flu globally. Let me know what you think.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/th…..flu_alert/

Ok, I found the exact article on her website on the Wall Street Journal site. They are exactly the same. Is would expect this kind of false reporting from Faux News but it saddens me to see it coming from FDL. Looks like another site to delete from my favorites. This is really getting sad.

Your commment must be a joke. I will watch the news to see whether it is or not. We don’t know how dangerous this new flu strain is yet, but punishing Mexico or denying it resources would be the most dangerous and stupid thing we could do right now. Bad population health in a community with a new infectious disease, and poor public health response is exactly the kind of thing that would make it worse.

And, it is pretty well known that the most efficient and money- and life-saving response to small but potentially dangerous new epidemics is to wallop them when they are small.

I do sincerely hope your commment was satire -and it is good satire. I hope that is what it is.

And of course, it never enters your mind that after being abused by the folks like FDL, Collins and staff decided to put the article back up after having in fact taken it down?

PH70: Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe her staff took it down and then put it back up. Maybe FDL made a mistake–they are pretty careful (I’ve been following this site for well over a year) but not perfect. In any case, the main point is that Collins opposed this funding, quite forcefully.

Does anyone have a screenshot of the “changed” site?

It got put in the Omnibus bill, you know, the one Collins voted against. LOL

I don’t have one, no.

But given that earlier in this thread, some folks did notice the site had been put back to include the original WSJ article with a note that the site had been updated/edited at 4:56, it seems a logical conclusion that they returned the site to the original look.

I have a feeling Lance Dutson (Suzie-Q’s Internet Director) is reading FDL. Why? Because during the campaign last year, I would say things over here and on my blog and the next thing I’d know Collins would be putting out statements or would say things on the campaign trail to the contrary!

She’s sly and she has people here in the state who would die for her. A Maine Mafia? Feels like it sometimes!

Annoying them is fun. But we need to hammer away at the real point: if it had not been the new swine flu, it would be something else. For Collins, as for almost all of our modern crop of “fiscal conservatives” in both parties, preparedness is always waste. Investment in healthcare, infrastructure, disaster relief, and education is always “pork”. Tax cuts and bailouts for wealthy corporate gamblers is always “thrift”.

This kind of politician is exactly like the guy that never changes the oil in his car and never patches his leaking roof because doing either would “waste” money that could be better spent by investing it in lottery tickets–something productive.

I went to the site and looked on the list of her Press Releases and couldn’t find one for 02/05/09

http://collins.senate.gov/publ…..N=47215845

Up and down again? Or maybe they put up the “response” with the WSJ article and then decided to remove it again?

I think Collins & Co. are more parasitic than that, though Collins is meant to be neoconservatism’s “friendly face”. Fundamentally, it’s that communal tax dollars ought never be spent on the community. They should be diverted to neoconservatives and their corporations.

Neocons are a cuckoo, happy to have mother robin raise them, exhausting her in the process, all while the opportunistic cuckoo edges out of the nest, to a fatal drop, mother robin’s own chicks.

Oops! I was looking in her Press releases…not articles. But when I went there

http://collins.senate.gov/publ…..N=47215845

and clicked on the Page info. it stated that the page had been modified on “Monday April 27, 2009 4:15:06 PM”

The Swinification of America

Lots of references to Big Brother in the above comments … Although H1N1 Swine Flu is not transmitted through pigs and pig products, it reminds me of another Orwell book that epitomizes rethuglican barnyard politics.

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now what had happened to the face of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Animal Farm (1945)

As an aside, it’s interesting that “The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon & Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.”

Maybe we could call it ‘Sueine Flu’.

Be careful if you decide to act on Brendan Skwires little idea about calling Sue Collins’ office. The Internet is Serious Business.

Just sent email to Sen. Collins site. Polite but letting her know about concern. Asking her to step up and speak and perhaps make request for additional money for flu/pandemic treatments. Think she will respond?