News about America and some such

Nick Juliano in Rawstory writes:
"As many as 100,000 independent voters in Los Angeles did not -- and most likely will not -- have their ballots counted in last week's Democratic presidential primary because of an unnecessarily complex system(...)".

"In a system that seemed tailor made to fail, more than half of the Decline to State voters who cast ballots last week in Los Angeles County have been effectively disenfranchised. Unlike every other county in California, LA County requires unaffiliated voters to fill in an extra bubble on their ballot clarifying whether they plan to vote in the Democratic or American Independent Party primaries."
Well all well and good except NO ONE TOLD THE VOTERS IN LA that independent voters who voted in the Democratic party to fill in an extra bubble with their pens, to vote successfully.

"Voting rights group the Courage Campaign has started a petition urging LA County registrar Dean Logan to initiate a hand-count of ballots. But elections officials say that may be impossible because the same optical-scan ballot was used for Democratic and American Independent primaries." Well sorry folks, hand count is impossible, Clinton won. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, in the American Congress, thinkprogress.org:
"Last December, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) successfully filibustered consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance. But in the Senate today, an amendment by Dodd and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to strip retroactive immunity from a Senate Intelligence Committee bill failed to reach the necessary 51 votes. The final vote tally was 31-67."
Somehow CNN, FOX "News", NBC and MSNBC did not spend much time reporting this story.
So what is the difference between the two parties in America again?

TampaBay 10 TV Station:
"Tampa, Florida - The Hillsborough Co. Sheriff's Office held a press conference at 10:30am regarding the deputy who can be seen on video dumping a man in a wheelchair onto the ground.

They've announced that Deputy Charlette Jones has been relieved of her duties without pay pending the outcome of an investigation. She has not officially been terminated."

Go to the link and play the video. The callousness with which the paraplegic man was dumped from his wheelchair beggars description.

"Brian Sterner broke his neck almost 14 years ago and is a quadriplegic.

Sterner, who can drive, was arrested on a traffic violation. When he was booked into the Orient Road Jail last month, Sterner couldn’t believe what happened.

He says a deputy looked at him and didn’t believe he was a quadriplegic. She walked behind him, took the handles on the back of the hospital-grade wheel chair and dumped it forward.

Sterner says he tried to roll as he was going down, but hit so hard he thought he had broken two ribs. Then, while he was on the floor, deputies frisked him and tried to get him back into the chair."
As you watch the video, note that the police officers walk near by the incident occurring, as if it was an entirely normal, typical "day at the office" there.

Last but not least, please take a look at the map of the world . This is a map that shows countries divided into:
* those that do have total 100% or some type of universal healthcare coverage
* those that do not

You will see that countries that do not have universal healthcare are: All of Africa (sans South Africa), the very poor ex Soviet Union republics that became independent countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc, and our own beloved number 1 leader in everything, the Yoo Ess of EY (aka USA).

Makes you think - yah think?