† Healthcare “Reform” Horror Stories: The Internet is abuzz with the improbable tale of unemployed and uninsured MI resident Kathy Myers, 41, who hurt her right shoulder breaking up a fight between her dogs and when she was unable to find a doctor to treat her, she deliberately shot herself in the shoulder so she could go to the ER. CNN.com reports:

Myers told local Michigan affiliate WSBT that doctors told her “it would have to be life threatening or imminent danger for them to do anything.” In order to make this so, she fired one shot that went through the shoulder, exiting the rear. Soon after, she was in emergency care. The doctors gave her anti–inflammatories and treated the bullet wounds. Without insurance, she was unable to get a CT- scan or MRI and was sent home.

Here are several representative comments posted on CNN Website:

ER Resident Physician: As a physician, ER care is routinely required by law to be given to patients without insurance. We do it all the time. For extremity injuries, particularly of the shoulder, there is no indication for an MRI or CT scan. Gunshot wounds to an extremity 9x out of 10 do not require a CT scan, or MR, only an X-ray, which she received. Certainly this woman has some kind of mental pathology where she believes that she can demand specialized care when it is unnecessary. Patients like this with no insurance who intentionally harm themselves are the reason your health care is so expensive. It is inflammatory articles like this that truly undermine the health care debate.

Jeff: Uh ... I got a job and got insurance. Crazy, I know.

John McCloud: The woman has no health insurance, but is a smoking. She is out of work and can't afford health insurance, but can afford cigarettes. She has no money, but has pets and can afford dog food. See the pattern here?

Website dBtecho.com reports that when Myers’ neighbors heard of her plight, they began raising money for her treatment. If the ER doc who commented on the CNN article is correct about accepted treatment protocols for her type of injury, she still will not receive an MRI or CT scan.

† People Who Live In Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Bricks: In a post for The New York Times’ "Opinionator" blog, New School for Social Research philosophy professor J.M. Bernstein dresses up his anti-Tea Party bias in highbrow gobbledygook (“The seething anger that seems to be an indigenous aspect of the Tea Party movement arises, I think, at the very place where politics and metaphysics meet, where metaphysical sentiment becomes political belief”) to give himself (and other liberals) yet another excuse to trot out the tired and untrue trope that Tea Partiers are violent thugs:

With such rage driving the Tea Party, might we anticipate this atmospheric violence becoming actual violence, becoming what Hegel called, referring to the original Jacobins’ fantasy of total freedom, “a fury of destruction”? There is indeed something not just disturbing, but frightening, in the anger of the Tea Party.

Instead of the ephemera of the metaphysical, The Stiletto would like to discuss the physical – as in actual physical assaults - that those on the left, who have the most invested in President Barack Hussein Obama and his failed policies are perpetrating on Tea Partiers and conservatives.  

An amateur video posted on YouTube last week shows Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC) roughing up a twentysomething young man who identifies himself as a college student and asks the Congressman whether he supports “the Obama agenda,” reports FOX News:

Etheridge is then seen trying to snatch a cell phone camera out of the student's hands. He then grabs the man's wrist and refuses to let go.

"Who are you!" the seventh-term congressman demands. "Tell me who you are ... I have a right to know who you are."

Another man, not seen on camera, then tells Etheridge, "We're just here for a project."

When the student asks Etheridge to "please let go of me," the congressman then grabs him by the neck.
 

Meanwhile in NC, Greensboro resident Govenor Vance Spencer punched Forsyth County Republican Party chairman Nathan Tabor in the face during a protest Tuesday in front of the office of Rep. Mel Watt (D-12^th District), reports Winston-Salem Journal: 

Spencer walked up and argued briefly with the protesters. He was walking away when he encountered Tabor on the sidewalk.

In his complaint used to take out a warrant, Tabor said that Spencer shoved him and shoved his wife. Tabor said he stepped between Spencer and his wife to protect her, and that Spencer then pushed him and hit him in the face.

Spencer's version is that Tabor "had his camera in my face," and that he backed into Tabor's wife as he was getting off the sidewalk. Spencer said that as he was trying to move to the side, Tabor shoved him in the neck. Spencer said he hit Tabor to protect himself because he thought his life was in danger.

Both Spencer and Tabor are charged with simple assault. Spencer is also charged with communicating threats. Both have court dates on July 7 in Guilford County.
 

The Stiletto advises Bernstein to get his head out of the clouds and take a look around at what is going on in the real world. That is, if he can handle the truth rather than some philosophical construct of his fevered imagination. 

† Obama’s One-Two Cha-Cha-Cha: Last year, the Obama administration renamed the “War on Terror” the “Overseas Contingency Operation.” Now, in a speech before the Center for Strategic and International studies last month, John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, decoupled terrorism (“but a tactic”) from jihad (“a holy struggle”) and al-Qaida from Islam – remember, he’s supposed to be on our side. The Washington Times thinks Brennan’s understanding of the enemy is “scary for America” and “bewildering”:

Mr. Brennan believes attacks on the United States should not be justified in religious terms, but this is how terrorists in fact do justify them. His obtuseness is dangerous. Knowing the enemy is a necessary precondition for victory. A good starting point is bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to the American People" in which he explicitly addresses the question of why al Qaeda is at war with the United States. It is a comprehensive critique of American society, which he describes as the "worst civilization in the history of the world." Bin Laden's missive is steeped in religious language and is the product of a radical Islamic intellectual tradition that goes back more than a century.

Mr. Brennan's view of Islam as a universally benign force may lead him to dismiss some of al Qaeda's justifications for violence, which reveals willful ignorance. He may maintain that he knows more about Islam than our enemies, but they are dying to prove him wrong.

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: The Obama administration will ask the Supreme Court to strike down the law Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano – then the governor of AZ – signed in 2007 requiring employers to use the federal "E-verify" database to confirm workers' legal status and revoking the business licenses of those who repeatedly violate immigration laws. But until and unless the law is struck, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio means to enforce it to the letter. Sheriff's deputies raided two Sizzler steak house restaurants in Phoenix and arrested nine employees suspected of being forged documented aliens, reports The Associated Press:

The raids were part of a yearlong investigation into whether the operators of the two Sizzler locations broke a civil law by knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Lt. Brian Lee said in a statement.

Deputies were looking for 23 suspects wanted for identity theft, Lee said. Authorities believe one of the suspects was deported three times and has been hired back by Sizzler each time he returned.

The sheriff's office received a tip from a former Sizzler manager who claimed he had been fired for his refusal to hire employees without the proper documents, Lee said.

In a statement Arpaio said: "This is another example of a case where desperately needed jobs are being occupied by illegal aliens who have disregarded our laws and our borders."

According to a recent Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, 70 percent of U.S. voters want strict government sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

† Another Liberal Gets Mugged By Reality: Kathy Gerus-Darbison, whose husband died from AIDSs contracted by a tainted transfusion and passed the fatal disease to her, got her wish: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability voted 9-6 to continue to reject blood donations from men who have had sex with men, reports The Washington Times:

Gay rights groups and others say the 25-year-old policy is needlessly discriminatory, and the American Red Cross and other blood-collecting groups support a shorter deferral policy, down to as little as 12 months. But blood-user groups lobbied to keep the current policy, saying further research is needed. …

In its written recommendations, the panel agreed that the current deferral policies for MSM donors are “suboptimal,” but current research cannot support change to a specific alternative policy. …

The panel then suggested numerous research projects to “create a road map forward,” as one panelist called it.

These included suggestions to study how blood-donor questionnaires might be changed to distinguish low-risk MSM donors and heterosexuals from high-risk ones, and what would happen if donors were pre-screened with a small blood test before they donated blood for human use.

The panel also said it needed to explore what would happen in the massive worldwide distribution of U.S. blood products if the U.S. authorities changed their MSM donor standards. Many countries also ban such donations, raising questions about whether they would accept American blood donations.

† Life Imitates “A Law Abiding Citizen”: Aaron Vargas drove to a trailer in Fort Bragg, CA, and shot Darrell McNeill to death in front of the man's horrified wife – and both she and the town have rallied around him, reports the Los Angeles Times:

"My husband had a secret life that was unknown to me.... I believe my husband sexually molested Aaron when Aaron was a child and may have also molested other children in Fort Bragg."

Since Vargas, 32, pulled the trigger on that Sunday night 16 months ago, at least a dozen other alleged victims have come forward …

At first there was disbelief that the genial youth leader could have preyed on the town's children. But as stories of the alleged victims began to trickle out, residents of Fort Bragg, a struggling former logging town of 6,855, did the unexpected.

They rose up to support the accused murderer - a young man with a history of alcohol abuse who faced 50 years to life in prison for taking the law into his own hands.

"You'll never hurt anybody again," Vargas said before pulling the trigger, according to court documents. He kicked the body as it bled on the trailer floor. He wouldn't let Elizabeth call 911 until after he was certain that her 63-year-old husband was dead. He told her what McNeill had done to him for nearly 20 years.

Vargas recently pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The reduced charge could put him in prison for up to a decade - or allow him to walk free on probation. He is scheduled to be sentenced this week in Ukiah by Judge Ron Brown.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Israel And The Armenian Question): Now that the American Jewish lobby is letting the chips fall where they may as regards the interests of Israel’s erstwhile ally Turkey, Washington lawmakers on both sides of the aisle feel emboldened to criticize the Islamic republic for its part in the Gaza flotilla incident, reports The Washington Times:

The deadly May 31 flotilla clash off Gaza has prompted some in Congress to condemn Turkey, not Israel, and to note with concern Ankara's steady shift in favor of U.S. adversaries Iran and Hamas. …

For years, Turkey has held a special place on Capitol Hill as a NATO ally and Muslim country maintaining close economic and military ties to the Jewish state. Turkey has acted as a go-between in Israel-Arab dialogue. But that relationship started to sour several years ago, and now some in Congress are taking a second, more critical look at Turkey.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) has written a letter to President Barack Hussein Obama asking him to “condemn Turkey's reaction” to the flotilla incident. In a veiled reference to the Armenian Genocide Resolution, which Pallone supports, he also points out that this pattern of behavior is familiar: “Turkey has chosen to ignore the facts and force its own view of events through threat. We cannot allow these same old tactics to prevent us from taking the right position” [emphasis, The Stiletto].

For his part, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), who has opposed the Armenian Genocide Resolution, made a reference on the House floor to “those of us who have supported the U.S. Turkish alliance in the past” [emphasis, The Stiletto. Perhaps he’s reconsidering his position on aiding Turkey’s nearly century-old campaign of genocide denial.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Never Mind Marxism. Will An Obama Administration Be Totalitarian?: Part II): The New York Times reports that “[i]n 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions”:

Though Mr. Obama began his presidency with a pledge of transparency, his aides have warned of a crackdown on leakers. In a November speech, the top lawyer for the intelligence agencies, Robert S. Litt, decried “leaks of classified information that have caused specific and identifiable losses of intelligence capabilities.” He promised action “in the coming months.”

With libs giving Obama a pass on a host of issues, typically, conservative pundits must point out that if President Bush had done something like create a second Gitmo at Bagram AFB, the left would go ballistic. But The Times beats them to the punch and acknowledges that the Obama administration “has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II): In what one education quality activist calls “the boldest education reform in recent memory,” the CO state legislature is linking teacher tenure to student performance giving only the best teachers the job security that unions have baked into contracts decades, reports The Associated Press:

Many education reform advocates consider tenure to be one of the biggest obstacles to improving America's schools because it makes removing mediocre or even incompetent teachers difficult.

Colorado's legislature changed tenure rules despite opposition from the state's largest teacher's union, a longtime ally of majority Democrats. Gov. Bill Ritter, also a Democrat, signed the bill into law last month.

It requires teachers to be evaluated annually, with at least half of their rating based on whether their students progressed during the school year. Beginning teachers will have to show they've boosted student achievement for three straight years to earn tenure.

Teachers could lose tenure if their students don't show progress for two consecutive years. Under the old system, teachers simply had to work for three years to gain tenure, the typical wait around the country. …

The new tenure rules don’t kick in until 2015, and school districts have the burden of showing a dismissal was terminated should a teacher appeal the decision in the state’s courts.