Right-Wing Media Blames Everyone but Police for Baltimore Unrest

Why is the mainstream media ignoring the thousands of peaceful protestors across the country and only focusing on the ones that turn violent? Right-wingers blame everyone, including President Obama, except the police, who are at the heart of the matter.

Published: April 29, 2015 | Authors: Terrance Heath | Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed

The right-wing response to stories of police violence and brutality against blacks, and black deaths at the hands of police, is becoming as predictable as the stories themselves. Only the names and locations seem to change.

Here we are again. Another unarmed black man has died in the custody of another city police department with a long record of brutality, under highly questionable circumstances. By now it’s de riguer on the right to blame the victims, and spout racist rhetoric.

A couple of weeks ago, it was Walter Scott, shot in the back while fleeing a traffic stop in North Carolina, and denied medical help while the officer in question joked about the “adrenaline rush” he got from the killing. This week, it’s Freddie Gray, who emerged from a ride in a police van with serious, unexplained injuries, and died a week later. As in many other recent cases, some of what happened to Gray was caught on video.

While the media ignored the thousands of peaceful protestors across the country to focus on the protests that turned violent, right-wingers were quick to blame the protestors, their parents, and even President Obama — everyone but the police — for the conditions that fueled the unrest.

• Billionaire real estate mogul and reality star Donald Trump fired off several angry tweets blaming President Obama for the unrest in Baltimore. One read: “Our great African-American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.”
• Fox News host and Fox contributor Lou Dobbs and Dr. Keith Ablow blamed President Obama for the violence in Baltimore. On his show, Dobbs claimed that “there is a war on law enforcement” that is “corroborated if not condoned by this administration.”
• Fox News host Carson Tucker called the protests “a threat to civilization itself,” and asked, “Why wouldn’t someone fire a shotgun in the air and say knock it off?” Because random gunfire from the police always calms things down.
• Presidential candidate Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blamed the unrest in Baltimore on “the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of sort of a moral code in our society.” Paul’s comments came just days after his son, was arrested for driving under the influence in Lexington, Kentucky. This was 22-year-old William Hilton Paul’s third alcohol-related arrest.
• Rush Limbaugh asked why Democrats are suddenly calling on parents to control their kids.
• A Baltimore protestor shamed Fox News host Sean Hannity. “We shouldn’t be moralizing people’s frustration and pain. What we should be moralizing is the systemic violence that has been put on people in Baltimore,” Adam J. Jackson said, before Hannity ended the interview.
• On “Fox & Friends,” Dr. Phil McGraw, of television’s “Dr. Phil,” asked, “Where are their parents?” in reference to the protesters.

Gray, 25, was arrested in West Baltimore, on April 12, when he made eye contact with one police officer at about 8:30 a.m., and fled when several police officers on bicycles approached. After officers discovered a small pocket knife on him, Gray was arrested for weapon possession without force or incident. Why Gray ran and why he was pursued are unknown, but a friend told the Baltimore Sun that Gray had a record of drug-related arrests and ”had a history with that police beating.”

Bystander video shows Gray screaming in pain while being dragged to a police van. He also reportedly requested an inhaler, because he suffered from asthma. At 8:46 a.m., the van stopped because Gray was “acting irate” according to police. Officers took him our of the van to put leg shackles on him. Again, video trumps the police account, because video of the stop counters officers claims.

When Gray was placed back in the van, police admit he was not placed in a seatbelt — a direct violation of police policy. At 9:24 a.m., police requested paramedics to take Gray to an area hospital. A subsequent charging document said, “During transport to Western District via wagon transport the Defendant suffered a medical emergency and was transported to Shock Trauma.”

Gray’s “medical emergency,” suffered in those 45 minutes, resulted in three fractured neck vertebrae that left his spine 80 percent severed at his neck, and a crushed voice box, which doctors said could result from “powerful blunt force” and “hyperextension of the neck.” After spending a week in a coma, Gray died of his injuries on April 19.

The attorney representing the officers in the case said Gray was hurt while riding inside the police van. Police commission Anthony W. Batts also admitted that officers failed to get medical attention for Gray “in a timely manner,” and should have called for an ambulance when he was initially arrested. Batt admitted that officers violated department procedure by not putting Gray in a seat belt.

Baltimore’s police department has paid out million of dollars to people injured in police vans, during “rough rides” or “nickel rides,” in which a police van is driven recklessly while detainees in the back are wearing handcuffs and/or leg irons, but not seat belts. 

The family of Donald Johnson, Sr., won $7.4 million verdict against officers, after a 2005 van ride left him a paraplegic. 

Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury, after he was paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride. 

The city paid $100,000 to the family of Homer Long, after he suffered a fatal heart attack in a police van in 2003.

Since 2011, Baltimore has settled or lost more than 100 police brutality cases, to the tune of nearly $6 million.

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Terrance Heath

Bio: Terrance Heath is a contributor at Campaign For America's Future.

AZ hospitals get middling scores in national survey

A Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report ranks hospitals on a five-star scale based on patients’ responses to surveys about their care. Arizona hospitals average 3 stars in the report. Click on the chart for an interactive state-by-state report. (Infogr.am graphic by Cronkite News)

 By MIRANDA LEO
Cronkite News 

WASHINGTON – Only four of the 64 Arizona hospitals that were rated in a new nationwide government report on patient satisfaction got the top five-star ranking.

The report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) surveyed patients who were asked to rank facilities where they had just been treated on a scale of one to five stars. Arizona hospitals averaged three stars, putting the state 41st in the nation.

Hospital officials in the state downplayed the rankings, saying that while consumer satisfaction is important, it is just one factor in many that determines the quality of a hospital.

But a CMS spokesman said the approach to deriving the rankings is “methodically sound” and that the star ratings are meant to be easily accessible for consumers who want or need to compare different hospitals. The rankings were posted for the first time this month on Hospital Compare, a CMS site that lets people compare data on more than 4,000 U.S. hospitals.

“Despite the criticism you may be hearing from some naysayers, CMS believes that star ratings will improve the accessibility of quality information on Hospital Compare for patients and their families,” said Tony Salters, the agency spokesman.

The four top-ranked Arizona hospitals were Banner Goldfield Medical Center in Apache Junction, Arizona Orthopedic and Surgical Specialty Hospital in Chandler, Arizona Spine and Joint Hospital in Mesa and the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. A Kaiser Health News analysis of the numbers said many of the five-star facilities across the nation were specialty hospitals.

Of the other ranked hospitals in Arizona, 14 were four-star facilities, 27 got three stars and 19 earned two-star ratings. No hospitals in the state earned one star, the lowest possible rating.

Some hospitals, like Tempe St. Luke’s, were not included in the data if there were not enough survey responses from patients at the hospital.  Hospital administrators noted that the CMS survey rates only one characteristic of a good hospital – patient satisfaction – a qualitative and subjective measurement that they said gives the ratings less weight.

An official at Mesa’s Mountain Vista Medical Center, which got a two-star rating, said in a prepared statement that while consumer perception of care is one factor in determining quality of care, there are others that should play into choosing a hospital such as actual treatment outcomes and recommendations by people they trust.

“While a patient’s experience is an important part of their stay, the new CMS star ratings do not address other significant aspects of patient care such as patient outcomes and safety,” said the statement by Tony Marinello, Mountain Vista CEO.

“Patients now have access to a large number of hospital ratings reports, and they should use all available tools out there when choosing health care providers, as well as consulting with their physicians, friends and family,” his statement continued. 

Banner Health, a multistate health network based in Phoenix, said in a prepared statement that “73 percent of our facilities system wide received either four or five stars.” It sees the numbers as important – but like Marinello, said that the star ratings are not the full measure of a hospital’s overall quality.

“Patient reviews are just one measurement of a hospital’s quality, but an important one,” said a Banner spokeswoman in a prepared statement. “These quarterly ratings provide us with the information we need to help us identify where we are successful and how we can improve.”

She went on to say that Banner Health “welcomes the transparency of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services star ratings … for our hospitals.”

Salters said the star ratings are doing what they were intended to do – help people make an informed choice.

“CMS has heard much support for the star ratings effort,” he wrote. “This information is generally more easily understood by patients and reflects the experience of most hospital patients.”

Web links:

_ CMS data: https://data.medicare.gov/Hospital-Compare/Patient-survey-HCAHPS-Hospital/dgck-syfz
_ Hospital Compare website: https://data.medicare.gov/data/hospital-compare
_ Hospital ratings complied by Kaiser
http://cdn.kaiserhealthnews.org/attachments/HospitalStarsForPatientSatisfaction.pdf
_ Hospital ratings analyzed by Kaiser
http://cdn.kaiserhealthnews.org/attachments/HospitalStarsByState.pdf
_ Kaiser report: http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/only-251-hospitals-score-five-stars-in-medicares-new-ratings/
_ Banner: https://www.bannerhealth.com/
_ Mountain Vista: http://www.mvmedicalcenter.com/
_ Interactive chart: https://infogr.am/rating_the_nations_hospitals
_ Embed code for chart:

NRA's Brazen Shell Game With Donations

National Rifle Association convention. (photo: AP)

By Alan Berlow, Yahoo News

22 April 15
readersupportednews.org

 
arly last summer I began making contributions to the National Rifle Association — a dollar here, a dollar there — to see where my money would end up. Some of it quickly found its way into the account of the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund, the NRA’s political action committee. And that was of no small interest, because I never knowingly contributed to the NRA-PVF. For me, this wasn’t a big problem; my contributions were a spit in the bucket for an organization that spent $37 million on the 2014 elections and operates on an annual budget of more than a quarter of a billion dollars. But my contributions and others like them may be a big problem for the NRA because, according to some of the nation’s top experts on federal election law, they are all illegal.

The issue is not just that my donations ended up in a political fund account, but the way the NRA solicited them — and presumably those of thousands of others. In fact, each of these transactions almost certainly violated multiple provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and a legion of state and federal antifraud statutes designed to protect the public from phony charities and false or misleading solicitations.

The FECA makes a hard distinction between solicitations for elections and other solicitations, in part because many Americans don’t like donating to politicians. An NRA member might contribute to the organization because she admires its work on behalf of hunters. She might also contribute to an environmental group because she wants to preserve forests. But this same donor may vehemently oppose the candidates endorsed in federal elections by both the NRA and the environmental group. As a result, the law makes it clear that when these groups are soliciting for electoral purposes they must disclose that fact to potential donors.

 
Requirments on solicitation for federal law. (photo: Federal Election Commission)   

If a private citizen says he’s raising money for a cancer charity and deposits the money into his personal bank account, he can be prosecuted for committing a fraud.

Similarly, under federal election law, corporations like the NRA that set up what are known as “connected PACs” must inform potential donors if a PAC is the intended beneficiary of a solicitation. The NRA can’t claim to be raising money for the corporation — to finance such things as its lobbying or research initiatives — and then deposit that money into the account of its PAC. But that’s precisely what the NRA did when it solicited my contributions.

The NRA also appears to have violated a federal law that bars soliciting for a connected PAC from anyone other than the group’s employees or members — what the law calls its “restricted class.” And the NRA appears to have violated another provision that says Internet solicitations must be at websites that are accessible only to members (the restricted class), not the general public.

“You really can’t solicit for a connected PAC outside the connected organization’s restricted class,” says Joseph Birkenstock, an attorney with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock and a former chief counsel of the Democratic National Committee. “That’s really not a gray area of campaign finance law; that’s pretty much ‘first principles.’” (The “restricted class” concept applies to corporations and unions. A corporation can raise money from its own executives and shareholders.  Tax-exempt corporations like the NRA and labor unions can raise money from their members.) 

Activists file ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona

Mikel Weisser, executive director for Safer Arizona, says his group is pressing for a law legalizing recreational use of marijuana because it would provide safer, regulated access to a drug that’s already being used by many.  “We’re going to disincentivize the black market in marijuana by price, by legality and by access.”



By MACKENZIE CONCEPCION
Cronkite News

The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project filed a ballot initiative Friday that would legalize recreational use of marijuana and regulate and tax the drug like alcohol.

“I believe that the Arizona voters recognize that it’s time to try something different than prohibition,” said Ryan Hurley, an attorney for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, a political committee backed by the Marijuana Policy Project that is behind the initiative.

According to a draft of the initiative provided by the Marijuana Policy Project, the Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act would allow those 21 and older to carry up to one ounce of marijuana for private use.

It would also establish a Department of Marijuana Licenses and Control to regulate and tax marijuana sales. 

After filing the application, marijuana policy activists will have until June 2016 to collect 150,642 signatures, 10 percent of all votes cast for governor at the last election.

Hurley said marijuana policy activists expect the tax on retail marijuana sales, which would be set at 15 percent, to bring in anywhere between $60 and $100 million in tax revenue each year.

He said the money will go toward regulation of marijuana sales. Any extra revenue will go to the Department of Education to fund all-day kindergarten programs and to the Department of Health Services for public health efforts, he added.

“It’s time to treat this like alcohol, and it’s time to tax and regulate and legalize it,” Hurley said.

Timeline: Marijuana legalization efforts in Arizona

Mikel Weisser, political director for Safer Arizona, a group that works with the Marijuana Policy Project, said the legalization of marijuana would give people safer access to the drug.

“It’s actually going on all around us right now, but this black market is not being regulated, not being taxed,” he said. “We’re going to disincentivize the black market in marijuana by price, by legality and by access.”

Weisser said it’s more than an economic issue; it’s about social justice.

He said thousands of lives are ruined every year nationwide by marijuana arrests.

“That felony stays on your record, and it ruins people’s academic opportunities, military opportunities, and in looking for jobs,” Weisser said. “Across the board, they have to deal with that.”

Seth Leibsohn, chairman of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, a political committee that opposes legalizing marijuana, said the costs would outweigh any benefits.

“We’re pretty full up with problems when it comes to what’s already legal,” he said.

Leibsohn said the tax revenue would have to go toward addressing the health problems marijuana’s legalization would cause.

He said many people disregard the dangers because they don’t realize marijuana is stronger than it was 15 years ago.

“When they talk about its harmlessness, they are literally talking about something that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

He said regulating marijuana like alcohol is doomed to fail, adding that his organization will launch a public awareness campaign about the dangers of legalizing the drug.

“I would ask you to look at the costs of alcohol,” Leibsohn said. “What we’ve done with alcohol has failed, and it doesn’t make sense to me that you would use a failed model for what you want to do.”

The Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act seeks to:

Allow adults 21 years of age and older to possess and privately consume up to an ounce of marijuana. Public consumption of marijuana would still be illegal.

Establish a 15 percent tax on retail marijuana sales to be allocated to regulation, education and public health.

Create a system in which licensed businesses can produce and sell marijuana.
Establish a Department of Marijuana Licenses and Control to regulate testing, cultivation, manufacturing, transportation and sale of marijuana.

Provide local governments with the authority to regulate marijuana businesses. 

Source: Ballot initiative 100-word summary

Romneys, Dinosaurs, and Strippers at Funerals

Mitt Romney. (photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

25 April 15

readersupportednews.org

 
s the mists of time descend around us, we can lose track of what an amazing liar Willard Romney really was during his time as a presidential wannabe. Luckily, though, in the Washington Post blog run by his former bestie 4-Evah Jen Rubin, Willard comes back, talks about the current situation with Hillary Rodham Clinton, and reminds us of that very salient fact.

Mitt Romney put it in everyday terms: "I mean, it looks like bribery. I mean, there is every appearance that Hillary Clinton was bribed to grease the sale of, what, 20% of America's uranium production to Russia, and then it was covered up by lying about a meeting at her home with the principals, and by erasing emails. And you know, I presume we might know for sure whether there was or was not bribery if she hadn't wiped out thousands of emails. But this is a very, very serious series of facts, and it looks like bribery."

If there is a more shameless person in politics than old G.I. Luvmoney, I don't know who it is. This is a guy who refused to release his tax returns , and whose wife made it quite clear on TV to Us People why that was not an option. And this is also the guy who, upon leaving the governor's office here in the Commonwealth (God save it!), did everything but throw the computers in the Executive office out the windows.

As a result, Patrick's office, which has been bombarded with inquiries for records from the Romney era, has no electronic record of any Romney administration e-mails, Reilly said. "The governor's office has found no e-mails from 2002-2006 in our possession,'' Reilly said in a statement. "Before the current administration took office, the computers used during that time period were replaced and the server used during that time period was taken out of service, all files were removed from it, and it was also replaced.'' Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said the governor's aides did nothing wrong. "In leaving office, the governor's staff complied with the law and longtime executive branch practice,'' she said. "Some employees exercised the option to purchase computer equipment when they left. They did so openly with personal checks.''

I mean, it looks like bribery to me. How about you?

Meanwhile, in China, the government is coping with a terrible example of When Cultural Traditions Go Horribly Wrong.

State media have said burlesque shows at some funerals aim to draw more mourners and show off the family's wealth, in a practice that is infrequent, but gaining in popularity. In a notice on its website Thursday, the ministry called for a "black list" of people and workplaces that engage in such shows. It singled out a group of burlesque dancers, the Red Rose Song and Dance Troupe, who did a striptease after the small-town funeral of an elderly person in the northern province of Hebei in February. The group took off their clothes after performing a traditional song-and-dance routine, the ministry said. One leader of Red Rose, surnamed Li, was punished with 15 days in detention and a fine of 70,000 yuan ($11,300) after law enforcement officials intervened.

And thus do the Irish finally fall into second place as far as funeral rites go. Why are the Chinese so far ahead of us in everything, dammit? Strippers at funerals? Where do they put the pole? No, wait, don't answer that.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Call Me Shine" (The Paulin Brothers Jazz Band): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Since it's playoff time in the NHL, here's some fancy-dress weird-ass ice hockey from Germany in 1939. The announcer says, "No country is safe." He wasn't kidding. History is so cool.

Happy Birthday to my favorite machine! 

Meanwhile, back on earth, this seems nice.

Underneath the national park's attractions and walking paths is enough hot rock to fill the Grand Canyon nearly 14 times over. Most of it is in a newly discovered magma reservoir, which the scientists featured in a study published on Thursday in the journal Science. It may help scientists better understand why Yellowstone's previous eruptions, in prehistoric times, were some of Earth's largest explosions in the last few million years.

On the bright side, the Hubble will get a helluva picture of what's left.

Is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news.

Most of the eggs in the museum's existing collection belong to oviraptorid and duck-billed dinosaurs, which roamed the earth 89 million years ago. Nearly 17,000 dinosaur eggs have been uncovered in the city since the first group of fossils was found in 1996 by children playing at a construction site, the China's official news agency Xinhua reported.

Damn, some museum director is going to have a helluva funeral when he finally dies.

I'll be back on Monday with what I am sure will be more HRC-roogie-roogie gobshitery. Be well and place nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snakeline, or we won't respect you and there won't be anything at your wake except whiskey and soda bread.

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GOP Chairman Warns Against Hatred for Hillary Peaking Too Soon

Hillary Clinton. (photo: Andrew Burton/Getty)

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

24 April 15

 

n an urgent memo to the field of G.O.P. Presidential candidates, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, praised them for their relentless personal attacks on Hillary Clinton, but warned that their hatred for the former Secretary of State might be “peaking too early.”

Priebus called the candidates’ ongoing evisceration of Clinton “magnificent,” but expressed his concern that “no human beings, even an impressive group like yourselves, could possibly sustain such a high intensity of throbbing hatred for an entire year and a half.”

“Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint,” he wrote. “You need to leave some hate in the tank.”

In the conclusion of his memo, Priebus advised the candidates to take an occasional day off from hating Clinton so that they could “return to despising her with renewed freshness and vigor.”

Responding to the R.N.C. directive, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that he understood Priebus’s concerns, but assured him that, at the end of the day, they were groundless. “Anyone who doesn’t think I’m capable of spewing an infinite stream of vitriol and bile doesn’t know what I’m made of,” he said, pointing with pride to his long record of hating President Obama.