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Jared Anderson

Dr. Edwards Is In...Unfortunately

Jared_anderson_web John Edwards recently called for mandatory preventive care checkups. According to the AP, Edwards told a crowd about his plan. "It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care. If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK." This means there must be a paper trail detailing that each citizen went to a doctor every year. Consequently, we would need a massive new federal bureaucracy to track each individual American’s health history and document said paper trail. To pay for this, the government would take more tax money out of my wallet...wait, how does this solve the problem? Edwards' plan would likely also induce some sort of penalties to punish those who skip their checkups, or as Democrats are calling it now, to "encourage" citizens to attend these mandatory doctors appointments.

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Changing of the Guard at G.O.P.

Shortly after the 2006 midterm elections in which the Republican Party lost both of its congressional majorities, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman announced that he would step down as the party’s organizational leader. President Bush decided to bring back the split-chairman structure from the 1980s, when President Reagan picked Senator Paul Laxalt for general chairman and Frank Fahrenkopf for the chairman. Under this system, the general chairman is the face of the party, raising money, focusing on outreach, and speaking for the party; Mel Martinez is the new general chairman. The chairman operates the day-to-day party apparatus. Mike Duncan, the RNC’s current general counsel and former treasurer, will serve in this role.

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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MOST RECENT BLOG POST

  • Will He Stay or Will He Go?
    Perhaps it's not very timely, given that John McCain's about to be the Republic Party's nominee, but I still found this Paul Shanklin song from Rush Limbaugh's website today hilarious.-Check out the rest

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

  • With the publication of this issue, I conclude my year as Editor-in-Chief of this fine newspaper feeling a great sense of pride.

    First of all, I am grateful for such a talented, enthusiastic, staff, and owe my sincere thanks for all of the efforts that you put into this publication. I am proud of you for what you have done and how you have done it, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed working for The Torch as much as I have enjoyed seeing all of you improve it and craft it into what it is today. You have made my job easy.

    I also would like to send my appreciation all those readers, subscribers, and donors who have supported The Torch – and those who have disagreed with us – both this year, and in years past. I think that you, too, should feel proud to be a part of something unique at Vanderbilt, which, thanks to you, has grown year after year.

    This paper’s two Associate Editors, Katherine Miller and Mike Warren, deserve a special note of gratitude. An entire page is not enough to convey their talents and the contributions they have made to The Torch, but I know their influence has been clearly visible this year, and will no doubt continue to be so over the next two years. More importantly, though, as fortunate as I am to have them as coworkers, I feel even luckier to call Katherine and Mike my close friends.

    In closing, I have tried my best to fulfill this paper’s mission statement, and to make it enjoyable to read and to work for. This year has been a tremendous learning experience, and I hope that I have succeeded in these goals more times than not. Thank you for the chance to make my mark on something I have grown to love. I look forward to next year, and can’t wait to see what Katherine will do next year to make The Torch burn brighter.

    -Douglas H. Kurdziel

THE TORCH: NOW IN COLOR!


  • Thanks to our generous subscribers and donors, we reached our Fall fundraising goals! Our second issue this semester (on racks Wednesday, February 27) features a full color front and back pages and a redesigned masthead. Look for the Torch website to see a few design changes itself next month. Thanks again to our subscribers and donors for their fantastic support.

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