Proprietor Nation

The Hillary Playbook and How to Counter It

2007-12-17T13:12:00.000-06:00

Because I am a junkie of politics I subscribe to email lists of all persuasions. As such, I found myself on Hillary Clinton's email list. (This started initially when I wrote her an email about the absurdity of her mortgage bailout. Because I needed to put my name and email in my address I found myself on her list) Here is an email I just received from her campaign.

Running for president means asking a lot of people to put their faith in you -- and putting your faith in a lot of people. You've never let me down, and my promise to you has always been this: if you put your faith in me, I will fight for you every day when I'm president.

When I get to the White House, I'll end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home. I'll stop the cowboy diplomacy and Bush's war on science. I'll reverse the attacks on our Constitution and civil liberties. I'll ask the Congress to send me everything that Bush vetoed, like stem cell research and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

From day one, I'll be fighting for you, because America needs a clean and decisive break from seven years of George Bush. Not one of the Republican candidates is capable of making that happen. They're all promising four more years of the same failed policies. They see Bush's failure in Iraq and want to continue it. They see failure of leadership on the economy and want to repeat it. They see his assault on civil liberties and the disgraces of Guantanamo and want to carry them on.

Now, since this is meant for Democratic primary voters we can disregard the digs at Bush and look merely at the substance of what Hillary is saying.

She first says this about Iraq...

I'll end the war in Iraq?

My question is immediately when. Here is what Hillary Clinton said in a previous debate about pulling out of Iraq.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting,"

She went on not to commit to pulling out of Iraq before her first term were to end. Thus, while she gives her supporters the impression that she makes pulling out of Iraq a priority, she also doesn't even commit to pulling out of Iraq until after 2013. This dichotomy of positions is so easy to attack that I don't know where to begin. This is of course perfect for any advertisement. Also, depending what she says in any debate, her other position can also be used to bludgeon her.

Then, Hillary points out that Bush has conducted a war on science and mentions stem cell research. Here, like most Bush opponents on this matter, Hillary simply mischaracterizes Bush's position on the matter. Bush is not and never has been against stem cell research. In fact, the Bush administration has been funding stem cell research since 2001.

In a much-anticipated decision on what he called a "complex and difficult issue," President Bush on Thursday night said he would allow federal funding of research using existing stem cell lines.

Bush said there are about 60 existing stem cell lines in various research facilities -- cell lines that have already been derived from human embryos.

The president stopped short of allowing federal funding for research using stem cells derived from frozen embryos, about 100,000 of which exist at fertility labs across the country.

The question for the Bush administration always involved EMBRYONIC stem cells. Clinton doesn't say EMBRYONIC stem cells but rather an all encompassing stem cell research. Bush's position is that he doesn't want the federal government to fund research in which human life is created solely so that it can be destroyed and studied. Since this is a much more difficult position to attack, folks like Clinton try to inaccurately paint Bush as against stem cell research altogether. In this situation, as in any in which someone is not saying something accurate, Hillary needs to be confronted with the truth and see how she deals with it then. First, she must be held accountable for her mischaracterization of Bush's position. She isn't the only one and at this point I am sick of everyone mischaracterizing Bush. If you have to mischaracterize your opponents, then how strong can your position be?

Second, Clinton has to be confronted with this...if she is all right with science creating life solely so that it is destroyed, at what point does she see science as going too far? Is she against cloning for instance? After all, there are a lot of exciting possibilities in cloning? If she has no problem creating life to destroy in the name of science, why would she have a problem with cloning life in the name of science? Where would scientific research stop and morality and ethics start in her administration?

Next, she says that she would end the so called assault on civil liberties and mentions Gitmo by name. Since she doesn't specifiy which assualts, we can only assume that she means things like enhanced interrogations, warrantless wiretaps, military tribunals, and of course Gitmo altogether. Since she finds Gitmo so especially obscene, my first question would be where those prisoners would go. Most of their home countries don't want them. Does she plan on trying them in our own federal system? Does she understand that terrorists routinely kill the friends and families of those that they see as turning against them? Does she understand that any witnesses against any terrorist in any open court would immediately have their lives threatened? Given that, how exactly does she expect any terrorist to be convicted in any federal court?

As for enhanced interrogations and warrantless wiretapping, this creates another opportunity to paint Hillary as weak on national defense. First, I have always found the entire debate about warrantless wiretapping to be quite absurd. I don't know any other time in the history of warfare in which the President needed a judge's permission to spy on the enemy. Thus, proclaiming that the Commander in Chief is destroying civil liberties because he is spying on the enemy without a judge's permission is to me absurd. On a political level, it can be painted, rightfully so, as weak on national defense. Most of the Republican candidates have, rightly so, not identified what techniques they will and won't allow because then you are telegraphing that to the enemy. By coming out against Bush, as she has, Clinton has in fact told the enemy what she won't use. Because she sees anything outside basic police interrogation protocol as an erosion of civil rights, the enemy can prepare for the basic interrogation techniques that she will allow. This gives Republicans yet another chance to paint her as weak on national defense.

Now, anyone of us that knows Hillary knows that this is only scratching the surface as far as attacks on her, however since she has chosen to highlight these things to her supporters we can assume that these are her priorities, and this is how these priorities ought to be countered.

Boiler Room - Telemarketing Scene

2007-12-17T11:54:00.001-06:00

Passing Along Some Vital Information on Illegal Immigration

2007-12-17T11:33:00.000-06:00

I received this email from Numbers USA over the weekend.

Without explanation, Congress has stripped away $3 billion in desperately needed funds to build the Border Fence that it approved last year and to provide for other border security.

That's right—without telling the public, Congress is pulling the plug on the U.S.-Mexico Border Fence that it voted for with such enthusiasm last year (just before they asked voters to re-elect them).

Help us turn this petition into a national overnight phenomenon. Time is critical—Congress will finalize this funding question before Christmas!

Now, it is important to emphasize again, as Numbers points out, that the fence and its funding was voted on late in the session in 2006. At last check, about eleven miles out of thousands had actually been built.

The fence has become a sort of cause celebe for opponents of tough measures against illegal immigration. Their rallying cry comes in this statement from Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona.

You show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border. That's the way the border works

That sort of statement is what I refer to as a strawman arguement. No one is claiming that the border fence will keep out everyone that tries to come in. It will however keep out a lot of them, and that is the point of anti illegal immigration legislation. Everytime I hear this statement, I always point out that a Mexican migrant is going to look awfully funny walking around the desert with a fifty one foot ladder. There is no one hundred percent full proof way of keeping illegals out. If we put together a human wall, someone might ride in in a tank. That doesn't mean that methods aren't effective even if some smart person has figured out a way to theoretically get around them.

The border fence near San Diego is proof that the fence works.

Before the fence was built, all that separated that stretch of Mexico from California was a single strand of cable that demarcated the international border.

Back then, Border Patrol agent Jim Henry says he was overwhelmed by the stream of immigrants who crossed into the United States illegally just in that sector.

"It was an area that was out of control," Henry says. "There were over 100,000 aliens crossing through this area a year."

Today, Henry is assistant chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. He says apprehensions here are down 95 percent, from 100,000 a year to 5,000 a year, largely because the single strand of cable marking the border was replaced by double -- and in some places, triple -- fencing.

Both houses of Congress voted on and approved this fence and the President signed it. If laws aren't followed through on, then our government is nothing more than a banana republic. This is unacceptable and I hope everyone rises up and demands that Congress follow through on what they started.

The warriors - come out and play

2007-12-16T12:55:00.001-06:00

Is There a War on Christmas?

2007-12-16T11:22:00.000-06:00

That was the question asked by the Chicago Sun Times in their editorials section. Andrea Sarvady argued that there is no war. Like most secular progressives, she made Bill O'Reilly the issue in her arguement that so called war on Christmas is overblown.

It's the "war" Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and his "cultural
warriors" battle every December, trying to save Christmas. Frothing at the mouth for hours of air time, O'Reilly extrapolates from various church vs. state skirmishes and politically correct marketing efforts that there is a national conspiracy to eradicate Christmas.

It's ironic, because what this avowed patriot is actually railing against
couldn't be more American: the First Amendment.

Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, explains the guiding principle -- simply, to "treat people of all faiths or none with fairness and respect." Therefore, holiday programs "shouldn't make any students feel excluded or identified with a religion not their own." Religious music shouldn't dominate a choral program, but can be included. Public seasonal displays should contain both secular and religious elements.

This is a peculiar perspective for several reasons. It starts with her peculiar interpretation of the first amendment. Here is the text from the Constitution...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Now, I must have missed the part where it is against the first amendment to make someone feel uncomfortable. Second, Christmas is a federal holiday. Now, Ms. Sarvady would apparently have us celebrate this FEDERAL holiday without any mention of it anywhere in public. Third, O'Reilly isn't against displaying religious symbols from all the holidays of the season. He just feels as though Christmas shouldn't be singled out and not displayed. Here is how he put it.

The usual Christmas deniers are appalled the ACLU is not going to sue anybody this year. And that's because they lose almost every time they drag Christmas into court. And even those pinheads are tired of wasting money.

In Wisconsin, the state assembly has voted to restore the name of the
"Christmas tree" to the "Christmas tree". That's because they changed it to the "holiday tree". On Capitol Hill, the House voted yesterday 372 to 9 to recognize the "importance of the Christmas tradition and to condemn bigotry against Christians." And those who voted against that Ackerman and Clarke of New York, DeGette of Colorado, Hastings of Florida, McDermott of Washington state, Scott of Virginia, Lee, Woolsey, Stark of California.

So all over the country, the sights and signs of Christmas are on display. Few department stores are telling employees not to say a "Merry Christmas." And the Taliban like oppression of the holiday has largely ceased, but the SPs are not happy about that.

Sarvady's arguement totally falls apart for me with these next two points...

Some school and city officials choose to excise the holidays completely in order to avoid offense. Haynes, a consultant to school districts, feels that year-round education on various religions is a more effective way to mitigate the "December Dilemma."

Though well-versed on all sides of the issue, he still doesn't understand the attack on more all-encompassing greetings like "Happy Holidays," saying: "People who use that expression are just trying to be kind."

...

One of the more insidious aspects of this trumped-up "war" is an eagerness to blame everything on what Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council calls "overzealous secularist officials." Clever. Pretend the separation of church and state matters only to secular leftists and the rabid right won't sound like they're trying to propagate a religious crusade.

Isn't it amazing how someone supposedly stands up for the first amendment in one breathe and then finds nothing wrong with schools taking away everyone's ability to express their religious beliefs in the other? How exactly is this in keeping with either the letter or the spirit of the first amendment?

Some school and city officials choose to excise the holidays completely in order to avoid offense...

I guess in the world of Ms. Sarvady taking away every religion's right to express itself is protecting the first amendment. Like I said, I didn't know that offending someone was a violation of the first amendment. Then Sarvady uses this strawman arguement.

Pretend the separation of church and state matters only to secular leftists and the rabid right won't sound like they're trying to propagate a religious crusade.

What's clever is pretending as though the separation of church and state is anywhere in the Constitution. The phrase the separation of church and state is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. In fact, it was first used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson

The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter
written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." [7]

This so called wall is not and never has meant to be to stop any and all religious expressions in the public square. The first amendment is supposed to keep Congress from favoring one religion over another. Now, some might argue that making Christmas a federal holiday violates that principle, however that is found nowhere in Sarvady's arguement. Since she knows that removing Christmas as a federal holiday is frankly a non starter, she makes all of these other arguements. Arguements that only make sense in the alter universe of the secular progressive.

Crisis in California

2007-12-15T12:40:00.002-06:00

That seems to be the word all around the internet. The buzz is rolling in from all over the place.

Arnold Schwarzenegger will declare a fiscal state of emergency in California after badly miscalculating the deficit condition in the Golden State. Last August, he predicted that the state would have a $4.1 billion reserve at the end of this fiscal year, but a legislative analyst predicted in November that California would have a $10 billion deficit. Schwarzenegger now says it's even worse than that:

Here is another view.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he will declare a "fiscal emergency" in January to reduce an anticipated $14 billion budget deficit, pressuring lawmakers to fast-track spending cuts and other solutions. The Republican governor has signaled that he wants to cut spending across the board in state programs, while Democratic leaders have said that both spending reductions and tax increases need to be considered...

Let's get a sampling of California bloggers... First, here is a self described "progressive"

Well, this puts a damper on our ever-so-sunny outlook in Sacramento.
Spending will likely be slashed, but when are we going to address the real problem? We can't keep going on this boom/bust budget roller coaster that we are riding. Maybe we can appoint John Laird as our fiscal administrator. Trust me, things would be way better than they are now.

So...um...John Laird for Fiscal Overlord '08!

Conservatives in Calis blogging world are no less happy...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger is about to declare a fiscal emergency thanks to a complete mishandling of the budget by he and the legislature: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he will declare a "fiscal emergency" in January to give him and the Legislature more power to deal with the [...]

Hard to spin this as anything but a problem from the Governor, but stay tuned...

40 Year Old Virgin Sex Ed Scene

2007-12-15T12:40:00.001-06:00

The AMT and the Lessons of Taxation and Class Warfare

2007-12-15T11:20:00.000-06:00

In 1969, in order to make sure that about 100 fat cats paid their fair share Congress created the Alternative Minimum Tax...

In August 1969 as he was preparing the next year's budget Barr warned that the country faced a taxpayers' revolt. He explained, according to the Washington Post, that in 1967 there were a total of 155 individuals with incomes over $200,000 who did not pay any federal income taxes; twenty of them were millionaires. These individuals successfully used all tax loopholes available to legally evade paying taxes. The revelation attracted wide media attention and led to public shock. As he presented the next annual budget, published in the final weeks of his administration, President Johnson indicated that the problem needed to be addressed...

Unfortunately what started as a tax against fat cats has now begun to affect a large majority of Americans.

For more than three decades, the individual income tax has consisted of two parallel tax systems: the regular tax and an alternative tax that was originally intended to impose taxes on high-income individuals who have no liability under the regular income tax. The stated purpose of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) is to keep taxpayers with high incomes from paying little or no income tax by taking advantage of various preferences in the tax code. The AMT does so by
requiring people to recalculate their taxes under alternative rules that include certain forms of income exempt from regular tax and that do not allow specific exemptions, deductions, and other preferences. For most of its existence, the AMT has affected few taxpayers, less than 1 percent in any year before 2000, but its impact is expected to grow rapidly in coming years and affect about one-fifth of all taxpayers in 2010. In her 2003 report to the Congress, the Internal Revenue Service's National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, labeled the AMT "the most serious problem faced by taxpayers."(1)

The evolution of the AMT from going after 155 fat cats to one that will hit ten million people if it isn't dealt with is a great example how taxes often morph into something totally from its initial purpose and should be a lesson to all politicians about the dangers of using taxes as a means of fighting class warfare.

Unfortunately, many politicians continue to use taxes as a means of fighting class warfare in hopes of finding themselves on the same side of the table with the majority of Americans against the wealthy. For instance, here is how Hillary Clinton feels about the estate or death tax.

“I am more focused on preventing the repeal of the estate tax and returning to what I think are fairer, more effective tax rates for the wealthiest. There may be an argument to be made, which I would be open to but I think you need to look at the entire tax picture. There isn’t any credible argument that the taxes under the Bush administration have gone down disproportionately on high-income investors and earners.”

So what is the so called death tax and why should everyone be concerned when a politician uses it as a means of class warfare?

The estate tax is technically a tax on the transfer of property to others, generally to children of a decedent. It was envisioned to prevent families from passing on huge fortunes and developing a type of royalty in America.

Once again, we have a tax created to make sure that we punish the fat cats. This time they are actually taxed in death. Unfortunately, while the tax death does punish the fat cats it also punishes another class: the savers. Here is a chart of the bottom line levels of an estate's value before it is taxed. For instance, in 2002, any estate worth one million dollars and more would have been taxed. Keep in mind that an estate is everything you own including your home. It is also any retirement that you may have saved up. Let's suppose you saved $100 per month for 40 years and earned an average of 12% on that money. That savings would grow to just over one million dollars after forty years. Someone saving 100 dollars a month is no fat cat and yet they would likely be affected by the estate tax.

Let's look at another tax used by many politicians as a tool in class warfare: the capital gains tax.

A capital gains tax (abbreviated: CGT) is a tax charged on capital gains, the profit realized on the sale of an asset that was purchased at a lower price. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property. Not all countries implement a capital gains tax and most have different rates of taxation for individuals and corporations.

Here is what Barack Obama would like to do to the capital gains tax.

As part of his "Tax Fairness for the Middle Class" plan, Barack Obama is in favor of nearly doubling the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to 28 percent. Leaving the fairness issue aside for a moment—as well as the impact of higher taxes on economic growth—the Obama plan could also be called a "Ways in Which Government Can Collect More Taxes to Pay for New Spending" plan, since Democratic candidates are all scrambling to figure out ways to plausibly pay for
new healthcare, education, and infrastructure spending if elected.

Keep in mind that the capital gains tax taxes an gain in any long term investment including stocks and real estate. So, what percentage of American households currently own stocks?

Dramatically more Americans own financial assets now than in the recent past. As recently as 1980, only 4.6 million U.S. households owned mutual funds; by 2003 the number was 53.3 million.

More than half of American families currently own stocks, bonds or real estate. Nearly half of all U.S. households own stocks or stock mutual funds.

So, when Barack Obama promises to raise the capital gains tax to make the tax system more fair he is actually promising to raise taxes on more than half of American households and growing.

Another way in which politicians use taxes as class warfare is through the nebulous word: loophole. Whether its John Edwards, Barack Obama, or
Hillary Clinton, the word loophole is used as another tool in fighting class warfare.

Every day, millions of working Americans go to their jobs, play by therules and hope to make a decent living for themselves and their families. These workers strengthen our middle class and keep oureconomy going. In turn, the vast majority of American employers holdup their end of the bargain by treating their employees fairly.

But sadly, many working men and women are not being treated fairly because some businesses are using a little-known tax loophole to avoidpaying their fair share. It's workers and American taxpayers who paythe price.

...

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate, on Friday urged closing a tax loophole that she said unfairly benefits a few top Wall Street financiers.

Clinton called the loophole a "glaring inequity" and joined other lawmakers in a push to raise the tax rate on "carried interest" gains made by senior partners in the booming private equity and hedge fund businesses.

...

Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., told crowds Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, that he would pay for new programs to benefit the middle class by closing loopholes and tax breaks now benefiting the wealthiest Americans.

Remember, the Alternative Minimum Tax itself was created to supposedly close a tax loophole that was also supposed to affect only the wealthiest Americans.

A tax increase speaks for itself. The problem is that many a politician have used tax increases as some sort of tool to appeal to emotions. We have a country of nearly half a billion people and at any given time there are millions who are less successful than they would like to be. Those millions can almost always be quantified by someone and put into percentages. The unsuccessful almost always have a resentment toward those at the top. Politicians see opportunities in appealing to such emotions. By increasing taxes that they see as primarily applying to the successful, they seek to score points with the masses who are largely less successful. Unfortunately, the reality of tax policy is almost never in line with the perception that is created by politicians.

Whether it is the AMT, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, or the nebulous tax loopholes, these, like most taxes, almost always end working the same: by affecting the majority of people.

Giant - Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean

2007-12-14T17:37:00.001-06:00

More Action From the Legislature Vis a Vis Mortgages

2007-12-14T15:45:00.000-06:00

The Legislature just moved to open up FHA loans for many of the borrowers currently facing hardship.

The Senate moved Friday against the worsening mortgage crisis, voting to make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.

The legislation, approved 93-1, would allow the Federal Housing
Administration to back refinanced loans for borrowers who are delinquent on
payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low
initial "teaser" levels.

The bill also tries to make FHA loans more attractive than risky subprime loans by accepting lower down payments and expanding the eligibility for counseling for homeowners having difficult with their mortgage payments.

An estimated 2 million to 2.5 million adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled to reset in the next year, jumping to much steeper rates that could cost borrowers their homes. The wave could crest during the presidential and congressional election campaigns next year, and politicians have been wrestling with what the government's response should be

A colleague of mine pointed out that there are several things that are currently different and still need to be worked out between the Senate and House version.

Downpayment/cash investment: Senate - 1.5% cash investment w/ maximum loan amount of 100% of sales price/value that includes the upfront MIP; House still has a 0% downpayment provision.

· Mortgage limit for “high cost” areas: Senate - $417,000; House – up to $729,000.

· Seller participation in down payment assistance programs:

· Moratorium on implementation of risk-based pricing: Expect a delay of a year before enactment..

· Broker surety bond in lieu of audit: It is in the House bill only. I will be shocked if this makes it in the final bill…Get those audits ready….

Just like every other government action in response to this crisis, this one is flawed and quite possibly counter productive. The main problem lies in the fact that most politicians have no idea how FHA works, and thus they can't possibly know if it will help. FHA has limits on debt to income that are much more stringent than most of the loans the sub prime borrowers are currently in. In other words, most of the borrowers currently struggling in these sub prime loans wouldn't qualify FHA if it is in its current form. If debt to income limits aren't adjusted this move is largely ceremonial.

If, on the other hand, the limits are adjusted so these borrowers would qualify for FHA, then we could be facing the same sort of crisis in FHA within a couple of years. Much of the reason that FHA has been a successful and profitable mortgage is the very limits that it has on debt to income.

Furthermore, the legislators want to increase the loan limits on FHA. What they don't understand is that FHA is a government bureaucracy. When I do an FHA loan, I am not only dealing with the bank but also the bureaucracy of the government. For instance, the FHA bureaucracy assigns a case number to each FHA loan. By increasing the limits, especially if they are increased dramatically to 700k, they will create too much demand for FHA loans for the bureaucracy to handle. FHA loans are already a bureaucratic nightmare for any loan officer to deal with. By expanding them this much, the nightmare will become obscene.

The limits on down payment are also largely ceremonial. Already, FHA only requires a three percent down payment. Dropping that requirement down to 1.5% is negligible.

Thus, the sixty four thousand dollar question is whether or not the debt to income limits will change. If they don't this is a largely ceremonial bureaucratic nightmare. If they do, this will eventually devastate FHA the way that subprime is currently being devastated.

Gotta love our elected politicians.

The Consequences of Shutting Down Grady Hospital and Its Political Implications

2007-12-14T12:54:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned earlier, Grady Hospital has joined a dubious category when the JCAHO threatened to revoke its accreditation. Only King Drew in California was ever threatened with such an extreme measure. An investigation by the L.A. Times that was ultimately highlighted by this story forced JCAHO's hand.

Despite a long history of problems at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two things set the Rodriguez case apart: the existence of a security videotape showing the woman writhing for 45 minutes on the floor of the emergency room lobby and the public release this week of two 911 calls in which witnesses unsuccessfully pleaded with sheriff's dispatchers for help.

In the case of Grady Hospital, it was community activists, not the media, that alerted JCAHO to problems. Since Grady won't release the findings we don't know what specific problems there are yet. Of course, one only needs to read these pages to know the sorts of horrors that have happened at Grady Hospital.

One night that is what happened. One time he was left in charge of the entire step down unit from 4 PM to 2AM. The first emergency came from one patient who was recovering from lung surgery. The patient's lung collapsed and Kevin was called in to save his life. The patient was suffocating and time was of the essence. Kevin was panicked and needed to move quick. He needed to find a chest tube, but because of his own inexperience, he didn't know where they kept the chest tubes. In a rush, he did the only thing he could think of at the time. He grabbed the dirty chest tube that had already been used on the patient and injected into their lungs.

Next, Kevin was asked to read an x ray of the patient's lungs to determine if they were stable. This is again not something a medical student is supposed to do on their own and without supervision but since their was no supervision there wasn't much choice. Kevin gave it his best estimation and determined the patient was fine however as it turns out that was just a lucky guess. This patient survived but it had nothing to do with the type of care that was provided them at Grady.

I set this context so everyone understands what a total nightmare Grady Hospital is right now. Keep in mind that Grady's current financial crisis is in many ways divorced from the findings of the JCAHO report. In other words, whatever patient nightmares were going on at King Drew, they didn't also experience a financial crisis concurrently. King Drew was ultimately forced to shut down. That is a distinct possibility for Grady as well.

I believe shutting down Grady would create an even bigger nightmare with all sorts of unintended consequences and frankly a situation no one can predict or control. Let's lay out some numbers. Grady Hospital serves roughly one million patients per year. It has five thousand employees and contributes roughly 1.5 billion dollars to the economy in the area. Despite only serving two of Georgia's roughly 100 counties, Grady provides some or all of the training to one quarter of Georgia's doctors. Ninety percent of the staff at Grady is from Emory University with about 400 residents from there on staff at any given time. The entire medical school of Morehouse is trained at Grady Hospital as well. Grady Hospital has about nine hundred beds available. For comparison, South Fulton, the other hospital primarily for poor folks in the area, has 36 beds.

Its important to understand that Grady serves the poor, the indigent, almost exclusively. More importantly, in Fulton, Dekalb, and to some extent the surrounding counties, the poor and indigent are almost exclusively served by Grady. In the case of King Drew there were several other area hospitals that were also already serving the poor. Not so in the case of Grady. Without Grady Hospital the poor would be unleashed on the entire remaining health care system that remains. As a friend in Atlanta once told me

there's no way they will close Grady because the other hospitals don't want their patients

Keep in mind that most of the folks that go to Grady either have no insurance or Medicare at best. In other words, treating them is in no way a for profit operation. Soouth Fulton is the only other public hospital in the area, and there is no way it could handle the entire indigent population of Fulton and Dekalb Counties. Furthermore, Grady is the only level 1 trauma center for hundreds of miles. Severe gun shot wounds, bad car accidents, dismemberments, and other such traumas are all treated there and there only for hundreds of miles. Many times other neighboring states have their level one traumas treated there. In case of a terrorist attack, it would be Grady that would be the only hospital equipped to handle mass casualties in the area.

Furthermore, since Grady is also the main teaching hospital in Georgia, the entire health care teaching system would be traumatized. With 25% of the doctors receiving some or all of their training at Grady, the impact on the medical training is beyond words. Emory's medical school would be the equivalent Northeast Texas State Community College and Morehouse would cease to exist altogether.

I recently pointed out the absurdity of AJC reporter Mike King's column in which he called Grady board members arrogant for making demands not requests in their time of crisis. I doubt very much that you will find anyone in the Atlanta area media that will ever break down Grady's impact the way I just have, however I am certain the powers that be at Grady know full well the numbers that I have laid out. In other words, crisis or not the powers that be know what a vital part of Georgia Grady is and thus they can afford to be arrogant.

This context has political impact and it is also something that I do not believe the Atlanta media will ever explain properly either. Late last month, the Grady board approved a plan that would infuse Grady with much needed cash and make the board quasi private. The timing of this move is very important because it came right before JCAHO's announcement. While this plan purports to deal with Grady's fiscal issues, it in no way addresses the obvious medical care problems currently going on at Grady. Frankly, given the make up of the task force that recommended this plan, as well as other factors, I have already concluded that this quasi privatization plan is nothing more than a stunt that allows the powers that be to continue running Grady the exact same way only with even less oversight.

Now, I believe that the legislators and the Grady board are playing a high stakes game of chicken. It is frankly difficult to surmise which is worse: allowing a corrupt Grady to continue to operate or shutting it down and unleashing its patients on the rest of the medical system and disrupting the states medical education. It is even more dificult to figure out which is the better move politically. So far the politicians appear to be balking at Grady's proposal.

State Senate President Pro-Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) took issue with the demands that state officials support $30 million more a year in funding to Grady and provide state funding for hospital trauma units around the state.

"What? They didn't require us to fund an ice cream cone for every patient?" Johnson said. "I don't think the Legislature responds well to blackmail. ... Grady cannot be treated any different than any other hospital."

I would have to beg to differ with Johnson on one point. Grady can and always has been treated differently than other hospitals. The reasons for this are numerous however most of them have been laid out in this piece. There are very few hospitals in America and the world that are more vital to the community they serve than Grady Hospital. The powers that be at Grady know this all too well and they are now using that fact to try and force the hands of the politicians in Georgia. The politicians can talk tough however if Grady is shut down, that is a situation no one can predict and control. What's going on now at Grady is despicable, corrupt and frankly evil, however it is done almost exclusively to poor folks who really don't vote. By shutting Grady down, on the other hand, the politicians will unleash a nightmare upon everyone else in Georgia, and most of those people do vote.

Thus, we have this complicated and high stakes game of chicken.

EPILOGUE:

If you would like to know how Grady got to this point, please read this summary. Also, please take a look at the recommendations that my colleagues and I have drawn up to fix Grady Hospital.

Disecting the Mitchell Report

2007-12-14T11:27:00.000-06:00

The Mitchell Report is out and there is no doubt that it will have a profound effect on baseball. Players of all shapes and sizes have been implicated: from Roger Clemens, to Eric Gagne, to Len Dykstra, to Matt Franco, and on and on. It certainly only scratched the surface as far everyone involved but it no doubt gives everyone a glimpse into how rampant the problem was. I believe that Mitchell should be commended for his work, which I believe was quite thorough, however his conclusions were clear to everyone a long time ago. That is frankly not an indictment of Mitchell but rather of baseball and its fans.

Mitchell correctly pointed out that everyone shares responsibility: from ownership and MLB which looked the other way, to the Player's Union which successfully fought of testing for a long time under the ridiculous guise of privacy, to the players themselves for obvious reasons, as well as the fans who also looked the other way in order to enjoy more homers.

For the most part, Mitchell's recommendations are sensible however also easier said than done.

The Commissioner should establish a Department of Investigations

The Commissioner's office should more effectively cooperate with law enforcement agencies

The Commissioner's office should actively use the clubs' powers, as employers, to investigate violations

All clubs should have clear, written and well-publicized policies for reporting information relating to possible performance enhancing substance violations

Logging packages sent to players at Major League ballparks

Random drug testing of clubhouse personnel

A hot line for reporting anonymous tips

Top draft prospects should be tested prior to the Major League Draft

The design and implementation of the educational program should be centralized with the Independent Program Administrator

Spring training programs should include testimonials and other speakers and presentations

Explain the health risks in context and provide education on alternative methods to achieve the same results

Players need to understand the non-health effects of buying performance enhancing substances from street dealers and "Internet pharmacies"

Prominently display posters about performance enhancing substance use prevention

The drug testing program should be independent, transparent, with unnanounced year round testing

The biggest problem going forward is developing tests for such banned though currently undetectable substances like HGH. Without a test for HGH, the current testing program is to be kind lacking. The larger problem is staying up with all the new performance enhancing drugs that players will find that won't have a test for them.

I firmly believe that the era of wide spread use that we saw of performance enhancing drugs is largely over. While the sport is certainly not rid of cheating, I don't believe that it is systemic as it was. Still, the questions from that era linger. Questions about the hall of fame, records and more will haunt baseball for a long time.

I believe there must be some sort of a line as far as proof of cheating that will bar people from the hall of fame. I don't know what that line should be and it will ultimately be up to the writers to decide. I certainly don't think that the line is a failed drug test. I don't think that there is much legitimate debate as to whether or not Barry Bonds cheated, with or without a failed test. I think that the 75% threshhold for the hall will keep most suspected cheaters out regardless.

The records are even trickier. A friend of mine once suggested the draconian action of putting an asterisk next to any record set between 1988-2004. That would mean that Orel Hershhizer's record (if he took steroids they were certainly not ones that worked) would have an asterisk. If you think that is too harsh, look at the other side and realize the all time home run king is Barry Bonds.

Finally, there is unfortunately no real lessons learned here. Baseball was on the brink of disaster following the strike of 1994. They looked the other way while many people started to cheat. The cheaters started hitting homers at ridiculous clips and the fans took notice. Many of those players not only received extra accolades and attention but money. Most of the players that played fair lost out on the same thing. Many players that would have never thought of cheating before turned to it out of desire or necessity. (see the case of Wally Joyner) The ballparks filled again and baseball came out from under the weight of the strike. The fans didn't much care that players went from skinny to bulky overnight because they now hit lots and lots of homers. I doubt very much that attendance will be down as a result of this report, and thus cheating saved the game.

The Prophetic Words of Dick Morris

2007-12-13T15:30:00.000-06:00

I remember right after the November election that Dick Morris pointed out how difficult it was going to be for the Democratic Congress to govern. The problem, as he saw it, was the many competing factions that make up the Democratic party: The Blue Dogs, The Congressional Black Caucus, The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the group allied with Soros and the Nutroots. While all of these groups fall under the Democratic umbrella, they all have competing and varying agendas. As Morris predicted, the Democrats' problem all along has been getting all of them on the same page. This is the underlying story in their continued fumbling of the Iraq issue. The agenda of the Blue Dogs (called Bush Dogs by the Nutroots) is divergent from that of the Soros wing. Without everyone on the same page, the Democratic majority no longer functions like any sort of a majority.

Some if it has come to a head this week as Democrats are pointing fingers at each other for their lack of any coherent agenda.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.

Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker's "iron hand" style of governance.

Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile
legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete.

The real problem from the beginning is that much of the Democratic victory came in Republican districts and with many of the Democrats in those districts moving to the right of their counter parts. Their leadership, on the other hand, is almost exclusively made up of traditional Northeast or West Coast liberals. From Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, to Ted Kennedy, those are the leaders of the party. Their liberal traditional agenda is not something that will get the likes of the Blue Dog Democrats re elected.

On Iraq, this problem is most pronounced. There is a group of almost seventy Congressional Democrats that make up the Out of Iraq Caucus. They are almost exclusively Soros types. Therir goal is the immediate withdrawal of troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. This group willing to cut off funds if necessary, and they are so extreme in their views vis a vis Iraq that many times they are unwilling to support bills with a timeline if it isn't quick enough in their estimation.

On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum for the Democrats lie the Blue Dogs. This is a group of forty plus moderates who's position tends to match that of the Republicans. Here is how their position is described.

With Democrats in charge again, the Blue Dogs have played a key role in halting an emerging plan to place strict conditions on war funding. Their revolt helped beat back that proposal, by Pelosi ally John Murtha, D-Pa. Leaders are now considering a watered-down version.

Without unity from all these groups the Democrat's majority becomes a minority.

The Democrats face the same sort of problems on budget and tax issues. Whether it was Charlie Rangel's so called mother of all tax hikes, or any number of budget proposals from David Obey, the leadership has had difficulty getting the Blue Dogs on board with much of their liberal agenda. Where they have been able to get the Blue Dogs on board, they have then faced the threat of a veto from the President.

The Democrats have given nothing more than a token effort to any social issue besides federal funding of stem cell research. That's because on social issues the leadership's position is no more tennable.

Their ideas about marriage, abortion, and, to an extent, the death penalty, and
Gun Control are sometimes more compatible with the Republican way of thinking. This viewpoint is supported by the Pew Research Center and their study "Beyond Red Vs. Blue"

The Republicans, on the other hand, have become nearly unanimously united. They have almost entirely coalesced behind the surge strategy and have never wavered in their demand for so called clean spending bills.

On the budget, they haven't been quite as united however the President suddenly realized what a tool the veto is. As such, the Democrats haven't been able to get much of any budgetary agenda through. In the most recent battle over the budget, the Democrats have become so frustrated that they are now resorting to threats.

Instead, Obey said, he would rip up the compromise bill and devise a new one using the strict spending ceiling set by Mr. Bush - but would reach it by whacking GOP priorities and stripping the measure of billions of dollars in pet projects for lawmakers in both parties.

Obey's remarks to The Associated Press came two days after White House budget director Jim Nussle promised Mr. Bush would veto Democrats' omnibus spending bill for exceeding Mr. Bush's budget by $18 billion.

Nussle had accused Democrats of "trying to leverage troop-funding for more pork-barrel spending," but Obey said the opposite is true - that the White House was willing to relent just slightly on domestic spending in order to obtain up to $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Democrats threaten, I am reminded of the last time a President took on Congress on the budget.

These showdowns were epitomized by the budget conflict with then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1995. Gingrich refused to pass Clinton's budget proposal, and the latter threatened to shut down the government as Reagan had done in the 1980s. Clinton did not back down, however, and eventually had his budget passed...

I suspect another President will also win this particular budget showdown. All in all, those words uttered by Dick Morris are quite prophetic.

Caddyshack - Chevy Chase shares his wisdom

2007-12-13T12:35:00.001-06:00

The Blogosphere Responds to Greenspan

2007-12-13T11:01:00.000-06:00

Invariably, the reaction to this article by Alan Greenspan explaining the mortgage crisis as he saw it has been intense. First, here is a sample of the article...

A large segment of the erstwhile Third World, especially China, replicated the successful economic export-oriented model of the so-called Asian Tigers: Fairly well educated, low-cost workforces were joined with developed-world technology and protected by an increasing rule of law, to unleash explosive economic growth. Since 2000, the real GDP growth of the developing world has been more than double that of the developed world.

The surge in competitive, low-priced exports from developing countries, especially those to Europe and the U.S., flattened labor compensation in developed countries, and reduced the rate of inflation expectations throughout the world, including tSo much so in fact that President Bush has taken the extraordinary step of brokering a deal in which some of these ARMs will be frozen.hose inflation expectations embedded in global long-term interest rates.

In addition, there has been a pronounced fall in global real interest rates since the early 1990s, which, of necessity, indicated that global saving intentions chronically had exceeded intentions to invest. In the developing world, consumption evidently could not keep up with the surge of income and, as a consequence, the savings rate of the developing world soared from 24% of nominal GDP in 1999 to 33% in 2006, far outstripping its investment rate.

I, myself, pointed out yesterday that I believe that most of what he wrote was nonsense and an attempt to skirt responsibility. What he is creating is an intelligent sounding and sophisticated scenario, however it is, in my opinion, totally devoid of reality. First, here is how I saw the roots of the crisis. Greenspan attempts, in the article, to minimize his decision to lower Fed Funds Rates to obscenely low levels. The reality is that he can't and it won't be minimized. By lowering the rate so much, below one percent for a while, he created loose money. Loose money invariably leads to irresponsibility. That irresponsibility manifested itself in the mortgage crisis.

That is my view. Now, let's see how some of the rest of the blogosphere and beyond saw it. First, the WSJ had their own section of reactions. Here is a sampling.

1) You explicitly encouraged “risky” ARMs.

2) You say you raised interest rates but the long rate did not rise. And so it is not your fault. The issue here is nuanced.Your policy of completely telegraphed 25bp interest rate increases meant the fixed income market was on the “one and done” bandwagon from 2004-2006. You knew that the forward term premium was
getting destroyed by the policy and did nothing about it. You are also responsible for completely convincing the fixed income market that the fed policy is disjointed from commodity prices.

...

I also was shocked to hear Greenspan recommend that borrowers take ARM loans instead of fixed rate loans in 2004. The low fixed rates being offered in 2004 were historic, and I can’t imagine that anyone over the age of 12 thought they would remain so - especially the head of the Federal Reserve. However, the ARM loans and the low fixed rate loans did not create the problems we see today. The underwiriting standards lenders were using to qualify borrowers for these loans was definately the problem over the last 7 to 10 years...

it wasn't all criticism though...

It’s easy to sit back and criticize The Chairman, but we weren’t sitting in his chair. Why do we expect interventionist policies to cure all the market ills? There is a reason for market cycles, and in this case the easy money didn’t come from the Fed, but from Wall St. All those clever newly-minted MBAs came up with a “New Paradigm” – financing vehicles that abandoned traditional underwriting standards and generated huge fees for them...

It should be noted because I didn't point it out last time that at the height of the real estate boon Greenspan actually recommended that borrowers choose ARM's over fixed rates.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday that Americans' preference for long-term, fixed-rate mortgages means many are paying more than necessary for their homes and suggested consumers would benefit if lenders offered more alternatives.

In a standing-room-only speech to the Credit Union National Association meeting here, Greenspan also said U.S. household finances appeared generally sound, despite rising debt levels and bankruptcy filings. Low interest rates and surging home prices have given consumers flexibility to manage debt, he said.

Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM's) have become the subject of much controversy. So much so in fact that President Bush has taken the extraordinary step of brokering a deal in which some of these ARMs will be frozen. It is, in my opinion, highly irresponsible to make such a blanket statement recommending a mortgage product. Everything depends on the specific situation as to whether or not an ARM or a fixed rate is appropriate. While I have absolutely no use for his statement, I am not so sure that it had that much effect on the crisis. It is an ongoing debate whether or not these ARMs perpetuated or started the crisis. I am in the boat that they perpetuated it. I believe his obscene rate drop was a much more significant factor.

Now, let's sample what others on the blogosphere said. Let's look at several samples from all around the blogosphere.

In other words, Alan Greenspan wants us to believe that the most powerful Fed Chairman in U.S. history was powerless to stop the greatest housing bubble of U.S. history, despite the fact that he stood at the monetary control button that directly inflated that bubble.But he’s a Republican, and a cagey politician at that, so he’s not going to try to avoid responsibility altogether:

...

Thus Greenspan opens the door to an admission of what any—and I mean this literally—fool knows: that his 1% pedal-to-the-metal interest rate policy during one of the great world economic booms of all-time had everything to do with the ensuing drama.But he opens the door no further, and quickly shuts it with this whopper:

In my judgment, however, the impact on demand for homes financed with ARMs was not major.

...

Here's a more-clear-than-usual article by former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in which he makes a few important arguments:

"...bubbles cannot be safely defused by monetary policy or other policy initiatives before the speculative fever breaks on its own."

In retrospect, global economic forces, which have been building for decades, appear to have gained effective control of the pricing of longer debt maturities. Simple correlations between short- and long-term interest rates in the U.S. remain significant, but have been declining for over a half-century. Asset prices more generally are gradually being decoupled from short-term interest rates. "

...

Felix Salmon of Portfolio.com pretty much eviscerates him on his lies. That said, however, the main reason why the housing bust seems to be much worse in the US than elsewhere is surely those ARMs – which, as Greenspan concedes, were a function of low short-term interest rates. They allowed many people to buy houses they couldn't afford, which in turn created a massive solvency crisis.

...

While acknowledging the low U.S. interest rates set under his leadership may have contributed to the bubble in U.S. home prices, Greenspan said he felt the roots of the subprime mortgage crisis actually lie with global economic expansion.

...

Greenspan had what he thought were good reasons to put interest rates very low. One consequence of that was to make ARMs look more appealing to a lot of people. Greenspan could have responded to that in one of three ways. He could have ignored the ARM issue. He didn't do that. He could have tried to warn people about the risks of ARMs. He didn't do that. Instead, Greenspan encouraged people to get ARMs. I think it's never really been clear why he did that, but it was pretty bad advice and he just doesn't mention it at all during his retrospective.

...

he lays the blame for the crisis on almost everything else (including the collapse of the Soviet union) but for his own actions of keeping rates too low for too long as the Fed Chairman, even at times expressing helplessness.

...

Greenspan laments the lack of control that central banks had on long term interest rates, most of the crisis has been caused by loans taken on very low adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) which in turn fueled a rise in asset prices to bubble type levels. ARMs are marked to short term interest rates, which have a more or less direct relationship to central bank policy action.

The consensus appears to lie somewhere near my own analysis. Here is a link to the entire sampling and you can see for yourself.

Video Clip 8 Mile - Eminem Freestyle - Final Battle (Shook )

2007-12-12T17:43:00.001-06:00

King Drew and Grady: Comparison and Contrast

2007-12-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

Last week, Grady Hospital entered a dubious and notorious category when the JCAHO threatened to revoke its national accreditation. Only one time previously had the JCAHO gone to such a dramatic step: King Drew Hospital in California. The conditions at King Drew were something out of a bad nightmare.

It might have gone down as the death of a "quasi-transient" woman with a history of abusing drugs. That's how the May 9 death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez was initially reported to the Los Angeles County coroner's office.

But five weeks later, her demise has become a cause celebre, a symbol of bureaucratic indifference. It is fraught with significance not just for one struggling
inner-city hospital but for political and health leaders in the Los Angeles area and perhaps beyond. The county Sheriff's Department, health officials and the Board of Supervisors all are feverishly trying to determine who was to blame and how to prevent a recurrence.

Despite a long history of problems at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, two things set the Rodriguez case apart: the existence of a security videotape showing the woman writhing for 45 minutes on the floor of the emergency room lobby and the public release this week of two 911 calls in which witnesses unsuccessfully pleaded with sheriff's dispatchers for help.

While the case of Edith Rodriguez became the most visible and poignant, the L.A. Times did a full investigation including undercover work to expose a great deal of the atrocious patient care at King Drew. This five part series turned the problems at King Drew from abstract and vague to real and personal.

The investigation reveals that King/Drew is much more dangerous than the public has been told.Among the findings:
• Errors and neglect by King/Drew's staff have repeatedly injured or killed patients over more than a decade, a pattern that remains largely unscrutinized and unchecked. Some lapses were never reported to authorities — or even to the victims or their families. And some people learned of the severity of the failings only by suing or, in several instances, from Times reporters who sought them out to learn about their care.

• Although King/Drew opened in 1972 with the promise that it would be "the very best hospital in America," it is now, by various measures, one of the very worst. It pays out more per patient for medical malpractice than any of the state's 17 other public hospitals or the six University of California medical centers.

• Entire departments are riddled with incompetence, internal strife and, in some cases, criminality. Employees have pilfered and sometimes sold the hospital's drugs; chronic absenteeism is rampant; assaults between hospital workers are not uncommon. Despite King/Drew's repeated promises to regulators, the problems have gone unfixed for years.

• The hospital's failings do not stem from a lack of money, as its supporters long have contended. King/Drew spends more per patient than any of the three other general hospitals run by Los Angeles County. Millions of dollars go to unusual workers' compensation claims and abnormally high salaries for ranking doctors.

• The hospital's governing body, the county Board of Supervisors, has been told repeatedly — often in writing — of needless deaths and injuries at King/Drew. Recently the supervisors have made some aggressive moves aimed at fixing the hospital. But for years, the board shied away from decisive action in the face of community anger and accusations of racism.

Because of the reporting of the L.A. Times, the JCAHO was left with no choice but this extreme action.

While we still don't know the exact specifics that lead to the same move vis a vis Grady Hospital, you can be sure that whatever the problems are they are just as serious. (We don't know since Grady hasn't made the findings public) Unfortunately, unlike in L.A., the major media in Atlanta has been asleep at the wheel in reporting any malfeasance at Grady Hospital.

If anyone wanted to read about any specific stories that were similarly nighmarish at Grady, they only needed to read my blog.

One night that is what happened. One time he was left in charge of the entire step down unitfrom 4 PM to 2AM. The first emergency came from one patient who was recovering from lung surgery. The patient's lung collapsed and Kevin was called in to save his life. The patient was suffocating and time was of the essence. Kevin was panicked and needed to move quick. He needed to find a chest tube, but because of his own inexperience, he didn't know where they kept the chest tubes. In a rush, he did the only thing he could think of at the time. He grabbed the dirty chest tube that had already been used on the patient and injected into their lungs.

Next, Kevin was asked to read an x ray of the patient's lungs to determine if they were stable. This is again not something a medical student is supposed to do on their own and without supervision but since their was no supervision there wasn't much choice. Kevin gave it his best estimation and determined the patient was fine however as it turns out that was just a lucky guess. This patient survived but it had nothing to do with the type of care that was provided them at Grady.

I have had many apologists try and claim these stories are inaccurate...

Ok, this story is ridiculous. I graduated from Emory medical school in 2007, and no scenario such as the one Kevin described ever happened to anyone I know. We were never left alone in charge of entire floors; that is completely preposterous. And even if I had been, I would have known enough even as a third-year med student to ASK SOMEBODY WHERE THE CHEST TUBES ARE rather than abandon sterile technique and try to insert a dirty one. My guess is that they dismissed him for some real grievance, and he is claiming to be a whistleblower to cover himself.

Unfortunately for the apologists, the facts speak for themselves. Grady isn't being threatened with revocation of their license because a few machines are broken, or some doctors are occasionally careless, or any other mild reason. The action by the JCAHO is extreme because what is going on at Grady is extreme. If this story is inaccurate, how does one explain what is going on at Grady. Since the JCAHO did what they did, it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not this particular story is true. I can assure you that there have been plenty of nightmarish incidents. I know this because the action of the JCAHO speaks for itself.

This particular story is not the issue. The issue is the reporting, or should I say non reporting, of the AJC and other media outlets in the area. For instance, in 2004 the Dept. of Health and Human Services finished an investigation that concluded,

the conditions at Grady Hospital provide a serious and immediate threat to the health and safety of the patients

This report received little if any attention from the AJC when it came out even though its very conclusions indicated that the conditions at Grady were just as dangerous as those discovered by the L.A. Times at King Drew. Had the AJC made an issue out of that particular report, it is possible that many of the problems that are currently facing Grady could have been resolved then. Instead, they treated this damning report as nothing more than a by line. No one ever fully investigated. The report damned four departments specifically: oncology, cardiology, General Surgery, and obgyn. I know this because I got a copy of the report. Only the powers that be at the AJC know why they never got a copy of it.

King Drew and Grady are connected in other ways. Several high ranking members of King Drew found their way onto the staff of Grady Hospital. For instance, Ed Renford held a high ranking position at King Drew before becoming CEO at Grady. Leon Haley was another former high up at King Drew that wound up at Grady Hospital. He was Chief of Emergency Services. This is frankly the equivalent of hiring the former higher ups at Enron to be CEO, CFO, etc at your company. Yet, this too was not something that the AJC ever paid much attention to.

Even now, the AJC isn't doing very much with the Grady story. No one at the AJC is explaining exactly what it means that the JCAHO is threatening to revoke Grady's accreditation. The layman doesn't know the difference between the JCAHO and the NCAA. If they simply read that the JCAHO is threatening to revoke Grady's accreditation, they will have absolutely no context to the story. Unless the media explains to the readers and viewers what exactly this means they aren't going to know or care.

The biggest difference between the two cases is their respective positions within each of their health care communities. King Drew was a fairly large hospital and it catered to the indigent like Grady. The difference is that King Drew was not the only game in town so to speak when it came to serving the poor folks. Thus, closing it down disrupted the health care system in the L.A. area but not to the point that it couldn't handle it. The same is not true of Grady. Grady is massive among the five biggest hospitals in the country. It serves the overwhelming number of poor folks in Dekalb and Fulton County and frankly serves the poor in other counties as well. Closing it down will unleash these folks on the rest of the medical system in the area, and no one can predict the outcome. The consequences of closing Grady are scary and totally unpredictable. Of course, the Atlanta media has done absolutely no reporting on this part of the story.

Because the L.A. Times took its first amendment responsibility seriously the nightmarish conditions at King Drew were exposed and the hospital was dealt with. Whether through incompetence or worse, the AJC has never taken their first amendment seriously vis a vis Grady Hospital. As a result, we have come to the place we have despite repeated warnings.

EPILOGUE:

For a full summary of the entire fiasco at Grady, Emory and beyond please read this piece.

Also, please take a look at the recommendations that I, and frankly mostly my colleagues, have put together for saving Grady Hospital.

Gilchrist, Huckabee and the Minutemen

2007-12-12T14:09:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Jim Gilchrist, founder and head of the Minutemen, endorsed Mike Huckabee for President.

In Iowa today, former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee received a major endorsement from Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. Huckabee said he was honored to receive the endorsement.

“No one can question Jim's commitment to this country and the immigration problem. He has mobilized a group of volunteers to go to the border and draw attention to the issue of immigration. All of us want a policy where people come to this country through the front door, not the back door,” said Huckabee during a morning news conference. Gilchrist added,

"Governor Huckabee actually wrote a plan that I can embrace. I found his ‘Secure America’ plan would open the dialogue and help begin the process of solving the illegal immigration problem.”

This immediately raised the eyebrows of illegal immigration hawk, Michelle Malkin.

Yeah, you read it right–the founder of the border control group, the Minuteman Project, is endorsing open-borders-turned-expedient enforcement convert GOP candidate Mike Huckabee:

...

Huckabee called the endorsement “providential.” I know many grass-roots immigration enforcement supporters will have far less kind words than that.

Michelle has recently become so critical of every politician's stance vis a vis illegal immigration that I frankly beginning to believe that it is now simply to the point of being unreasonable and unrealistic.

Just two years ago, Huckabee appeared before the open-borders Hispanic group,
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), preaching an open-door
policy. According to the Arkansas
News Bureau, Huckabee also criticized state legislation requiring proof of
citizenship to register to vote and enhanced reporting of illegal aliens as
un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life — not to mention
“inflammatory,” “race-baiting” and “demagoguery.”

...

Bringing up the false convert rear is Sen. John McCain. Earlier this year, he was the
most vocal critic of grass-roots conservatives who mobilized against the amnesty bill. He now says he has learned his lesson and supports securing the border. He has learned nothing. During the shamnesty debacle, he called Rush Limbaugh a “nativist;” over the weekend, he repeated such contemptuous “straight talk” at the Univision debate by assailing what he called anti-Hispanic rhetoric. In an interview with the New Yorker, he irritatedly dismissed immigration concerns in Iowa as marginal and irrational — just a bunch of “senior citizens” in Iowa caught up in the
“emotion” of a cultural assault.

...

Rudy “I supported sanctuary policies before I was against them, but my sanctuary policy wasn’t really a sanctuary policy, anyway” Giuliani now quotes “the advice of a
great man, Father Hesburgh, who said, ‘We must close the back door of illegal immigration in order to preserve the front door of legal immigration.’” In an interview with Washington Examiner reporter and author Bill Sammon, Giuliani now says he really, truly would have deported 400,000 illegal aliens in New York if he could have...

Well, I knew the campaign season was in full swing when I received this on my email...

For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization, is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president.

Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group cannot legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan” recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal statement, nothing more.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps emphasizes policy dealing with national border security. The only "plan" to ensure border security that is acceptable to our constituency would be a candidate policy statement declaring that his first act as President will be to hold a press conference and announce to the American people an executive order to immediately deploy and fund 30,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S. Borders (25,000 to the southern border and 5,000 to the northern border) to complement a massive increase in U.S. Border Patrol Agent field personnel, and a bilateral effort to secure our frontiers, smash the drug cartels, shut down the human smugglers and protect the public safety of the citizens who reside along the borders on both sides of our national boundaries.
Unlike this last-minute opportunism attempted by Huckabee, many of the other GOP presidential candidates have actually helped push the issue of national border security forward for some time. Tom Tancredo’s many years of hard work on the border crisis and illegal immigration issues have all the candidates striving to sound like him. Duncan Hunter can take personal credit for getting the highly effective San Diego border fence built. Ron Paul has been to the border with us first hand and aggressively pushed positive border legislation. Alan Keyes has done more than anyone to support the organizational development of MCDC, and personally participated in the Minuteman Border Fence Groundbreaking – advancing a citizen’s construction effort which has forced Congress to finally get the Feds building physical border fence.

Only one Minuteman group is conducting regular multi-state border security efforts, building fence and aggressively monitoring Washington DC: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. We would like to extend an invitation to all the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, to come to the border and see what is really happening on our nation’s frontier. Not to take the safe little government photo-op helicopter ride, but see the lay-up sites full of trash and debris. See the rape trees. See the violent crime in the border towns. Walk on the pathways of destroyed environmental terrain trampled by tens of thousands of invading foreign migrants. See what the American elites’ support of broken borders, unfettered illegal immigration and sanctuary cities is doing to our fellow Americans who live on our borderlands, and how these failed policies imperil our nation’s safety, security and prosperity.

With your support MCDC continues to make Border Security and Illegal
Immigration a national priority that must be resolved. Now more than ever we
need your help to continue the fight.

Now, I have long been of the opinion that this hyperanalyzing of people's records is useless and misleading. There is no way to govern for any extended period of time without having plenty to criticize on plenty of issues if your record is dissected enough. I am skeptical of Michelle's and others intense and harsh criticism of Huckabee's record, however I do believe everyone should see this email.

The Peculiar, Enigmatic H.R. 1955

2007-12-12T13:18:00.000-06:00

I have only recently been made aware of this bill and for now I will reserve judgement besides the observation that it is peculiar and enigmatic. It is called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 and it is sponsored and promoted almost exclusively by Democrats led by Jane Harmon. Thus, not surprisingly, this has made it the target of conservative pundits.

Thus, Orwell says, we end up with political language that consists "largely of euphemism ... and sheer cloudy vagueness."

That's how we end up with terms like "surge" for escalation, or "enhanced interrogation techniques" for torture.The language of H.R. 1955, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed the House on Oct. 23 and is now in committee in the Senate, has that Orwellian quality of sheer cloudy vagueness, and as such lends itself to the potential for 1984-ish Thought Police in the form of a committee.

I have personal experience with the dangerous and corrosive effect of vague legislation in my business, mortgages. Thus, my radar is up to the potential dangers pointed out in this column.

It is also being challenged on civil liberties grounds.

Many scholars, historians and civil liberties experts say they fear that the proposed bill will set the stage for future criminal legislation that be used against U.S.-based groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical right-wing organizations.

"This bill fits the pattern we are seeing coming out of Congress - both Republican and Democratic - of a continued campaign of fear, which gets into heads of Americans that we now need to start criminalizing ideology," said Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. H said he is very concerned about the bill's vague definitions of "violent radicalization," "homegrown terrorism," and the terms within the definitions including "extremist belief system," "violence" and "force."

"What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this?" Queral questioned. "Planes flying into the World Trade Center is an extremist belief, but are anti-abortion activists extremists? Are individuals who liberate mink extremists? These are broad definitions that encompass so much, which need to rather be very narrowly tailored. It is criminalizing thought and ideology, rather than criminal activity."

I think the vague definitions that this bill appears to have lends itself to potential abuses of civil liberties. The bill is certainly well intentioned. Home grown terrorists are a big and bigger problem. That said, it doesn't seem to me to be something that can be legislated. This seems to be a priority law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security matter. I don't think you can legislate tougher measures against homegrown terrorists. That happens when departments apply more pressure, more focus, and more resources to the matter.

Finally, from scanning the bill, I have found one other big potential problem. Here is the full text of the bill. Here is the part that concerns me.

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States (hereinafter referred to as `Center') following the merit-review processes and procedures and other limitations that have been previously established for selecting and supporting University Programs Centers of Excellence. The Center shall assist Federal, State, local and tribal homeland security officials through training, education, and research in preventing radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States. In carrying out this section, the Secretary may choose to either create a new Center designed exclusively for the purpose stated herein or identify and expand an existing Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence so that a working group is exclusively designated within the existing Center of Excellence to achieve the purpose set forth in subsection...

Invariably, whenever Congress identifies a problem they want to study it. Invariably, this group turns into nothing more than an added layer to the bureaucracy that comes to the federal government for money, my money and every other tax payer's money. I have already pointed out the huge potential problem of the added bureaucracy of the SAVE Act. Yet again, Congress has created a bill that will ultimately add to the size of government.

I am not against studying homegrown terrorists, however there are two things that I see to be problematic here. The first is that it is best studied through field work. In other words, the FBI agents, secret service, and police that are out on the street battling homegrown terrorist are in effect engaged in the study of homegrown terrorists. This isn't the sort of thing that academics studying theory would contribute in any reasonable way. We don't need Congress to act to do this. Hopefully, it is already happening. Second, I don't think my tax dollars should go to such theoretical research. If someone wants to fund a university to study homegrown terrorists, let them but it shouldn't be my money.

GoodFellas Full

2007-12-12T12:39:00.001-06:00

Alan Greenspan Tries to Rewrite History

2007-12-12T11:29:00.000-06:00

One of my least favorite things about the mortgage business is how everytime something goes wrong each party blames another party. Almost never does someone take responsibility and fix the error. Instead, they try to blame someone else and act as though fixing the error is someone else's responsibility.

I bring this up because Alan Greenspan wrote a column in today's Wall Street Journal. Greenspan laid out a very interesting and detailed version of the events that lead up to the crisis...

The root of the current crisis, as I see it, lies back in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the economic ruin of the Soviet Bloc was exposed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Following these world-shaking events, market capitalism quietly, but rapidly, displaced much of the discredited central planning that was so prevalent in the Third World.

A large segment of the erstwhile Third World, especially China, replicated the successful economic export-oriented model of the so-called Asian Tigers: Fairly well educated, low-cost workforces were joined with developed-world technology and protected by an increasing rule of law, to unleash explosive economic growth. Since 2000, the real GDP growth of the developing world has been more than double that of the developed world.

The surge in competitive, low-priced exports from developing countries, especially those to Europe and the U.S., flattened labor compensation in developed countries, and reduced the rate of inflation expectations throughout the world, including those inflation expectations embedded in global long-term interest rates.

Now, this might be the height of my own hubris, however I find his entire narrative to be nothing more than intelligent sounding nonsense. The reason is that he is trying desperately to avoid his own responsibility in the mess. I pointed out his responsibility in this piece. While Greenspan would like us to take the roots back twenty years, I think we can find something more important much closer to the present.

This is a chart of the Federal Funds Rate which as Head of the Federal Reserve Greenspan controlled until recently. As you can see between the middle of 2001 and the middle of 2003, the rate was absurdly low. It reached below one percent for a period of time. Greenspan can try and re write history however by lowering the rate that much he created loose and easy money. While he may not have predicted the mortgage mess per se, he should have anticipated the law of unintended consequences. He should have known that it was irresponsible to leave rates that low for that long. He should have known that if banks could borrow from the Fed (which is the purpose of the Federal Funds) for so little, that they were bound to act irresponsibly with the money.

He can pin this on some sort of a complicated alter universe in which a sophisticated network of globalization combined with asleep at the wheel credit agencies, arbitrage players, and poor savings. He can do this, but it still isn't going to tell the whole story. To add insult to injury, Greenspan actually tries to justify his irresponsibility while paying nothing more than passing lip service to what it actually caused.

and my colleagues at the Fed believed that the potential threat of corrosive deflation in 2003 was real, even though deflation was not thought to be the most likely projection. We will never know whether the temporary 1% federal-funds rate fended off a deflationary crisis, potentially much more daunting than the current one. But I did fret that maintaining rates too low for too long was problematic. The failure of either the growth of the monetary base, or of M2, to exceed 5% while the fed-funds rate was 1% assuaged my concern that we had added inflationary tinder to the economy.

The entire piece is full of technical language and it is told in a manner only fit for an expert. I don't know if Greenspan hoped to impress anyone or if he merely actually believes the load of bull that he is selling. I do know that China, credit ratings, and poor savings rates played a much smaller role in the crisis than the irresponsible and precipitous drop that the Fed took on the Fed Funds Rate.

The root of the crisis as I see it was loans that were created for irresponsible borrowers. These loans were created because banks suddenly had an infusion of loose money that they were able to borrow from the Fed. Because the rate was so outrageously low, banks felt more room to take risks. They did and that started the ball rolling. While Greenspan painstakingly tried to explain the root cause going back to right after the Cold War, he conveniently overlooked his own responsibility in the crisis. Unfortunately for Greenspan, I don't think that history will have such oversight.

Fulton County Malfeasance

2007-12-11T16:48:00.000-06:00

Many of my allies in the story about Grady Hospital tell me that Fulton County is relatively free of corruption. I have certainly documented some of the more egregious corruption in Dekalb County. While it may stil be true that Fulton County is relatively clean, Georgia Unfiltered has discovered some rather obscene malfeasance.

You know, it's one thing to lose an election when you're out-spent. It's a whole 'nother thing entirely when you're out-spent with your own money. I've long suspected that Fulton County taxpayers' dollars were spent for political purposes regarding whether South Fulton should be a city, but today, I received the smoking gun. Today, I received an e-mail with two attachments showing copies of checks cut by Fulton County Government to pay for an advertising proposal along with a round of radio ads advocating the defeat of the City of South Fulton. For those of you wanting some background information dealing with what I'm talking about, read "$85,500 of mis-used Fulton County funds?" or better yet, just look at the proposal
for the "You Have A Third Option: Broadcast Media Campaign" (PDF File).

Please check out the link as a copy of the checks in question are up on the site. I am not very familiar with this particular story and I don't know what relevance, if any, it has to the overall mess at Grady, however I will stay on top of it and provide updates.

Scarface: say hello to my little friend

2007-12-11T13:16:00.001-06:00

A 21st Century Whodunit?!?!

2007-12-11T11:45:00.000-06:00

Last night, in response to this article I received this comment.

Due to some involvement in the ongoing lawsuit by Kevin against Emory, I am unable to reveal my name but was interested to see what was going on with the case. I never knew there was so much publicity surrounding the case and it was interesting to read about both sides for once. I believe in due justice but wanted to clarify a few things.1. Although I am unable to give details, Kevin's pattern of behavior should have led to his expulsion way before his senior year. This went beyond "simple" things as tardiness and even plagurism. Unfortunately for other Emory grads, there were other students displaying "unprofessional" behavior at the same time and they were treated the same. I agree the timing of his expulsion raises some eyebrows, but nothing that he "revealed" was a secret.

2. Speaking of which, Kevin loved to exaggerate the truth and was a great story teller. At no time at the VA was he left unsupervised. The events did happen, but it was residents (who are always there) that "saved" the patients. No one used an unsterile chest tube nor did he give life-saving blood. In fact, students can't even write orders at the VA due to their computer systems (which if any of you actually worked in that system would know immediately that nothing can be done without entering orders on the computer). Oh ya, forgot to mention that students don't work overnight, as the time frame in the blog indicates.

3. Grady is essentially our charity hospital but people don't realize that Emory and Morehouse have a dedicated staff just for Grady. True, some depts like psychiatry and dermatology cover all of the hospitals due to the low volume individually at Emory, VA, Crawford, and Grady, but then again they wouldn't have sick patients on their service and nor would he be on a service like that as a medical student. As for subpar care, I agree, but that is the function of not having any money and the patient population. It is in fact amazing what Grady can do with the resources available to them and Americans should be ashamed that we have to do this living in this country. But that is another topic and regardless of how you look at it, we will always have to cut corners at Grady in order to do what is right for the patient and have been doing so for years. Kevin was not a whistle blower; he just timed it perfectly to make him seem like one.

4. I am extremely disappointed in how Emory has dealt with the other cases involving professors, faculty members but I cannot comment on those as I do not know the details. Emory has made several bad judgments and I believe they'll be punished in the long run. It's disappointing though when someone like Kevin manipulates the media to look like a saint even when he has acknowledged to committing unprofessional behavior. Btw, is anyone actually reads the medical conduct code at Emory, it states that a student can be expelled for the "first" offense. It's sad that he was expelled after 4 years when in reality he should have after the 1st year, but overall he has destroyed the credibility of all of the wonderful doctors (well some aren't but that's life) and could result in even more people with no access to health care.

I personally don't care if Kevin wins or not, but consider if you would want someone like him to be your doctor?

There is a lot that needs to be said about this comment, so I will start at the beginning. Kevin Kuritzky is a former Emory University medical student that was expelled from medical school 41 days prior to graduation. He claims it was retaliation while the school claims it was behavioral reasons. Grady Hospital is in the middle of a desperate crisis both fiscal and otherwise that has occurred as a result of a complicated set of events that I detailed and summarized here. Kevin has become my source on some of the material that I have prepared on this matter, but not on all, and at this point not even close. In fact, my biggest source so to speak is Google.com. Unlike this ANONYMOUS poster, Kevin uses his name and he gives detailed and specific accounts. Furthermore, his accounts are verified not only by other sources but frankly from internet research.

Now, this ANONYMOUS poster claims that Kevin is lying and that Grady is not as bad as I am making it out to be. What is first most interesting is that I earlier received another ANONYMOUS comment in response to the same article that started like this...

A judge ruled in Emory's favor on this one (See mention below from a highly regarded education publication). The Atlanta community needs to stay focused on the larger issues of how to transform Grady so that it can become solvent. ALLEGED NEGLECT: A lawsuit filed by a former medical student at Emory University who alleged that it neglected patients at its two teaching hospitals was dismissed last month by a Georgia judge who ruled summarily for the university. The former student, Kevin D. Kuritzky, was dismissed from Emory's medical school 41 days before he was scheduled to graduate, in 2005.

Now, the problem for these two ANONYMOUS posters is that while they both attack Kevin they give divergent information. One ANONYMOUS commenter claims that they would be more specific if they weren't party to a lawsuit, and the other claims that Kevin can be marginalized because the law suit is over and Emory won. It is one or the other. (The details of the case might even bore a lawyer however I wrote about its exact disposition here.)

Furthermore, The Emory Wheel, the Emory University student newspaper wrote this,

A lawsuit filed against Emory by a former student was dismissed last week, affirming the University’s right to expel a student based on conduct violations.

Now, either this is very shotty reporting, this person didn't reveal the truth and allowed this story to be published, or this person is lying, or maybe all of the above.

Fortunately, through the wonders of modern technology, I have been able to identify the IP address that I am certain is the one used by the person that wrote this anonymous piece.

It is...71.56.116.54. The host is...c-71-56-116-54.hsd1.ga.comcast.net.

This IP originated from Atlanta, Georgia. This computer came on my blog four times starting at 8:48 PM Central Time and finishing at 9:39PM Central and even had a stop at 9:33 PM Central time at roughly the exact moment the comment was published. Now, since this is my whodunit, it is time for me to list my most likely suspects and give evidence why I think they might be guilty.

It might be this man. As head of Public Relations for Emory University, he is of course responsible for their image. Kuritzky's accusations are quite incendiary and it is in Emory's best interests to see Kuritzky marginalized. I doubt very much that trolling through blogs and writing anonymous comments would be part of his job description, especially from home which would appear is where this originated from, however it is possible that he felt it part of his duties. Much of the evidence against this man is what we would call circumstantial. He has been identified as the most frequent guest to my site. Other strange occurrences have been identified on the internet after he has visited my site. Finally, I have attempted to make contact with him by email and he has not responded and while this is pure conjecture, maybe this is his response.

It could also be this man. As head legal counsel for not only Emory University but the Emory Wheel specifically, it would be absurd and laughable if he were the culprit. After all, he would have had to know about the story published in the Wheel. The evidence against him is also circumstantial however there are some peculiarities that make him a suspect in my mind. First, his main role is head legal counsel for Emory University. I have gathered information that leads me to conclude that he has taken on an active role in the operations of the Emory Wheel that I believe is peculiar given his main duties. For instance, I believe that in many ways he is the unofficial de facto Head of H.R. for the Wheel. Second, I already pointed out that he announced that he is not only lead general counsel for Emory University but the Emory Wheel. Now, this seems redundant to me since it would be assumed that the lead general counsel of the school would be the ultimate lawyer for the newspaper, if necessary, however he actually announced it.

Furthermore, he has a long history with Kevin Kuritzky which I detail in the link, It could also be this man. He also has history with me. I recently pointed out something that he co wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that is not only absurd but probably illegal. He has plenty of motivation to not only marginalize Kevin but this blog.

It could also be someone on the staff here. The reason they are all suspects is that I reached out to them recently in hopes of making them my allies on this story. Based on their work currently regarding this Grady mess, they have currently given me the impression that they are nothing more than a mouthpiece for the administration which they are entrusted in being a watch dog for. I pointed out one article in the Wheel that had errors, and now look at another one.

After a two-month recess, Grady’s board of directors has finally agreed to cede power over to a non-profit organization. Such a move follows the recommendations made to the hospital months ago by state politicians, area businesspeople and Emory itself and will allow the hospital to seek funding more easily from outside sources, not just Fulton and DeKalb counties.

But the changeover comes with a catch: The board will allow the new management to take charge only if the Georgia legislature and local business leaders pledge in writing to raise nearly half a billion dollars for Grady — $50 million of which would be due before the board changes power. The legislature will be required to pledge an additional $30 million annually to help keep the hospital up and running. Of particular note to Emory, which along with Morehouse supplies the doctors who work at Grady, the board also wants to freeze current staffing levels at the hospital.

More money for Grady isn’t a bad thing. With funding like that requested, the hospital could pay back its debts, including nearly $45 million in labor costs owed to Emory. Unfortunately, now is not the time for ultimatums from the hospital’s directors. State officials have made it clear they aren’t willing to be told what to do by the governing board of a hospital. If the board can’t reach an agreement with the legislature and other sources of funding, then they say there may be no restructuring, and Grady will be back to square one, struggling to stay afloat...

This article commended moves by the board at Grady. They called them baby steps on a long road to recovery. What is laughable, tragic, and absurd about the article is that not a week later, the JCAHO threatened to remove Grady's accreditation. This is only the second time in the entire history of JCAHO that it has come this far. The only other time was at King Drew Hospital and the chilling abuses there should give everyone nightmares. While we don't know the specifics, since the report has not been made public, we can assume that things at Grady are just as disastrous. In other words, commending baby steps for a hospital in this much turmoil is the height of journalistic irresponsibility. It could be that the student author is just not up to the job to find the truth in this matter or it could be something else. I don't know and that is why everyone at the Emory Wheel remains a suspect.

Finally, among the list of most possible suspects, there is Jonathon Leake. In the discovery phase of Kuritzky suit with Emory, it was revealed that Leake made several incendiary, threatening, as well as racist comments toward Kevin. Since his whereabouts are unknown to me, at least, the evidence against him ends here.

I know what some of you are thinking. This is rather flimsy evidence against everyone. That is true, and my purpose wasn't to present a strong case against anyone. My purpose was to get your attention. The IP address speaks for itself and someone out there can figure out how to identify the exact location and then we will have our culprit.

For an updated summary of the whole series of events that this particular piece is merely a small part of please go to this link.

To see the recommendations that I along with mostly my colleagues on this case have come up with for saving Grady Hospital please go here.

...And You Remove All Reason and Logic

2007-12-10T16:40:00.000-06:00

The New Yorker has this analysis of the rate freeze that Secretary Paulson has brokered. It focuses on only one of the five points of why I thought this rate freeze is bad and dangerous policy. It does concur on that point, which is that this rate freeze will only marginally help those it intends to anyway.

Although the plan will provide real relief for at least some homeowners, it’s more like a Band-Aid than like the major surgery that some of the hype makes out. That’s because at this point interest-rate resets are just a small part of the mortgage-market problem. Postponing rate resets doesn’t change the fact that too many people spent far too much borrowed money on houses with prices that were far too high, and that they are now stuck in homes that they can’t really afford and can’t sell. Even with the interest-rate freeze, foreclosures will keep rising

I believe the article is largely right, and from experience I believe that most sub prime borrowers just simply overbought. They took on property they couldn't afford. I believe that the rate increase would only perpetuate not create the problem. (Please note there is a great deal of debate on this point within the industry so my view is not a given. Some people do believe that it was in fact the rate increase that started the problem).

That said, there was something else in the article that is even more concerning.

Not for everyone, though. The plan sets up a system of triage, separating borrowers into three categories: those who will be able to keep paying after the rates reset, or else refinance their loans; those who can pay now but won’t be able to when the rates go higher; and those for whom even the current rates are too high. Only the second group will get help. Also, the plan doesn’t go into effect until next year—if your loan resets on December 31st, you’re out of luck.

In other words, what this plan will do is punish responsible borrowers and reward irresponsible borrowers. Think about what this article is saying for a minute. If you happen to be holding onto a subprime loan and you can afford the new higher payment, the rate freeze doesn't apply to you and you are forced to take that higher payment. If, on the other hand, you could afford the lower payment but not the new payment, you will have your lower payment frozen for you. Does this make any sense? How could the government possibly institute a policy that rewards irresponsible borrowers and punish responsible borrowers and think this will have anything but a disastrous effect?

Furthermore, how exactly is one to determine who can and can't afford the payments? They are going to freeze rates that are going to reset in the future. We are talking about millions of loans. What are the parameters? Who will decide? How can this turn into anything but a bureaucratic nightmare? This is a process that will be ripe for fraud, manipulation, and chaos. Again, this is a textbook example of a moral hazard. Government continues to believe that they can create a moral hazard with a positive outcome, however they do it by removing all logic and reason.

This process is going to fraught with litigation. Imagine if you are one of the borrowers that is determined to be able to pay the new loan, what is the likelihood that you will look to sue to drop your rate? What if you were a borrower that was wise enough to take a higher fixed rate? What is the likelihood you will look to have your rate lowered artificially? How can anyone possibly justify rewarding the irresponsible while punishing the responsible? There is no way this would pass legal mustard. The worst part is the absurdity is spelled out in the plan itself.

News and Views from Iraq and the Rest of the GWOT

2007-12-10T12:56:00.000-06:00

Here is the latest from Michael Totten...

Fallujah today is an impoverished ramshackle mess, but it's not a war zone anymore. In 2004 it was by far the worst place in the country. It was still a hotbed of insurgent activity as recently as the first half of 2007.

“The unit we relieved was monitoring the city, watching the city,” Corporal Koch said. “We took that over from them. Then we started our push. It was a couple of months before the regular civilians got back in the city.”

“Months after you came in?” I said.

“We came in in November, on November 6th,” he said. “It took about two or three weeks altogether. The civilians stayed out of the city for another month or month and a half after that. We were still doing operations then, but it wasn't an all out push. It was just cleaning up. It was loose ends. Weapons caches. Just basically getting this place ready for the civilians to come back in. We made sure people weren't going into their homes while they were rigged to blow.”

The latest from Omar...

Unlike previous operations, this one is different in that the troops were sent following a request submitted to the government by the department of Sunni
endowment, an entity in charge of overseeing Sunni mosques and other religious activities. The chief of the Sunni endowment, Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarraie, is a moderate Sunni cleric who has renounced the insurgency and explicitly accused the association of assisting al-Qaeda by justifying their murderous attacks against Iraqis.

For four years now we’ve been waiting for this to happen. This al-Qaeda apologist, so-called association of Muslim scholars had to be dealt with and honestly it was frustrating to see them operate freely when the damage they caused was widely known, in nature if not in extent.

This incident, I believe, is not to be seen as abstract and it’s no coincidence that the raid on their office came amid efforts to prosecute corrupt officials from Sadr’s movement and the Fadheela Party. The list includes the former deputy minister of health, a Sadr follower who’s been accused of running sectarian death squads and the chief of the integrity committee in the parliament; a member of the Fadheela Party which is believed to be involved in massive oil smuggling operations in the south. He is now about to lose parliamentary immunity over corruption charges.

Bill Roggio gives us the latest in a battle in Afghanistan to retake a Taliban stronghold.

The battle for the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala in the southern Afghan province of Helmand is well underway. Officially launched on December 7, international and Afghan forces have prepped the battlefield for well over a month. A British armored column launched a feint to the outskirts of the town in mid-November and leaflets have been dropped on the town warning civilians to flee the impending attack.

The final assault on Musa Qala began after the Afghan government convinced a key Taliban tribal leader to defect. Last month there were reports Mullah Abdul Salaam was seeking to negotiate a deal with the Afghan government. The Times Online reported Salaam has indeed defected to the Afghan government, and "brought with him up to one-third of the fighters who had been defending Musa Qala."

British spy chiefs have weighed in with their skepticism over the latest NIE report on Iran.

The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.

The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned
that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

The Washington Post reports today that members of Congress including Nancy Pelosi were briefed on interrogation techniques at Gitmo including waterboarding.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of
the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

Gordon Brown has declared the war in Iraq over for the remaining British troops in Iraq.

The PM was cheered as he praised UK troops and revealed combat operations in Basra will end “within two weeks”.

Iraqi forces will take over as the 4,500-strong British force switches from front-line duties to a training role.

By early next year, our contingent in Southern Iraq will be cut to 2,500 – and may be withdrawn completely in March.

In a not unsurprising turn of events, the Pakistan elections are being challenged on fairness grounds.

Pakistan's election campaign began in earnest Monday, a day after former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif dropped threats to boycott the balloting to protest the authoritarian rule of President Pervez Musharraf.

Sharif embarked on a tour of the country to stump for his Pakistan Muslim League-N party, even though election authorities have rejected his own candidacy.

The two-time prime minister was to address a rally Monday in the central city of Faisalabad and proceed to Multan, Rawalpindi, Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar in coming days, party officials said...

There you have the updated goings on from most of the hotspots of the war on terror.

the princess bride

2007-12-10T11:49:00.001-06:00

My name is...

Rudy On Leadership, the GWOT, Healthcare and More

2007-12-10T10:49:00.000-06:00

I had a chance to see Rudy Giuliani speak at the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago on Friday. While I don't necessarily have too much reference point, I do believe that in most ways this was much like any campaign towhall meeting and speech. It was still quite illuminating nevertheless.

I believe you can tell a lot about a candidate's agenda by what they focus on during such a meeting. The first policy that Rudy spoke about was illegal immigration and how important it is to finally get a handle on it. His newfound commitment towards combatting illegal immigration will no doubt be met with skepticism and controversy by many of my conservative colleagues. Unfortunately, it is one of those debates that is in many ways pointless. There will be plenty that will look at his prior New York City record and concluded based on past performance that he isn't serious. There will be those like me that will look at his current plan for illegal immigration and say he always gets accomplished what he sets his mind on. His plan involves beefing up the border patrol, building a fence technological and real, and creating a tamper proof ID card. Thus, take it for what it is worth.

His thoughts on the GWOT were no doubt general. His first thought vis a vis the GWOT is that we must stay on offense. This has became his calling cry with regards to this issue. He believes in victory in Iraq and he defined that as an Iraq that is an ally not an enemy in the GWOT. He believes that it is NOT an option to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. He also mentioned that Pakistan must be worked on though frankly besides vague ideas his plan was short on specifics. Some might take this as a sign that he may not be the right person however I would humbly disagree. Rudy has a long and very successful history in confronting and beating bad guys. As U.S. Attorney, he took on and defeated the mafia in his district. As Mayor of New York City, he took on the criminals and beat them lowering crime dramatically. He has a history of taking on bad guys. He has a history of beating them. While the terrorists may not be a perfect comparison to the bad guys he has a history of beating, his prior accomplishments can't be ignored when determining the best terror warrior.

The most fascinating portion of the meeting, for me, came in his answer regarding health insurance. Rudy's plan to revolutionize health care is entirely conservative. The hallmarks are lower taxes, health savings accounts, and market principles. He believes that much of the problem comes in the fact that people don't usually choose their own health insurance. Since most get it through work, it is essentially chosen for them. As such, when it comes to health insurance, people aren't the dutiful consumers that they are towards other products and services. Through credits, tax breaks, and health savings accounts, Rudy believes that individuals will be able to not only buy their own health insurance but at a lower cost than they normally do. In many ways, Rudy's vision of health care mirrors that of John Stossel's. Consumers drive down the price of everything and drive up the quality, and we must give the consumer choice back to the individual. He does it through health savings accounts, credits, and tax breaks. He also pointed out that our litigious society has created an environment of defensive medicine and higher costs. He proposed that the loser of any lawsuit must pay for the costs of both parties to limit many of the more egregious lawsuits.

On taxes and spending, Rudy tried to wake up the echos of Ronald Reagan. He stressed over and over his commitment to limiting the size of government. It was his solution to a whole host of economic related problems. He pointed out that limiting the size of government is largely done through leadership. He pointed out that none of his deputies in New York City ever came to him asking to make the budget for their respective department smaller. Thus, it was ultimately up to him, the Mayor, to stand firm in limiting the size of government even if he had to take on his own administration to do it.

He spoke about productive and unproductive taxes. An unproductive tax is one that is among the most extreme when compared to the civilized world. For instance, he pointed out that our corporate income tax is one of the highest in the entire civilized world. He said that if we merely lowered our tax so that is closer to the middle not at the top that it would keep a lot of the business we lose. He said his tax policy would focus on identifying and lowering those taxes that he determined to be unproductive.

He ended the meeting with an answer to something dear to my heart, the mortgage crisis. He said that he thought Paulson's plan to freeze rates was a good idea. I was quite put off by this question, and and if you want to know why please read this. He also said something very interesting right afterwards. He said that he believed that it was a good idea especially in light of pending Congressional action. I took this to mean that this was the least of two evils. If freezing rates means halting action on such things as H.R. 3915, then while it is still not a good idea it might be better than the alternative.

He was asked how he would confront the mortgage crisis, and this he answered perfectly. He pointed out that the duty of the President is NOT to focus on any given segment of the market but rather to be a proper momentum builder for the economy as a whole. He believed that shrinking government and waste would not only strengthen the economy but the housing market. One can take this as a canned answer, and to some extent it is, however I personally find it a positive that a Presidential candidate doesn't feel the uncontrollable urge to tinker with every portion of the economy that may be going wrong at any given time.

The meeting was revealing not only for what he said but what he didn't say. There was absolutely nothing about any social issues. Clearly, Rudy is trying to downplay his socially liberal record as much as possible and frankly his supporters didn't much care because there were no questions. I was surprised that he didn't touch at all on judges as well, though I assume his public unabashed support for strict constructionists holds. He also said nothing about guns or the environment as well. Rudy took out a lamenated card that had his twelve commitments. That is where I believe his focus will be in his administration. If you are worried about Rudy's position on any matter, check the twelve commitments. If that position isn't on there that, it is unlikely his administration will spend much time on the issue anyway.

All in all, I found Rudy to be quite charismatic and charming, still maybe not quite Mike Huckabee, but charismatica and charming nonetheless. At one point, a voter revealed that not only was he a supporter but also a registered Democrat. Rudy, spontaneously, came over and gave the man a big bear hug. I continue to maintain my support for him, and all reasons stand. He is a proven leader. He has a proven track record. He has a proven history of shrinking government, cutting waste, cutting taxes, expanding choice, and confronting bad guys. In this day and age, I believe that is exactly what we need.

Pulp Fiction Breakfast Scene

2007-12-09T12:48:00.001-06:00

The Changing Political Dynamics Surrounding Grady Hospital

2007-12-09T11:28:00.000-06:00

From a purely political junkie level the current dynamics surrounding Grady Hospital are absolutely fascinating. Here is a quick run down. Late last month, the board at Grady Hospital approved a plan to go quasi private and asked, or demanded depending on your perspective, for roughly half a billion dollars in order to stay solvent. Then, not two weeks later, the JCAHO threatened to cut off Grady's national accreditation. Now, let's take each one at a time and then look at them together.

I believe the board is playing a huge political game of chicken with the Georgia legislature. I believe this plan does NOT have the best interest of the hospital in mind whatsoever. While that is certainly important, it is unfortunately a side issue in this political battle. As a friend of mine once put it

Grady can't shut down because who would take care of all the poor folks then

Without the money called for in this plan, Grady WILL shut down. The powers that be know this, and I have said as much. While Grady Hospital has had a long history of corruption and mismanagement, much of the power structure has continued to boldly and brazenly manage it in much the same way that has landed it in its current state. The reason for this is of course quite complicated, however it is due in no small part to Grady's vital role in Georgia health care system and society at large. Remember, Grady Hospital is among the largest in the world and is overwhelmingly responsible for taking care of most Georgia's poor folks. Without it all of the many "nice" hospitals in the area would have to take care of those folks.

I have fallen in love with the Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitur. (The facts speak for themselves) Given Grady's long and sordid history with corruption and mismanagement, the fact that most of the power structure in Georgia never tried to really stop it tells me that most people don't much care as long as some other entity was taking care of those that no one else wanted to take care of, THE POOR. I believe the powers that be are counting on the exact same dynamic now. I believe the only thing most of the power players in Georgia want to avoid is for the poor folks to be dropped on the rest of the health care system. As long as they are Grady's problem, in my opinion, most everyone else turns a blind eye.

Thus, we have this game of chicken. The legislature doesn't want to hand Grady Hospital anymore money. They must know that the systemic problems currently going on at Grady aren't going to be solved with this plan, however without an infusion of cash, Grady shuts down. The powers that be at Grady are counting on the legislature blinking first. The legislature meets again in January so, for now, that part of the story is on hold.

Enter the JCAHO. Just last week they publicly threatened to revoke the accreditation of Grady Hospital. To put this move in perspective only one hospital, King Hospital in California, has ever actually lost their accreditation. Many of allies on this story have extolled this move as pivotal. I am a lot more skeptical. There must have been the same kind of excitement when State Senator Charles Walker was convicted of 127 felonies at Grady and beyond. Yet, he, along with his daughter and the companies they ran, were the only ones that were convicted, and of course he got the absurd sentence of ten years. In 2004, the department of Health and Human Services conducted an investigation that concluded this...

the conditions at Grady Hospital pose a serious and immediate threat to the health and safety of the patients

That was pretty damning however besides the then CEO, Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, no one lost their job as a result of this report and the power structure stayed in place despite its damning findings.

Even in the late 1990's, Georgia Attorney General found Grady Hospital guilty of Medicare fraud. All of these were opportunities lost to clean up the corruption at Grady Hospital. The reason it didn't happen is also quite complicated, however I believe much of the blame goes to the media in Atlanta, headed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

In each of these stories, the truth is quite complicated and it was never fully explained to the citizens of Georgia. For instance, in the case of the HHS report, the report itself was damning, however how many people know the specifics of the report? Four departments were singled out: oncology, cardiology, General Surgery, and obgyn, in the report. Each of these departments had heads. None of these people lost their jobs because the specifics of the report weren't ever reported properly in the media. Furthermore, the heads of these departments had one boss, the Chief Medical Officer. His name is William Casarella and he has since been promoted within Emory University. This also happened because the media didn't properly report the specifics of the case. All people knew, if anything, about the investigation was the conclusion. While that was damning enough blame was impossible for a layman to determine without understanding the specifics as I now explain them.

In the case of Medicare fraud in the late 1990's, three departments were also identified: cardiology, obgyn, and oncology. Again, these departments have heads and a Chief Medical Officer above them. All of them including the CMO should have been and would have been fired if the media had properly exposed that case. As you can see the same departments are now coming up in multiple reports. No one outside the Grady structure knows this because the media, either through incompetence or worse, doesn't report the specifics of each case.

There is one other case that the media did an atrocious job of reporting. That is the case of Dr. Sam Newcom. He was for about a year, the head of Oncology at Grady Hospital and Emory University Professor. He tried to speak out about the corruption and poor patient care at Grady Hospital and he was fired and ultimately paid off and silenced, but before that he wrote an article entitled Fighting Class Cleansing at Grady Memorial Hospital. You won't find this article in any mainstream Atlanta publication. As head of Oncology, you would be right in concluding that much of his indictment centered on his own department. In other words, oncology is the subject of a great deal of indictment from people of varying motivations and knowledge.

Nothing much has happened to clean up the oncology department and that is because the media has been asleep in reporting the specifics of what is going on at Grady.

Then, there is Emory University. When the heat gets hot on Grady, Emory does a great job of distancing itself. In fact, they are doing their own disappearing act now. The truth is that they are for all intents and purposes one and the same. Each of these departments indicted by several different groups was run and almost fully staffed by staff at Emory University. The Chief Medical Officer, Dr. William Casarella, during much of this malfeasance has since been promoted within Emory. In other words, when there is sytemic problems at Grady Hospital, the blame must be laid at Emory University since it is staffed overwhelmingly by Emory professors and students. When Dr. Newcom indicted oncology, he was indicting his own colleagues since oncology is overwhelmingly staffed, like most of Grady Hospital, by Emory University personnel.

Now, what about the JCAHO findings? We know they are threatening to cut off accreditation however why? That, we don't know because for reasons unknown (I plan on calling the JCAHO on Monday for further explanation) the specifics of the findings aren't known. We can assume that multiple specific departments are the cause of it. It might be oncology, General Surgery, obgyn, cardiology, etc. The heads of any of the departments involved must be removed. If your department contributed to an investigation that ultimately lead to the accreditation of your hospital being threatened, THAT IS GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL, in my opinion at least. The current chief medical officer, Curtis Lewis, must be removed. If you are overseeing a hospital and the hospital is threatened with the removal of its accreditation, THAT IS GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL. The Current CEO of Grady Hospital is Otis Story, Sr. He must be removed for the same reasons. In fact, the entire board ought to be removed, however the board is overseen by Vernon Jones, and anyone that knows anything about Jones knows not to expect that to happen. Of course, how many Georgia folks know the real story behind Vernon Jones? That would require the media in Georgia to actually competently report the whole truth.

This whole case proves why the first amendment, the free press, is first not second or tenth. I hope everyone sees what happens when the media itself cedes its own freedoms and doesn't bother to report the whole truth. In order for this cycle to stop, the whole truth of the JCAHO findings must be reported by the media in Georgia. The media must keep the pressure on until all parties are held responsible. That is what has to happen.

Here is what will probably happen. There will be no more then a few more articles in the AJC about this report. Anymore reporting will be on the eventual deal made between Grady and the JCAHO, a deal that will no doubt be made in some back room. The major media in Georgia will NOT reveal the specific departments responsible for this latest investigation. They won't name names and they won't demand for heads to roll. Finally, they won't call Emory out when they distance themselves. Emory University will throw its significant weight around the Georgia Legislature and no one will report it. Grady will be given a golden parachute and none of the obvious systemic problems I have pointed out will ever be reported on or addressed. I hope I am wrong and I will be watching.

For more information on this case, please read this article. Also, please read the recommendations that my colleagues have come up with and compare them to the current plan.

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall

2007-12-08T15:42:00.001-06:00

Analysis and Reaction to Mitt Romney's Speech

2007-12-08T15:13:00.000-06:00

Mitt Romney gave a speech many believed he needed to give discussing his faith. I didn't hear it or see it so I will act merely as a sort of weigh station of news and reaction to it.

Power Line has audio of the speech and a full transcript.

Over the last year, we have embarked on a national debate on how best to preserve American leadership. Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America's greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my Presidency, if I were elected.

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams’ words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate's religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today.

The view from the right blogosphere was generally impressed.

He appealed to religious liberty, the liberty that America was founded on. He pointed to what a lack of religious freedom can lead to. And I think he did an excellent job of showing Americans that he is indeed an ally in the fight for the collective faith of all Americans and the religious freedoms we too often take for granted.

The right punditry was more balanced.

There was much in the speech that evangelicals and other religious conservatives will find to their liking. First, there was Romney's treatment of religious liberty. He said it is an inalienable right "with which each is endowed by his Creator." He implied it is, amongst all our liberties, the very first. Romney said he understood the religion clause of the First Amendment as being fundamentally about securing "the free practice of religion" and pointed out that while achieving religious liberty has been a long and arduous process, its benefits--"diversity of cultural expression" and "vibrancy of . . . religious dialogue"--are evident and contrast sharply with what you find in Europe, where established churches seem to be "withering away."

Second, Romney took a whack at those (unnamed) who take "the notion of the separation of church and state . . . well beyond its original meaning" by seeking "to remove from the public domain any acknow-ledgment of God." It is, he said, "as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America--the religion of secularism. They are wrong." Romney called for public acknowledgments of God--"in ceremony and word." God "should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places." Romney even managed to work in a reference to judges, saying we need jurists who will stick to original meaning and let stand, for example, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Third, Romney affirmed that religion is a force for the nation's well-being. "No movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people," he said, citing as examples abolition in the 19th century and civil rights in the 20th. He also mentioned "the right to life itself," a movement not yet finished--and clearly of importance to many Republican primary voters.

The rest of the punditry was a lot more mixed. Here is some from E.J. Dionne.

Romney's speech at the George H.W. Bush library in College Station, Tex., was by turns brilliant and frustrating, inspiring yet also transparently political in its effort to find the precise balance that would satisfy Republican primary voters.

When he spoke of the dangers of subjecting candidates to doctrinal investigations, Romney had perfect pitch. His opponents -- particularly Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister who is reaping a great harvest of evangelical Christian support in Iowa -- should join him in warning against religious bigotry.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines," Romney said. "To do so would enable the very religious test the Founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president, he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

There was also his poetic assertion that "we do not insist on a single strain of religion -- rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."

But in light of all this, it was a neck-snapping moment when Romney declared: "What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind."

With those words, Romney legitimized the most fundamental test being imposed on him in some evangelical Christian quarters. He was telling them he deserved an "A" on the religious exam they cared about most. He has every right to declare his faith in Jesus, but didn't his profession, in this context, undercut his central and proper contention that a candidate should not be asked to "describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines"?

Here is one from the Salt Lake Tribune...

The Creator] should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.
Clearly a nod to religious conservatives who are pushing for religious expression in the public sphere.

So many of the [European] cathedrals now stand as the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer.

This speaks to the fears of the religious right that if they don't protect and promote religion now, America will go the way of secular Europe.

Infinitely worse is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent Jihad, murder as martyrdom. . . . killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood.

This is pure religious right rhetoric, but it is also offensive to Muslims to use "Islamists" as a term of fear and horror.

We do not insist on a single strain of religion - rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith.

The "symphony of faith" may be Romney's best metaphor, but critics are already using it against him, pointing out that humanists, agnostics and atheists seem to be excluded from playing.

Finally, just for fun here is the view from the Kos.
He didn't say the word "Mormon" once, I don't think. [UPDATE II: Final word count score -- Mormon: 1; Muslim/Islam/jihad: 5] So to the extent that you bought the hype and tuned in because you had genuine questions about the LDS church, you came away empty-handed. And possibly with the nagging feeling that Romney's hiding something after all.
What the speech did succeed in showing is that the Romney operation is the nearest successor (to date) to the Bush operation in its willingness to play the press corps for suckers. Promise a "major address" on some pressing issue, play the expectations game according to the Conventional Wisdom -- that is, raising the stakes by having surrogates use back channels to inflate expectations about the importance of the substance to be addressed -- and then turn it all on its head by delivering nothing of what was promised, and daring the press corps to write their stories with their pants down, having played into the game of promising something big.
The other master stroke here was the choice of venue: the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. That puts the Romney name next to the Bush name in the papers -- a grab at the mantle, if people will just look past the "H" -- and it allows Romney to deliver what was essentially Republican religionist pablum (I believe in God, He should be on our money, plus we need "our kind" of judges) from behind a podium bearing the presidential seal. A media consultant's dream come true, and what should be a fat bonus for the advance team (but they never get the money).

The World After the NIE Report

2007-12-08T13:44:00.000-06:00

If anyone wants to know what a brave new world the internet and 24 cable news has created they only need to look at the dynamics created by the release of the National Intelligence Estimate in regards to Iran's nuclear program. Six or eight years ago I would venture to guess that many in government wouldn't know anything about any NIE report. Now, the NIE is subject to water cooler discussion and is being used as spin material by politicians as far away as Iran.

The problem with this brave new world is that most of the people in it know just enough to be dangerous. First, as Fred Thomspon rightly points out, we should have a healthy skepticism toward this report.

The accuracy of the latest NIE on Iran should be received with a good deal of skepticism. Our intelligence community has often underestimated the intentions of adversaries, including Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea. And are all of the CIA detractors now going to take intelligence pronouncements at face value? It's awfully convenient for a lot of people: the administration gets to say its policies worked; the Democrats get to claim we should have eased up on Iran a long time ago: and Russia and China can claim sanctions on Iran are not necessary

Second, if the report is right, then the reaction is almost entirely spin and in no way relates to reality. There is a great deal of irony that most of the same people that are using this report to attack Bush for some sort of perceived misleading statements also attacked Bush for lying about Iraq. The final NIE report on Iraq painted a scary picture in which the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein was seeking a plethora of WMD programs. Even though that particular report concurred with the picture the President gave, that didn't stop his opponents from claiming that he lied about Iraq's WMD's. Now, most of the exact same people that ignored a previous NIE report to claim he lied are using another NIE report to claim he is now lying. They simply can't have it both ways. Either the NIE is the gospel or it isn't.

Finally, if this report is accurate, then it in fact validates Bush's entire foreign policy strategy. The NIE report says that Iran halted their nuclear program in 2003. Unless you are a believer in strange coincidences that means Iran stopped their program because they noticed their neighbor to the West was getting bombarded because of his own WMD program. In other words, the invasion of Iraq did in fact put tyrants and despots on notice and it changed their behavior. Remember, Lybia also gave up its WMD program in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.

Here is another view...

What did that pressure consist of? In the fall of 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency had not yet referred the civil Iranian nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. That happened in 2006, and the Security Council finally agreed on (weak) sanctions later that year. In the fall of 2003, the European Union had barely swung into action with its negotiations--which have gone nowhere in four years. The quasi-urgency displayed by both the IAEA and the EU in late 2003 was a result of fear that unless they got engaged, the United States might act unilaterally and militarily. Why such fear?

Much as the U.S. intelligence community, the IAEA, and the EU might prefer to forget it, we did overthrow Saddam Hussein in April 2003. As Rosett puts it, that "was the year in which Saddam Hussein became Exhibit A of the post-Sept.-11 era for what could happen to terror-linked tyrants who ignored America's demands that they abjure weapons of mass murder."
Did anyone notice? Muammar Qaddafi did. Libya, in late 2003, gave up its nuclear weapons program (which was, incidentally, more advanced than the IAEA believed) and invited U.S. experts in to dismantle it.

Perhaps Iran's mullahs also noticed. Perhaps they noticed, too, a large U.S.-led military force just across their border.

Why then are some using this as bludgeon against Bush? Here is how Joe Biden put it...

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) Tuesday asserted that President Bush is not leveling with the country when he says that he did not know in mid-October that U.S. intelligence services believed at that time that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated
on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

So, when accusing the sitting President of lying about matters of national security, Biden uses nothing but supposition. Of course, he isn't alone. Most of the entire MSM has claimed this.
Criticism was coming from nearly every single quarter.

The new National Intelligence Estimate — which says Iran had a nuclear weapons development program, but halted it in 2003 — made President Bush's week play out like a sad country song. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was smiling and called the report a victory. Rush Limbaugh blasted the report as a product of administration sabotage. And Democrats were accusing the president of being a flip-flopper.

The NIE drew fire from nearly all sides, including anti-war Democrats in Congress, foreign leaders the administration needs to hold the line against Iran, and conservatives usually supportive of the administration.

The root issue for many critics comes down to credibility: Credibility of the estimate, credibility of the intelligence community that developed it and the credibility of the administration for whom those agencies work. Bridging that credibility gap might prove difficult for an administration heading into its final months.

The most absurd criticism came from those that claimed this would slow down "Bush's rush to war". First, the only rush that Bush had to go to war with Iran was in the minds of the people that claimed he had it. For the last six years the only thing Bush has done is go back to the UN for an endless stream of useless sanctions. If anything Bush hasn't been tough enough, not too tough. Second, to claim that this proves that Iran isn't the threat that Bush claims is to ignore all reality. First here is how some of those think.

To be sure, the first reaction to the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is simple relief — the Bush administration is less likely to launch a unilateral, pre-emptive military strike against a nuclear program that doesn’t exist.

But then there are the second and third reactions, which are nearly as important in providing context. Matt Yglesias, for example, reminds us that in 2003, Iran reached out to the U.S. in order to strike a sweeping peace deal, which would have led the country to give up on a nuclear program that they then-realized would be too hard to develop. Bush wasn’t interested.

For anyone to treat Iran as anything short of a sociopathic regime that needs to be isolated and confronted until they understand that confrontation will only lead to their destruction is to ignore reality. Let's review some of the things Iran has done in the last couple years.

One of their proxies started a war in Lebanon with Israel. Another proxy started a war in Palestine with Israel. It is Iran that is responsible for the much of the alphabet soup of explosive devices currently killing our soldiers in Iraq . Let's not forget that the Iranians crossed into international waters, took fifteen British sailors hostage, and then paraded them on television for propaganda purposes. To claim that Iran is not a menace because some government report claims they halted their nuclear program (though interestingly not their uranium enrichment) is to ignore Iran's actions over the last few years. Iran is a menace. If this report is accurate then it proves that the only way to deal with them is with a hammer.

What is frustrating to folks like me is how the White House is again bungling the media handling of this report. Even though they have the bully pulpit of the Presidency you aren't hearing much response to much of this absurd criticism.

There you have the brave new world of the MSM and the NIE report. It is complicated by nature as the NIE report is really not meant for layman. That said, most people are asking all the wrong questions and coming to all the wrong conclusions. It is nothing short of absurd to have the same Joe Biden accusing Bush of misleading on Iraq, all the while ignoring the NIE report, and misleading on Iran, all the while treating this NIE report as the gospel. It is shameful that the MSM has focused solely on perceived misleading statements without even a thought that this report actually confirms Bush's policies.

Finally, and to me most importantly, it is no less shameful that the Bush admin allows all of this to happen even though they have the bully pulpit of the Presidency.

Once Upon A Time In America (killing at the docks)

2007-12-07T10:25:00.001-06:00

My all time favorite movie and watch the end for one of the best lines of all time from Deniro to Woods

Update on the Rate Freeze

2007-12-07T09:49:00.000-06:00

Several business journals have recently come up with editorials that echo what I have been saying about the rate freeze. Here is a snippet from IBD...

The flaws of the plan are many and fatal.

First, the deal will reward irrational behavior and encourage such behavior by homebuyers in the future. It was not logical for people to take out mortgage obligations they couldn't afford, but it will become logical for them to do so in the future if they can reasonably expect that the government and their lender will later bail them out when the going gets tough.
Second, the deal will thwart the market by keeping home prices artificially high. In recent years, laughably easy credit has let many people "buy" homes who otherwise could not have done so, pushing up prices.

We've had "liar" loans, in which people could just state their annual income without fear that their mortgage lender would call their employer to check. We've had "Nina" loans, for "No Income, No Assets." And we've had "Ninja" loans, for "No Income, No Job or Assets." Consumers, armed with the easy money provided by these silly terms, have pushed home prices to record levels when they're measured against personal income, making falling home prices not only inevitable but healthy.

Here is the view from Forbes...

Decried as a bailout of irresponsible borrowers by some and a financial industry wrist slap by others, the plan is not mandatory for the financial industry, though more than three-quarters of lenders and servicers say they embrace the idea. The biggest, Countrywide Financial, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, who collectively service $4.3 trillion in mortgage loans, all support the plan.

Still, independent mortgage-servicing firms, some of which are not overseen by federal banking regulators, could opt out, leaving their borrowers still vulnerable to foreclosure.

And investors may not like it. The financial industry lobby worked aggressively to make sure the plan included indemnification for them so investors of bonds backed by these mortgages won't sue them after lenders change the terms of the loans. The more lenders who volunteer to join the program, the less vulnerable they'll all be to lawyers, saying it had become industry practice.

Another issue: The plan only applies to those who are current in their mortgage payments but who are determined to be unable to afford higher reset rates. It won't apply to those who are already faltering, and it won't apply to those who face resets but are deemed able to afford it.
That raises the inevitable moral hazard question. "I'm very skeptical of this," says Bert Ely, a banking regulation consultant in Arlington, Va., who was among the first to say in the 1980s that there would be a taxpayer bailout of the federal deposit insurance fund in the midst of the real estate lending crisis of that decade. "It's government-sponsored collusion."

Finally, here is the word from the Wall Street Journal

The next time we suggest that the government give advice to the private sector, tie us down until the fever passes. A couple months ago, we endorsed the idea of mortgage service companies voluntarily negotiating with subprime borrowers and investors to avoid a wave of defaults next year.

Now come the politicians to wrap their arms around the idea, and maybe give the U.S. a reputation for forcibly rewriting financial contracts. Don't cry for us, Argentina?
Both Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and the White House are touting a plan to freeze interest payments on up to two million troubled mortgages.

This one from the New York Post falls into the category of why don't you tell me how you really feel...

Yet this plan, bad as it is, has little chance of helping most of the people who face the possibility of foreclosure - after all, 1.5 million Americans will see their mortgage rates "reset" to higher rates next year.

So Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will propose to Congress to let cities and states issue tax-exempt debt to bail out even more borrowers.

Cities and states would borrow billions and lend the money to "homeowners" (in fact, these borrowers don't actually "own" their homes; they only own the mortgage). The "homeowners," in turn, would use the money to pay off the mortgages they can't afford - and take out new, more affordable mortgages with their city or state government. (Not all tax-exempt debt is guaranteed by the city or state that issues it, but this debt would have to be - no private investor will touch this risk right now for an interest rate that would be "affordable" to these borrowers.)

The whole idea is disastrous - and not simply because it is massive government interference in the private markets. The problems are almost too painful to describe:

Finally, in response to to my previous work on this, I received this ANONYMOUS comment...

As a threshold matter, I treat any comment that begins by citing a politician with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not knocking politicians for doing their jobs. I'm just stating the obvious--their views are extremely skewed.As for freezing Rates, while I respect the poster's opinion, it is built on a false premise. One artificially jaded by his admitted "insider" position. In plain English, the arguments seems to be as follows: Capitalism depends on freedom to contract. When this freedom is interrupted, the system breaks down and everyone suffers the consequences for a few bad decisions. In the poster's view, the present mortgage crisis was largely created by a few economically and intellectually inferior individuals taking on financial burdens they should have known they could not carry. Now, according to this view, the government is interfering with an important moral and intellectual lesson that the gullible, but benevolent lenders are poised to teach. Moreover, because of this, the banks will be forced to retaliate by raising everyone's rates.As previously stated,
this position is replete with foundational flaws. First, lenders may be gullible, but they are far from innocent. Brokers, Banks, and title companies have, for several years (at least), colluded to mislead so-called sub-prime consumers who approach them from a bargaining disadvantage due to their, again, so-called spotty credit profiles.

Tellingly, the prime/sub-prime distinction is a banking industy invention intended to allow banks to charge usurious interest rates. And, hidden finance charges, fees and penalties have increased the number of technical defaults (via hidden universal default provisions) and (along with other predatory practices) have resulted in an increasingly small prime consumer population. But, as of late, the mortgage industy has taken deception to a new low. Which brings me to my next point. Other than credit histories (many of which--despite the Fair Credit Reporting Act and consumers' diligent efforts to update the information--contain vague and/or incomplete negative references many years old), the vast majority of sub-prime homeowners are just as financially able as prime consumers. They are doctors, lawyers, accountants, CEOs, etc. The average sub-prime homeowner pays his mortgage, his HOA, and his taxes on time, despite paying, in many cases, twice as much as his counter-part for the same home.

Contrary to the most prevalent explanation, it is not their ability to pay for the house they purchased that is at issue. Instead, it is their ability to pay the concealed premium on that house that neither they nor their counter-part can afford.

Take for instance, the Jumbo two-year interest only ARM. If you believe the poster, these people were fully informed about the affect of the LIBOR index (or, at least, knew what it was) on their loans after the 2-year interest only period. They knew that the interest capped out at, say, 12.7% from a teaser of 7.0% and that the rate would reset multiple times (every six months). They were also informed that very few if any finance companies would refinance such a loan. I think not.

This characterization strains credability and common sense. No one would knowingly agree to such terms. The Brokers and the lenders with their secret kick-back deals assured these consumers that, though the loan would reset (giving no mention of multiple resets or the actual dollar value of the payment increase), the consumer would refinance before then. They also routinely fail to explain the variabl interest rate provision of the contract, in part, because they can't understand the LIBOR themselves. If they do understand, they know that the deal would be dead on the table if they told the customer that his payments would go from $3700.00 per month to $5000.00. So, instead, they point to the page and vaguely reference a reset at the end of the 2-year period, skipping any details. If, by chance, they are selling to an attorney, they simply let the person read it. But, unless you work within a lending institution and regularly deal with such provisions, even an attorney will be completely lost (One does not usually have the final documents until he is sitting at the table at the title company). So, most will rely on the broker's interpretation, thinking, "at worst, I will have to refinance at the end of the term." So, the customer is a little gullible too.

Finally, as to the legal implications--and I'm an insider on this issue--this country has not seen the magnitude of litigation against major banking institutions that is currently in in the pipeline since Worldcom.

Now, this is naive and misleading on several levels. First, clearly this poster hasn't read all of my work, but just this piece. Had they read this piece, they would have known that I blamed five entities working in cohesion: the banks, Wall Street, the mortgage broker, the borrower, and the Legislature. Had they read this piece, they would have known that I even laid much blame for starting this crisis on Alan Greenspan.

Now, since the poster naively claims that my claim is flawed because I only blame the borrower, which I don't, I can stop now in the analysis, however I won't. They falsely claim that sub prime and prime don't have any difference in terms of income. While it is true that income is, in and of itself not the factor that determines prime or subprime (debt to income is), it is just a plain lie to claim that sub prime is not much more skewed towards the poor. Through logic and experience I have learned that while sometimes wealthy people have as poor a credit profile as poor people, I have learned that on the whole wealthy people have a much easier time paying their bills and thus have better credit.

They claim that it is the hidden part of the contract that sub prime borrowers can't pay. Again, in my six years, I know that overwhelmingly people buy homes at a higher price than they intended. That is my back up for my supposition, the poster gives no evidence for their hypothesis. They also claim that the paperwork is too difficult and thus the borrower is then not held responsible for the signature they gave to it. First, I pointed out that Congress has created an atmosphere in which it is easier to rip someone off. Second, that is pure hogwash. If you can't understand what you are signing, don't sign it. I had a twenty three year old that spent nearly six hours at the closing because he literally read and understood every word in every document before he signed. Good for him because he wasn't "gullible". To claim that the language was to complex and thus people agreed to things they wouldn't have is not only fellacious but irrelevant. They agreed to them and their signature is proof.

Then, he claims that sub prime is nothing more than a means for banks to charge outrageously high rates. While the rates are much higher, this poster would be surprised to learn that banks use a sophisticated manner in which to reach those rates. For the most part, borrowers get what they deserve. While sub prime is higher, it also excuses such things as bankruptcy, foreclosure, multiple mortgage lates, low credit scores, and sparse credit history. No one is forced to take on any rate, however if someone gets a sub prime loan it is almost always because that is exactly what they deserve.

Finally, they claim that my concern of the litigation nightmare in unwarranted because it won't rival Worldcom. That absurd statement speaks for itself and needs no counter.

Animal House - Bluto's Speech

2007-12-06T22:25:00.001-06:00

Do I really have to add anything?

Attacking Corruption: The Power and Frustrations of the Blogosphere (Updated)

2007-12-06T18:12:00.000-06:00

INTRODUCTION: I have been known to tell many of new found allies in the case of the corruption that I have found at Emory University, Grady Hospital and beyond that our opponents cannot control what I am doing because the internet is not controllable. It is a force beyond anyone's control.

For instance, a few weeks ago I wrote this story linking the murder of Derwin Brown, the suicide of Charles Hicks to a culture of corruption in Dekalb County under its "leader" Vernon Jones. The story started its journey on the front page of Real Clear Politics\ and then traveled its way across the country until hundreds of people began emailing it to each other (I know this through the technical way in which my stat counter tracks my visitors. It is too long and boring to explain so you will have to take my word for it) I even received this email in response to the story.

Mr. Volpe, Greetings... I have recently been reading many of your comments specifically relating to corruption, politics, and particularly Dekalb County.. You Sir are right on point!!! The dynamic that resulted in the ELECTED by the people Sheriff Derwin Brown (as opposed to the establishment "appointed" Sheriff Tommy Brown) was certainly a result of a vast conspiracy not merely the action of a single individual(Sid Dorsey)..

Derwin had himself uncovered many instances of longstanding good ole boy wink and nod politics and outright corrupt practices. Additionally, he aligned himself with individuals ( such as yours truly) who had personal knowledge of corrupt practices and deals that government officials elected in Dekalb had engaged by formed cozyrelationships with business people for their personal gain and pecuniary benefit. All be it strip club operators, county vendors, bail bondspeople, or off duty officers with private security accounts; Derwin represented the end of this type graft. These miscreants wanted him stopped and they stopped him. Maybe by not necessarily pulling the trigger but by creating an atmosphere and culture that resulted in demented and ignorant individuals like Dorsey, Cuffie, et al feeling that it needed to be done and should be done..

These tacitly involved individuals have Derwin's blood on their hand to the same extent as the trigger men... Moreover, allowing individuals like Vernon Jones, Charles Hicks, Louis Graham, and Thomas Brown (the prmier figurehead) to run the government is nothing short of a farce.. Mr. Hicks may have truly had a crisis of conscience and therein lies the reason for his unfortunate death (be it suicide or murder). The real power brokers (Bob Wilson, Ray Suddeth, Mark Dehler, Frank Redding, and Sembler) are the ones reaping the real benefits $$$ from these shenaigans in Dekalb County government over the last 15 years. Unfortunately, it is at great cost to the taxpayers and underminds the sheer fiber that our Constitution is foundationed upon and yes cost at least one hero his life..

I received several such emails and a host of new and important contacts as a result of internet travels of that story. No amount of corruption can stand up to the power of the internet, email, and how that dynamics brings everyone together.

The feedback hasn't always been good. For instance, I recevied this email from Dr. Michael Ward of the University of Cincinnati. He has some incendiary things about Kevin Kuritzky, the whistle blower that first turned me onto this story.

Mike, Just wanted to let you know that you shouldn't get taken in by Kevin Kuritzky. The guy is a pathological liar and I have personally been taken in by his stories only to realize that he was flat out lying. I also know numerous other people who have experienced the same. It is quite sad because he is a very charming, intelligent person. He just uses these skills to manipulate people. Don't get taken in by him.Mike--
Michael Ward MD,
MBA
Resident
Physician
Department of Emergency Medicine
University of Cincinnati

I invited Dr. Ward etc. etc. to back his vague and incendiary statements up with examples and evidence. He has declined and since the email is now my property I have decided to use every opportunity to use it to expose him as the fraud. He is of course welcome anytime to back up any of these statements. In the meantime, his own words will be on the internet for everyone to see.

Those are examples of using the blogosphere and the internet for positive and how it becomes the ultimate equalizer. On my site, Dr. Ward etc. etc. is no more powerful than anyone else, and through the reach of sites like Google his own words will be on display for anyone that cares. Now, I have introduced the positives of the blogosphere however this piece is about some of the filth and garbage that you find will navigating through and with that the introduction is over...

I will direct everyone to two separate sites in which, in my opinion, all of the worst of the internet came out. First, I have an admission to make. I traced a tentacle of this story down to Florida in the person of Dr. Andrew Agwunobi. He appears to be knee deep in the scandal at WellCare. Since he is currently in the REPUBLICAN administration, I see his exposure as a boon to all Democrats. Well, in terms of size and power the ultimate Democratic blogging site is Daily Kos.

While a true blue Republican would have difficulty there, I simply couldn't ignore their sheer size and numbers. I knew that I couldn't go there as myself, so I went there under the pseudonym, theprovacateur. (I know it is misspelled and so be it.) I received a lukewarm reception to my expose of Dr. Agwunobi. While most of the people that read it liked it, it wasn't nearly as popular as the most recent "expose of a Bush Lie, impeachable offense, and example of incompetence".

Next, I thought I would be more confrontational and inflammatory in a piece that was in response to another piece published by a regular of Daily Kos vis a vis Vernon Jones. Anyone who knows anything about the Kos knows that confrontational and inflammatory are not only welcomed but encouraged there. Welcomed and encouraged that is I found as long as you are attacking what they consider the enemy. Since I dared to attack one of their own, well suddenly the entire Kos site became quite sensitive. (Yes, this is a case of being able to dish it out but not taking it)

Here are some examples of the comments...

you need to give some serious thought to your approach to diarying here. You don't raise awareness about an issue by attacking another diarist who wrote something only very indirectly related to your issue, six freaking months ago. I suggest you delete this diary and try again. If Vernon Jones is your problem then write a diary about Vernon Jones. Don't write diaries accusing others of being "pathetic". That's not going to win you loyal readers.

And a last piece of advice: before you issue sweeping statements of condemnation about Kossacks, you'd better know what the f$%k you're talking about, because I will personally guarantee you that whatever the subject, there will be at least one person around who knows 10X more about it than you ever will. Now delete this ridiculous diary so that it doesn't show up on your "permanent record," and welcome to DailyKos.

Keep in mind that Vernon Jones is the subject of much of my wrath. Vernon Jones is most likely a multiple rapist, probably tied to a great deal of personal corruption, and certainly oversees not only a corrupt police force but also a corrupt public hospital. In other words this is a bad guy. Did I mention he is running for U.S. Senate? Yet, most of the wrath is directed at me, not Jones, because the language I used was "inappropriate". Those weren't the most revealing comments though. These two were.

Lots of places besides DailyKos to send this. (7+ / 0-) Recommended by:
Rebecca, JeffSCinNY, eeff, joanneleon, sbdenmon, Unduna, Goodbye Kitty
TPM Muckrakers, Open Left, FireDogLake, Americablog. Go for it. One more
crook killing people doesn't even qualify as news anymore. Good luck.

Local GA political blogs (3+ / 0-) Recommended by: Rebecca, JeffSCinNY, joanneleon
would be an even better choice. Tondee's Tavern, for example. Link's in my blogroll, if you're interested, diarist...

These folks, who claim to be appalled by all of this corruption around them, passed on actually doing anything about corruption put right in front of them. It was pretty clear that they like to chat back and forth about all of the supposed corruption they see but can't do anything about, rather than trying to tackle any corruption in front of them. Keep in mind that Jones is running for the Democratic nomination of the U.S. Senate. Despite proclaiming how large and powerful they are whenever they think it matters, they are now suddenly powerless to this corruption. Not only did I, not Jones and his corruption, become the issue, but they frankly had no motivation to actually challenge any of the corruption that many of them ceded he has caused. While they found nearly endless energy to attack me, they had none left for a real bad guy, Vernon Jones.

Of course, what happened vis a vis this piece was nothing to what happened when I published this piece that is a detailed summary of the corruption at Grady Hospital, Emory University and beyond. The first few comments were fine, however since much of my piece linked to my own blog, soon enough people noticed they were reading a conservative. Here are some of the comments that followed.

This is being cross posted with permission of Mike Volpe of Proprietor Nation
A quick look at the blogroll of PN gives us: RedState, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, LGF, Hot Air, Captain's Quarters, etc., etc. Judging by your comment about the radio show, I'm assuming you are "snooper." The top story on your personal blog is "The Leftinistra Brainwashing Our Youth." That blog's tagline currently reads: Dedicated to the men and women of the United States Military fighting the Islamic Menace that our government has wrongly mistaken as a peaceful religion. Call me cynical, but these things make me question your motives for posting here, as well as your read on the situation with Grady Hospital, given your inherent bias.

...

You have destroyed any credibility you might have here at dKos by the sources you've used in this diary. Your entire theory hinges on the ravings of a far-right loon and the company he keeps, yet you claim that to be "irrelevant."You despise Vernon Jones; we get it. GA Kossacks despise him, as well, so you're not likely to make any new converts. No one outside GA has the time to care. There's a primary or two coming up in the next few weeks, if you hadn't heard.How will that make the Democratic party look? Please. Concern troll much?

...

Here are Mike Volpe's "recommended blogs" (3+
/ 0-)
Recommended by:
joanneleon, sbdenmon, irishwitch
Volokh
Conspiracy
Varifrank
Tygrrrr Express
Twin Cities Conservative
The Mortgage Reports
The Minority Report
Take Our Country Back
Simon Power
Red State
Powerline Blog
No Hillary Clinton
Michelle Malkin
Michael Yon
Michael Totten
Little Green Footballs
Iraq the Model
IMAO
Hot Air
Hinz Sight Report
Gerry Charlotte Phelps
Faultline USA
Draft General Pace
Deborah Lipstadt
David Frum
Daniel Pipes
Captains Quarters
Austin Bay

Side note: There is a lot of room for abuse when inner city hospitals are used as teaching hospitals for universities -- that particular symbiotic relationship is a very tricky one. At the same time, this write-up is at least 75% innuendo. It reads to me like Emory is the presumptive "bad guy," when in actuality the problem is lack of oversight in hospital administration. So, no, poor medical care for the indigent is not a partisan issue, but the way this is written up sure seems to have a David Horowitz ring to it. I think you could re-assemble these facts without that central assumption and have a piece that would get a better reception.

Here is my personal favorite...

And libelous bulls$%t at that.They've got a good law school, too. You might invest in an alumni directory, unless Michael Horowitz has already lined up an attorney for you.

So, does everyone understand? I am wrong because I am a Conservative, and Emory can't be corrupt because they have a good law school. As Kevin Kuritzky pointed out to me long ago, this is not a partisan issue, it is an issue of corruption. The irony is that almost all of the allies I have gotten on this story are themselves Democrats. The worst part was that I was arguing with people who had never heard of this story before. They proceeded to think that they knew more than me and they were confident in their thoughts because I was linked to a Conservative. (at this point they still assumed that theprovacateur and Mike Volpe were two different people) For instance, I got this comment...

Yes, I read the piece. Mike Volpe alleges four professors were "paid off" -- but only gives information about one. The link shows that Dr. Murtaugh's lawsuit centers on not getting a promotion, and he get a settlement. He also alleged medicare fraud. But to say that the settlement was a payoff to silence him about the medicare fraud is a gross oversimplification.I conceded that there was probably some wrongdoing by Emory. But you completely ignored my point that this piece is fundamentally dishonest because of its anti-Emory framing -- it seems like very few of the issues are actually Emory's fault. They get paid 50 million because they staff the hospital and inner city hospitals don't staff
themselves. By doing so, you are conceding the innuendo argument.

I'm assuming that you're repeating this and are being used, and are not a troll yourself. Think of our reaction this way: suppose a diary comes up that focuses on an important misuse of CIA intelligence that led to the Iraq War, but frames it as being the fault of Senator Rockefeller because he was on the Intelligence Committee. You and I can agree on the importance of the problem, but find the framing dishonest. That's what we're saying here, and I'm not criticizing you, just trying to get you to see that supporting the recognition of the problem doesn't mean uncritically accepting everything in a diary about the problem...

This poster is referring to four doctors that I said were paid off. They say that I have no evidence because I have little to say about any of them besides one, Dr. Jim Murtaugh, and this poster seems to find this as evidence of my shotty reporting. Keep in mind they were paid off and silenced, and so by nature there will be little evidence of the specifics of each case. The only reason that Murtaugh's case came up is that State Senator David Shafer lead a Congressional delegation to unseal the settlement. Furthermore, someone at Kos laughably claims that my piece is dishonest because I take a preconceived bias. First, I do. I am certainly biased against the administration. This comes after two months of research in which I have concluded that they pilfer Grady Hospital, land a sweetheart deal at the tax payer's expense, and pay off or expel anyone that gets in their way. (they will even make articles disappear from internet archives if it is discovered those will make them look bad) Of course, what is laughable is the Kos claiming that an arguement is flawed if it is biased. If that is the case, they have condemned each of their own diaries.

What was really insulting is that I have no doubt that almost no one I was arguing with had even heard of Grady Hospital before I pointed it out to them. The only reason this became confrontational is because they thought that a Conservative had provided the sourcing. At this point, I have spoken with so many insiders on so many angles of this scandal that the only people that know more about it are the insiders themselves. I have traced tentacles to the Dekalb Police Department, the WellCare Scandal, and I am now working on connections to real estate developers and possibly even the Dixie Mafia. I bring this up not to toot my own horn but so that everyone understands how well I understand this story. For someone to challenge me without knowing much of anything is simply insulting.

Of course, the lunacy is not exclusive to the left of the blogosphere. I got into a verbal joust with some commenters on the Georgia blog, Peach Pundit. There were mostly Republicans and Georgia residents and so their problem with me was entirely different. Here are some examples of the comments...

Fascinating that you are so connected and interested while living in Illinois. And as far as Derwin Brown. He was my sheriff and a good man. His death was heinous. So is your ridiculous attempt to tie it into this mess.

...

It isn’t “going private” at all. Just being restructured as a non-profit, likely with state funds being provided. And given the way the laws work down here regarding following state money, I doubt it will be “impossible” to follow the money. Interesting that you throw around the term private since from the beginning that’s been a codeword for many of the anti task force activists down here.But what do I know? It’s not like I ever talk to anyone involved.

...

Oh thank the good Lord above we gots somebody smart to show us the way. Not
one of us ignorant hicks have ever questioned why some many consulting firms
were hired. Not one of us have questioned the mismanagement of Grady. Lord bless
us all that we now have this fine man to show us the way. To lead us out of the
wildereness where we are all a party to such sin.

...

Oh I don’t know, Jace. Maybe the repetitive condescension that we don’t know what’s going on. Repeatedly ignoring the fact that some have raised many of the same questions. Conspiratorially tying the Derwin Brown murder to corruption of Grady. Transitively tying any questioning of his theories into sheeplike acquiesence to being rolled by the Devil. Continually making Charles Walker’s conviction about Grady when mostly it was not. And even when us ignorant hicks refute points fall right back to saying we don’t know what we are talking about.It could be that unless we see through the God-given clear lens of Mike Volpe, we just don’t know what the hell we are talking about.Nah. It’s none of that.

In this case, it came down to tone and territory. I was too confrontational and condescending, and of course I wasn't from Georgia. I got only one defender on the site...

Why does everyone seem out to get this “mike volpe” guy? He is raising some interesting points

There are several things here. First, as I later pointed out, Derwin Brown was never sheriff because he was murdered (by the outgoing sheriff and a conspiracy of deputies and others in the police department) so the initial statement is not only condescending but factually wrong.

Second, the death of Derwin Brown and the corruption at Grady can be tied to one man, Vernon Jones, who was connected to both. (He is still currently the CEO of Dekalb County and not only overlooks the DEKALB POLICE DEPARTMENT, which Brown was elected sheriff of, but he also picks the board at Grady Hospital) Whether or not the corruption is linked directly together or not is up for debate, however I have no doubt that at minimum there is a culture of corruption that links all of it together.

Now, as for the reference to the new plan by the Grady Task Force, it is too in depth for an explanation here, so if you want to know my thoughts, please read my piece on it. (also, I welcome you to read the recommendations that me and my allies have come up with for Grady Hospital)

Also, they claim that most of the corruption committed by State Senator Charles Walker wasn't at Grady Hospital. While this is true, Walker's crime was expansive and not very picky, most of the evidence of his corruption came from whistleblower Joyce Harris, who was the head of H.R. at Grady Hospital.

Their points finally turned from factually wrong to absurd with this comment...

Is it possible that the convictions were tagged on solely to Walker because folks were out to get him? I’m not saying he didn’t do wrong - believe me, as an Augusta native, he did a lot of things wrong and deserved punishment - but he also had a lot of guys gunning for him, particularly a lot of folks in Augusta.

Could it be that the focus was to get Walker and not to investigate Grady? And that getting Walker meant piling up the felony charges?

Here is how I refuted it...

If they were “out to get him”, why did he get ten years for 127 felonies or less than a month per felony. Folks weren’t “out to get him”. Folks were out to keep his affair as quiet as they could. If the chief prosecution witness fingers everyone, then why isn’t anyone else investigated?If Walker committed so much crime that it lead to 127 felony convictions, and people were on the level, they would want to follow it further and see if the hospital involved had systemic corruption in and that lead to his crimes? That is, if people were on the level.

My point was never disputed and ultimately nothing I said in any of the debate was proven inaccurate. (something I can't say for those that I argued with)

I bring up these factual points to once again point out that I was arguing with people that were frankly a lot less knowledgeable. Once again, rather than focusing on the merits of the corruption and finding ways to connect through the power of the internet, these commenters made me the story.

The facts were no less important to these Georgia Republicans than they were to Kos liberals.
I was combative and an outsider, they immediately assumed I was wrong. They never had their facts straight, but that didn't stop them from arguing. Ultimately, rooting out the corruption in their own state wasn't the important thing. What was important was "beating" so to speak an outsider that they felt was demeaning their state.

In both cases, an opportunity was lost for people to band together to take on bad folks. Instead, it turned into the twenty first century technological version of a school yard arguement. Rather than focusing on the real bad guys, the ones perpetrating the corruption at Grady, Emory and beyond, they focused on me. I went out searching for allies in a story that not only needs to be told, but found the worst of human nature in folks from both sides of the aisle.

UPDATE:

I realize that anyone that picks up this story somewhere in the middle may get quite confused. For instance, if you happen to read this particular piece but you aren't familiar with the goings on at Grady, you will likely get lost in this particular story. Thus, I have put together a summary of the entire fiasco that tries to put all of its moving parts together in one piece. Please read it for guidance. Also, please check out the recommendations that I and my colleagues have put together for fixing Grady Hospital.

Hey Let's Go - Totoro

2007-12-06T10:26:00.001-06:00

for my niece Lia...

Hopper explains the world (A Bug's Life)

2007-12-06T10:11:00.001-06:00

Why Freezing Rates is Bad and Danerous Policy

2007-12-05T14:42:00.000-06:00

According to Fox News, the President has reached an agreement to freeze rates on Adjustable Rate Mortgages for five years.

Congressional aides say the Bush administration has hammered out an
agreement with industry to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages
for five years in an effort to combat a soaring tide of foreclosures.

These aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been released, said the five-year moratorium represented a compromise between desires by banking regulators for a longer time frame of as much as seven years and industry arguments that the freeze should only last one to two years.

Another person familiar with the matter said the rate-freeze plan would apply to borrowers with loans made at the start of 2005 through July 30 of this year with rates that are scheduled to rise between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010.

This is a dangerous and bad policy on several levels.

1)Whenever the government steps in on a private contract and renegotiates it, it leads to all sorts of unintended consequences. In this case, banks use extremely sophisticated modeling techniques to determine the interest rate that borrowers receive. Those models take into account whether or not a rate will eventually begin to move or not. By freezing rates for five years, he has thrown those models totally out of whack. In other words, the risk profile of these loans no longer matches the rate as determined by the models. This not only throws banks out of whack but Wall Street as well that turned those mortgages into bonds.

Whatever liquidity problems are currently in the market, those are nothing like the liquidity problems that will be created when loan terms are changed wholesale. If banks don't receive the rate, and the underlying payment, that they expected, then we will really see some liquidity issues. Remember, one, banks expect to take homes when payments aren't made, and two, they expected certain interest rates and payments from mortgages. Now, they will get neither, and their money is tied up expecting both.

This nightmare is further perpetuated because the definition of sub prime is not clearly defined. For instance, one of the big problem mortgages are option arms. Many of these mortgages are what we refer to as monthly ARM's. That means their rate changes every single month. If Bush includes these into sub prime, he will simply create a nightmare for the banks. Since they are monthly ARM's you can bet that much of the underlying rate was based on a model that had that rate moving every month. If that rate is now frozen for five years, you can bet that banks will take a giant financial hit.

Keep in mind that if you don't care if banks take a hit, you should. If they take a hit, they will pass that hit onto the consumer in terms of higher rates on all future mortgages.

2) Bush has now also created a moral hazard. The folks that he is saving took on a mortgage profile, a rate that adjusts, that they shouldn't have. This was entirely by choice. Now, he is stepping in and stopping an event that is supposed to happen to an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. Instead of learning a difficult and valuable lesson, these folks will now get the message that risky financial moves can be met with government interference to save them before those risky moves turn into consequence.

3)Bush has now created a litigation nightmare. There are all sorts of folks that are currently in fixed rates, five year Arms, and other loans in which their rate either doesn't adjust or hasn't yet adjusted. Those folks are holding onto mortgages with higher rates than the folks who's rates he has artificially frozen. They will all scream bloody murder and demand that their rates be adjusted downward. They will be right. Imagine if you took on a fixed rate which was a higher rate than the equivalent adjustable rate. You did this with a certain financial loss, at least initially, because that rate was higher and with it the payment. Now, you hear that folks that didn't take the same precautions as you are now having their rates frozen for them artificially and will now enjoy lower rates, artificially again, for at least five more years. You would, rightfully so, feel entitled to the exact same rate. You would likely get a lawyer and I firmly believe that Bush has now opened banks up to all sorts of lawsuits.

4)Finally, and this is coming from an insider. This rate freeze isn't going to do anything of substance. The people that Bush thinks he is helping are in over their heads. I know because 99 times out of a 100 my borrowers always bought a property that was more expensive than one they claimed they wanted to buy. The sort of sub prime borrowers that Bush thinks he is helping are irresponsible. They bought 250,000 dollar homes when they could only afford 200,000 homes.

That dynamic is not going to be changed by freezing rates. These folks maybe able to afford to make these payments for a while longer but not forever. They are still in over their heads. Also, what about all of those folks that are in Prime loans that are adjustable rates. Won't they also demand that their rates be frozen? Won't everyone who is on time demand that their rate either be frozen or lowered? By helping the most desperate and the most irresponsible, Bush has now opened up a can of worms that he frankly can neither predict or control.

EPILOGUE:

Now, a mortgage colleague of mine tells me that a radio report says that the only loans that will be affected will be those that are according to him, "on time". On time is rather nebulous. For instance, on time could mean current. It could also mean always on time. If he is only helping those that are always on time, then he is frankly taking all sorts of profit potential away from banks, because those folks most likely would have continued to be on time with or without the freeze. If he is talking about those that are on time now, but have been late, then he is delaying the inevitable. Either way, if it isn't defined clearly, I can assure all that it will be another litigation nightmare.

An Update on the Case of Dennis Lennox

2007-12-05T12:42:00.000-06:00

I was made aware of the case of Dennis Lennox yesterday by my cohorts at Red State. Dennis Lennox is a student at Central Michigan University. He has become concerned because one of the professors there, Gary Peters, is also running for Congress. Lennox wants to make sure that Peters doesn't use the bully pulpit of the classroom to run his campaign.

Lennox has gone to the extreme and controversial step of following Peters around the public areas of the University with a camera and asking questions and then posting the encounters on You Tube. This is what is referred to as ambush journalism. There are a few things to note here. The recepient of the ambush is never comfortable or pleased with it. Second, this is a bold and sophisticated form of journalism. In other words, something that is very impressive for a college student. Finally, when it is done in public areas to public officials, it is well within first amendment rights.

There is no doubt that Peters doesn't enjoy being ambushed everytime he walks the grounds of Central Michigan University. So what? He decided to make himself a public figure when he ran for Congress. He decided to open himself up to further scrutiny when he also decided to teach in the classroom during his campaign.

Where the real problems start is what the administration has done in response. They have clearly sided with the professor against the right of the student. They have banned video cameras from the public square. This move has even created an alliance between the ACLU and Conservative Michigan blog Right Michigan.

Right Michigan has obtained a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union addressed to Central Michigan University President Michael Rao and dated November 27th requesting that the University lift a ban on videotaping Professor
Gary Peters on campus, a ban targeted at a conservative student, Dennis Lennox. According to the ACLU the University's decision "violates Mr. Lennox's First Amendment right to engage in political advocacy."

Agree or disagree with Lennox's tactics, or with the ACLU's position on most other things, for that matter, but they're absolutely right about this one.

Lennox videotapes a Professor in a public setting at a public university on public property. CMU's targetted ban (it didn't exist before Gary Peters and Dennis Lennox) is a direct attempt to scuttle his First Amendment rights and, in fact, the rights of every Michigan taxpayer. Props to the ACLU for getting this one right.

So far, my previous piece has received only one comment. I want to share it now because it is revealing of the mindset of the other side.

If this guy wants to inteview the prof, he should arrange an interview. Stalking is not a reasonable form of political expression.It has often been said that liberals regard civil liberties as an excuse to indulge in immature or offensive behavior. This the same kind of thing.

Whether or not one approves of Lennox' methods is frankly not the issue. If this poster wants to publish a commentary condemning the methods of ambush journalism they can do that. That said, the school cannot under any form of freedom and fairness halt his activities by barring something constitutional. This professor made himself a public figure when he ran for Congress. He made his activities open to scrutiny when he decided to teach at the same time he ran. Whatever you think of his methods, he has every right to use them. The school is threatening him with expulsion. (like I said in my previous diary, my radar is up whenever I hear of universities trying to subvert student's rights especially when the student is trying to do the right thing) The school opened itself up to this when it allowed him to teach while he ran, and now they are subverting perfectly legal citizen journalism that is trying to make sure that the appearance of impropriety is all there is. It is frankly despicable and I hope everyone stands with me in not only condemning it, but doing something about it. Here is a list of email addresses and other contact information of those in charge at Central Michigan University.

Mr. Jeffrey R. Caponigro, chair: capon1jr@cmich.edu
Ms. Stephanie Comai: comai1s@cmich.edu
Mr. Brian W. Fannon: fanno1bw@cmich.edu
Ms. Jacqueline N. Garrett: garre1jn@cmich.edu
Dr. Marilyn French Hubbard: hubba1mf@cmich.edu
Dr. Sam R. Kottamasu: kotta1sr@cmich.edu
Mr. John G. Kulhavi, vice chair: kulha1jg@cmich.edu
Ms. Gail F. Torreano: torre1gf@cmich.edu
Dr. Michael Rao: (989) 774-3131, president@cmich.edu

I hope everyone reading this will email those in charge and demand that Lennox not only be given his constitutional rights back but that his intimidation ends. He is being threatened with expulsion. So please, everyone write a respectful email that demans this stops immediately. Here is mine...

Dear Mr. Capognorio,

I am a conservative blogger and contributor to Redstate.com. I have been made aware of your efforts to intimidate a student who was using ambush journalism with regards to a professor who was also running for Congress. It is sad and reprehensible that the administration would try and protect a professor from embarrassment and from feeling uncomfortable, rather than defend a student's right to the FIRST AMENDMENT. Whatever you think of his methods, he has every right to approach Professor Peters with a camera in a public square. Professor Peters made himself into a public figure when he decided to run for Congress. He opened himself up to controversy when he also decided to teach while he ran.

What the student in question, Dennis Lennox, is trying to make sure of is that this appearance of impropriety is only an appearance. Your administration created the opening for such action when you allowed the teacher to teach and run for Congress concurrently. Furthermore, rather than protecting your student's rights to the first amendment you actually try and intimidate him. You have taken the drastic and unconstitutional step of banning video in your public square. This is a pandora's box. Does this include video equipment on cell phones as well? I understand that you are even threatening to expel him. This is unacceptable and if you insist on moving forward, I can assure you that you will make an enemy of the right blogosphere and we will in unison use every power of the internet to expose your intimidation to the world.

The reputation is ultimately the most important thing that a University has. If you want yours to be one of protecting professors and intimidating students then keep this up.

Now, its your turn.

Alec Baldwin - Best performance

2007-12-05T12:25:00.001-06:00

The best seven minutes of Alec Baldwin's life.

Another University, Another Student Persecuted for Trying to do the Right Thing

2007-12-04T17:28:00.000-06:00

If you have been following my writing vis a vis Grady and Emory you know my radar will get up when I see evidence of a university retaliating against a student when they try to do the right thing. With a special hat tip to my cohorts at Red State, I bring you another such case at Central Michigan University.

By this point everyone's likely well aware of Dennis Lennox and his crusade to protect the taxpayers from Central Michigan University and their decision to grant a professorship to Gary Peters, a candidate for Congress some two-hundred odd miles away in Oakland County.

Lennox has become a thorn in Peters' side and a constant migraine headache for the school administration which backs the Democrat candidate one-hundred and ten percent. They've harassed Lennox, they've threatened him with expulsion and they've questioned his mental state all because he has the audacity to follow the good professor around with a video camera when he's on public property asking legitimate and reasonable questions.

...

And all of that is rotten to the core. But the "solution" to their "problem" is much worse. They've blocked the use of video cameras on public property. Even the ACLU agrees that the move infringes on Lennox's Constitutional right to free speech...

Here is another perspective...

Again, I am going to say that I do not support Dennis’s methods in this situation, but I am going to defend him here. He has every right to video tape a PUBLIC official on PUBLIC property, especially an official who is running for PUBLIC office. The University’s ban on video taping is both unconstitutional and unethical. When you have a problem that is exposed, you fix the problem, you do NOT cover up the problem by taking away rights of students!

and another...

A politically conservative student armed with a video camera and a Web site is trying to force a Democratic congressional candidate out of his teaching job at Central Michigan University.Dennis Lennox, a 23-year-old junior, has posted videos on YouTube of himself questioning assistant professor Gary Peters about campaigning for office while holding a prestigious position at the university.Some say Lennox is persistent. Others accuse him of pandering for attention.

I gather that the professor in question, Gary Peters, has been made to feel less than comfortable. It appears, at least from what I have found, that his comfort is more important apparently than such trivial things as Constitutional rights. He also could have felt a lot more comfortable if he hadn't taken on this clear conflict of interest by maintaining his professorship at the same time he was running for office. While it is quite possible and likely that there he is doing nothing wrong, he has certainly created the appearance of impropriety. Lennox was obviously disturbed by it and is doing everything he can to investigate. It appears, to me at least, that Lennox is doing everything he should in the spirit of what college is all about. For this, he is being threatened with expulsion.

You, the readers, can help. Please send a respectful email to all of these individuals and let them know that what Lennox has done is well within his rights. If they try and expel him, you will be watching. There is an important meeting this Thursday, so please mobilize immediately.

Mr. Jeffrey R. Caponigro, chair: capon1jr@cmich.edu
Ms. Stephanie Comai: comai1s@cmich.edu
Mr. Brian W. Fannon: fanno1bw@cmich.edu
Ms. Jacqueline N. Garrett: garre1jn@cmich.edu
Dr. Marilyn French Hubbard: hubba1mf@cmich.edu
Dr. Sam R. Kottamasu: kotta1sr@cmich.edu
Mr. John G. Kulhavi, vice chair: kulha1jg@cmich.edu
Ms. Gail F. Torreano: torre1gf@cmich.edu
Dr. Michael Rao: (989) 774-3131, president@cmich.edu

Wild at Heart (1990) - Bobby Peru makes a visit

2007-12-04T12:30:00.001-06:00

Here is my all time favorite movie scene. Watch Bobby "hypnotize" Lulu. It is obscene and hypnotic all at once. Movie magic pure and simple.

Mike Huckabee responds to evolution question

2007-12-04T12:25:00.001-06:00

My Hubris Moment Vis a Vis Susan Estrich

2007-12-04T11:11:00.000-06:00

I know that I am threatening to step over the lines of political analytical hubris as I disect this piece by Susan Estrich, however I will explain later what gives ME the right to challenge such an accomplished political operative. Before that, here is some disclosure. I am NOT a Huckabee supporter, and he wouldn't even be in my top three choices for the Republican nod. (I am a Rudy supporter)

Huckabee is now a bona fide contender because the knives are out all over the place for him. For instance, Rick Moran wrote this scathing analysis.

But Mike Huckabee is not a conservative – at least not any kind of conservative that I would recognize as such. His tenure as Arkansas governor was marked by a corn pone populism – part Huey Long and part Jimmy Carter along with a massive increase in the tax burden on the individual taxpayer in his state as well as a sharp rise in spending. Huckabee channeled the ghost of Huey Long in his funding of state road improvements – largely through a hefty gas tax increase and a controversial bond issue. He also put a $5.25 premium on nursing home patients and raised the sales tax in the state. The Club for Growth detailed his “conservative” tax policy and ideas:

...

The Club for Growth isn’t the only fiscally conservative group that has looked in askance at Huckabee’s record. The Cato Institute was also unimpressed by Huckabee’s tenure as governor. They gave him an “F” in fiscal policy for 2006. Hucksterites will point to his $80 million tax cut package he pushed through the legislature that eliminated capital gains taxes on home sales and indexed taxes to the inflation rate. But that’s just a drop in the bucket. While Huckabee claims to have cut taxes 90 times totaling $378 million, the state’s Department of Finance and Administration says he also raised taxes 21 times that brought in a whopping $883 million. Under his “conservative” governance, the “average Arkansan’s tax burden” went “from $1,969 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1997, to $2,902 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005, including local taxes.”

Red State is having a virtual orgy of scathing analyses of Mike Huckabee. Michelle Malkin has weighed in negatively on her forte, illegal immigration. It is obvious that the right is now picking apart every nook and cranny of his record. I have never been one to look this deeply at anyone's record. I know that in reading some of the most extreme analyses of Rudy's record that a lot can be twisted. I HAVE FOUND that detractors and supporters alike have totally misanalyed the phenomenon that is now the candidacy that is Mike Huckabee.

It really comes down to two words: charm and charisma. Those are universally appealing qualities and Huckabee has them in spades. He far exceeds those qualities compared to any of his Republican opponents, and matches even Barack Obama in those two qualities. He has a solid resume to boot which is something Obama doesn't have. Charm and charisma is the simple and succinct explanation for his tremendous appearances in every debate, and he exhibits those two qualities in every interview and appearance.

This brings me back to Susan Estrich. Now, the reason that I have decided to put Estrich in my cross hairs and not everyone of my colleagues is that she doesn't simply misanalyze Huckabee but the entire state of our party. Second, she is a Democrat and with all due respect to her, she knows less than me, a Republican, about the dynamics of our party. Now, here is a sampling of her analysis.

Huckabee is an interesting guy. He is a straight shooter, a former Baptist minister, a born-- not born-again--conservative.

But as a Democrat, am I worried about Hillary or Barack taking on this former Arkansas governor?

Not a little. Certainly not a lot.

Not only is he out of step with the rest of America, as opposed to the right tail of the right tail of the Republican party, which is to say the religious conservatives who dominate the caucus and primary process, on social issues, but his proposals in such areas as federal taxation and especially Social Security are enough to make any Democrat’s mouth water.Not that anyone loves taxes, but eliminating the IRS and progressive tax system and replacing it with one that puts a flat tax on all consumption, which is the most regressive way to pay our bills, doesn’t have political winner written all over it. It’s one of those ideas that people with no chance of winning run and lose on. Think Steve Forbes. It’s not one you want to defend in the World Series.

But that’s nothing compared to his proposal to get rid of the payroll tax for Social Security, and his support for private retirement accounts. Did anyone say Florida?

There is plenty to blast here. First, the minute you don't take someone seriously as an opponent is the moment your opponent defeats you, just ask USC about their loss to Stanford, the Soviets about their loss to the U.S. in 1980, Georgetown about their loss to Villanova, and the St. Louis Rams about their loss to the Patriots in 1999.

Second, while she claims that most of his proposals aren't mainstream, she backs none of it up with data. She claims ridiculously that the flat tax is a loser by attaching it to Forbes. The Flat Tax is not necessarily a loser, Steve Forbes is. The flat tax is new and revolutionary and most people don't know it or understand it. What such a proposal needs is a great ambassador to sell it. What a great salesperson needs is: charm and charisma. See where I am going here. Huckabee has all the attributes that Forbes was missing to be able to sell a revolutionary idea to the public like the flat tax. Besides what exactly will the Democrats counter with, tax increases?

She claims that while no one likes the IRS or taxes the flat tax is regressive. It is but it also gets rid of income taxes entirely. It bulks up sales taxes which are entirely voluntary (in other words you choose to buy stuff). In any case, I don't want to debate the fair tax here. What I do know is that the fair tax can be framed just fine if it has the right person framing it. Clearly, she dislikes the Fair Tax and dismisses it out of hand without much analysis. I believe that by doing so Estrich...well let me let Vizzini of The Princess Bride explain...

fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this:

...believing that something you don't like will also be disliked by the public at large.

She, not surprisingly, condescends to his faith and spirituality as if he is out of the mainstream. Eighty percent of this country is Christian. They may not be a Baptist Minister like Huckabee, however, again, when he speaks about his faith people WILL be impressed because: Charm and Charisma.

She claims that she wouldn't be worried about a race between Huckabee and Hillary. I would. Huckabee is charming, charismatic and likeable and Hillary is not. He compares just as favorably against Obama, given that he is experienced and Obama is not. Everyone compares favorably to Edwards so that is beneath me.

The worst part of the analysis is the claim that Huckabee's rise is indication that our party is in trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. His rise shows that our party is strong and vibrant. It shows that we have a plethora of good, qualified candidates that can at anytime capture anyone's attention. The Democrats have a scandal ridden, cold unlikeable, candidate who's only accomplishment is being married to a popular President competing against a lightweight with less than four years of national experience. In third position is a total fraud who claims to be for the little guy while living in a home that measures five digits in square footage. None of the other candidates are worth even one look.

The Democrats are arrogant and cocky because they think that Iraq has dragged the Reps down to where they can't recover. I think that will all change soon enough, and their cockiness is quite obvious in Estrich's piece. There is a reason why superbia, or pride and arrogance, is one of the seven deadly sins, and the Democrats should heed the warning not to revel in it.

Finally, I am still a bit of an internet dunce. Thus, I can't seem to figure out how to put the video into this post. Thus, for an example of Huckabee's charm and charisma check out the video in the post directly above this...

JCAHO Threatens to Shut Down Grady Hospital

2007-12-04T10:19:00.000-06:00

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (which I believe to be a suspect news organization) broke this this morning...

As if things weren't bad enough for the financially strapped Grady Health System, now the hospital faces a list of criticisms, including issues with patient care, that put its national accreditation at risk.

In a five-day inspection last week, the Joint Commission —- formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations —- identified "numerous
requirements for improvement," according to a statement issued by Grady on Monday. Hospital officials gave no details about the kinds of shortcomings inspectors found.

Dr. Christopher Edwards, vice chairman of the Grady board, said the report cited "opportunities for improvement in various areas, including patient care."

Anyone who has been reading my work, knows that the tone of this article is wrong. It is frankly long past time that the powers that be, be held responsible for the mess at Grady. Keep in mind that about three years ago, the HHS conducted an investigation that concluded this about the patients at Grady Hospital...

there is an immediate and serious risk to the health and safety of the patients

Obviously, it can't get any worse than that for a hospital. Now, three years later the hospital needs an injection of half a billion dollars to stay solvent. Before that, Grady Hospital was convicted of Medicare fraud. State Senator Charles Walker committed so much criminality at Grady and beyond that he was ultimately convicted of 127 felonies. I am fond of the Latin phrase Res Ipsa Loquitur (the facts speak for themselves), and in the case of Grady Hospital, Res Ipsa Loquitur.

One only needs to do a Google search to discover that there are serious and systemic problems at Grady Hospital that frankly, in my opinion, warranted intervention from authorities long ago. Given the current crisis and latest report from JCOHA, it is clear that proper steps weren't taken in response to the report from HHS about three years ago. I hope that this latest episode winds up with a different result.

Here is the so called inside baseball on how this transpired. Much of the credit should end up going to Ron Marshall of the Grady Coalition. He sent letters for years to JCAHO complaining about stonewalling on the part of Grady staff as far as open records requests and in answering their many questions on a whole host of issues related to corruption, poor patient care, and effective hospital management. Here is an example of an email that he sent that I got a hold of...

Mr. Bressler,>> YOU often appear not to have the evidence we have presented to you> over the years. We hope you have protected all documents we have sent> to you from spoilage.>> NATIONAL WITNESSES: THE GRADY SYSTEM HAS FAILED> Because of the severe suffering at Grady, we cannot rest until JCAHO> violations are stopped. We are bringing on board new witnesses.

Dr.> Linda Peeno, formerly a top executive at Humana, has analyzed the> situation and finds that this is a breakdown of the medical system.> Peer review is an essential part of the system to protect patients.> Bad faith peer review effects the medical judgements of all doctors> in the system, and leads to systematic poor medical care. Testimony> demonstrates it is impossible to deliver minimal standard care when> peer review has been subverted.>> CONGRESSIONAL ALLIES> We will be meeting with Congressional allies next week, and we will> be holding a press conference. We hope we receive a statement from> you by noon, Tuesday that you will implement a plan to enforce JCAHO> regulations at Grady.>>

GOOD FAITH PEER REVIEW IS ESSENTIAL TO THE INTEGRITY OF THE SYSTEM> I know you do not want to enforce peer review standards. However, I> don't see how you can enforce any standard if bad-faith peer review> is being used to hide malfeasance at the hospital. Peer review is> part of a system to protect patient care. If peer review is> subverted, doctors and staff are unable to speak up for patients and> to enforce patient care standards. The whole system is stood on its> ear. I hope you will reconsider your position and enforce JCAHO's own> standards. Grady has violated each of the provisions you outlined in> your last letter.>> BAD FAITH PEER REVIEW HAS BEEN CORRUPTING THE MEDICAL SYSTEM FOR DECADES> This has been a horrible problem for years.

Verner Waite wrote to you> about widespread violations in peer review leading to patient harm> ten years ago, and you did not respond. It is our position that you> must enforce all standards, especially peer review standards, that> impact patient care. This is at the core of your function.>> BAD FAITH PEER REVIEW IS CORRUPTING POLITICS IN GEORGIA> We have presented extensive evidence, including evidence from an> assistant DA, that the huge amounts of money stolen from Grady has> perniciously influenced Georgia politics. The 142 felony count indictment against Senator Walker was based in large part of his corruption of Georgia's hospitals by corrupting its peer review system. Bad faith peer review is a cancer on the body politic of the> entire state. Bad faith peer review can only be
stopped by JCAHO.> JCAHOs failure to enforce its standards is harming the entire state.

HOWEVER, EVEN IF YOU WILL NOT ENFORCE YOUR OWN STANDARDS, PLEASE AT>LEAST MAKE GRADY CORRECT DEFICIENCIES IT HAS ADMITTED IN MORE THAN THIRTEEN AREAS. GRADY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT HOSPITAL IN THE SOUTHEAST THAT SERVES> MINORITY PATIENTS. PLEASE TELL US IF YOU WILL ENFORCE YOUR STANDARDS> AT GRADY.>> 1. For your convenience, we have created a database showing how> violations in JCAHO policy at Grady have resulted in severe patient harm over the last five years: http://www.geocities.com/ron_marshall21/
2. We also document how Grady has retaltiated against witnesses to> prevent you from getting evidence: http://www.geocities.com/ron_marshall21/

3. We summarize severe corruption and its impact on patients:

4. We summarize witnesses available and ethics violations:

5. Current staff document new retaliations, and JCAHO violations. The staff fear to
speak to you.

6. Patient care is greatly compromised.THE HARMS TO GRADY'S PATIENTS ARE STAGGERING. PLEASE RULE ON OUR> COMPLAINT IMMEDIATELY.> A BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE UNETHICAL PRACTICES IS NEEDED NOW.> ROBERT BROWN AND PAUL HOWARD MUST RESIGN.>> Thank you. We know this is a lot of information, but all of it has> been sent to you
previously. This is but a portion of the documents> already in your possession.>> Ron Marshall> George Anderson> The New Grady Coalition

While many of the names are probably unfamiliar, please note this particular email is one of many over several years. Clearly, Grady refused to respond to good faith efforts to address issues that years later JCAHO has finally gotten around to forcing them to address.

I hope that everyone grabs the bull by the horn in this situation and takes steps to institute the sorts of institutional changes that are necessary to rid Grady of the culture of corruption that seems so apparent to me. Here is the plan as set by the Grady Task Force. If anyone can make sense of it, let me know because I can't. Here is the plan me and my allies have developed. I hope that everyone has a chance to read it. The time for Grady Hospital is critical, and it is time for real solutions.

For reference on how Grady Hospital got to such an extreme point you can go to this tag, or you can read this summary.

You Can't Handle The Truth

2007-12-03T15:35:00.001-06:00

Now For Something Different

2007-12-03T15:08:00.001-06:00

All right, at some point I will figure out how to post videos and make commentary in the same post. In the meantime, enjoy one of the finest scenes ever made and recently memorized by me during a shower. In the meantime, please enjoy this scene directly on top of here.

Hillary Clinton Decides to Mix Chemicals in a Lab Vis a Vis Mortgages

2007-12-03T13:11:00.001-06:00

If anyone wants to know how dangerous it is for uninformed politicians to make policy suggestions that have political goals, they need to look no further than this proposal by Hillary Clinton in response to the mortgage crisis.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures for homeowners who default on subprime mortgages.

The New York senator, is also seeking a five-year freeze on the monthly rate for subprime adjustable mortgages and a requirement that the industry report how many mortgages have been modified. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Clinton said she may consider legislation to protect lenders from lawsuits and let them convert certain mortgages into ``stable, affordable loans.''

...

Clinton also proposed a fund of as much as $5 billion to help communities suffering from high rates of foreclosures. The moratorium on foreclosures would be at least 90 days and only apply to owner-occupied homes.

I have already pointed out Hillary Clinton's disastrous mortgage bailout plan. This is frankly more of the same.

It seems that Hillary Clinton has forgotten several simple business rules. The first rule is that contracts have stipulations and each party must meet their end of the contract or face consequences (no matter how sympathetic each party is). A mortgage is a contract and there are certain stipulations. For instance, the bank stipulated that they would shell out the entire sum of the original mortgage amount, almost always six figures and more, up front. They stipulated that the borrower would pay that mortgage back one month at a time. It also stipulated that if said borrower failed to repay then the home would be taken from them. The borrower signed that mortgage and thus agreed to that contract.

Despite what Hillary Clinton believes, changing any contract in a wholesale manner, as she wants with mortgages, is neither good policy, nor good for the economy. Banks paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars up front with the intention of receiving that money back one month at a time. If that money wasn't received, the banks would take the collateral, the property. That is how banks expected to make that transaction profitable for themselves. Hillary Clinton wants to take away the entire profit structure away from the banks and she thinks there are no unintended consequences to it.

There are. If banks happen to lose a lot of money in a wholesale manner as Hillary Clinton intends, they will pass those losses onto us, in the form of higher interest rates on future mortgages.

Finally, and here is the worst part, the people that Hillary wants to save from foreclosure, for 90 days at least, are almost entirely in over their heads. They bought property they simply can't afford. I don't care if her moratorium is 900 days, this dynamic isn't going to change. If you can only afford a home that is 200K and you buy one for 250k, no moratorium is going to save you from yourself.

Second, Hillary Clinton wants to freeze ARM's (Adjustable Rate Mortgages). This is ludicrous. The reason that any loan has the rate that it has is ALL the factors that went into that loan, including the fact that the rate on that loan would move later. (In other words an ARM almost always has a lower rate than a fixed rate everything else being equal) Hillary Clinton wants to freeze rates even though banks offered a lower rate with the intention of having that rate move in a future period.

The manner in which banks determined the rate that borrowers received is extremely sophisticated and far past the grasp of Hillary Clinton, with all due respect. Yet, that, to her, matters not. She wants to, in a wholesale manner, freeze rates when the banks intended to have them move (and in exchange offered an initially lower rate). This of course totally disrupts the models that banks used in order to determine that rate. This means that banks will lose millions of dollars. That means that future rates will be that much higher to make up the difference.

Furthermore, there are people currently holding onto mortgages with fixed rates with each of these banks that Hillary Clinton wants to freeze the ARM's of. If I were holding onto a fixed rate (one that stayed the same over the life of the loan), I would be screaming bloody murder. I took a higher rate so that I wouldn't risk a future rate even higher, and now all those that didn't take the precaution I did get to have their rates frozen. I would be saying screw that and demand that my rate be lowered to their level since I only took the higher rate because I wanted my rate fixed for life. If Hillary Clinton is fixing their lower rates, then I would want my rate lowered and fixed as well. This is what is referred to as a moral hazard. Hillary Clinton is rewarding those that took on a risk they shouldn't have with an artificially fixed rate. By doing so she invites more people to take on ARM's when they shouldn't in hopes of getting the same doeal. I wonder if Hillary Clinton has a solution to that.

The worst thing about this is that Hillary Clinton is doing this strictly for political reasons. In sales, I always look to find my way on the same perverbial side of the table with my client against a chosen villain. Usually, I choose the bank (though not always), and I make the process me and the borrower against the bank. Hillary Clinton is using the same technique only it isn't to sell a mortgage, but to propose bad policy. She wants to find herself on the same side of the table with the poor borrowers against the bank. This may very well be a good political strategy however it is disastrous policy, and I hope everyone reading my analysis can see why.

The SAVE Act and My Favorite Yogi Berra Quote

2007-12-03T11:32:00.000-06:00

Yogi Berra once said this...

in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

I get that feeling when breaking down the SAVE Act. There are frankly very few laws that sound bad in theory. That unfortunately is not true in the debate over illegal immigration. Most of the proposed laws to deal with illegal immigration weren't just bad in practice but in theory. Whether it is driver's licenses for illegals, the mass amnesty of last summer's comprehensive bill, or the mass amnesty of the DREAM Act, most of the bills that deal with illegal immigration are bad even in theory. Not so with the SAVE Act, this bill sounds absolutely wonderful in theory. Here are the particulars as enumerated by one of my readers.

8000 more Border Patrol agentsMore Judges, courts, and detention centers.Border fencing and vehicle barriers (where needed), and all-weather surveillance roads in conjunction with high tech surveillance equipment including satellite surveillance, infra red, and seismic detection. It requires construction along the border to take into account environmental and private land use needs.Requires development of a national strategy to secure the borders and all ports of entry to the United States by December 31, 2010.

This Bill even has accountable and transparent financing of the effort built into it giving power of oversight to the Comptroller and Inspector Generals to keep Congress appraised.This bill is going to receive some stiff opposition from organizations like LULAC and LaRaza, and incumbent Democrats beholding to the illegal immigrant population communities, and incumbent Republicans beholding to employers pressing for cheap illegal labor. They will try to fight this Bill. This SAVE Act offers the Independent voters in America the first real opportunity to flex their newfound muscle by supporting this Bill and pressing their representatives to vote for this legislation.

Here is how Numbers USA analyzed the most important part of the bill, the verification system of employees by employers.

provides employers with an inexpensive, quick, and accurate way to verify employee eligibility. E-Verify has already achieved tremendous success, but is currently voluntary and offers little incentive for employers to participate. This puts users at an economic disadvantage when it is only being used by a fraction of U.S. employers and competitors continue to hire illegal aliens.

All of this sounds great "in theory" however...

in theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is

Sure, it all sounds great that we will finally have a system where employers can verify the legal status of all of their employees. In practice that system will be done by a new government bureaucracy. In practice, most government bureaucracies fail in their mission and become counter productive. In theory, the DMV sounded like a great idea. In theory, Medicare was a great idea. In theory, social security was a good... all right that would be taking things too far. Still, the difference between whether or not most bills become good bills isn't theory but practice.

Yet, no one is asking the sort of critical questions necessary to figure out how to resolve all the potential nightmares that this bureaucracy may bring. Here is what Numbers USA says.

The SAVE Act will broaden and enhance border security and interior enforcement. With a number of border security Democrats and Republicans already agreeing to co-sponsor, this bipartisan effort may be Congress’s best chance to achieve substantial immigration reform this Congress.

Here is how Michelle Malkin sees the bill.

There are, believe it or not, a few Democrats who have their heads screwed on straight when it comes to immigration enforcement. Several were elected last fall; the open-borders lobby has conveniently ignored them.

Referring of course to Congressman Heath Shuler who is the main sponsor of the bill.

Here is the word from Tom Tancredo's PAC.

Well, now there is a bipartisan immigration bill that actually reforms our immigration system rather than just opening our borders and granting amnesty. We need to put the pressure on members of both parties to support this bill!

Even John Murtha showers this bill with nothing but fawning accolades.

This bipartisan bill will help our law enforcement agencies provide tighter border security and give our employers the resources they need to verify documented and undocumented workers,” noted Murtha.

No one is talking about exactly how this bill will be carried out. What will the new bureaucracy look like? How will it carry out its mission? How will this bureaucracy be any different than Social Security which was supposed to do the exact same thing? Everyone is just impressed how in vague theory it will secure our borders and help verify employees legal status. Just because it will do this in theory doesn't mean it will do it in practice.

No one is talking about any of these vital issues because we finally have a piece of legislation vis a vis illegal immigration that actually sounds good in concept. Most people take its goals at face without ever asking how the bill will be carried out to accomplish them. Just because a bill has good intentions, and this one clearly does, doesn't mean that the bill will accomplish those goals.

Everyone is fawning over this bill like it is the prom queen and no one is asking any critical questions. If we don't ask any critical questions then we will fawn over yet another counter productive bureaucracy.

DeKalb County Commissioners Go Crazy at Meeting! Part 1 of 3

2007-12-03T11:00:00.001-06:00

DeKalb County Commissioners Go Crazy at Meeting! Part 3 of 3

2007-12-03T10:54:00.003-06:00

DeKalb County Commissioners Go Crazy at Meeting! Part 2 of 3

2007-12-03T10:54:00.001-06:00

DeKalb County Commissioners Go Crazy at Meeting! Part 1 of 3

2007-12-03T10:53:00.001-06:00

Check out the "affable" Vernon Jones hold court. This is of course nothing but a side show and a window into his character. If you want to know the real story on Vernon Jones, please read this. Keep in mind that as CEO of Dekalb County he chooses the board at Grady Hospital. No wonder the hospital is about to go under.

In the News

2007-12-03T10:29:00.000-06:00

Two sociopathic leaders were involved in elections. In Russia, Vladimir Putin's party secured a victory. Here is the important part.

Mr Putin has said a strong result would give him the authority to retain
political power after his presidential term ends next year, possibly as prime
minister.

No one can underestimate this guy's evil and cunning under any circumstances. He has used the price of oil to gain extra power and he has his sights set on damaging our country. I believe that Bush's biggest mistake was looking into this man's eyes and not seeing the cold blooded evil of a former KGB agent, but rather goodness.

Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, lost in his appeal to rule for as long as he wanted. The race was tight however in the end he lost 51-49 percent.

Voters in this country narrowly defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution in a contentious referendum over granting President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers, the Election Commission announced early Monday.

It was the first major electoral defeat in the nine years of his presidency. Voters rejected the 69 proposed amendments 51 to 49 percent.

The political opposition erupted into celebration, shooting fireworks into the air and honking car horns, when electoral officials announced the results at 1:20 a.m. The nation had remained on edge since polls closed Sunday afternoon and the wait for results began.

The British teacher in the Sudan that "dared" to allow one of her students to name their teddy bear Muhammad has been released from jail.

Sudan released a British woman given a presidential pardon today after being jailed for insulting religion and handed her over to British officials, an embassy spokesman said.
"We can confirm now she’s in British embassy custody and our officials are with her," Omar Daair told AFP by telephone refusing to give any further details on her precise location.
Teacher Gillian Gibbons was arrested eight days ago and sentenced to 15 days in prison on Thursday for insulting religion by allowing children at an English school to name a teddy bear Mohammed - the same name as the Muslim Prophet.

Hey, she "only" had to spend eight days in jail for her "crime". Here is a new twist. I don't know if I should be impressed by her courage and tenacity or wonder about her sanity.

The British teacher jailed for naming a teddy bear Muhammad has said she wished she could stay in Sudan.
Gillian Gibbons, who faces deportation when she is released, said: "I'm really sad to leave and if I could go back to work tomorrow then I would."
In a statement issued through her legal team on Saturday, she added: "I'm fine, I'm well, I'm very grateful to all the people who have been working on my behalf. I know so many people out there have done so much. I want people to know that I have been well treated and especially that I am being well fed."

I have a friend who is 23 years old. She is always apologizing to me for what are frankly trivial things. For instance, she sent me a text message meant for someone else. She apologized later. I keep telling her that apologizing for trivial things is a sign of weakness and also it clouds the issue when you have something that you actually should apologize for. This faux outrage over nothing of course clouds the issue in the same manner. It is frankly obscene. Their fellow Muslims cut off people's heads in the name of their beloved religion and they choose this to get outraged about.

It only took the New Republic almost five months but they have finally figured out that Scott Thomas' work shouldn't have been published. For all those that haven't followed this story, Scott Thomas wrote a few pieces in TNR about horrors he claimed to have seen in Iraq. The stories were suspect and with little or no outside sourcing besides his word. Bloggers immediately picked apart the story for mistakes and inconsistencies. There were plenty and it became obvious in almost no time to most observers that Thomas was a fraud. It took TNR about five months to join the rest of us.

For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated. When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation. We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories. These are our findings.

When Michael Goldfarb, a blogger for The Weekly Standard, left me a message on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, I didn't know him or his byline. And I certainly didn't anticipate that his message would become the starting point for a controversy.

A day earlier, The New Republic had published a piece titled "Shock Troops." It appeared on the magazine's back page, the "Diarist" slot, which is reserved for short first-person meditations. "Shock Troops" bore the byline Scott Thomas, which we identified as a pseudonym for a soldier then serving in Iraq. Thomas described how war distorts moral judgments. To illustrate his point, he narrated three disturbing anecdotes. In one, he and his comrades cracked vulgar jokes about a woman with a scarred face while she sat in close proximity. In another, a soldier paraded around with the fragment of an exhumed skull on his head. A final vignette described a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle who took pride in running over dogs.
Goldfarb said he had been contacted by tipsters who thought these scenarios sounded concocted by a writer with an overactive imagination--or perhaps by a total fabulist. He asked for evidence that might answer these complaints, "any details that would reassure that this isn't fiction." Among other things, he wanted the name of the base where the author had mocked the disfigured woman.
The same afternoon, we contacted the author, asking permission to answer Goldfarb's queries. We thought we could provide details that might answer these concerns without revealing the author's identity and violating the compact we formed when granting him a pseudonym. He agreed. I told Goldfarb that the insults to the woman had occurred at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon. A day later, Goldfarb sent a link to an item on the Standard blog. It quoted an anonymous source who said the story sounded like a collection of the "This is no bullshit ... stories soldiers like to tell." Goldfarb called on the military blogosphere to do "some digging" and for "individual soldiers and veterans to come forward with relevant information."

Paul Krugman makes what would be a laughable, if it wasn't so dangerous, contribution to the mortgage crisis. He actually blames the concept of mortgage backed securities for creating the crisis. There is too much to break down here, however Krugman fails to mention that mortgage backed securities created an opportunity for millions of poor folks to own property they never would have. To blame financial innovation for a crisis is frankly the height of irresponsibility and class warfare. It is nothing short of dangerous.

A fresh batch of polls are out in Iowa and for the first time Huckabee leads in the RCP average. His momentum is real. He shouldn't be underestimated, and neither should the power of charm and charisma, which he has in spades. A second poll in a row has Obama leading as well. Obama also now leads in the RCP average. Again, the power of charm and charisma cannot be underestimated...Obama has it in spades and Hillary...well she has Bill.

Big Oil and My New Favorite Latin Phrase

2007-12-02T12:00:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine is fond of telling this story about his grandfather. His grandfather nearly became rich in a generational manner. An associate of his approached him with an investment opportunity in a company that made something revolutionary for its time: radios for automobiles. My buddy's grandfather declined and it was too bad because that company is called Motorola.

General Electric was started by famed inventor Thomas Edison to help him sell his new invention the light bulb.

The reason that I bring up each of these companies is that both are still around and thriving today and neither relies in any way on their original products. Motorola sells products that were figments in the imaginations of science fiction writers at the time. GE has turned into a conglomerate that sells just about everything. (They even have delved into mortgages, my business, through their subsidiary, WMC Mortgage)

I bring all of this up because several other companies were also around when these were selling their original products: companies like Amoco, Exxon, and Phillips. Most of the oil companies today were around were created when Standard Oil was broken up. Standard Oil (started by famed entrepeneur John D. Rockefeller pictured below) was broken up under the Sherman Anti Trust Act.

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".[2] The Act also provides: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations...

In other words, the Sherman Anti Trust Act was created to make sure no one company acted as a monopoly and used their sheer size to stymie competition. (Its last most public use was in the break of AT&T) What about when a group of companies acts no different than one and use their own size to stymie competition? This is a question that I asked when I first started blogging at the famed conservative blogging site, Redstate. If you click the link you will see I was also met with a great deal of resistence by my conservative colleagues.

The question continues to linger in my mind many months later. I have never believed that gasoline acts anything like any market that I know of. For instance, the bedrock of any legitimate market is its insistence that every company in it evolve. The reason that companies like Motorola and GE have not only survived for a century and more is their ability to adapt to their changing market. That is what markets do. Take any company that has been around longer than a few years and you will find one that looks nothing like it did originally. From Microsoft, to Ford, to Walmart, these companies have evolved as the market around them has forced them to. After all, did Henry Ford ever imagine a hybrid, an SUV, or any of the current automobiles when he created Ford?

That never seems to happen to big oil. They continue to sell one product, the same product, in pretty much the exact same type: unleaded. There is frankly not a dime's worth of difference between big oil today and big oil in the aftermath of the Standard Oil break up. I believe this has to do with the make up of the "market": an oligopoly (or as some of you know it a Cartel).

I believe the proof lies in the Latin phrase: Res Ipsa Loquitur (the facts speak for themselves). If big oil is competing in a market, why has their product line stayed stagnant for so long? Why has their market not had to adapt? Let me tell you how I would see oil adapting in a real market. Right now, when you drove to your local ENERGY STATION, you would get a menu of FUELS. This menu could be customized to fit the specific needs of your car. A sports car would get the proper FUEL for that car, and the minivan would get the proper FUEL for that car. In the corner of the FUEL station, there would be an electric stand. There, an electric car could get juiced up.

Does anyone wonder why alternative fuels haven't taken off in automobiles? Think about this. There are right now automobiles that can be powered by alternative fuels. They aren't popular because there is nowhere to fuel them. For instance, if you were to buy an automobile that runs on hydrogen, you would need to go to a government sponsored hydrogen fuel station. There are about one hundredth as many of those as there are regular gas stations.

Why isn't there a hydrogen fuel tank in some of these gasoline stations? After all, given that each of the big oil companies clears at least ten billion dollars in PROFITS every year, they can certainly afford the research and development to put them into at least a few of their stations. They don't. The only sort of alternative fuel tank that they are willing to put in is E85 fuel tanks. That runs on ethanol and ethanol has recently been frowned on as a serious alternative energy source. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is run on water which is quite plentiful.

So, why don't we see hydrogen fuel tanks in gasoline stations the way we sometimes see E85 fuel tanks? I think the answer lies in the same reason that companies can make billions per year peddling the exact same product they were also peddling almost one hundred years ago. They aren't competing in any market. They never have, and they will do everything they can to keep their arrangement the exact same it always has.

Like I said...Res Ipsa Loquitur...The facts speak for themselves. These companies have billions they could spend on R & D. My vision could be a reality in years if not months if they wanted it to be. The fact that it isn't speaks for itself.

A Massachusetts Law, A Massachusetts Non Law: The Case Study Against Secular Progressivism

2007-12-02T09:54:00.001-06:00

Jessica Lunsford was a nine-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Homosassa, Florida on February 23, 2005, then raped and murdered by 47-year-old John Couey. The case sparked controversy and in many ways it created the sort of critical mass necessary for serious and meaningful action against child predators.

In its aftermath, Jessica's Law was created first in her homestate of Florida and then (especially with the backing of her father Mark Lunsford and television bloviator Bill O'Reilly) throughout much of the rest of the country.

Here are the main components of Jessica's Law:

a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison[1] and lifetime electronic monitoring[2] of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts against a victim less than 12 years old. In Florida, sexual battery or rape of a child less than twelve years old is a capital felony, punishable only by death or life imprisonment with no chance of parole.[3]

Currently, only seven states have no intention of passing any form of Jessica's Law: New Jersey, Hawaii, Wyoming, Colorado, Vermont, Idaho, and Massachusetts.

In fact, Massachusetts' record on child predators is so weak that it is downright scary and dangerous for children.

in June 1999, George Roy was charged with sexual assault of a four-year old girl
in Springfield. Roy had been given a two-year suspended sentence with probation
in 1991, but never registered as a sex offender, although he had been registered
to vote all the while.

In June 1999, Michael Vick, a Lynn man with a history of convictions for breaking and entering and sex offenses was arrested for molesting a four-month old boy in Revere. A judge had lowered Vick’s bail in an October rape case from $25,000 to $5,000 in February, because the District Attorney did not take the opportunity to show the court that Vick was dangerous. The DA said that he did not want to harm the child victim in a dangerousness hearing, but a court official told Massachusetts News that a judge might have granted the petition even without the testimony of the victim. "An attempt should have been made by the District Attorney," the official said.

In November 1998, Eben Hoyt was arrested for dozens of child rapes while on
probation, and while registered as a sex offender. Hoyt, a former Methuen school bus driver, pleaded guilty to molesting an eight-year old in 1996. He plea-bargained to avoid prison and was placed on probation.

In January 1999, a twice-convicted sex offender was arrested for raping a four-year old boy in Northboro.

Last fall, Frederick Wyatt used a 1994 Massachusetts law that allows convicted sex offenders to persuade a jury (rather than a judge) that they are no longer sexually dangerous. Wyatt refused treatment during his fifteen years in the Bridgewater Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. State officials warned that Wyatt remained a danger and called for stronger criminal penalties and sex offender registration laws. Wyatt moved to Ohio after his release.

This April, Brian Nagle, who had been convicted of sex crimes in 1987 and 1996, and was registered as a level III (most dangerous) sex offender, raped a six-year old boy in Amesbury, was sentenced to life in prison, but will be eligible for parole after fifteen years.

Currently in Massachusetts, the guidelines for sexual assault against a child under thirteen is an absurd three years in prison. That's because, in the absurd view of the secular progressives that run the states, child predators need treatment not punishment.

Now, while the state of Massachusetts seems to be quite lax when it comes to child predators, they are quite gung ho in protecting children from other "abuse": spanking.

Kids out of line? Spanking might not be an option in Massachusetts if a proposal takes hold in the state legislature.

The proposal, submitted by a nurse, would ban corporal punishment, including spanking, in all cases for children under 18 unless it is to save them from danger. Parents would face charges of abuse or neglect, according to The Boston Herald.
Click here to read the full report in The Boston Herald.

A hearing and debate is scheduled in the State House on the measure Wednesday, the paper reports.Democratic state Rep. Jay Kaufman introduced the measure on
behalf of the nurse, but isn't taking a position on it.

Here is another view of the proposed law to ban spanking by parents of their children.

Massachusetts lawmakers say a proposed measure that would ban parents from spanking their children, even in their own homes, is a way to protect kids from abuse. But many parents believe it's an example of government run amok.

In all 50 states, parents are legally allowed to spank their children. But in 29 states it's illegal for a teacher to practice corporal punishment, including spanking.

A Massachusetts nurse is hoping to change that and make the state the first in the nation to ban corporal punishment at home.

"I think it's ironic that domestic violence applies to everyone except the most vulnerable children," said Kathleen Wolf, who wrote the bill.

I am not necessarily a huge fan of spanking, however it is not only ironic but downright shameful that a state moves quicker to stop parents from deciding for themselves what punishment their kids should have than they do from protecting children from actual child predators.

Such is the absurd and perverse world view of the secular progressives. In their world, all criminals need treatment not punishment. At the same time, parenting decisions are taken away from the parents and controlled rather by the states. In some sense, child predators have more rights than parents.

Make no mistake, this is exactly the culture war that O'Reilly was talking about in his book Culture Warrior. If anyone wants to know just how the world would look if the secular progressives ever got power, they only need to look at the absurd dichotomy of these two areas in Massachusetts.

My Recommendations For Fixing Grady Hospital

2007-12-01T14:22:00.000-06:00

Introduction: If you haven't been following the plight of Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, here is a quick run down. Grady is one of the biggest hospitals not only in the Southeast but frankly in the entire country and the world. It has also been the scene to a great deal of corruption throughout the years. It has faced a series of financial crises throughout the years, however none are as critical as its current. Grady Hospital faces being closed down unless it is infused with cash to the tune of an estimated half a billion dollars according to some reports. Since Grady Hospital is the main hospital for the poor of Dekalb, Fulton and other area counties, this has become the subject of great debate and controversy. Because hospitals that cater to poor folks have limited profit potential, Grady is also naturally a public hospital. Thus, in the end, the taxpayers own it.

Enter the Grady Task Force which is a sort of consulting firm created by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce which has recommended a series of steps to save Grady. If you look at the link, you will see that for the most part the report is quite technical, however there is one recommendation which has become quite controversial. That is a plan to make the board quasi private. It should also be noted that Grady has paid four separate consulting firms about eight digits just in the last two to three years already. They have already hired another consulting firm even after the so called recommendations of the Grady Task Force.

I believe this plan, like the force itself, is nothing more than a sham and I wanted to offer my own alternative plan.

I want to point out that almost none of the ideas are actually my own, but rather those of folks that I have spoken with since I began tracking this story nearly two months ago. None of these folks ever saw any power at Grady, and I believe that after you read my plan you will see that there is no doubt that the wrong people are in charge. You will also see what it would actually take to turn Grady around.

The first thing Grady Hospital needs is some serious improvements in its infrastructure. For instance, its HVAC system is totally shot. Doctors have told me that sometimes it gets so bad at Grady that they themselves can't breathe. Now, imagine if you are a patient that has a breathing problem, what would such a state do to you. There is asbestos in the wall. The elevators are old and they breakdown all the time. There are patients that are in critical condition and time is of the essence. If they need to be moved from floor to floor, you simply cannot have the elevators broken. Doctors tell that this can be a regular occurrence. The computer system for tracking their medical records is old, from the seventies people tell me. Many times patients history can't easily be looked up, and thus allergies and other ailments may not be known. The building simply must be brought up to code.

If this is shocking to you, and you think this couldn't happen because the patients would talk, keep in mind the patients are the poorest folks in the area. They simply have no alternative and many times they don't know any better.

One of the tragedies at Grady is that they recently had a giant addition added. That's right, while their infrastructure was falling apart they added a huge addition about five years ago. If you want to know why, you maybe interested in knowing that powerful board member Robert Brown also owns an architecture firm and while the firm is equipped to add on to hospitals they can't fix elevators. (He is also a prominent member of the Grady Task Force and one main reason why the force is in my opinion a total sham)

Grady also needs to be held accountable, so money will be given in tiers. The state legislature will choose a committee to oversee upgrades in infrastructure, and money will only be given if standards are met.

The Grady Board, currently chosen by the Dekalb County CEO (currently Vernon Jones), needs to be elected and it must be split up by districts so that it evenly represents the folks currently treated by Grady Hospital. This board, which would serve four year terms, would be in charge of hiring and firing the Grady CEO.

Instead of paying Emory University and Morehouse (the two schools that supply the bulk of Grady staff) a flat fee for their services, the Grady Board would institute a tiered sort of grading system (based on JCOHA grades, patient feedback and whatever other measurements they chose). Keep in mind that as representatives of the people, the board would be giving Emory and Morehouse the people's money. This means they would be more inclined to grade the two schools harsher than softer. This would give the two schools that much more incentive to perform better.

Also, the two schools would be responsible for their own malpractice insurance. Unbelievably, at least at Emory, Grady pays for the malpractice insurance of Emory professors and medical students. Essentially, this means that Emory, a private institution, has it so the public, through a public hospital, covers its malpractice insurance. Not only is this an obscene misuse of public funds, but obviously can lead to all sorts of abuse. Obviously, if you aren't responsible for your own malpractice insurance, you are more likely to act a lot more recklessly. I believe that is exactly what Emory has done to tragic results. This will remove that motivation.

The state legislature would set up a committee that would be in charge of funding Grady. They would set their own set of benchmarks for receiving funding and would also be in charge of deciding how much Grady Hospital got. Since the legislators are also spending the people's, or their constituents, money, they would also be disinclined to grade easily. This would give the board more motivation to make sure performance is up to par. We saw just how tragic it could be in the case of State Senator Charles Walker when funds are determined by corrupt reasons rather than performance.

Grady would develop a new position called the Office of Conflict Interest. Each transaction, each finance, each so called deal, would be scoured by this office to make sure that say a board member's architecture firm isn't getting the deal because the owner is on the board. I believe there are many such deals like the one I refer to with Robert Brown and the addition his company got, and that can't happen. This hospital didn't just find itself in financial crisis for no reason. It got there because its financial dealings were corrupted. This office would be in charge of making sure every deal was on the level.

Grady would need to update its by laws. First, it would no longer be allowed to have retaliatory behavior against whistleblowers. People must be able to report malfeasance without the threat of losing their job. Joyce Harris lost her job when she blew the whistle on State Senator Charles Walker. I also firmly believe that Kevin Kuritzky was expelled for blowing the whistle on serious corruption as well. These are jus two examples and I believe there are many more. There needs to be a truly anonymous tip line so that malfeasance can be reported without threat of retaliation.

Grady Hospital can no longer be allowed to stall in providing financial records to outside sources. I have been told by more than one person that getting records can be maddeningly time consuming. In fact, I was told that by the time records were received the incident or incidents in question were so far in the past that most didn't care. For instance, it took my sources several years to finally figure out that Brown's company received the lucrative contract. Grady Hospital would now be the subject of stiff fines if records aren't turned over in a timely manner. Furthermore, an outside party, a judge or a lawyer, would act as a mediator, in disputes over records requests. Finally, the by laws would declare that Grady would from now on follow due process.

Grady Hospital would no longer be allowed to settle any lawsuits under seal. I have counted four Emory professors that I believe have been paid off. The case of Dr. Jim Murtaugh is the only one that has been unsealed so far and it provides a glimpse into just how far some will go to keep malfeasance quiet. This can't go on, and it will have to be outlawed.

From now on, meetings held on the finances of Grady Hospital would be open to the public and the media. Currently, those meetings, like many others, are held in secret. Secrecy is a bedrock of corruption. By turning Grady over to a private board, it would make it even easier to maintain secrecy, and it is this diarists contention that secrecy is the end goal of the private board plan. In order to fix Grady, we need the opposite of secrecy. We need everything to be open. Keep in mind that Grady is a public hospital. It uses public funds. The public has every right to know where those funds are going. Open finance meetings are one way to assure that.

With these recommendations Grady would actually have a chance to thrive long term. While I am sure there will be those that will poke holes in it, I would dare anyone to compare my plan, less than two pages, to the plan by the Grady Task Force.

Dems and Iraq: Rock Meet Hard Place

2007-12-01T09:58:00.000-06:00

Here is the latest "good" news out of Iraq as reported by the New York Times yesterday.

As Iraqi refugees begin to stream back to Baghdad, American military officials say the Iraqi government has yet to develop a plan to absorb the influx and prevent it from setting off a new round of sectarian violence.

The Iraqi government lacks a mechanism to settle property disputes if former residents return to Baghdad only to find their homes occupied, the officials said. Nor has the Iraqi government come forward with a detailed plan to provide aid, shelter and other essential services to the thousands of Iraqis who might return. American commanders caution that if the return is not carefully managed, there is a risk of undermining the recent security gains.

“All these guys coming back are probably going to find somebody else living in their house,” said Col. William Rapp, a senior aide to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, speaking at a two-day military briefing on measuring military trends for a small group of American reporters in Baghdad...

But Mike, that isn't good news... Sure it is. This is, after all, the New York Times. If all they can find in the way of bad news is the government's troubles in dealing with refugees. Well, that frankly is good news. Our goals in Iraq were to remove Saddam, install a representative government, and turn Iraq from an enemy into an ally in the GWOT. None of that has anything to do with their refugee situation. That is, with all due respect, entirely the internal problem of the Iraqi government. If the government fails in such tasks as dealing with refugees, well then, the Iraqis will quickly grow as cynical toward their elected officials as we do here. So what. That has nothing to do with any of our goals in the country. The good news is that the New York Times can't actually find any real bad news.

On the same day, we also had vocal war opponent Jack Murtha say this.

Murtha said he saw signs of progress and continuing chaos during his one day in Iraq. A hospital he visited had been hit by a mortar attack the day before, but more parts of the country are peaceful than before, and Iraqi troops in the Al Anbar province are rooting out the remnants of al-Qaida in their area, he said…

Murtha said that “surge” of troops is working, but it only underscores how poor planning from the Bush administration has hamstrung the war effort. Other examples include the slow response to protecting troops from roadside bombs and a shortage...

Despite the expected caveats, Murtha couldn't deny reality. The surge is working. Violence is down. Iraqis: Sunni, Shia, Kurd, and all others are turning against the insurgency and are working with our side. Even the Daily Kos is starting to admit reality.

As U.S. casualties have continued to drop, many people on the anti-Bush side of the aisle have begun to quietly panic in recent days over this question: "Could George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan have possibly been right about the surge?"

Simply put, the answer is no. The surge is not working and George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan were not right. Despite what right-wing blogs are saying, and despite what conservative observers are noting, the plunge in violence is actually the result of an Iraqi political decision made by and implemented by Iraqis—and the drop has little to do with the "surge"—an infusion of 30,000 troops (which wouldn’t fill a Major League stadium) into Baghdad, a city of six million people...

It may in fact be desperately important for the Kossacks to prove to the world that the improved situation has nothing to do with the surge, however in reality, the arguement is silly, because it is not relevant. First, Bush's legacy will be set by history. Second, in the next election Bush won't be on the ticket.

Several anti war Democrats will be though. An entire Congress that tried to stop the surge before it got started will be. Let's take them one at a time...

Hillary Clinton

I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief...“In any of the metrics that have been referenced in your many hours of testimony, any fair reading of the advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view end up on the downside.’’

Barack Obama

I will not support funding for a failed policy. It is long past time for the Republicans to stop filibustering a responsible removal of our troops from Iraq, and for the President to stop threatening to veto anything that is not a blank check for his failed strategy.
"Our troops must not bear the burden for the failure of Iraq's leaders to reconcile, nor should they be kept in Iraq to counter Iran.

Harry Reid

I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week...

Nancy Pelosi

No statistic can capture the pain and loss endured by the families of the fallen in Iraq, particularly the children of parents who will not be returning home. Those who have lost loved ones, and those still serving in Iraq and around the world, are in our thoughts and prayers every day as we work to bring an end to the President’s disastrous war.
"While nothing compares to the loss of life in Iraq, the financial costs of the President’s policy are enormous and growing, with $10 billion being spent each and every month of the war. The total cost for the Bush Administration’s Iraq war could rise as high as $2 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office

"With every passing day, the President’s Iraq policy leaves the United States more isolated at a time when we must reclaim our moral leadership and rally the world to fight against terrorism. The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment of our troops and the President’s plan to spend another trillion dollars for a 10-year war in Iraq."

So, every Democratic leader is now on record as believing that what is happening would NOT happen. They called a policy failed before they even had time to assess it. They are now stuck between the perverbial rock and perverbial hard place. They must now convince the country that what is real isn't actually real.

That's why they are all fixated on the benchmarks which haven't been met. The Dems are reaching for anything out of Iraq that looks like bad news. It is a very difficult arguement to make though. It is hard to convince the public the surge isn't working because the central government hasn't reached agreement on some pre determined goals. Second, this is becoming more and more General Petreaus' war. Thus, in order to prove failure when there is success, they will ultimately have to show the country more credibility on this matter than General Petreaus (who they incidentally voted unanimously to install less than a year ago).

I pointed out that the Republicans are not in a great position either because they are handcuffed to a war that will likely never be popular, however their perverbial "pickle" is much easier to navigate. Here is how they are currently navigating it.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidates have a simple position on the war in Iraq: They want victory, and they want to talk about something else.
With the notable exception of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), they echo President Bush, and say the United States must remain in Iraq for an unspecified period until the country is stable, and that leaving before then would be a victory for al-Qaeda.
But they usually only say that when asked. The two leading candidates in Iowa, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts governor MittRomney, occasionally give entire speeches without even using the word "Iraq."
Unlike the Democratic candidates, who have competed over who can offer the most precise plan for withdrawing troops as president, the GOP candidates have offered limited visions about how they see Iraq's future, choosing instead to focus on howthey would enlarge the U.S. military to fight the broader war on terrorism.

The Reps want to minimize Iraq as an issue as much as possible. That maybe the appropriate strategy now, however as the war continues to get better, and especially after Petreaus' next report in March, this issue may even turn into a benefit for the Reps. All those quotes will be damning if our casualties fall into the teens or even single digits by the next election after all. For the Reps, the trick is easy. Divorce yourself from the failed strategy that Bush employed (relatively easy since it was Bush's strategy after all, and Bush isn't the first President to start with a failed war strategy, see Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, Washington, etc.) Continue to back the current strategy and contrast that with the defeatist strategy that the Democrats are now married to.

No Mike King...You're Out of Touch (UPDATED)

2007-11-30T12:51:00.000-06:00

Here is the latest column by AJC columnist Mike King.

It takes a special kind of arrogance for the Fulton-Dekalb County Hospital Authority to stiff Emory and Morehouse medical schools out of $63 million and then demand the schools keep sending doctors to Grady Memorial Hospital. As a condition of turning over the hospital to professional management, the authority demanded that Emory and Morehouse give a written guarantee they will continue their residency and teaching programs at Grady. The money for those programs comes almost entirely from the state and federal governments, but the Grady board has kept much of it in recent years to use for other expenses. The hospital's mismanagement is now threatening the quality of on-the-job training both schools offer. It's one thing to ask Emory and Morehouse to renegotiate the debt, which both have said they are willing to do. But demanding it, as well as a promise that they won't cut back their programs, reveals how truly out of touch with reality the authority can be.

Now, really quickly, here is a run down for those that haven't been following this story. He is speaking of Grady Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals in the country. It services the poor and is in such dire financial shape that it needs somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars to stay afloat. Emory and Morehouse provide much of the staff at the hospital (with Emory providing most between the two) and each university gets paid for providing the staff. According to King, Grady wants to not only be relieved of their yearly obligations but they insist that each university's staff remain on duty. Grady is a public hospital so ultimately it is "owned" by the folks. Lastly, and this is quite important, Grady is designed for the very poor or indigent, and by its sheer size it services almost all of the poor folks in Fulton, Dekalb and frankly many other counties. Without it, all the nice hospitals that treat wealthy folks in the area would have to treat these poor folks as well.

Now, I won't argue that arrogance is a trait exhibited by several folks in this mess, however if this is what he is focused on, he really is out of touch. First of all, there are plenty of people out there that believe that Emory and Morehouse should be paying Grady for use of their hospital, not the other way around. (for a full summary on this story including an explanation why Emory and Morehouse should be paying please follow this link) Thus, by demanding that staff continue to work without payment, seems, to many, only fair. Second of all, Grady is near financial collapse and it may take up to half a billion dollars in order to save it. Given that staggering figure, is the important point really whether someone is asking or demanding that debts be forgiven. After all, if Grady needs half a billion dollars, Emory and Morehouse can get in line with a plethora of creditors.

Ah, but unlike most creditors, Grady expects, not asks, these two to continue providing services. Of course, they expect that Emory and Morehouse staff continue to work. Emory and Morehouse account for almost the entire staff. Without them there is no hospital. Without Grady, the poor in Fulton and Dekalb have no place to be treated. If Grady is no longer the whole entire medical system in Fulton, Dekalb and beyond is in serious crisis. (Without Grady some of the hospitals for the affluent would actually have to treat these folks and no one can have that now can they)

Second Emory and Morehouse need Grady a lot more than the other way around. First, Grady is a public hospital so it really belongs to the people. If the folks want it kept open, they WILL infuse it with cash one way or the other. On the other hand, Morehouse uses Grady for nearly all of its medical school and residency training. In other words, without Grady there is no Morehouse medical school. Emory maintains several for profit hospitals however the bulk of their training is also conducted at Grady. Furthermore, Grady is the main selling point to perspective Emory medical students. Grady is one of the biggest hospitals in the country and the world, and going to Emory medical school allows perspective medical students to train there. In other words, without Grady, there is not Morehouse medical school. While there is an Emory medical school, it goes from being an elite school, to the equivalent of EastWest Texas State Community College Medical School. (please, no one be offended, I made the school up but we all know that the more words before and after the State in question the worse the school is)

Thus, of course the powers that be at Grady expect that debt not only be forgiven but that staff continue to work. They hold all the power.

Given all this we can see why they are so arrogant, but frankly this is all besides the main point anyway. King's piece is frankly most atrocious, in my opinion, because it focuses on side issues like demands over requests. King refuses to examine why Grady insists on going private and how that will impact the hospital and the tax payers. (Fortunately, you can count on this blogger to give you the straight scoop on all issues related to Grady and their plan for going private is just one of those issue. So for more info on the plan to go private please click here) By focusing on the arrogance of a group that has frankly shown nothing but arrogance for more than a decade, he really shows a total lack of understand of the issue.

The issue isn't whether or not some people are arrogant. They are and it matters very little, except to explain past, current and likely future behavior. The issue is what to do going forward. It appears obvious to me at least, that the reason the powers that be want to go private is so that their malfeasance can be even more easily hidden. Yet, that possibility isn't even mentioned. In fact, Mike King contributes absolutely nothing of substance to a debate that should be at the front of most Georgians' minds. It should be the AJC leading on this story. It isn't. In fact, if I am right, the AJC is actively participating in the corruption. That may explain why King's only contribution to this debate so far is well, so lame.

Finally, I have heard from the grapevine that Ron Marshall, of the Grady Coalition, wrote a piece that was supposed to counter King's in the AJC, and the AJC refused to publish it. No such refusals will be here. Here is Marshall's piece...

It does not surprise me that Grady voted to go private. This has been in the plan to privatize all major funding resources in America to control how money is being spent and who receives it. Look at Iraq, since when do we hire a private force to protect public interest? This has never happen in the history of war. Who benefits from privatization?

Grady changes have started the wheel of genocide. A whole community will parish (poor people and poor accident victims) in the name of profits. Not to mention the land deals that will be made. We have put a price on human life. Not only have we put a price on the life of an individual we allow the health care system to pick and choose who get’s treated and how much treatment they as humans receive. Animals get treated better than people. Throw a dog in the street and see what happens.

Our Governor had the nerve to pray for rain. The prayers should be for humanity as well as for the salvation of human life and for the protection of our planet. Now we have really fallen off the path of survival.

What’s still hidden in all of this is how did this happen and who is responsible for what happen. This has never been asked. If it has there sure has been very little said about the accountability of the officials who oversee Grady and the official who appoint the board that put Grady in this position. Why is the public being denied
access to records that will show where all the money went or is going and who is receiving it? This is not new and it seems to happen like the migration of geese heading south every year.

Only one person was sent to prison for stealing from Grady, Charles Walker. Walker did not steal all that money by himself. He had to have help. Somebody signed the checks and somebody got paid to keep it quiet. Why wasn’t there an investigation
conducted to find the accomplices. This is like a private (secret) Mafia, they sacrificed one to save the rest. I notice Walker has not turned on his accomplices. Is there money waiting for him when he is released?

Is having cover-up money pay for a pass as Emory has shown. They have clearly had their way with Grady’s funding with a sweet heart contract. Does being a politician automatically give you a pass when crisis’s after crisis’s shock after shock that cost tax payers millions without having them be accountable time after time.

Now we had an explosion in south Georgia and Grady no other but Grady is in the front again. The needs are clear, human lives are at stake. Is there no other real time event that shows Grady at its best.

So to feel anything is like watching killings and brutality between 6-11pm live on the news or a television program. You get use to it. The fight for justice and accountability has only hit a bump in the road, we must be protectors of justice and righteousness and we will accelerate ahead of corruption. Buckle-Up.

Many of the things he says have also been said here. It's too bad that Marshall needs my blog in order to get his message out. You can contact the AJC here about any of the plethora of issues I have raised.

(Update)

I realize that anyone that tries to pick up the story of the crisis at Grady Hospital is likely to get lost in its many mazes. Thus, if this story is your first exposure to it, it is likely you have dumbfounded look on your face. Thus, I have put together a summary of the entire fiasco that tries to put all of its moving parts together in one piece. Please read it for guidance. Then, the dumbfounded look will be removed. Also, please check out the recommendations that I and my colleagues have put together for fixing Grady Hospital.

CNN and My New Favorite Latin Phrase

2007-11-30T10:15:00.000-06:00

I received an email from the conservative blog, Redstate, entitled "Heads need to roll at CNN". Here is the article that Redstate linked to in the email.

Our own Dan Spencer made USA Today today in an article by Jill Thompson.Only
if you check our front page, we don't have a contributor named Dan Spencer; well, we do, but he does not write under his name. You actually have to dig around on the web to find out Dan's real name. Good for USA Today for being competent.

Contrast that with CNN last night. Not only did they allow Keith Kerr's question, they invited him to the debate. Had they bothered to research, they would have discovered his connection to Hillary Clinton's campaign. He's a member of the LGBT Americans for Hillary Steering Committee and co-chair on Hillary's National Military Veterans group. He also was an active John Kerry supporter in 2004.

And last night Anderson Cooper willingly gave Mr. Kerr the Democratic activist a soapbox. Anderson has yet to apologize for either his willing participation or incompetent handling of the situation and failure to research.

The fallout from this story continues. Michelle Malkin reports today that the muslim girl that claimed that our reputation in the Muslim world has suffered as a result of the invasion of Iraq was a previous intern at CAIR. The number of non Republican questioners continues to grow each day.

For anyone not following, during Wednesday's Youtube debate hosted by CNN, several questioners turned out not to be Republicans or Independents, but in fact supporters of Democratic candidates. The most infamous was the gay general that scolded the candidates for not believing the military wasn't professional enough to serve with openly gay officers. His situation was even more peculiar because he was in the live audience and he spoke after the candidates answered his video question.

What is most embarrassing for CNN is that bloggers discovered most of the malfeasance in nearly real time. If the story is accurate, Anderson Cooper was told by Bill Bennett during the debate that bloggers had discovered the error.

To me, it really matters not whether or not CNN knew ahead of time that these questioners weren't Republicans. There are only three possible scenarios as far as this situation is concerned vis a vis CNN. They were either corrupt, incompetent, or even both...res ipsa loquitur. None of those scenarios shines anything but a terrible light on CNN. A couple months back CNN took a terrible ratings hit when when they tried to create controversy where none existed when they claimed that comments that Bill O'Reilly made about a Harlem restaurant were racist. They had a special about Iraqi insurgent snipers that many called nothing short of a snuff film. They even admitted soft balling the Hussein regime for years in order to gain access.

Suffice to say, their reputation doesn't need anymore hits. The simple fact of the matter is that heads absolutely need to roll on this and plenty of them. If we don't see heads roll, they will perpetuate the perception that this creates that they have a liberal bias. To me there is nothing to think about here. It isn't as though someone was late for a meeting or spent too much time on personal phone call one day. Several people, who weren't supposed to be asking questions at a major Presidential debate, were allowed to ask questions. Anyone who was responsible for vetting the questions and their superiors hve to be fired. There are no second chances for embarrassing the network on live television. If bloggers can figure these things out, then paid staffers have to or be removed. Like I said Res Ipsa Loquitur.

The other part of this story is the near blackout of its coverage by the rest of the media. I couldn't find anything on MSNBC. I couldn't find anything in the New York Times, There was something in the Washington Post though it is on conservative blogger's Ramesh Ponnuru's blog...not exactly top billing. I also found nothing in the Boston Globe. I could probably do this with most MSM newspapers and networks and if I had the time I would. I think you all get the idea. Most newspapers and networks have stayed relatively away from this story.

The New York Times for instance had a negative story about Iraq, Rudy Giuliani, and a story about the teacher in Sudan, on the front page. I won't say those aren't important, however a major network allowing multiple people to slip by their radar in a live debate is just as important. For their to be a near blackout of this story in the MSM...well that goes by the same Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitur.

What Does the Administration at Emory Get Paid For? (UPDATED)

2007-11-29T15:18:00.000-06:00

Introduction: Yesterday, I published this piece. It is a detailed summary of the continued and growing scandal going on at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. If you are unfamiliar with the details I suggest that you check out link.

Also, I have a stat counter on my site. It allows me to track in detail who, identified by IP address, comes, where from, which of my pieces they read, and all sorts of other details that turns it into Proprietor Nation's version of big brother.

The following piece is in regards to the aftermath of that piece (which received a fair amount of traffic) and one specific IP address that I have been able to identify. So, without further adieu...

I am not sure however if today is like other days then they are paid to surf the web. I know this because IP address, 170.140.62.42 (administration's IP address, probably this man) has been on my site for hours today. In fact, this IP address is by far my biggest fan. I know this because they check with me usually at least once a day, however today they have taken an unusually large interest. (I wish they would click to Amazon once in a while and buy one of their fabulous books though) Here is a run down of today's activities...

28th November 2007
09:16:51
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
11:01:22
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
12:52:22
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
12:52:29
proprietornation.blogspot.com/Proprietor Nation: An Updated Summary on the Fiasco at Emory, Grady, and Beyond
29th November 2007
13:04:31
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
13:04:34
proprietornation.blogspot.com/Proprietor Nation: A Murder, A Suicide: Connecting More Dots in the Culture of Corruption
29th November 2007
13:04:35
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
13:04:45
proprietornation.blogspot.com/Proprietor Nation: The Incredible Disappearing Story... (UPDATED WITH A VERY SPECIAL SHOUT OUT)
29th November 2007
14:55:47
No referring linkProprietor Nation
29th November 2007
14:58:32
proprietornation.blogspot.com/Proprietor Nation: Emory University
29th November 2007
15:00:01
proprietornation.blogspot.com/search/label/Emory%20University Proprietor Nation: Who Is The Real Sociopath??
29th November 2007
15:07:39
blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2007/10/09/emorys-skeletons-in-the-closet/Proprietor Nation: The Fox Guarding the Hen House
29th November 2007
15:07:53
blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2007/10/09/emorys-skeletons-in-the-closet/Proprietor Nation: Corruption
29th November 2007
15:08:23
proprietornation.blogspot.com/search/label/Corruption Proprietor Nation: A Plea to John Sugg of Creative Loafing

Let me explain what all of these names and numbers mean. This is the full detail of the IP address I spoke of (170.10.62.42). If you click the link it is identified and also identifies its server, Emory University. Everytime anyone visits here the date and time (Central time that is) is recorded. Those are what the dates and times mean. If a link was used to come to my site, that is also identified (for instance the one starting blog.creativeloafing is a site from which this IP linked from). If no link was used, then the words, no reference link appear. (this generally indicates the the address was typed out by the party using the computer. Thus it was likely that http://www.proprietornation.blogspot.com/ was entered into the address field in order to reach my site.) The specific web page is the web page that the party landed at. Sometimes, a party will travel within my site and so if you see two proprietornation pages, that means th party went from one page to another.

As you can see, not only is this IP visiting my site, but they are they are also visiting this story from October. (this is another story that doesn't necessarily paint Emory U in the best light)

The ongoing Grady Memorial Hospital crisis is bringing to the surface many complaints about Emory’s medical school role. In the past, Emory’s response to internal criticism has been to bully and crush the critics, and then try to keep the records sealed.

The latest on the blogosphere is about the persecution of Kevin Kuritzky, who was 41 days from graduation when Emory expelled him from the medical school. Kuritzky claims Emory was retaliating for his blowing the whistle on patient safety — or the lack thereof.

Now, I can assume that as the head of PR, one must know what is being said about their school, however isn't the work of the AJC, the New York Times, where they would want to spend their time predominantly. If I am getting this much traffic from PR, they frankly have very little time left for the AJC et al. Either that or the PR department is now exclusively focusing on surfing the internet for stories related to Emory. Why is my blog, with only several hundred hits daily, getting so much attention in the PR Department at Emory (if it isn't the PR person then frankly they really need to be fired because they are just surfing the internet to waste time then)?

I have already concluded that the powers that be at Emory removed a story from the internet archives at the AJC. I pointed out in a previous diary that this article, and more importantly Emory's response, was damning to Emory in three serious ways. (I won't rehash the story so please go to the links to catch up) I know that the article was removed in the aftermath of me publishing the piece because it is no longer there. I also know that reference to the same article was also removed from a page on Emory's own medical school site. (go to this google link and click on the top link found and see for yourself)

Now, I know that part of PR is damage control but isn't removing archived stories and web pages taking damage control a bit too far. I know that in PR you must know what the media is saying about you, but isn't obsessing about what a small blog says also taking things a bit too far. Unless of course, what that small blog is saying is true, and in that case, you probably would be obsessed. I have recently fallen in love with the phrase Res Ipsa Loquitor (the facts speak for themselves). You can call me crazy, an ego maniac, or suffering from delusions of grandeur, but I believe the fact that Emory's admin IP has become my biggest fan, shows that they know what I am saying is true.

If that is the case. Let's review what that means. Emory is operating as an all powerful sociopathic entity. They are criminally liable in providing medical services to poor folks at Grady Hospital and veterans at the VA hopsital and they have expelled a student, 41 days prior to graduation, for daring to expose their criminality. They have also paid off multiple professors with their silence who also tried to expose the corruption. Furthermore, since Grady Hospital, the subject of much of this corruption, is a public hospital that means that ultimately Emory University has committed all of these crimes and lapses in ethics and morality on the public.

Now, all of this is my supposition only, however, if my supposition is lunacy, why is the admin spending so much time on my blog? Don't take my word for it go and ask the admin yourself. I have provided the link and it has said person's email. See, what they have to say about all of this.

UPDATE:

170.140.62.42 is back. It is nothing short of surreal to update a piece about a party as that party is reading the piece themselves, however that is how it is in the internet age. Here is an updated link to what the stat counter calls the magnified user, a detailed summary of the movements of this particular IP address on my site (including the most recent and probably current visit) The only other thing I will point out is that while I have had much traffic from this IP there has been no contact by email or otherwise. There have previously been some peculiar anonymous messages, however anonymous speaks for itself, and it was also before I became savvy enough to track things down.

UPDATE:

I realize that if someone were to pick up this story somewhere in the middle they would get lost in its many mazes. Thus, if the first story you read regarding Grady Hospital is this one, you are probably confused. So, I have put together a summary of the entire fiasco that tries to put all of its moving parts together in one piece. Please read it for guidance. Also, please check out the recommendations that I and my colleagues have put together for fixing Grady Hospital.

News and Views from Iraq

2007-11-29T12:53:00.000-06:00

Here is Michael Yon's latest.

One of the controversies I intended to explore on my second embed with the British is the claim that EFPs are flowing into Iraq from Iran, just miles down the road. Iran’s support for international terrorist groups is well established; and here in Iraq, Iran is believed to have intimate contacts with terrorists groups providing them with “lethal aid.” EFPs fall within that category, because they can destroy any vehicle in Iraq, including America’s and Britain’s best tanks. Warriors are fine vehicles [although they do need real air conditioners for Iraq] but an EFP can slice through the Warrior’s armor like bullets through beer cans. Webb became known for personally inflicting heavy casualties among the enemy, but today it was his Warrior about to rumble over an EFP.

Here is the latest from Michael Totten reporting on the ground from Fallujah.

Nobody was shot last night in Fallujah. No American has been shot anywhere in Fallujah since the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment rotated into the city two months ago. There have been no rocket or mortar attacks since the summer. Not a single of the 3/5 Marines has even been wounded.

“The only shots we've fired since we got here are warning shots,” said Lieutenant J.C. Davis. Another officer didn't agree. “We haven't even fired warning shots,” he said. “It's too dangerous.”

It's dangerous because anti-American sentiment still exists in the city, even though it is mostly passive right now. It isn't entirely passive, however. Someone has been taking pot shots at Americans. A few days ago somebody threw a hand grenade at Marines. Two weeks ago an insurgent was caught by Iraqi Police officers while planting an IED near the main station. He freaked out, accidentally connected the wires, and blew himself up. “That's what he gets,” Private Gauniel said...

Here is Omar's latest.

This is a great find by any standards but the timing makes it all the more significant.The significance comes not only from the quantity of bombs, cars and other resources that al-Qaeda has been denied the ability to use. It comes from the amount of frustration they have to deal with right now that all these preparations and resources are lost.

What makes me think that this will indeed frustrate them is that al-Qaeda chose to mass this great number of VBIEDs instead of deploying them to the streets one, or a few, at a time fresh from the factory. Two possibilities arise here; they either couldn't find the means and safe routes to deploy the bombs and so they had to wait for more favorable circumstances, which is good news since it means their ability to conduct missions has really been reduced to a great extent.

Bill Roggio talks about the continued hunt for AQI.

"Despite the recent loss of numerous cells across Iraq, the media wing of al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) has produced a second video product, which the al Fajr Media Center posted Tuesday night on the main Jihadi message boards," Nick Grace of Threatswatch reported. "The one minute video, called 'Destruction Of An-American Hummer Vehicle,' is the latest in the ongoing ISI media series 'Roman and Apostate Hell in al-Rafedain Land' and, according to the accompanying Web statement, shows an IED attack on a hummer in the az-Zobayer bin al-Awaam region of Diyala Province." The first video released showed the brutal execution of nine Iraqis, purportedly Shia who served in the Interior Ministry’s police commando unit in Diyala province...

Here is one from a different perspective. The L.A. Times is very upset that Bush is trying to negotiate a deal for bases in Iraq.

Despite the show at Annapolis, this week's main diplomatic initiative has concerned Iraq, not Israel. Without any fanfare, the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced that the United States and Iraq will begin negotiating a long-term agreement that will set the terms of Washington's Iraq policy for "coming generations."President Bush is again in legacy mode.

His White House "czar" on Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, explained that the administration intends to reach a final agreement between the two countries by July 31, 2008. In describing the negotiations, he made a remarkable suggestion: Only the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Congress, needs to formally approve the agreement.

Finally, the DOD has this story about a successful operation in Tajj.

Coalition forces captured a wanted individual during operations in Tarmiyah while targeting a foreign terrorist facilitator and associate of senior al Qaeda leaders. They also detained two other suspects without incident. --

Coalition forces captured a wanted individual north of Samarra during operations targeting foreign terrorist facilitators and senior terrorist leader associates. The wanted individual is believed to be an al Qaeda leader in the area. --

Coalition forces detained four suspects while targeting al Qaeda members responsible for assassination-style murders in Hawija. Coalition forces also targeted their associates in Mosul, detaining three suspects without incident.

To sum up, we remain cautiously optimistic about an ever improving though incredibly complicated situation. God bless our troops, stay safe, you are our best.

Post Debate Wrap UP

2007-11-29T11:06:00.000-06:00

My alma mater played Maryland in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge last night, so priorities had my attention in other places for most of the debate. Thus, one might say that I am the wrong person to give anyone a post debate wrap up. I disagree. Since I have acknowledged that I didn't see much, I can't make a claim to a winner (which is invariably the candidate that I was supporting). Instead, I will act as a sort of weigh station for post debate stories and analysis.

First, the right blogosphere is ablaze with stories of Democratic plants asking questions.

Michelle Malkin's got the roundup: turns out that the woman framing abortion in terms of penalties for women was an Edwards supporter; the guy trying to gay-bait by asking about Log Cabin Republicans is going to vote for Obama (see also Six
Meat Buffet and JunkYardBlog), the woman brandishing her adopted child on a badly-veiled screed for protectionism is a union organizer and aide to an Edwards supporter (see also the Autopsy); with a h/t to the aforementioned The Autopsy we see these two Jason Coleman links, one of which indicates that Corn Subsidy Boy was an ex-intern for Jane Harman and that the guy asking about why the GOP doesn't attract more African Americans is an Edwards supporter who likes to make fun of actual African-American Republicans. And then, of course, there was Hillary's guy. No doubt there'll be more*.

Since I didn't see most of the debate I don't know, I did see some sort of general actually claim that openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military. I am certain he was a plant and likely that CNN thought his credentials would play. My guess is no. The MSM continues to exhibit the height of hubris when they think such stunts actually change public opinion.

The pundits appear to be continuing to swoon over Huckabee and his performance last night. There is nothing new there. Huckabee is, in my estimation, by far the best debater of any Presidential candidate on either side. I have long pointed out his charm and charisma. His momentum appears to be continuing if you believe the pundits. Of course, pundits said Rudy would NOT still be leading at this point.

By far, the most interesting piece is from Jay Cost. He breaks down who attacked who, how much and on what. By his account, Rudy is still the front runner. Immigration is the most important primary issue. Thompson is in trouble. Romney sees both Rudy and Huckabee as a threat. McCain has issues.

I saw the last half hour and I turned the channel when the cartoon asked a question. I thought the most interesting question was about why African Americans don't vote more for Republicans. It turns out that was a plant as well, so there is an example of my radar.

The folks at Power Line also have the round up of the debate. Here is the analysis from Richelieu who, like most Conservatives, saves most of his ire for CNN.