Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Jill Filipovic is just hopping mad!

It was March 3, 2016, when uber-feminist Jill Filipovic published Dear Everyone Who Said Ruth Bader Ginsburg Should Retire: You Were Wrong: The Texas abortion case before the Supreme Court is just further proof that the justice knew what she was doing. Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt was before the Supreme Court, and, in the end, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan formed the five member majority which invalidated some restrictions the Lone Star State placed on abortion.

Well, Justice Kennedy retired and Justice Ginsburg departed this mortal vale, and the seat left vacant when Justice Antonin Scalia died have been filled, by Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, all appointed by President Trump.

Miss Filipovic wrote:

Ginsburg, who many pundits were calling on to retire a little over a year ago, may be the justice who offers the best chance not only of overturning the law, but of writing a coherent and fair opinion laying out a detailed standard for challenging future abortion laws.

The argument for Ginsberg’s retirement was fairly straightforward: She was old, there was a midterm election looming in which Republicans were set to potentially take control of the Senate, and it was Obama’s last chance to appoint a liberal. And what if a Republican won in 2016? And again in 2020? Ginsburg, in her 80s, could be replaced by a conservative.

Ginsburg’s refusal to retire hinged on a few points: She still had all of her mental faculties, she was good at her job, and even the pre-midterm Senate wasn’t liberal enough to appoint someone as progressive as her. Besides, she’s a Supreme Court justice — have some respect and let her make the call.

“Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have?” Ginsburg told ELLE. “If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court. [The Senate Democrats] took off the filibuster for lower federal court appointments, but it remains for this court. So anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided. As long as I can do the job full steam…. I think I’ll recognize when the time comes that I can’t any longer. But now I can.”

So, Justice Ginsburg was concerned not the President Obama couldn’t get a liberal through, but that even if he tried with a stealth liberal like he did with Merrick Garland, the nominee wouldn’t be liberal enough for her.

When Miss Filipovic wrote, it was becoming clear that Donald Trump was in the lead for the Republican presidential nomination, and of course he could never defeat Hillary Clinton in the general election. The seat once held by Justice Scalia would be filled by someone nominated by incoming President Clinton.

This recent case offers the court an opportunity to clarify the “undue burden” standard, or craft a new one. Before Scalia’s death, there were fears the conservative wing of the court could use this case as a vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade and dismantle abortion rights generally. Now, there is virtually zero chance of that happening; instead, the best-case scenario is that the liberal wing of the court triumphs and publishes an opinion making it more difficult for state legislators to cut off women’s access to safe, legal abortion, protecting abortion rights for at least the next generation.

The most likely candidate to write that opinion is Justice Ginsburg. And that should be enough for a clear ruling: She was absolutely right when she ignored the mostly male peanut gallery imploring her to hang up her robe, relied on her own supreme wisdom, and refused to retire.

I’m sure that the then-Miss Filipovic never, ever thought that it would be President Trump who would nominate the replacement for Mrs Ginsburg after she went to her eternal reward.

To the right is a screen capture of the now Mrs McCormick’s angry tweets of this morning. I chose a screenshot just in case she either deletes them — which is unlikely — or blocks me from seeing them, which she might do if she sees this article. The links to the original are for the first, second and third.

What has her so bitterly angry? From CNN:

Texas 6-week abortion ban takes effect after Supreme Court inaction

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter | Updated 2:32 AM ET | Wednesday, September 1, 2021

(CNN) A controversial Texas law that bars abortions at six weeks went into effect early Wednesday morning after the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court failed to rule on pending emergency requests brought by abortion providers.

The lack of judicial intervention means that the law — which is one of the strictest in the nation and bans abortion before many people know they are pregnant — goes into force absent further court intervention.

The law allows private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the ban.

No other six-week ban has been allowed to go into effect — even briefly.

“What ultimately happens to this law remains to be seen,” said CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas Law School professor Steve Vladeck, “but now through their inaction the justices have let the tightest abortion restriction since Roe v. Wade be enforced for at least some period of time.”

The case comes as the justices are poised in the upcoming term to rule on the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that bars abortion at 15 weeks.

There’s more at the original.

Mrs McCormick, in the last of the three tweets I listed, complained about an “authoritarian court,” which leads me to ask: at what point would she favor authoritarianism herself? In her article The Importance of Being Honest: Sometimes we have to sacrifice for public health. But don’t deny the sacrifice itself, she expresses understanding that being forced to wear a facemask, something Republicans and libertarians see as an authoritarian dictate, is a burden, is a sacrifice, but sometimes that burden must be borne. She calls “proponents of stricter anti-Covid measures,” “a group I’m generally a member of,” and says:

The impulse to downplay inconvenient outcomes of one’s own position has been in full force throughout Covid, and with the school reopening + Delta, it’s gotten even more extreme. I keep hearing, for example, that wearing a mask is no big deal and anyone who complains about masking is probably a Covid denialist reactionary. This is pretty weird, because it seems to me to be obviously, demonstrably true that wearing a mask is an inconvenience and a personal and cultural sacrifice — it means you can’t fully read other peoples’ facial expressions, it impedes basic human interactions, it makes you break out, it irritates your face, it fogs up your glasses, and I find that when I wear one I start to feel a little disoriented after a while, especially inside under bright lights. Wearing a mask sucks! But it sucks far less than giving someone else Covid, or getting Covid yourself. And so of course, in scenarios where people are not all fully vaccinated and infection rates are high, we should continue wear masks inside. I wear masks inside and I think indoor mask-wearing for essential activities should be mandatory (I also think vaccines should be mandatory for inessential activities, like dining out).

She is, by her own words, willing to force people to bear the burden of mandatory vaccinations and mandatory masking. She recognizes the burdens being put on people, but believes that not getting vaccinated and not wearing a mask is a greater danger than being burdened by doing so, even against your will.

So, apply that logic to abortion. A woman gets pregnant, and does not want to be, does not want a child.[1]It is completely legal, in every state, for a mother to take her unwanted child to a police or fire station, or hospital, and leave him there, surrendering her parental rights, with no questions … Continue reading That is a burden to her, no doubt about it. Her solution: abortion.

But abortion is a burden as well. While it’s a financial burden, though not a great one, on the woman, it also places the burden of ‘relieving’ her burden onto the unborn child. His burden? A death sentence!

So, which is the greater burden: nine months of an unwanted pregnancy, or death for the child? Because, whether Mrs McCormick will admit it or otherwise, that is the exact comparison.

We have placed even greater burdens on people in the past; the United States has had a conscription system under which, though no one has actually been drafted since the 1970s, millions of men have been drafted in the past, and hundreds of thousands of them paid the ultimate price, in World War I, in World War II, in Korea and in Vietnam.[2]Full disclosure: though I was of draft age at the tail end of the Vietnam war, I was not called up due to a high lottery number. The burden of an unwanted pregnancy is far, far less than that of a soldier bleeding out his life’s blood in the rice paddies of South Vietnam.

We do not know how many children will be saved by the Texas law, though surely some will. Some pregnant women will travel to New Mexico or Oklahoma or Louisiana to be ‘relieved’ of their burdens, though hopefully fewer than would otherwise have had abortions in Texas clinics.

How will the Supreme Court rule on the Mississippi case? It is absolutely certain that the three justices appointed by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will vote to overturn it. The left are deathly afraid that Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett will uphold the law, at least in some form. The Chief Justice? If he is going to be in the minority with the three liberal justices, he might just vote with the majority, so that he can assign the opinion, rather than Justice Thomas, assigning it to the Justice he believes will write the most restrictive opinion . . . probably himself. But predicting Supreme Court decisions has rarely been a money-winning game.

References

References
↑1 It is completely legal, in every state, for a mother to take her unwanted child to a police or fire station, or hospital, and leave him there, surrendering her parental rights, with no questions asked. Having a child she does not want does not mean that the mother must keep the child.
↑2 Full disclosure: though I was of draft age at the tail end of the Vietnam war, I was not called up due to a high lottery number.
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Remember: you cannot trust Democratic governors. The left say they are for democracy, right up until the will of the voters goes against them

I lived in the Keystone State for fifteen years before moving back to Kentucky for my retirement, and I can assure you that I did not vote for Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA)!

    Gov. Tom Wolf will require masks in Pa. schools, sources say

    The governor could outline the proposed requirement at a 2 p.m. news conference about coronavirus measures in schools.

    by Justine McDaniel, Erin McCarthy, Andrew Seidman, and Maddie Hanna | Tuesday, August 31, 2021 | 2:11 PM EDT

    Masks will be required in all Pennsylvania schools, Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday, announcing a mandate days after the Republican-led legislature rejected his call to pass one via legislation.

    Aiming to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in schools, the order issued by the Department of Health requires face coverings indoors in all K-12 schools, both public and private, and licensed child care centers beginning next Tuesday.

    The mandate is a reversal for the Wolf administration, which had previously said it would leave decisions about how to reopen up to individual districts. In announcing the decision in a statement, the governor cited misinformation about mask-wearing that he said was “pressuring and intimidating school districts to reject mask policies.”

    It comes as many are already back in session, some with masks required and some without, and the rest are poised to start within days. Certain districts have already spent months battling over the mask question, which has stirred heated conflict among some parents.

There’s more at the original. But the issue is pretty simple: the people have rejected the mask mandates, but the Governor wants it, and he is going to use every means at his disposal to overrule the will of the public.

In May, Pennsylvania voters approved two constitutional amendments:

    The first proposed constitutional amendment will make it so that the state’s General Assembly could terminate or extend a disaster declaration at any time without approval from the governor. The Pennsylvania Constitution will have to be amended so that the disaster declaration power will be shared by the governor and the General Assembly.

    Previously, only the governor could declare the end of a disaster. According to state law, the General Assembly has the option to pass a resolution that would terminate the declaration, but the governor can still veto. If the assembly could gather support with a two-thirds majority, they could overturn the governor’s veto.

    This exact scenario played out last summer over the COVID-19 pandemic disaster declaration, when the state Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature could not overturn the governor’s declaration without his ability to then veto it.

    The second question proposed that the time limit on a disaster declaration be shortened from 90 days to 21 days unless the General Assembly votes to extend it.

As we have noted previously, Governor Wolf was very upset that local school boards, people elected by the voters, were choosing a different course than the one he favored.

    The Wolf administration implemented a school mask mandate last year without legislation, as it also did for a statewide masking requirement. But with this year’s reopening helmed by districts, Wolf said earlier this month that he would not mandate masks. The new mandate would be done under authority of the state’s disease control and prevention law, said one source.

In other words, the Governor believes he has found a legal loophole to get around what the state legislature and a majority of the voters wanted to do: restrict his executive authority to issue restrictions.

The people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have spoken, but that doesn’t matter to petty dictators like Tom Wolf.

And in the Bluegrass State, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) hopes to impose some restrictions himself, though the decision of the state Supreme Court requires that he work with the General Assembly this time:

    Beshear plans to call special law-making session soon to fight COVID-19

    By Jack Brammer | August 30, 2021 | 6:05 PM EDT

    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday his goal is to call state lawmakers into a special session as soon as legislative leaders and he reach “a general consensus” on what steps to take to fight the raging coronavirus pandemic.

    He said it needs to happen soon but did not mention a specific date. Only the governor can call a special law-making session and set its agenda

    The Democratic governor and Republican legislative leaders are in negotiations over what actions should be taken to fight COVID-19, which Beshear said continues to hit the state “harder and harder.” He said a record 2,198 Kentuckians are now in the hospital with the virus, with a record 615 in intensive care units and a record 384 on ventilators. . . . .

    Asked about a rumor that he plans to call a special session to begin next week, Beshear said a session is needed to keep in effect the state of emergency for the pandemic he declared in March 2020.

    He said he will be pushing “for some other things.”

    He noted that schools that are shutting down now because of the virus need more flexibility on having non-traditional instruction days when students can do online work from home.

    The state education commissioner now can waive up to 10 so-called NTI days to count towards student attendance days in the school districts’ calendars.

    “I’m going to seek all the tools I can,” said Beshear. “I’m not going to hold off on calling a special session if I don’t get all of them.”

Some things actually make sense, such as allowing an exception to the NTI limit. Since the regular session of the legislature is just three months away, a special session could authorize some gubernatorial actions for up to 120 days, and then the regular session would take them up if the Governor wanted to continue them.

But one action the legislature will never approve is the odious mask mandate. If there was any one thing that the Governor forced last year that pushed the voters toward the tremendous surge for the GOP, it was the hated mask mandate. The Governor has already said that he would impose it again, if he could.

Technically, he could again . . . for thirty days. If he does, I will not comply, and I would guess that a bunch of other Kentuckians wouldn’t either.

Nevertheless, there’s a danger. As we have previously noted, despite being ordered to do so by the state Supreme Court, Phillip Shepherd, the Governor’s toady judge has not yet lifted him injunctions, and has ordered the Governor and Attorney General to present their arguments to him, on September 7th, on the Governor’s lawsuit seeking to have several of the restrictions placed on him by the General Assembly declared unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court left him very little room to do so, but Judge Shepherd makes up things as he goes along, and appears to be inclined, personally, to take Mr Beshear’s side on everything.

It really doesn’t matter whether you think mask or vaccine mandates are a wise idea; what ought to matter is that the voters have rejected politicians who have tried to impose authoritarian restrictions and regulations on a free people.

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It’s a good thing that the government doesn’t have all of your health records! The left wishes that was different

It’s no surprise at all that the left and the statists would want the government to have your health records!

    Fractured record keeping leaves Philly hospitals unsure which patients are vaccinated

    A patchwork of vaccination record keeping has left hospitals with no easy way to be precise about which of their patients have received inoculations against COVID-19.

    by Jason Laughlin | Tuesday, August 31, 2021

    More than nine months into the effort to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19, the patchwork nature of vaccination records is keeping Philadelphia hospitals from getting clarity on whether patients have had the shot.

    “This is what everybody’s craving for,” said John Zurlo, division director of infectious disease at Thomas Jefferson University. “You’d hope we can get really accurate information about that and right now we really don’t get accurate information.”

    Temple University Hospital and Einstein Medical Center also reported having trouble obtaining accurate records this year, though coordination with the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania departments of health have improved the situation, hospital personnel said.

    Since vaccines were rolled out to the public earlier this year, doctors at Einstein have reported patients who are “100% sure” they were vaccinated not showing up in PhilaVax, the city database. Another record showed a patient to have gotten first doses in January and then again in April. . . . .

    Incorrect data entry may play a role in some of the record inaccuracy, said James Garrow, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. But the biggest causes of confusion are twofold: complications accessing the city’s vaccination records and the lack of a national COVID-19 vaccination database.

    “This has never been a problem in the past because there has never been such an immediate need for access to immunization records like we do for COVID vaccines,” Garrow said.

There’s more at the original, but the major point is one of which I am very glad: there is (supposedly) no national COVID-19 vaccination database.

Further down:

    Exchanging information with PhilaVax requires health-care providers to meet a federally outlined data-sharing standard. Most health-care systems meet that standard, Garrow said, but at least one large city hospital system, Jefferson, does not — though it is in the process of updating its system, hospital personnel said.

The federal government passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) in 2009, yet the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia still doesn’t meet “federally outlined data-sharing standard(s)”? What’s wrong with that picture?

    Fractured medical record keeping has been the subject of a decades-old policy debate. The 1996 Heath Information Portability and Accountability Act called for a national patient ID to create a central source for people’s medical records, but privacy concerns have kept a national registry from being created. Britain and Israel are among the countries that have such systems, said Tinglong Dai, professor of operations management and business analytics at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, which has made it easier to confirm vaccinations. The lack of a registry in the United States, he said, has become acutely problematic as people being asked for proof of vaccination have nothing but a card as documentation.

    A national registry would also ensure consistent quality, he said, rather than the patchwork of record keeping used across the country now.

    “This is definitely self-sabotaging,” Dai said. “I think there must be a significant portion of the population, including myself, who would really like to have that system so I wouldn’t have to carry around this card.”

Oh, woe is him, he has to carry around the card that he wants everybody else forced to carry! Well, I have such a card, because I was vaccinated months ago, I refuse to carry it around like some form of vaccine passport. If I go someplace, and they insist that I show them my vaccination card, whoever does so will receive a one-fingered salute; if they don’t want to let me in without showing my vaccination card, I don’t want to enter anyway, and most certainly don’t want to give them any of my money.

COVID-19 has become a hugely politicized disease, with the left trying to force the unwilling to comply, and the right sometimes trying to shame those who have chosen to be vaccinated. It might be more convenient to physicians if they had access to patients’ vaccination records, but they can always ask a patient if he has gotten the jab. It seems far more important to me that the government, at any level, not have this highly politicized information.

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Mugshot and photo hypocrisy from the Lexington Herald-Leader

We noted on Sunday that the Lexington Herald-Leader declined to post the mugshot of Brent Dyer Kelty, a man previously convicted of “several prior felonies in Fayette County since 2010,” in their story about him being indicted for the murder of an infant. In that, the newspaper followed the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, despite the fact that Mr Kelty, even if acquitted of murder, is still a multiply convicted felon.

The McClatchy policy is due to the possibility that an accused person might not ever be convicted, and thus having his mugshot published could harm him later in life. Of course, someone’s name is far more easily searchable, and just printing the suspect’s name can have far wider implications. For instance, prospective employers who do their due diligence on an applicant, will be searching for his name, not his photo.

But it seems that the Herald-Leader has no compunctions about printing the photo of someone accused of, and convicted of, a simple misdemeanor:

    Woman who attended University of Kentucky pleads guilty in U.S. Capitol riot case

    By Beth Musgrave | August 30, 2021 | 1:21 PM EDT

    Gracyn Dawn Courtright, a University of Kentucky student, faces charges linked to the Capitol riot on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2020. This photo was included in a criminal complaint filed against Courtright and allegedly shows her holding the “members only” sign. PHOTO VIA FBI.

    A woman from West Virginia who attended the University of Kentucky pleaded guilty Monday to charges related to entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

    In federal court in Washington D.C., Gracyn Dawn Courtright pleaded guilty to a charge of entering and remaining in a restricted area, according to federal court records. She had faced more charges.

    Courtright will be sentenced Nov. 16. She could face up to six months in prison in addition to other fines and restitution.

There’s more at the original.

It might be complained that Miss Courtright is a convicted criminal now, but the Herald-Leader published the same photo on June 28th, before she was convicted of anything.

Miss Courtright is hardly the only one of the Capitol kerfufflers whose photo has been published by the Herald-Leader, even before they were convicted of anything. The newspaper had at least two articles on Lori Vinson, one of which was before she was even charged with any crimes, which featured her photos.

Both Miss Courtright and Mrs Vinson are facing maximum sentences of six months in jail; Mr Kelty is a multiply convicted felon looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in prison, but the Herald-Leader protected the photo of Mr Kelty. On March 3rd, the newspaper published a story which identified 12 Kentuckians by name, with photos of 10 of them — some difficult to identify — who were charged with crimes related to the demonstration, but at the time not convicted of anything.

The Herald-Leader also declined to publish the mugshots of two men sentenced to a year for their part in assaults during a Black Lives Matter protest in the city. Their crimes were more serious than any of the ones of which the Capitol kerfufflers were convicted.

Of course, the very liberal Herald-Leader probably sees the Capitol kerfuffle as a hideous and heinous crime, because that’s what the left do, when it was, in reality, little more than an out-of-control, disorganized frat party. The only shot fired was from a Capitol policeman, and even though a few firearms were recovered from a couple of the protesters’ vehicles, none were taken from protesters in the Capitol Building.

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Ignoring a very, very large elephant in the room

Do reporters for The Philadelphia Inquirer read their own news paper?

Inquirer reporter Harold Brubaker, who specializes in the business side of health care and nonprofit sector, reported on the Keystone State’s attempts to revise nursing home regulations, but somehow he managed to miss the elephant in the room:

‘Insulting and dumb.’ That’s how a nursing home manager labeled criticism of Pa.’s new staffing proposal

Advocates say more staffing is desperately needed. But nursing home executives say Medicaid rates won’t support it.

by Harold Brubaker | August 28, 2021

Anne Clauss hates to imagine what her mother would have endured at a nursing home in Langhorne if she or another relative hadn’t visited daily during her stay from 2017 to 2018.

One evening Clauss found her mother at the end of a hallway facing away from her room, where she had been stuck for a few hours, another resident told her. Other times, staff — whom she called underpaid and overworked — forgot to bring her mother her meals.

Her mother died at a hospital in 2018. But that experience prompted the Levittown resident to comment in favor of a Pennsylvania Department of Health proposal to increase the homes’ minimum level of direct care to 4.1 hours daily per patient, up from the current 2.7 hours.

“I hope regulations can be updated to help our elderly live out their lives well cared for and treated respectfully,” Clauss wrote to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, which will review the comments and eventually hold a public hearing. It’s not clear how quickly the commission will act.

Let’s tell the truth here: nursing homes are dreadful places, facilities in which to warehouse the elderly who can no longer care for themselves, but who can, and do, live on with nursing care and physical assistance. It’s a truth all of us know, but no one is willing to say out loud, because so many people fear that they will one day have to warehouse their aging parents in such a facility.[1]My family has been fortunate in that regard; such a decision was never one we faced. And I cannot imagine that any of us do not dread the thought of having to be in a nursing home themselves. I’m very thankful that I’m very healthy, but who can know what the future holds.

There’s a lot more at the original, and Mr Brubaker did a thorough job in his story, save for one thing. He noted that nursing homes have real difficulties in attracting staff, and that Medicaid payments for patients work out to roughly $8.00 an hour, which is significantly less than certified nursing assistants are paid. To provide more hours of patient care, more nursing staff would have to be hired, but there’s simply not enough money paid to nursing homes to do so. For the details, read Mr Brubaker’s original.

The effort is coming to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic in which over 13,000 people have died in Pennsylvania’s nursing homes.

This is where Mr Brubaker’s story fails. He mentions the COVID-19 panic just this once, and that’s it. But, as we previously noted, and as Mr Brubaker’s own newspaper has reported, Philadelphia’s Acting Health Commissioner, Dr Cheryl Bettigole, has mandated that all health care workers in the City of Brotherly Love must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 15th. Dr Bettigole has noted that more than a dozen long-term care facilities in Philadelphia have less than 50% of their staff vaccinated.

If you’re more committed to not getting the vaccine than to the safety of your patients, it’s time to do something else. Health care is not for you.

This is something that Mr Brubaker should have mentioned: not only are patients in nursing homes getting fewer hours of care than they should, Dr Bettigole and the city of Philadelphia want to fire the CNAs and RNs who refuse to get vaccinated.

Oh, they won’t put it that way — though the Commissioner came close — but that’s the result of the policy. The city obviously wants to force the reluctant to get vaccinated, and some will probably concede, but if over half the staff have resisted vaccination, in an industry which has been continually pushing for it, it has to be expected that at least some, quite probably a significant percentage of them, will continue to refuse to comply.

From an article referenced by the much nicer Dana on Patterico’s Pontifications:

As of last night, there were 102 people waiting for an ICU bed in the greater Houston area.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told Begnaud that she was prepared to open a field hospital, but as of Friday morning, hospitals in the Houston area were telling her they had extra beds — but not enough nurses. Seven hundred nurses arrived last week, but it’s still not enough to meet the demand.

Of course, that article, too, failed to address the elephant in the room:

Houston hospital workers fired, resign over COVID-19 vaccine

By Jamie Stengle | June 22, 2021

DALLAS (AP) — More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine have been fired or resigned after a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit over the vaccine requirement.

A spokesperson for Houston Methodist hospital system said 153 employees either resigned in the two-week suspension period or were terminated on Tuesday.

The case over how far health care institutions can go to protect patients and others against the coronavirus has been closely watched. It’s believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. But it won’t be the end of the debate.

It’s not a case of some health care workers may quit, or may be fired, for refusing vaccination, but that some have already quit, some have already been fired.

I get it: the editorial position of the Inquirer is strongly in support of vaccination, and perhaps noting that the city’s vaccine mandate will actually cost the city’s nursing homes employees isn’t something a biased newspaper like the Inquirer wants to report.[2]I take publisher Elizabeth Hughes opinion piece as an admission that the Inquirer has, and will continue to have, a bias toward the left. But for an article like Mr Brubaker’s to fail to note the potential loss of nursing home employees, just as he is noting that the Commonwealth might require more, is simply poor journalism. It wasn’t just a missed point, but ignoring a very, very large elephant in the room.

References

References
↑1 My family has been fortunate in that regard; such a decision was never one we faced.
↑2 I take publisher Elizabeth Hughes opinion piece as an admission that the Inquirer has, and will continue to have, a bias toward the left.
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Once again, the Lexington Herald-Leader hides a mugshot, this time of a convicted felon.

As we have previously noted, the Lexington Herald-Leader adheres to the McClatchy Mugshot Policy. The policy states as one of its reasons is the possibility that a criminal suspect might be acquitted or have the charges dropped, in which case publishing his mugshot would have a detrimental effect on him.

But what if the accused is already a convicted felon, one with “several prior felonies”? Why should he be shielded?

    New Lexington murder indictment was from an infant’s death in 2018. Bond set at $500k

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | August 27, 2021 | 4:41 PM

    Brent Dyer Kelty. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center. Click to enlarge.

    The Lexington man indicted by a grand jury this week is accused of killing an infant three years ago, according to court records.

    Brent Dyer Kelty, 30, has been charged with murder in the death of 4-month-old Landon Mayes, who suffered head trauma. Mayes died on Sept. 8, 2018. Kelty was indicted on Wednesday, according to court records.

    Lexington police investigated the death, but the attorney general’s office presented the case to a grand jury, resulting in Kelty’s indictment. A spokesperson for Attorney General Daniel Cameron said representatives couldn’t comment on why the indictment came three years after Mayes’ death.

    “We cannot share details regarding the investigation,” Elizabeth Kuhn said.

    Kelty was already in jail on unrelated charges, according to jail records. In addition to murder, he was also indicted on a count of being a persistent felony offender. Kelty had been convicted of several prior felonies in Fayette County since 2010, according to court records.

There’s more at the original, but I would think that a man, a previously convicted felon, who has now been indicted for killing an infant, would qualify as accused of committing what should be considered a “high profile crime”.

The First Street Journal does not hold to the policy of shielding such defendants, and their mugshots are matters of public record. If this guy is guilty of killing an infant, there ought to be exactly one sentence: lock him up and throw away the key.

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Some Central Bucks Karens want to force other people to wear masks, but don’t have the courage to identify themselves

We have previously noted the decision by the Central Bucks School Board not to make facemasks mandatory for the upcoming school year. Naturally, when some people oppose a decision by an elected body, they sue!

    Central Bucks parents sue after school board votes against mask mandate

    It asks the judge to order the district to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for mitigating the virus in schools.

    by Maddie Hanna | August 28, 2021

    A group of parents of children with special needs sued the Central Bucks School District late Friday, alleging the district’s plan to start the school year Monday without masks or other COVID-19 mitigation measures violates their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    The lawsuit — backed by a fund-raiser started by parents that had amassed more than $35,000 as of Saturday afternoon — follows a 5-4 vote by the school board Wednesday night rejecting a mask mandate and other measures ahead of the new school year.

    It asks U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to order the school district to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for mitigating the virus in schools.

    “Together we have made a phenomenal statement that we need to follow CDC and [American Academy of Pediatrics] guidelines to keep the children, teachers and staff in our schools safe as well as prevent the spread of COVID in our community,” Susan Lipson, a family medicine physician who helped organize the GoFundMe, wrote on its page.

Actually, I’m surprised: Maddie Hanna, the article writer, actually wrote the way a journalist is supposed to write, with the most important information, the lede, first! But further down came the infuriating part:

    Parents suing the district — whom the lawsuit identifies only by their initials because “universal masking is a very contentious issue in the district” — say the plan puts their children “at risk of death and debilitating illness from COVID-19.”

So, we have parents suing the school, attempting to force other people to go along with their wishes, and to override the decision of the elected school board, and they don’t have the guts to identify themselves? I’m going to tell you what to do, but you don’t need to know who I am?

Yeah, that’s pretty infuriating.

The decision by the school board does not prohibit anyone from wearing a face mask. These parents can wear one or three or twelve masks if they want! They may take any virus mitigation efforts they wish, as far as their children and they are concerned.

But that isn’t good enough; they want to force other people to take extreme steps to protect their children and themselves. But they don’t have the courage to admit who they are.

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Tying things together

Why is it that an old, retired man out in the boondocks of eastern Kentucky can see these things, but the credentialed media just can’t put the stories together?

These things are all related, though the local media don’t seem to want to tell people that. Thanks to a tweet from Heather Long, I found this story:

    Ford CEO: Up to 20% of factory workers are out on some days

    By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN Business | Wednesday, August 25, 2021 | Updated: 9:50 AM ET

    Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (CNN)Face masks are required again in major US auto factories and, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley, that has some workers deciding not to show up for work. In some factories, absentee rates can exceed 20%, he said in an interview with CNN Business.

    “When a fifth of your workforce isn’t coming in, in a manufacturing operation where everyone has their job and you don’t know who’s going to be missing every day, man, it’s really challenging,” Farley said.

    General Motors GM: (%), Ford F: (%) and Stellantis STLA: (%), the company that makes Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler vehicles, agreed with the United Auto Workers union in early August to begin requiring masks in their factories again. That mandate has contributed to the absentee problem, Farley said.

    “The economics of staying out of work are getting more attractive during the summer,” he said. “It’s people that are apprehensive. It’s people who say, ‘I don’t want to wear a mask this week.’ It’s a variety of things.”

    Spokespeople for GM, Stellantis and Toyota, which was not party to the UAW agreement but also now requires masks in its US facilities, would not share information about absentee rates in their factories.

There’s more at the original, but it boils down to one thing: even at United Auto Workers’ wages, Americans don’t like to be controlled. And CEO Jim Farley said the quiet part — at least, kept quiet by the media — out loud: people don’t want to be muzzled.

This is why Kentucky voters gave Republican state legislative candidates such a huge advantage, as they campaigned against Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) COVID restrictions, and this is why Pennsylvania voters passed a constitutional amendment limiting Governor Tom Wolf’s (D-PA) executive authority, and this is why school boards across Pennsylvania — Governor Wolf asked local school boards to issue mask mandates, but 415 out of 474 school districts declined — and Kentucky — two-thirds of districts voted against them — decided to keep masks optional.

But the credentialed media won’t put 2 + 2 together and get 4, because they don’t want to get 4. Philadelphia instituted a city-wide indoor mask mandate two weeks ago, but now The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that enforcement is very spotty, if it exists at all.

    Since Philadelphia’s new mask mandate took effect two weeks ago, at least 102 complaints have been filed through the city’s 311 line about businesses not complying.

    But city officials can’t say how many violations have been found, warnings have been issued or even the number of complaints it investigated. They say they don’t keep count, and that any inspection reports regarding mask compliance end up funneled into its cumbersome, often tough-to-navigate restaurant inspection database, ostensibly alongside complaints about cockroaches, filthy restrooms and freon leaks in walk-in freezers.

    Business owners at times have chafed at the pandemic restrictions over the last 19 months, but enforcement of the mask mandate is mostly the same as last year. Merchants and companies are largely responsible for enforcing it within their premises, with relatively little oversight or tracking. (Last summer, city officials said they had completed a few thousand inspections and ordered seven restaurants to temporarily close for not complying, but later stopped tracking those numbers.)

    Jabari Jones, president of the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, said it’s unfair for businesses to be held accountable for customers failing to wear masks, and he’s heard from many business owners who say they have “kind of shrugged off” the latest rules.

    “There’s just a growing indifference toward some of these mandates,” he said, “because it’s like, ‘Dude, how am I supposed to catch up with all this stuff if you keep changing the rules without any notice or advance conversation with the business community?’”

There’s more at the original, but the point is simple: a lot of people are resisting mask mandates, and even a very blue city like Philadelphia — Joe Biden won 81.44% of the vote there — is seeing the public resist. It is democracy in action, people voting with their bare faces against the orders Our Betters.

The Lexington Herald-Leader will never do the investigative work which would tell us that those food service and bus driver positions are going unfilled because potential applicants do not want to wear face masks, or be subject to mandatory vaccination orders, but that’s certainly part of the problem. The credentialed media, which continually tells us how vital they are to democracy, are not willing to dig deeply into the facts on an issue on which they have already come down firmly on one side.

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Impeach Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd!

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. Photo: Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts.

I wrote Impeach Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd! back on March 3, after he issued his illegal and unconstitutional injunctions against laws passed by the General Assembly, and it appears I was right. It took way, way, way too long for the state Supreme Court to rule that the injunctions should not have been issued, and order the injunctions dissolved:

    We find that this matter presents a justiciable case or controversy but that the Franklin Circuit Court abused its discretion in issuing the temporary injunction.[1]Cameron v Beshear, Section B, pages 13 forward. Accordingly, we remand this case to the trial court with instructions to dissolve the injunction.[2]Cameron v Beshear, page 2.

Now, five days later, we find that Judge Shepherd is not going to follow the instructions to dissolve the injunctions!

    KY judge delays following Supreme Court COVID order as Beshear & lawmakers negotiate

    By Jack Brammer | August 26, 2021 11:57 AM

    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and legislative leaders are working together on a new set of COVID-19 emergency orders, which they hope to present to a Franklin Circuit Court judge before he dissolves an injunction against new laws that will torpedo Beshear’s existing emergency orders and regulations.

    At a status conference hearing Thursday morning, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd said he will follow the Kentucky Supreme Court’s instructions in a ruling last Saturday for him to dissolve the injunction but he will wait until the court hears more about the work between the Democratic governor and the Republican legislative leaders.

    The high court unanimously said the injunction was wrong and that the new laws limiting Beshear’s emergency powers during the coronavirus crisis should not have been blocked. A provision in one of the new laws would limit Beshear’s executive orders to 30 days unless renewed by the legislature.

Just where in the Court’s ruling does it give Judge Shepherd the discretion as to when to dissolve the injunctions?

    Beshear has said he would like to implement a statewide mask mandate, but lawmakers have shown little interest in that suggestion.

Of course they haven’t: getting rid of the mask mandate was what the voters elected the legislators to do!

    David Fleenor, counsel for Senate President Robert Stivers, told Shepherd he did not know exactly when the negotiations between the governor and lawmakers would be completed but said he expects it to be in days, not weeks, quickly adding, “I hope I’m not being overly optimistic.”

The Court specified that the General Assembly makes policy for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, not the Governor,[3]Cameron v Beshear, page 20: “As we have noted time and again, so many times that we need not provide citation, the General Assembly establishes the public policy of the Commonwealth.” yet somehow Judge Shepherd believes he has the authority to hold off on following the Supreme Court’s instructions to dissolve the injunction until he hears more about what, if any, negotiations are ongoing between the Governor and legislative leaders.

That was not part of the Court’s ruling.

Judge Shepherd has told the parties to report back to him on Tuesday, September 7th, 12 days from now, and 17 days since the Supreme Court issued its ruling. Judge Shepherd, who had already suspended the laws which the state Supreme Court noted were passed legally, for 171 days, now thinks he can add another 17 days on top of that. That would be one day short of 27 weeks, more than half a year.

The state House of Representatives needs to impeach this judge when the regular session begins next January, and the state Senate needs to remove him from office and attaint him from ever holding another office in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The state Court of Appeals needs to overrule him and dissolve the injunctions, if the Supreme Court doesn’t beat them to it; I would expect Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R-KY) to immediately appeal Judge Shepherd’s refusal to dissolve the injunctions, and move that he be removed from the case.

References

References
↑1 Cameron v Beshear, Section B, pages 13 forward.
↑2 Cameron v Beshear, page 2.
↑3 Cameron v Beshear, page 20: “As we have noted time and again, so many times that we need not provide citation, the General Assembly establishes the public policy of the Commonwealth.”