Hitchens believes that even while Reagan and Bush were in office, there was no change in abortion, civil rights, school prayer. The left deserved Bill Clinton. It's our job as citizens and as activists to pressure our leaders to do the right thing. We've failed in the 1990s, and it's taken a challenge from Ralph Nader to even make the Democratic Party go through the motions of liberal policy making. We as a nation deserved a man who didn't disturb our fantasy world.
Emergency rooms are understaffed to handle even the everyday volume of patients during flu season.
Local agencies would find it imperative to call in federal assistance to deal with any mass-casualty situation. Although I agree with Robert Dreyfuss regarding erosions of civil liberties that occur through antidrug and antiterrorist programs, I am certain that money is well spent in disaster preparedness. In this, we can never be overprepared. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act, companies were required to report worst-case scenarios of chemical releases from large industrial facilities. This provision was designed to publicize emission levels and force reductions.