“Administrative incompetence” and “computer failures” “beyond belief”: the miracle of state-controlled health care in the UK led to the deaths of up to 270 patients

Hundreds of thousands of women face an “agonising wait” of up to six months to be checked for breast cancer

writes Chris Smyth in the Times of London,

after an IT blunder which meant they were not called for screening led to the deaths of as many as 270 patients.

NHS bosses were trying last night to contact 309,000 women who were not invited to breast cancer checks because of computer failures dating back almost a decade.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, apologised for women’s lives being cut short by “administrative incompetence”, but said that some women affected would have to wait until the end of October for catch-up checks to avoid disrupting routine screening for those aged between 50 and 70.

Campaigners demanded that the NHS hire hundreds of extra staff or send women abroad to get the checks done. Labour said that the NHS should be given extra resources to carry out the checks, but the party’s response was tempered by the knowledge that it had been in power when the troubles began.

Public Health England, which runs the screening programme, is also facing questions. Mr Hunt told the Commons: “For many years oversight of [the] programme has not been good enough.”

 … Mr Hunt promised to write by the end of the month to all women affected, saying: “There may be some who receive a letter having had a recent terminal diagnosis. For them and others it is incredibly upsetting to know that you did not receive an invitation for screening at the correct time and totally devastating to hear you may have lost or be about to lose a loved one because of administrative incompetence.”

The NHS is promising to pay for staff overtime and to use the private sector to offer all women who missed out an appointment by the end of October.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, chief executive of the charity Breast Cancer Now, said it was “beyond belief” that the problem was undetected for so long.

“Beyond belief” is another way of saying Unexpected.

Peter O'Keefe: Misleading MSM Headlines Deliberately Obscure Both the Intent and the Merit in Trump's Policies

Guest editorial from Peter O'Keefe, an expatriate American in Paris and one of the earliest readers of No Pasarán (now in its 14th year):

Shortly after World War II, there was rarely a week that passed without someone in my social circle saying, ”You know … the Germans are perfectly nice people, just like you and me.

“It’s just that they were duped by the Nazi propaganda machine.”

Years passed before it occurred to me that if there was such a machine, every government on the planet, not to mention every business and every ambitious politician, would commit murder to get their hands on it.

A recent American headline was broadcast across the international wire services:

“ Feds Won’t Restore Grizzly Bear Protections Near Yellowstone National Park”

Most European readers immediately conclude that American President Donald Trump loves guns and hunters, hates forests and wildlife, and is abandoning the grizzly to the bloodlust of NRA zealots.

This interpretation was, of course, encouraged by the headline’s author, and endorsed by the editor(s).

This interpretation is, of course, entirely wrong.

Closer inspection of the article reveals that the Federal government is returning the responsibility for the management of wildlife to the various States. This is a deliberate Trump Policy, consistent with the stratification of authority outlined in the U.S. Constitution, and supported by two centuries of positive results.

The grizzly will again be cared for by people who know something about them.

Duh.

Unfortunately, few readers will delve beyond a headline unless the subject is of particular interest to them.

They will, however, recognize the implied message, and place it upon the balance scale of their judgement.

Regrettably, there is no equivalent to Rush Limbaugh in France.

Joy Reid wholeheartedly regrets writing that stuff she didn’t actually write; Also, she’s deeply remorseful for the pain she didn’t really cause

Joy Reid’s televised non-pology was perhaps the most awkward thing Benny Huang has seen all year.

The host of MSNBC’s AM Joy began her April 28^th segment by delivering a mea culpa for “homophobic” blog posts she wrote years ago while simultaneously maintaining that

“I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me.”

Reid had earlier asserted that somehow her blog had been hacked, though that claim was demonstrated to be a preposterous lie. So she apologized—while still clinging to the hacking story.

Joy Reid wholeheartedly regrets writing that stuff she didn’t actually write. Also, she’s deeply remorseful for the pain she didn’t really cause.

Let’s take a moment to recap the situation. Before Reid had her own program she was a mainstay on The Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow is of course a homosexual. And before that, Joy Reid was an obscure blogger who liked to call prominent Republicans “closet cases.”

Chalk these comments up to mindless mimicry. Years ago, when conservatives used to stand against the homosexual agenda, “gays” used to taunt them by claiming that their foes were “on the down low”—secretly homosexual. The whole culture war was apparently an internecine battle between two groups of homosexuals—one closeted and the other out in the open. The taunt worked well because the homosexuals didn’t consider it insulting but it left their targets red-faced and fuming. 

Homosexuals knew that nothing bothered their opponents more than to say, “You’re one of us, you just won’t admit it.”

The taunt doesn’t work quite the same way when Joy uses it. It doesn’t even make sense because none of her targets have ever given any indication that they are homosexuals. Also, the “gay” activists who made similar taunts didn’t really consider them degrading because they obviously saw nothing wrong with butt sex. But she does. And that’s why she’s in trouble.

It’s clear from Reid’s posts that she thinks homosexuality is disgusting. Good for her. Most people, if they were honest, would admit that they agree with her. But that means that her jabs at Republicans were actually delivered as insults not merely intended to be received as insults.

And for that Reid must pay. Not a high price, mind you—she isn’t being banned from the planet earth as we’ve done to people like Brendan Eich. She’ll survive but first she must grovel a little.

I’m not offended, of course, and I won’t pretend that to be. Some of the things she said were clearly incorrect—Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove are not closeted homosexuals, for example—but that’s not the same as being offensive.

Other statements she made were spot on. Wrote Reid:

“Most straight people had a hard time being convinced to watch ‘Broke Back Mountain.’ (I admit that I couldn’t go see the movie either, despite my sister’s ringing endorsement, because I didn’t want to watch the two male characters having sex.) Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”

I didn’t go see that flick either. Liberals loved it because they love anything that promotes homosexuality, especially in conservative milieus such as the macho cowboy culture. But most normal people didn’t want to pay eight bucks to see two dudes ramming each others’ sphincters.

In another post Reid writes about “gay” culture’s weird obsession with teens.

“And then there are concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, ‘bringing them into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral. (Ditto with gay rights groups that seek to organize very young, impressionable teens who may have an inclination they are gay…)”

She’s right about that. Why do you think your kid’s school has a Gay-Straight Alliance? It’s a recruitment center.

 … After reading some of her posts I can say that I liked the old Joy Reid. She was someone I could have had a beer with. …

Reid’s blog posts reveal an urban black woman grappling with the new reality of progressive politics. She is, after all, the daughter of two very religious black immigrants and a cradle Democrat who grew up at a time when there seemed to be no conflict between the two. (Except for the baby-killing, of course.) But as “gay rights” started to rise to prominence within the party the space for people who wouldn’t celebrate homosexuality began to shrink. Religion was no excuse.

Blacks were often the slowest to adapt primarily because they are America’s most religious ethnic group. They are also less likely to consider sexuality to be comparable to race. This gap between black liberals and other liberals has narrowed quite a bit over the last ten years but it’s still there.

Joy Reid isn’t the first black person I’ve encountered who’s exhibited symptoms of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the new “LGBT”-obsessed progressive movement. These often religious blacks come up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why they vote for candidates whom they know in their heart of hearts don’t represent their values. If they were honest with themselves they would admit that their values aren’t nearly as important to them as their self-determined interests. The Democrats are still handing out free money, aren’t they?

There’s something very hypocritical about a person who used to write “homophobic” blog posts going on to join America’s most “woke” news network, MSNBC, and lecturing the rest of us about our supposed intolerance. And if I know anything about liberals it’s that they despise hypocrisy. Or at least they hypocritically pretend that they do.

 … Anyone who thinks she’s changed should first ask what the media would say about a conservative family values champion who was revealed to have done “gay” porn ten years ago. Would anyone say that he’s not hypocritical because he’s obviously turned over a new leaf?

Personally, I don’t believe that Reid ever had any genuine conversion experience. If she did, I’d like to know how and when it happened.

When did you stop being revolted by the idea of two men having sex, Joy? Do you still think they recruit kids or did you just stop caring if they do?

In all likelihood, she just learned to shut up. Toeing the party line was imperative to keeping her friends and advancing her career in journalism so she did what a lot of people have done and joined the mob.

She must have seen the objects of the mob’s hatred—Dan Cathy, David and Jesse Benham, Jack Phillips—and understood that they were only being savaged for saying aloud what she believes too. The moral and courageous thing to do would have been to defend these people. But of course she didn’t do that.

In that regard, Joy Reid is something like the Larry Craig of the Left. For those of you who don’t remember, Craig was a Republican senator from Idaho whose career ended in 2007 after he was caught soliciting sex from strangers in a Minneapolis airport men’s room.

The Left ate it up. The common refrain was that Craig’s moral turpitude lay in his hypocrisy not his actual offense. Why? Because Craig had voted for the Defense of Marriage Act—just like supermajorities of both parties.

The real scandal was that he opposed the Left’s legislative agenda. And when you think about it, that’s always the scandal.

Much like Larry Craig, Joy Reid’s real failing is her hypocrisy. There’s really nothing scandalous about her ten year old blog posts but there is something contemptible about the way she’s acted since joining MSNBC. She’s wagged her finger at us, virtue-signaled her butt off, and held her nose aloft because of her supposed tolerance and open-mindedness.

Then we found out the truth: Joy Reid is one of us, she just won’t admit it. …

Homofascism: The closet hasn’t disappeared and gays don’t want it to; They just want someone else to live in it

Over at the Constitution website, Benny Huang has quite a provocative article:

Army chaplain Major Scott Squires brought the wrath of homosexuals and anti-theists upon himself when he recently opted himself out of a marriage retreat he was supposed to lead because a lesbian couple signed up. Squires, an ordained Southern Baptist minister stationed at Fort Bragg, believed that he was doing right by his faith and Army regulations when he rescheduled the event and asked another chaplain to lead it.

But the Army still slammed him for discrimination.

It was plainly obvious that scenarios like this would arise after the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and the demise of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). Neither of those “gay rights” milestones had anything to do with the privacy of anyone’s bedroom or even with the relationship of two people to each other. Both were about ruthlessly suppressing dissent.

Mikey Weinstein of the militantly anti-religious “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” summed up the attitude pretty well when he commented on the Squires affair:

“If you’re going to view same-sex couples as a sin against god, you can either hold your tongue, change your attitude, or get out of the military.”

Weinstein believes that any denomination that won’t accommodate same-sex couples on marriage retreats should not be allowed to endorse chaplains for military service. I glean from some of his other comments that he believes the same should also apply to denominations that don’t perform same-sex weddings. Weinstein’s exclusionary ban would impact most major denominations including Catholics and nearly all Evangelicals, leaving the military with a huge deficit of qualified chaplains—which also happens to be Mikey’s lifelong dream. That’s not a coincidence.

Make no mistake—Weinstein’s point-of-view is gaining momentum. Chaplains will very soon be forced to conduct same-sex nuptials or be kicked out. This was blatantly obvious eight years ago when the Defense Department was carefully “studying” the effects of DADT repeal and yet these concerns were pooh-poohed.

To be clear, Chaplain Squires did not exclude this couple from the retreat though he would have been within his rights to do that. He excluded himself so as not to run afoul of his conscience, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Army regulations which require him to remain in good standing with his sponsoring denomination.

But these two chicks still weren’t happy because attending a marriage retreat was never their intent.

Do they expect me to believe that they really wanted to attend a marriage retreat conducted by a Southern Baptist preacher? This seems incredible. For starters, the marriage retreat was presumably Bible-based. Secondly, most marriage retreats focus on the complementary nature of men and women—their similarities and differences, their synergy, etc. It’s yin and yang stuff that doesn’t apply to yin and yin.

I can say with a high degree of certainty that this couple didn’t really want to attend this retreat. What they wanted was to provoke this exact conundrum. More than that they wanted Squires to face disciplinary action and perhaps lose his commission.

So they ambushed him.

These kinds of ambushes are increasingly common.

[The equivalent in civilian life would be the bakers and the photographers ostracized, demonized, and sued for tens of thousands of dollars…]

Something similar happened to Navy chaplain Wes Modder. His ordeal began when a homosexual junior officer began to engage him in regular private conversations about sexual sin in which the junior officer asked direct questions about the morality of certain sexual practices including homosexuality. Modder confirmed the teaching of two thousand years of Christianity and told him that yes, God hasn’t crossed anal sodomy off the sin list as much as our fallen world would like Him to.

Little did Modder know that the junior officer was taking notes of their conversations. The backbiting snitch then proceeded to file an Equal Opportunity complaint against the chaplain. According to the five-page complaint the chaplain not only thought that homosexuality was wrong but masturbation and pre-marital sex too! Apparently believing these things makes a person unfit to be a chaplain in today’s military.

Note to Mikey Weinstein: This is why “holding your tongue” is not good enough. Not content with merely shaming religious people into silence, homofascists will literally interrogate others’ religious beliefs just to ruin them.

The military, like society as a whole, is becoming an increasingly hostile place for people of faith. Millions of people are living in fear that their constitutionally-protected religious beliefs (and the free exercise thereof!) will make them the homofascists’ next victims. So they keep mum. They wait until they think they are in like-minded company—at church perhaps—before feeling out the group to see if it’s safe to speak. Then they say what they really believe in hushed tones and with lots of apologetic caveats.

There’s a term for this. It’s called living “in the closet.”

Homosexuals won’t like me using this term of course, because they claim it for themselves. Central to homosexuals’ identity is their purported victimhood which they attribute to being a hated minority forced to pretend to be something they are not.

It’s hard to see how the closet that homosexuals claim to have emerged from is any different than the one that they force dissidents liked Chaplains Squires and Modder to live in. The closet hasn’t disappeared and they don’t want it to. They just want someone else to live in it.

I know there are some people who honestly wish for a world in which no one lives in the closet but I’m not sure that such a world can exist. Nothing I’ve witnessed in the last twenty years of intolerant homosexual activism has convinced me that homofascists can live side by side with people who express even the mildest disapproval. The search for a fleeting “third way” that leaves everyone feeling liberated is fruitless.

If someone has to be in the closet, which I believe to be the case, let it be the homosexuals.

I must give some credit for this idea to former congressman Ron Paul, the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president. For nearly two decades Paul published newsletters that contained some off-the-wall stuff mixed in with a few hard truths that many people just aren’t mature enough to handle. “Bring back the closet!” he bellowed in the August 1990 issue. In June of that same year he wrote:

“I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

Amen to that, brother!

When homosexuals still lived in the closet they couldn’t harm us. During my time in the Army, for example, chaplains weren’t ambushed for their religious beliefs. No one was. But that’s because I served under DADT. Homosexuals in the ranks, of which I’m sure there were a few, couldn’t have been agitators and activists, much less bullies and tattletales, without calling attention to themselves.

Each day I wake up and read a news item about the homofascist assault on our freedoms and think to myself, ‘This wouldn’t be happening if they were all still hiding.’ Take for example the recent re-nomination of Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Feldblum is a militant lesbian who was originally appointed by President Obama and recently renominated by President Trump. Shame on him.

Feldblum does not respect the first amendment rights of anyone to disagree with or resist her movement’s agenda. Said Feldblum: “There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

She’s right that there can be a conflict between these two things but wrong to think that sexual liberty (if we can call it that) should supersede the unambiguous words of the Constitution.

But that’s really beside the point. What matters is that Chai Feldblum wouldn’t be a threat to our freedom if she had been born fifty years earlier. She might still have been a lesbian but she would have been a closeted one and her homofascist impulse would have been locked away in the depths of her heart where it couldn’t hurt a fly.

The “closet” that homosexuals whine so much about was a defensive apparatus for the rest of us. It ensured that the Chai Feldblums of this world couldn’t bind together and enact the kind of tyranny that they have succeeded in foisting upon us over the last two decades.

Under no circumstance should we apologize for using shame to defend ourselves. Society uses shame to disincentivize all sorts of behaviors including smoking, watching FOX News, telling racist jokes, and questioning global warming. We certainly shame people who won’t get in line with the homosexual agenda.

So what right do the shamers have to tell us we can’t shame them back?

Homosexuality was once the “love” that dare not speak its name—and if we try hard enough, it could be again. Ron Paul was right when he said society was better off when social pressure made these sexual deviants keep quiet.