Just don’t go crazy

Leonora LaPeter Anton, Michael Braga, and Anthony Cormier, Tampa Bay Times (via Ritholtz):

Florida’s state-funded mental hospitals are supposed to be safe places to house and treat people who are a danger to themselves or others.

But years of neglect and $100 million in budget cuts have turned them into treacherous warehouses where violence is out of control and patients can’t get the care they need.

Since 2009, violent attacks at the state’s six largest hospitals have doubled.

Nearly 1,000 patients ordered to the hospitals for close supervision managed to injure themselves or someone else.
…
state officials have no way to know how much violence occurs at their own facilities.

Since 2005, DCF administrators have steadily relaxed reporting requirements so that hospitals no longer need to disclose most patient injuries. The reports that have been filed are in such disarray that accurately comparing them over time is impossible.
…
Instead of hiring more guards, adding nurses or increasing counseling sessions for patients, DCF and state lawmakers kept cutting.

From 2011 to 2013 alone — at the same time violent incidents rose across the state — former DCF Secretary David Wilkins oversaw $61 million in cuts from the hospitals, more than 15 percent of their funding.
…
The hospitals eliminated almost a third of their workforce.
…
In 2010, state health inspectors discovered
raw chicken dripping blood on top of hard boiled eggs that were about to be served to patients.

In 2013, inspectors found fire extinguishers in a cabinet that had
been painted shut. The central alarm in one building no longer triggered an alert, putting 300 patients at risk. It had been broken for two years.

In 2015, some patients had no air conditioning. Others found roaches in their cake.
…
One patient had his scalp split to the bone and wound up in a coma because his rival thought he had “demonic powers.” A female counselor left alone with a patient was beaten so badly she now uses a cane to walk. At the hospital in Macclenny, a man lost two fingers when he was trapped in a room and a patient slammed the door on his hand.

It’s amazing reporting.

Cue Gomer Pyle

Media Matters:

Wayne Simmons has been arrested after a federal grand jury indicted him on “charges of major fraud against the United States, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government,” including allegedly falsely claiming he worked for the CIA. Simmons was a frequent and favorite guest on Fox News, and was one of the conservative media’s purported experts on the 2012 Benghazi attacks [he also wrote for Human Events and served on an Accuracy in Media “Citizens Commission”]. Simmons joined several prominent conservative activists and media figures in calling for the House to convene a Benghazi Select Committee.

At last an arrest! Maybe they could arrest the entire Fox New network for impersonating a news channel.

What? The Benghazi investigation was political?

Poor Kevin McCarthy. Blamed for giving away the game that the Benghazi investigation was purely political. Now an investigator of the committee, Major Bradley F. Podliska, has filed a complaint over his firing, alleging that he was actually trying to investigate what happened and the committee impeded him.

But it gets stranger. Podliska is a Republican and plans to vote for the GOP nominee.

Even though he’s a witness to one of the most serious abuses of power that can be done by a political faction, the misuse of the investigative power of a committee to prevent finding out how Americans were killed.

Preserved for posterity: the lies of Chris Christie

Tom Moran, Star-Ledger editorial board:

Most Americans don’t know Chris Christie like I do, so it’s only natural to wonder what testimony I might offer after covering his every move for the last 14 years.
…
My testimony amounts to a warning: Don’t believe a word the man says.

If you have the stomach for it, this column offers some greatest hits in Christie’s catalog of lies.

Don’t misunderstand me. They all lie, and I get that. But Christie does it with such audacity, and such frequency, that he stands out.
…
[Christie] told [public workers] their pensions were “sacred” to him.

“The notion that I would eliminate, change, or alter your pension is not only a lie, but cannot be further from the truth,” he wrote them. “Your pension and benefits will be protected when I am elected governor.”

He then proceeded to make cutting those benefits the centerpiece of his first year in office.
…
• In May, Christie told Megyn Kelly of Fox News that the Bridgegate scandal was basically over:

“The U.S. Attorney said in his press conference a few weeks ago there will be no further charges in the bridge matter. He said it affirmatively three or four times.”

Not even close. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said the investigation continues, and that the two indicted Christie aides could wind up pleading guilty, which would yield a new trove of evidence.

“It’s like the end of Downton Abbey,” Fishman said. “You have to wait for a whole ‘nother season.”
…
• In March, Christie told a conservative gathering in Washington that he cut money to Planned Parenthood because he was “unapologetically” pro-life.

That was probably true. The lies came earlier, when he fended off criticism in pro-choice New Jersey by repeatedly saying the state’s financial pinch forced him to cut “worthy” programs like this one.
…
•In February, Christie claimed that he was a personal friend of the King of Jordan, which would allow him to accept gifts without limit, like a sumptuous weekend with his extended family in a desert resort enjoyed at the king’s expense.
…
Christie and his clan ran up a hotel bill of $30,000. He had met the king once, at a political dinner.
…
•Two weeks ago, Christie bragged to a national TV audience about his success with pension reform.
…
Supporting the pension reform? The court found those reforms to be unconstitutional.
…
He is a remarkable talent with a silver tongue. But if you look closely, you can see that it is forked like a serpent’s.

I would add, the louder he talks, the more he’s covering up. The ruder he is, the more closely people should examine what he’s saying. I hate to equate human beings to a deadly disease, as I have done implicitly with the category this is filed under. Really, it is the sort of shameless lying Christie engages in that is the disease. He’s just a corrupt, self-righteous, pompous, incompetent who happens to have that horrible and disfiguring disease.

The face of evil

Added: To be clear, the point is that evil doesn’t look any different than what we see every day. The face of evil is found in someone exulting in being a slumlord, in the easy acceptance with which the Tea Party–of which many chapters have close links to the Conservative Citizens Council– has met with the media, and in the refusal of this country to recognize the mass murder in Charleston as being the result of something embedded in our national DNA, namely the “original sin” of slavery. This sin can only be removed by genuine repentance, which means de-normalizing racism in whatever form it appears. As long as a guy like Earl Holt III is normal, the whole nation is polluted.

___________________

Via David Nir, DK.

Earl Holt III is a white supremacist, radio personality on WGNU, and leader of the Council of Conservative Citizens. He has replaced the fortunately late Gordon Baum as the president of that organization. Why a man like this was allowed to use the public airwaves is beyond me.

This is how Earl Holt III describes himself in FEC filings:

This is the face of evil, ca. 1990 (From Lindsay Bever of the WaPo):

Lindsay Bever:

[Holt] preferred, he said, “to contribute directly to conservative Republican candidates, ONLY, because we do not trust the RNC to spend our money as wisely as we would. Moreover, if it occurs to us to mention it, we also indicate our preference for Tea Party-endorsed candidates, to whom we have been quite generous the last few election cycles.”

And this is the face of evil now:

(Via Hinterland Gazette)

And here is the list of politicians who happily accepted contributions from a self-described slumlord:

Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas
ex-Rep. Charles Djou of Hawaii
Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska

As the Rev. William Barber said, The perpetrator [of the Charleston massacre] has been arrested, but the killer is still at large.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing

Matthew Taylor, The Guardian:

Human rights experts and technology groups have launched a new tool allowing members of the public to scan their computers and phones for surveillance spyware used by governments.

Amnesty says Detekt is the first tool freely available that will allow activists and journalists to find out if their electronic devices are being monitored without their knowledge.
…
Detekt was developed by German security researcher Claudio Guarnieri after discussions with human rights activists. It will be launched on Thursday in partnership with Amnesty International, British charity Privacy International, German civil rights group Digitale Gesellschaft and US digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Meanwhile, our freedom-loving Senate Republicans are blocking any limits on spying on Americans (although, paradoxically, this may possibly be good news). We can’t even get those radical leftist Senate Democrats to release the torture report even though 30 U.S. military generals have urged that it be released. Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian, from August:

Three of the Middle East’s most brutal and hated dictators participated fulsomely in pre- and post-9/11 renditions: Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Though the CIA cultivated robust relationships with their security services, cemented around counter-terrorism, the US would later abandon Mubarak, aid in Gaddafi’s overthrow and killing, and come within a hair’s breadth last year of attacking Assad.

Through those alliances, the US secretly permitted the architecture of rendition to encompass their partners’ enemies. Documents recovered by Human Rights Watch in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s overthrow showed the US capturing and interrogating Gaddafi’s opponents in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, whose ties to al-Qaida were nuanced and transactional, and then rendering them to Gaddafi.

“Interrogation” entailed, among other things, being sealed inside a small “confinement box,” repeated beatings and waterboarding – all within CIA custody, and all before transference to Gaddafi’s prisons for even more brutal treatment.

You might want to sign this petition

I hate liars. From Luke Brinker of Salon:

Debate moderater Kyle Clark to GOP Senate candidate Cory Gardner] “So let’s instead talk about what this entire episode may say about your judgment more broadly,” Clark said. “It would seem that a charitable interpretation would be that you have a difficult time admitting when you’re wrong and a less charitable interpretation is that you’re not telling us the truth. Which is it?”

Petition to Denver Post to retract endorsement of crackpot Cory Gardner against sane person Mark Udall.

Richard Mellon Scaife, patron of the Dark Side of American politics, has a fatal cancer.

Richard Mellon Scaife, has an untreatable cancer:

Nothing gives perspective to life so much as death.

Recently, doctors told me I have an untreatable form of cancer.

Some who dislike me may rejoice at this news. Naturally, I can’t share their enthusiasm.

The diagnosis has prompted me to consider my life, the city and region I call home, the country I love, and the many people I have known — especially those who are friends, or whose lives and achievements I respect.

In coming weeks and months, I hope to write about some of these things.

Richard Scaife was responsible for some of the worst of American politics. As Katie Heimer wrote,

The Arkansas Project was created and funded with the sole objective of digging up, and if necessary fabricating, any information that could be used to defame the Clintons and those around them. Over the course of several years, Scaife allocated approximately 2.4 million dollars to the [American] Spectator for sole use in its “investigative” efforts to defame and humiliate Clinton(Lewis), efforts which resulted in the “revelation” (“fabrication” is perhaps more accurate in most cases) of tabloidesque stories such as the “Troopergate” and Whitewater scandals, Paula Jones’ allegations of sexual harassment, and the legitimization and continuation of conspiracy theories about the death of Deputy White House Counsel and close Clinton friend Vince Foster, among others (Phillips).

The “investigative” efforts of those involved in the Arkansas Project eventually led, albeit indirectly, to Clinton’s impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal….
…
Over the next thirty years, Scaife alone would contribute $200 million to conservative causes (“The Right’s Big Moneyman”). This growth and expansion of
conservative journalism and conservative think tanks, which together formed a cohesive social and political movement, continued throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, bolstered by the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Smear politics, using fabricated accusations, were a staple of Mr. Scaife’s dedication to journalistic principles. Vince Foster committed suicide not just from depression, but because of the unjust accusations that Scaife leveled. Susan McDougal spent years in jail because of Scaife. Julie Hiatt Steele was bankrupted. But the most heart-rending stories are of the ordinary people who didn’t have any status or money to lose. They were ground into the dust for the sole purpose of illegally seizing power away from Bill Clinton, a man who was democratically elected. And, of course, the hypocrisy of Dick Scaife tormenting Bill Clinton for infidelity, exceeds all measure.

There are those who will welcome Mr. Scaife’s illness and impending death. I am not one of them. His pain, if any, relieves none of the pain of his victims. His death, when it occurs, will restore nothing. It will simply remove the context for why this country is so polarized and angry. His illness will will solve nothing. And from Scaife’s tone, it sounds as if he has learned nothing, regrets nothing, and will use him immense fortune simply to destroy more.

Sadly, there are dozens more like him, men (and a few women) with whom God has been extraordinarily generous and patient, to the point that the rest of us are neglected. They continue to pour money into corrupting and perverting the functions of democracy and, like John Moniz, turning Americans from a proud and free people into desperate courtiers.

But I suppose that Scaife’s illness can serve as a teachable moment, when we remember the evil that he did, and that will live on long after his bones are interred and his name forgotten.

Plus ça change

Sean Hannity learns nothing:

The Bundy standoff in Nevada with the Bureau of Land Management has many Americans questioning the overreach of government and the constitutionality of the government taking/owning land that isn’t for a specific federal purpose. Could the BLM be aiming for Texas be next?

The Bundy case may not be the last we’ve seen from the Bureau of Land Management. As Ben Shapiro writes today in his column, “Like Bundy or not, his situation will not be the last of its kind, so long as the federal government insists on its ever-growing authority, and so long as states and localities refuse to stand up for their citizens.”

Now, the federal government is eyeing 90,000 acres along the Red River lands in Texas. The Attorney General of Texas Greg Abbott wrote a letter to the head of the Bureau of Land Management expressing his concern and asking the department for answers. Keep in mind that the head of this department is a man by the name of Neil Kornze, who used to work for none other than Harry Reid.

Abbott states in his letter: “Respect for property rights and the rule of law are fundamental principles in the State of Texas and the United States. When governments simply ignore those principles, it threatens the foundation of our free and prosperous society.” He says that “the BLM’s newly asserted claims to land along the Red River threaten to upset long-settled private property rights and undermine fundamental principles—including the rule of law—that form the foundation of our democracy.”

Harry Reid himself referenced “the rule of law” in his opposition to Cliven Bundy’s actions, but clearly he fails to see how the rule of law also applies in this way when it comes to private property rights. In essence, we are arguing two sides to the same coin.

Abbott told Breitbart that he’s ready to “go to the Red River and raise a ‘Come and Take It’ flag to tell the feds to stay out of Texas.” Texas Governor Rick Perry has also weighed in, standing along side Abbott in Texas’ defense of private property rights.

I’m with Texas on this one. You don’t mess with Texas.

According to his 4/24 show, in which he interviews Texas AG and GOP Goober nominee Greg Abbott, he is writing a letter to BLM to find out what’s going on. Shoot first, ask later, Sean.

This is what Jim Malewitz of the Texas Tribune says:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is the latest state official asking that question in relation to a looming U.S. Bureau of Land Management decision about what to do with a swath of federal and American Indian land in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — including the acreage in Texas along a 116-mile stretch of the Red River.

On Tuesday, Abbott sent a letter to Neil Kornze, BLM director, seeking information about the agency’s plans for the land, some of which North Texans have long considered theirs, using it for cattle grazing and growing crops.
…
Paul McGuire, an agency spokesman, said the disputed land has not been fully surveyed, and that it hopes a new survey will clear up the confusion about its ownership.

“It’s been mischaracterized in different forms, as if BLM is coming to seize land or take land in some form,” he said. “That is definitely not the case.”

Sean says he wants to move to Texas. He’ll fit right in.

Remembering Paul Weyrich

My post on how the right is seeking to attack the IRS for its questioning of anti-abortion groups which may have broken the law unearthed a Max Blumenthal article on Paul Weyrich:

In 2001, Weyrich circulated a commentary accusing Jews of murdering Jesus. When a conservative writer named Evan Gahr attacked Weyrich as a “demented anti-Semite,” he learned how powerful the conservative founding father truly was. In short order, neoconservative activist David Horowitz barred Gahr from writing for his FrontPageMag and forced him to apologize to Weyrich.

Obsessed with ideological purity, Weyrich homed his most vitriolic attacks on the Republican congressional leadership. David Grann’s classic profile of Weyrich as a “Robespierre of the Right,” published in 1997 in the New Republic, is probably the best window into Weyrich’s often destructive efforts to force the GOP to the hard right. “The problem with Gingrich,” Weyrich said of the House majority leader at the time, “is that he does not have any immutable principles that he would die for.” (Weyrich sued The New Republic for libel after it published Grann’s article, a suit that was dismissed.)

In 1996, Weyrich was diagnosed with a debilitating spinal injury. Five years later, the injury consigned him to a wheelchair. He spent the last years of his life in constant pain, and took heavy doses of painkillers. In 2004, after a bad fall, Weyrich’s legs were amputated. But he soldiered on, addressing conservative conferences and pumping out a steady flow of commentaries urging the Republicans to stay tethered to their right-wing base.

In September 2006, foreshadowing Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s notorious remarks about her congressional colleagues two years later, Weyrich called for an FBI investigation of reporters who harbor subversive attitudes and urged the resurrection of the House Un-American Affairs Committee.

Paul Weyrich was truly one of God’s weirder pieces of work.