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Eric Holder: Unfit

Attorney General Eric Holder pointed his finger at Congressman Louie Gohmert during a recent hearing and threatened "Don't Go there buddy".  In this infuriating show of disrespect Holder has demonstrated that he is unfit to represent the dignity of our Department Of Justice.

I know plenty of judges who would have thrown a lawyer even of Holder's stature in the clink for such contemptuous behavior.

Maybe it is Holder who should be wearing a pair of bracelets, courtesy of the US Marshall's service of course.

 

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Eric Holder Explodes At GOP Rep: 'You Don't Want To Go There, Buddy!'

What Happens In California Comes Here In .....

No doubt you've heard it said that what happens on the west coast happens here in the heartland 10 years later.  Well let us hope and pray that what is happening in Los Angeles county never happens anywhere else.

Residents are complaining that the police, dressed in military armor, have a pattern of behavior "oppressive" to the people they are supposed to be serving.  And as in this case, many times the police raids are based upon "anonymous" tips.

You will recall how law enforcement behaved after the Boston Marathon bombings.  Now, in this video, you will see how an innocent 80 year old man was gunned down in his bedroom.

I've asked these questions of you before, but now you need to be asking yourself again, when will we take back our country?  What will you do?

Here's the 7 minute video that should wake you up.  It is very hard to do damage control once the flood breaks out of its banks.

 

Here We Go Again: Hospitals Blaming Lawsuits For Their Own Failures

It is either working, or the ad men who sell this kind of crap are convincing, but time and time again organizations representing doctors and hospitals blame "unfounded" lawsuits for the high cost of insurance and for their miserable failing grades.  Well, I for one don't think the public is that dumb, so here's the truth.

In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.

Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher 2014 between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death, the study says.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second. [Scientific American]

And so how does Kentucky rank when it comes to Emergency Room care?

Kentucky's emergency rooms rank among the worst in the nation, but health officials say it's policy, not patient care, that accounts for the low score.

"The report isn't a judgment on the quality of care," said Dr. Ryan Stanton, a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, which released a state-by-state report card this month.

Kentucky ranked 47th, dropping from 44th when the last report was issued in 2009. The reports covered not only quality of care but access to care, public health, disaster preparedness and medical liability.

The fear of an unfounded lawsuit can keep emergency room doctors from coming to Kentucky to practice, he said. [Herald Leader]

Now let's get this straight, fear of unfounded lawsuits is keeping better doctors from coming to Kentucky?  Isn't that just a kinder way of saying we have lesser qualified doctors here? And in that light we are still being asked to swallow the argument that the problem isn't with less qualified doctors it's with lawsuits over the harm they cause?  Give me a break.

Look, I can't stand frivolous lawsuits, they harm us all.  They make it harder for juries to believe the meritorious ones, they usually are built around some publicity seeking lawyer which harms the image of our profession and they tie up court dockets denying the timely delivery of justice to the truly injured.

But to suggest that when medical negligence is the third leading cause of death in America and Kentucky emergency rooms rate 47th out of 50 that the problem is with "unfounded lawsuits" is an insult to your intelligence.

No lawyer worth his or her salt will file a lawsuit against a doctor until he/she has submitted all of the records to a competent, qualified and recognized expert for an opinion as to causation and damages.  And then, in most cases, no suit is filed unless the medical negligence is clear and the damages worth the expensive fight.

In reality, the refusal of the medical profession to demand higher quality performance and their lax approach to policing their own profession is far more to blame.

Recently I tried a case against an emergency room doctor who admitted he was a drug addict and an alcoholic.  He had been sent to rehab by the Kentucky medical board but permitted to practice.  He fell off the wagon, was sent to an inpatient treatment and then allowed back in the ER.  So he's no risk to the public?

More and more people are treating ER's as their primary care centers so I can understand why some providers get a little bored treating the sniffles rather than real trauma, but poor care and avoidable injuries are a reality in hospitals.

But why improve care when making mistakes can also mean making a huge profit?

Johns Hopkins researchers report that hospitals may be reaping enormous income for patients whose hospital stays are complicated by preventable bloodstream infections contracted in their intensive care units.

In a small, new study, reported online in the American Journal of Medical Quality, the researchers found that an ICU patient who develops an avoidable central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) costs nearly three times more to care for than a similar infection-free patient. Moreover, hospitals earn nearly nine times more for treating infected patients, who spend an average of 24 days in the hospital.

The researchers also found that private insurers, rather than Medicare and Medicaid, pay the most for patient stays complicated by CLABSIs — roughly $400,000 per hospital stay — suggesting that private insurers would gain the most financial benefit from working with hospitals to reduce infection rates.

“We have known that hospitals often profit from complications, even ones of their own making,” says Peter J. Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president for patient safety for Johns Hopkins Medicine and one of the authors of the research. “What we did not know was by how much, and that private insurers are largely footing the bill.” [Johns Hopkins]

Sure the medical profession has a well funded lobby and sure we all need our doctors and have a wonderful system of health care services available in the United States, and yes I am fully in support of the good doctors who are working daily to treat patients with loving care, the best in modern science and who take their duties seriously.

But failing grades, obscene death statistics and profiting off of mistakes are now matters of record, and as such are matters of fact.

Blaming lawsuits by injured patients as the cause of these disasters is a gross insult and an abuse of the public trust.

Here's a little advice to the medical profession and in particular the hospitals that might be a better cure for what ails them than blaming others:

Physicians, heal thy-selves.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/27/3055153/study-shows-kys-ers-are-some-of.html#storylink=cpy

 

Ky Court Shredding The Constitution Behind Closed Doors?

Because there is a statute making the proceedings in Kentucky juvenile cases confidential I am not at liberty to discuss any particular case or reveal anything that could identify a child or the proceedings in a Family Court case.  In otherwords, the public is prevented from seeing what is going on.

But I'd like to ask you this: suppose a Kentucky judge has, behind these closed doors, made these ruling:

Based solely upon the claim by a social worker that an anonymous caller accused two Kentucky parents of smoking marijuana in the presence of their children suppose the judge ordered both parents to submit to a blood test within 24 hours and to give statements to the government about their home life.

It is quite clear in the law that a blood test is a search and a seizure.  It is also quite clear that before a search can be conducted there must be presented probable cause that a crime is being committed.  And it is also quite clear that an anonymous tip cannot alone form the requisite probable cause to order a search.

It is also the right of every citizen to remain silent, that is no person can be compelled to become a witness against himself, in other words be forced to give a statement to a government official. 

But suppose a Kentucky judge ordered two citizens to submit to a blood test and give statements to government officials in a juvenile case behind closed doors in which the officials admitted under oath that the results of the blood test and/or the statments could expose the parents to criminal charges.

By what power would this judge be acting?  The answer is simply this: the power to punish the citizens for contempt if they do not comply, putting them in jail for up to six months, all behind the closed doors and out of view of the public under the protective cloak of the juvenile court confidentiality statutes.

The Kentucky Child Protective Services has been under close scrutiny for some time and has been the subject of at least one heated legislative hearing earlier this year.

And as a lawyer I can tell you that this agency of the government feels quite at ease intruding into the lives of ordinary citizens under the guise of "protecting children" when in fact these agencies themselves all around the country, and in Kentucky have had some serious questions raised about their ability to protect children in the past.

It should be of concern to every liberty loving Kentuckian that the rights of citizens not be violated and that the Kentucky Cabinet For Health and Family Services operating as a government agency be constrained by the Constitution rather than be permitted to engage in their intrusive behavior by judges operating behind closed doors and out of public view.

Court Says Photographer MUST Shoot Gay Wedding

A New Mexico court has ruled that a local photographer was not permitted to refuse to shoot photos at a gay wedding on the grounds of religious opposition.  The court dealt with both the discrimination laws and the First Amendment in coming to its decision.  In essence the court said that personal opinions must yield to a changing society.

You will recall that Rand Paul got himself in a bit of a problem during his campaign when he was portrayed as opposing a requirement of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits a restaurant owner from refusing to seat or sell to a customer based upon race.  This case applied a similar civil rights analysis to the refusal of the photographer to take pictures at a gay wedding.

This language from the case is sure to spark some pretty heated discussion.

“[I]n the “world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the [photographers] have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different.” [Turley]

Regardless you feelings about gay marriage, "government compelled conduct" is a hot topic.

Where Is Your Humanity?

Last year I said that our duty as humans compels us to step in and protect our fellow man when we see him or her being assaulted.  I equated our situation, watching atrocities in Syria, with seeing a man beat his wife on the street. "It's none of our business" is a heartless, and cowardly dodge.  Now look what has happened.

Thousands of people have been brutally murdered.  Allegations accompanied by videos of children foaming at the mouth as they die a tortured death from chemical weapons and bombs being dropped on innocent citizens are images we cannot ignore.

Our national response has been to secretly arm opposition forces, which turned out to be Al Qaeda, and thus we have armed our own enemies.

Yes, Syria is a sovereign nation and no the torture of the poor people living there can only be tangentially connected with our own national security.  But where is your humanity, those who say we should not become involved?

It's not a "new world order" mentality to acknowledge that every human being is our brother or our sister, it is the oldest world order in history.

May God forgive us for standing by as thousands of humans are being tortured, starved, murdered, raped, and poisoned.  How can we do this unto others when we would not want this done to us?

Obama Speaks From Both Sides Of Mouth, Again

This from Turley:

Just last week, Obama waxed poetic about his commitment to privacy. Yesterday however, his Administration took another major swipe at privacy and asked the Supreme Court to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which held that the police could not conduct warrantless searches of your cellphone when you are arrested.

Civil libertarians are shuddering at the prospect of this Court getting their hands on this issue. The Obama Administration is again pitching its case to the most conservative members of the Court like Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and Roberts. It is an irony missed by many. While Democrats often discuss the need for a Democratic president to make appointments on the Court, the Obama Administration routinely relies on the right wing of the Court for its efforts to strip privacy rights and civil liberties.

'Alarming And Blatantly Unconstitutional' Spying

The recent revelation of spying on ordinary citizens by our own government is an indefensible intrusion into our private lives.  But the newest twist in story has to do with the government sharing this information with law enforcement in order to "set people up" for bogus arrests.

A secretive unit of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Special Operations Division (SOD) has been working with the NSA and its massive database to detect illegal drug activity and then route that information to local authorities. Federal agents are trained to cover up the origins of the information. Harvard Law School professor Nancy Gertner noted that: “It is one thing to create special rules for national security. Ordinary crime is entirely different.”

An example occurs when the SOD tells state police to look for a specific vehicle at a specific location at a specific time. The trooper then pulls the vehicle over for some real or imagined infraction and a “clever” drug dog named Hans is brought in. The investigation looks like it began with the traffic stop and the SOD tip is never revealed. This process is known as “parallel construction,” and is used to hide the unwarranted origin of information.

Vice chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association, James Felman, says “It strikes me as indefensible.” Concealment of the circumstances under which a case begins “would not only be alarming but pretty blatantly unconstitutional” according to defense attorney Lawrence Lustberg. Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project said: “The DEA is violating our fundamental right to a fair trial. Our due process rights are at risk when our federal government hides and distorts the sources of evidence used as the basis for arrests and prosecutions.” [Turley]

Though prison populations have declined in the last three years (due largely to budget concerns) the United States still has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world (743 per 100,000 population), Russia has the second highest rate (577 per 100,000).

Newest Executive Order: Black Students Exempted From School Discipline?

This might be spin, but look at what the Examiner is reporting:

On July 26th Obama signed an executive order titled the "African American Education Initiative." The order essentially gives a green light for black students to misbehave in public schools. In two places, Obama's executive order calls on schools to reduce the number disciplinary actions taken against blacks students. The order specifically calls on schools too "not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools."

To comply, public schools would have to engage in a racial quota system of discipline. The executive order will create a new Federal bureaucracy to pressure school systems to comply with the president's demands. The executive order makes no mention of any effort to get black students to improve behavior.

There is a reason why blacks are more likely to be disciplined in school. Black students are more likely to misbehave. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there is a huge crime rate disparity between blacks and other racial groups.

Based on those disparities, one should expect that there would be a disparity in frequency of bad behavior between black and white school students in the public schools.

The DOJ reports that the homicide rate in the black community is nine times greater than in the white community. Between 1976 and 2005, the DOJ reported that blacks averaged 13 percent of the population, but accounted for 59 percent of felony homicide charges and 53 percent of non-felony manslaughter charges. It also might come as no surprise that 93-95 percent of black homicides victims are killed by a black perpetrator. Most of the rest are killed by a Latino perpetrator.

In reality, blacks are already less likely to be suspended for bad behavior than whites. Often, white teachers and administrators are afraid to discipline black students for fear of being called “racists.” Even some black school officials are afraid of being labeled a “sell-out” by black students.

The executive order also states that black students "lack equal access" to education. This statement, by the White House, is outrageous and easily disproved. Across the nation, majority black public schools routinely receive more funding per pupil than majority white public schools.

Do you see an effort to ratchet up racial tensions coming from somewhere?  What might be the goal of the people behind such an effort?  We've discussed this before.

Pfc Bradley Manning Convicted To Serve Up To 136 Years

For some reason the fact that Pfc Bradley Manning was acquitted of the charge of aiding the enemy seems like big news.  I guess that's because it is a blow to the Obama administration's increased use of espionage charges during his term of office, but, the combined effect of the guilty verdicts against him could land him in jail for up to 136 years.

And some are celebrating this as a victory?  What a weird world we live in.

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