Big Pharma Gouging Gets Even More Infuriating With New Site "Correction."

Mallinkrodt CEO Mark Trudeau. Getting rich off by endangering
infants by price gouging anti-seizure meds. Nice. 

Gizmodo, a news, technology and science website, recently ran an incredibly infuriating article about a company called Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.

This outfit bought another pharmaceutical company called Questcor in 2014.

Anyway, Gizmodo reported that Questcor and Mallinkrodt increased the price for a drug called Acthar from "just $40 in 2000 to over $40,000 today, despite the fact that Acthar has been o the market since 1952."

Acthar is a medication that helps prevent seizures, especially in infants, so it's kind of an important drug.  Mallinckrodt rakes in about $1 billion annually from the now overpriced Acthar, said Gizmodo, citing a CNN report.

When I read that, I thought that can't be true. That's just a ridiculous price increase that nobody would dare try.

It turned out the article wasn't entirely true. Mallinckrodt sent Gizmodo an email, demanding a retraction to an error in the story. Gizmodo obliged. Here's the mea culpa that Gizmodo ran:

"Correction: This article originally stated that the price of Acthar had gone 'from just $40 in 2000 to over $40,000 today.' A spokesperson for Mallinckrodt emailed to request a correction that Acthar actually costs $38,892 today. Gizmodo regrets the error. We also regret that every last one of these guys isn't in prison yet."

Yep, Mallinckrodt was upset, not that they increased the price of a necessary drug by nearly 100,000 percent within two decades. It's that Gizmodo ever so slightly exaggerated the cost of the drug.

As if bilking people to to the tune of $40,000 is beyond the pale but doing the same for a mere $38,892 is not.  No wonder the Gizmodo correction was so snarky.

Drug companies executives do deserve to rot in jail. The Gizmodo article accurately pointed out this:

"Curiously, there's a drug called Synacthen that's identical to Acthar and sells for just $33 in Canada. So why isn't Synacthen available in the U.S.? Because Mallinckrodt bought the U.S.rights to Synacthen and simply doesn't make it available to American consumers."

Because Mallinckrodt figures infants who are injured or die from seizures because medicines are too expensive are definitely worth the profits.

The Gizmodo article explained the Mallinckridt expects to pay a $15.4 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice because of allegations that Quester bribed doctors and their staff to prescribe the super expensive medication.

Yeah, to you and me, $15.4 million seems like a lot of money to you and me. But remember, Mallinckrodt makes $1 billion a year from Acthar alone. It's comparable to the "pain" I would experience if I got a $5 parking ticket.

If this whole thing was just one isolated incident to piss you off, that would be one thing. But the news has been filled with news of Big Pharma boosting prices to sky high levels for fun and especially profit.

It doesn't matter that these new sky high prices are literally killing people. You've heard the stories. Insulin prices have soared, for example. Type 1 diabetics were paying an average of $5,705 in 2016, almost twice as much as just four years earlier. Insulin prices have spiraled in the three years since.

According to USA Today, the Senate Finance Committe told insulin makers to detail their price increases. One vial of Eli Lilly's Humalog went from $35 in 2001 to $234 in 2015. Between 2013 and this year, Nordisk's insulin went from $289 to $540.

The price got so high that diabetics started to ration their insulin. That killed many of them.  These deaths are worth if for the millions these pharma executives are raking in, apparently.  I guess they found a way to literally get away with murder.

The Pharma industry has guaranteed their profits through blocking competition, herculean efforts to confuse patients so they don't understand how much drugs really cost, notes a U.S. News and World Report.

All in the name of profits. We've gotten so dystopian that we just accept this as normal, when people should be marching in front of these evil Big Pharma companies with pitchforks and torches.

I hope there's a special place in hell for these pharma and insurance executives who think it's OK to literally kill people so they can suck up even more millions of dollars.

Texas Judge Is Latest Evangelical To Go Off The Rails

This weird Texas judge tried to overrule a jury by attempting
to get them to declare a defendent innocent because God
supposedly told this judge she was innocent. Riiiiight. 

I'm confused by some very conservative, so called Christian evangelicals who seem to think Donald Trump is some sort of hero.

It's a little hypocritical for them to embrace a guy who among so many other things, seems to have cheated on his wife with a porn star.

But, the more corrupt evangelicals (not most of them, but the ones in power, it seems) love Trump because it looks like he'll let them do anything they want. Or so they think.

The latest person who thinks he can get away with a lot is a Texas judge who recently try to get a jury to find woman accused of trafficking a teen girl for sex innocent. The reason? God told him to intervene, said the judge.

Judge Jack Robison told the jury, "When god tells me I gotta do something, I gotta do it,"

Or not. The jury ignored the judge, thank goodness and went with the evidence instead. The panel convicted Gloria Romero-Perez and she was later sentenced to 25 years in prison. The judge was also forced to recuse himself from the trial's penalty phase.

The jury foreman, Mark House said he and others on the jury either filed or intend to file a complaint with the Texas Judicial Conduct Commission.

Mark A. House, jury foreman in the weeklong trial of Gloria Romero Perez that concluded Jan. 12 has already filed a complaint. His filing states:   "Judge Robison came into the jury room during deliberations two times and informed the jurors that he did not believe the defedent was guilty or should spend 25 years in prison."

Talk about trying to tamper with a jury!

Let me put it as bluntly as possible. When somebody informs you that God told you to do something, that person knows deep inside they shouldn't do it. They try to throw you with the "authority" of God.

The only people who buy that argument are the people saying God made them do it. Right, Roy Moore?

Let's hope sane minds prevail in Texas and they get rid of Judge Robeson once and for all.

Stunning Hypocrisy In Roy Moore Scandal: Molesters "Better" Than Democrats?

National embarrassment Roy Moore still has lots of
deluded defenders who think nothing is worse than a Democrat

It's time for you to vote for your U.S. Senate candidate. You have the choice between two guys. Here they are:

1. This one, a former prosecutor, in the past won the conviction of KKK members who bombed a church and killed four young girls.

2. The other one, in the past, molested a 14 year old girl.

You'd think the choice would be obvious, but that's not how the world works anymore, apparently. I had thought there was nothing the extreme right wing of the Republic Party could do that would shock me anymore.

Yet once again, I was proven wrong. In Alabama, it appears the molester has an excellent chance of winning the election, not the former prosecutor. That's because pedophilia can be ignored if the molesting candidate hates gays, liberals and wants to turn Christianity into a mandatory nationwide religion.

To backtrack: You might have heard about the Washington Post bombshell about ultra-conservative Roy Moore, who is seeking the Alabama U.S. Senate seat vacated when Jeff Sessions left the Senate to become U.S. Attorney General.

Apparently, decades ago, Moore sexually molested a 14 year old girl, who went on the record with the story for the Washington Post this week.

While many people, including quite a few GOPers, condemned Moore for this behavior, there are a number of his defenders who made the wildest excuses for Moore. These excuses are just scary.

Yeah, a little hypocrisy at work here, no?  And while we gawk and mock this Republican hypocricy, this whole Moore thing totally sets in place Alabama's reputation as a weird, scary place, at least in the political and "religious" side of things. People are suffering because of the likes of Moore.

Moore has famously said that being gay is such an abomination that gay people should be in jail. But apparently, sexual contact between consenting adults is a high crime if the people involved are of the same gender, but sexual contact between non-consenting people, even when one of them is not an adult is A-OK.

The contortions Moore's supporters are going through to boost Moore are beyond belief.

This being Alabama, the state's auditor, Jim Ziegler, justified Moore's behavior this way: "Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

Oh, really?  I thought it was the Virgin Mary, and Joseph didn't boink Mary, no matter what her age was. But logic doesn't matter when you want to elect a bigot.

The Cullman, Alabama Times reports that one state representative actually said Moore's accusers should be prosecuted. For what, I don't know.

And check out this tweet by some loser named Carroll Bryant: "I'd rather have a pedophile in office rather than a democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Pedophiles only screw kids while democrats screw everyone."

Cute, huh?

Obviously not every Republican and not everyone conservative is on Moore's side.  However, the true believers are.

Mother Jones points out how Moore, again, does his biblical imagery to keep his evangelical base.

Because apparently, some true believers are so easy to snow over.

Check out Moore's successful fundraising email that went out right after the latest scandal came to light last week. His missive read in part:

"We are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal - even inflict physical harm - if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me....

That's why I ust be able to count on the help of God-fearing conservatives like you to stand with me at this critical moment."

Got that? Anyone who doesn't buy my holier than thou bullshit is the devil, is the clear message here.

It's not that others aren't  trying to shake so called Alabama "evangelicals" awake.

Here's part of an editorial from the Alabama Political Reporter:

"What's it going to take before you realize that your family values, my-sin-is-better-than-yours-sin,  conservative voting approach has produced a state government filled with lying cheating, sexually assaulting, money-grubbing criminals who have embarrassed us countless times, and on top of everything, mismanaged the hell out of this place?

"........Take a look around you. We're terrible as a state. We're near the bottom in public education, medical care, infrastructure, economy and upward mobility and at the top in infant mortality, poverty, obesity and political corruption. 

This is what the Roy Moore Republican Party has brought Alabama. A government built on greed and hatefulness, on shunning anything different and thumbing our nose at any hint of progress."

In the National Review, writer and attorney David French suggests that evangelicals are actually showing no faith in their own faith with this situation.

French writes:

"I keep hearing these words from evangelicals; We've got no choice. The Democrats are after our liberties. They're seeking to destroy our way of life Some even go as far as to say that even if the allegations against Moore are true, they'll still hold their nose and put him in office to keep (Democrat) Jones from serving three years in the Senate. 

I'm sorry, evangelicals, but your lack of faithy is far more dangerous to the Church than any senator, any president, or any justice of the Supreme Court. Do you really have so little trust in God that you believe it's justifiable - no, necessary - to ally with, defend, and even embrace corrupt men if you think it will save the Church?

Apparently the answer is yes. And it's proof that at least among some of the wacko right wing conservatives, their so called religious faith is completely hollow.

Which brings their "morality" down to the level of Moore and his ilk.

Seth Meyers Helpfully Unpacks Manafort Indictments, Fox News Emojis

Seth Meyers ever so helpfully got us to wade through the
Manafort mess and how Fox News broke a major scandal

Leave it to Seth Meyers, in his "Closer Look" segment, to help us understand the rather confusing swirl of events involving Monday's Manafort indictment and the whole thing with possible Russian collusion in his campaign.

Fox News was NOT helpful in this regard, as Meyers points out, but Fox News did uncover another grim scandal of national importance. A Google emoji of a cheeseburger depicted the cheese UNDER the meat rather than on top.

Of course, this was much more important than the Manafort stuff, so I'm glad Fox got to the bottom of the cheeseburger scandal.

Without further ado, here's Seth Meyers unpacking the whole mess of news yesterday:

Trump IS Running America Like A Business

Trump got into the Oval Office in part because people wanted
to have the government run like a business. Trump, and many
of the people who voted for him, are discovering why this
method isn't such a good idea.

Frustrated with high taxes and government waste, a lot of people tell us they're sick of the way Washington is run. 

Why can't the government be run more like a business?

That's why a lot of people voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans.

Well, I'm pleased displeased to report that the United States government is being run exactly like a business.  Not a very well run business, mind you, but a business.

I hope you're happy

Traditionally, western democracies are run in such a way that everyone is in this together. You have rights - voting, free speech, government services, etc - and you have responsibilities.  You vote, pay your taxes, don't violate the laws and you contribute to society.

A business is different. If you're running a business, you try to maximize profits. And you shed the parts of your business that are not making money. Everything is dispensible. Including people. It's cold, dispassionate decision making.

So let's look at how things are going in our government, which really does seem to be running like a business now that Trump, Mr. "Art of the Deal" is running the show.

The process has been a mess, with deals and counterdeals and doubts and recriminations. This Washington DC "corporate board room" is admittably pretty dysfunctional.

The bottom line is they were looking at repealing Obamacare and replacing it with....something else.

This something else would mean that people who are poor, elderly, sick, don't work are denied health coverage.

Oh, I know the GOP will tell you that the free market will take care of these people, that they'll get insurance one way or another.

That's just PR - another important part of running a business.

But we have to deal with reality. Let's face it: The poor, elderly, sick, disabled, etc. are not profitable.

They don't really have much in the way of incomes. Which means there's no money they can be cheated out of . They're expensive, what with all those health issues. Why put up with such a losing part of the corporaton?

So cut them off. Without health insurance and any other social net kind of protection, they'll die off earlier. They'll go away. They won't be a burden on the bottom line. Write 'em off!

Of course you'll never hear the likes of Paul Ryan put things in those terms. Bad PR. (See above) Most people don't have this cold, calculating attitude. But some of the most successful corporate people do, and if some people die in the process that's just business. Gotta make a profit!

When you're running a business you've got to protect yourself from competition. You don't want some frisky upstart to screw up your business model.

That's probably a good share of why the EPA is so anti-environmental, why the EPA chief denies climate change, and the Secretary of State is an oil executive.

There's all those entrenched oil companies making oodles of money, and that could be threatened by those damn climate change activists and alternative energy upstart companies.

What if somehow, the products made by the clean energy companies become wildly popular, inexpensive and easy to use?

Those oil companies would be stuck with little income and tons of oil sitting "uselessly" in the ground.

With Trump being friendly and cooperative, and probably an investor in oil, why not use the White House as a business model to make sure those upstart competitors don't siphon profits away?

Secretiveness is a hallmark of running a business. You don't want competitors or regulators finding out what you're doing. If they do, they'll take advantage.ll

Speaking of regulations, rulemaking is why government shouldn't be run like a business.

Most of the time, businesses are regulated by laws and regulation that prevent, say, cheating customers, polluting the atmosphere, swindling stockholders, that kind of thing.

Regulations cost money. That's why the Republicans are (seriously!) talking about getting rid of things like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education.

Sure, that's politicians giving a hand to their business constitutents, but it benefits them, too. (See: campaign contributions.)

Plus, the Trump administration is full of people from industries and business, including Trump himself, who will personally financially benefit from fewer regulations.

Abolishing the Education Department would really be a win for the Corporate White House. Uneducated people, which is what they want, tend not to ask critical questions, or even know which questions to ask.

Again, if some of the rest of us suffer because of pollution problems, lack of education or some other anti-regulation effect, too bad. We should just shut up and allow these corporate titans to make their billions.

Us 99 percenters are dispensable, apparently.

It's turning out to be hard, though to run the United States government like a business. We saw that with the imploded attempt to get rid of Obamacare, which, as noted above, would have made it impossible for millions of us to get health insurance.

Activist stockholders can be annoying to the Corporate Titans, but voters in a democracy are even "worse."

As Congressional Republicans worked to abolish Obamacare, voters screamed and hollored and lobbied and harassed the politicans who would do them harm in the name of personal profits.

Betray voters like this and a politician might find himself or herself eventually out of a job. Plus that pesky judicial system occasionally stymies the corporate profit making machine in government by pointing out that some of what they're doing is unconstitutional.

I guess the Constitution is a hinderance to unbridled profit taking in government.

Oh well.

The health care "overhaul" turned into an embarrasing disaster for the "businesslike" GOP that should have known better.

Corporate chiefs like Trump and his minions are used to barking orders and getting what they want.

Trump isn't as powerful as he thinks he is. We all know his thin skin and snowflake like insecurity makes him weak.

And, we hope, he's beginning to prove he's no match for a constitutional Republic.

Latest Outrage: Pentagon Clawing Back Enlistment Bonuses To California Guardsmen

Robert D'Andrea, a retired Army Major, has been toldhe has to
repay $20,000 in enlistment bonuses because
recruiters improperly  issued the bonuses. So he's being
punished for somebody else's misdeed. Photo by Al Seib/LA Times. 

UPDATE:

A couple days ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter suspended the clawbacks of bonuses given to Californial National Guard members.

It's possible the clawbacks might be reinstated at some point, at least for some people, though that's in doubt.

And what do you do with the people who already repaid the bonuses, which were given improperly, though the people that received them had no idea they were given the money wrongly.

Congress might step in and wipe the slate clean for everybody involved. But you can't trust Congress with anything these days.

It was nice of Ash Carter to suspend the clawbacks, but why did he, along with everybody else, wait to take action until bad publicity, courtesy of the LA Times, caused the uproar?

THAT, I'd like to hear.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

I guess when you don't need extra soldiers to fight your wars, you throw them under the bus.

That seems to be the case with nearly 10,000 California National Guardsmen, who were enticed to serve with bonuses of up to $15,000 to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times, which broke the story Saturday,  tells us.

Says the LA Times:

"Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses - and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse - after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade."

In other words, the California Guard brass improperly offered the bonuses, but its the soldiers who took the bonuses that are being punished, even though they had no idea the bonuses were improper.

The soldiers, understandably, are angry the Pentagon is reneging on ten year old agreements and imposing terrible financial hardships on veterans.

As one of many examples, The LA Times cited Robert Richmond, 48, who received a bonus, and then received permanent back and brain injuries in a road side bomb blast in Iraq. The Pentagon is trying to claw back more than $19,000 in bonuses, penalties and interest from Richmond.

He's too far in debt to qualify for a home loan, and doesn't know how to pay back the money.

"I signed a contract tht I literally risked my life to fulfill.....We want the somebody in the government, anybody, to say this is wrong and we'll stop going after this money," Richmond told the LA Times.

 So far, it does not appear the crooked leadership of the California Guard is getting in all that much trouble.

After a federal investigation regarding the bonuses started, Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, California Guard's incentive manager, pleaded guilty to filing $15.2 million in false claims and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, the Los Angeles Times said.

OK, fine, but, again, why are they punishing the soldiers who took the bonuses in good faith?

As always, it seems, the mucky-mucks don't get screwed for their misdeeds. Instead, their victims get victimized again.

Aren't you proud to be an American?

Now that the Los Angeles Times has thrown a harsh light on this scandal, politicians are finally falling all over each other to fix this mess.

The Pentagon says they were required to seek the reimbursements from the soldiers because it was a matter of law, something that only Congress can do.

God save us.

Anyway, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said there would be a House investigation on this issue, and called the situation disgraceful.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now say they want to change the law to void the repayments.

Where were they, though, before the shit hit the fan and the publicity struck? After all, I'm sure some of these soldiers and veterans who were being harassed to repay the money contacted their local Congress Creatures, asking for help.

Couldn't legislation have been introduced before so much of this heartache happened? The Los Angeles Times said Congress has known about this situation for two years and did nothing. Why?

I hope this isn't another  case where we make soldiers risk their lives and throw them away. Can't we do better than this?

Are People Charged With Felonies In Flint Water Crime Scapegoats, Too

Three people now face criminal charges for helping
cause Flint, Michigan's epic water crisis, but
will Gov. Rick Snyder face charges, too?
I hope an investigation into what he did or didn't
do stays aggressive.  

A lot of us heard the news yesterday that three people involved in the Flint water crisis has been charged with crimes.

This is part of the whole mess in which the entire city was poisoned by bad municipal water basically because the govenor of Michigan wanted to save money, to prove what a High and Mighty fiscal conservative he is.

You know, for future political gain. Maybe he could one day be president!!

Or not. Gov. Rick Snyder's political career is on the ropes because of all the negative publicity swirling around this fiasco.

The Flint Journal, and basically the rest of the national media said Michael Glasgow, a Flint municpal water employee and Steven Busch, and Michael Prysby, both Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees, are charged with felonies.

They're accused of falsifying and tampering with water test results that downplayed the high levels of lead in the water. The high levels that permanently damaged many of Flint's children,

But Snyder saved money switching to the Flint River for the city's water, away from Detroit's system. The governor is fiscally conservative!  It's worth it to poison kids to save taxpayer's money, right?

I'm harping on the governor so much because I'm still convinced the three charged with crimes were under immense pressure from the highest levels of Michigant government to falsify data.

If the three charged with doing so actually did tamper with evidence and alter test results, they ought to be punished.

But the ones that ordered them to do so need even greater punishment.

The Flint Journal/MLive notes that Glasgow, the municipal water employee, tried to warn against switching Flint's drinking water source to the Flint River. He knew something bad was happening.

Just before the switch, Glasgow wrote in an email: "If water is distributed from this plant in the next couple weeks, it will be against my direction."

Sounds to me like someone in state government told Glasgow to change his direction or he will face some sort of awful hell from the governor's office. Or someone high up there.

For what it's worth, Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who uncovered how bad the Flint water situation really was says Glasgow "should not be put in the same category" as the two state employees who are facing criminal charges, the Flint Journal/MLive reported.

"He made mistakes, but I've see nothing in the evidence I've uncovered that puts him in the same league as the other instigators," Edwards said.

It seems Busch, too, tried to warn against using Flint River water, but someone made him change his tune, too.

Michigan's attorney general says the investigation is far from over and more criminal charges against other people might well be coming.

I just hope this goes to whoever was ordering the coverup that led to so much suffering in Flint.

If the governor indeed drove this, he deserves to be in prison too. For a lot longer time than the low level employees who are facing charges.

We'll see if justice is served. I have my doubts, but you never know.

This is important for all of us, not just Flint. Politicians and everyone need to understand if you hurt people, hurt them severely for political gain, you won't get away with it.

That seems like a minimum requirement for a public official, right?

Checking In On Flint: The Scandal Keeps Getting Worse

The revelations about how the administration of
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder managed Flint's water,
leading to mass lead poisoning among the city's residents,
just keeps getting worse and worse.  

I feel like I should check in once in awhile to see how the scandal involving Flint, Michigan's water contamination is going.

The water isn't getting much better in terms of lead poisoning and other contaminants.

Speaking of contaminants, the drip, drip, drip of scandal news is getting worse and worse in terms of how the people running the show handled this whole thing.

I'm repeating reporting from publiciations like Flint Journal, MLive, Detroit News,  The Guardian and other outlets, as I believe their reporting on this tragic scandal ought to be repeated as often as possible. The bit of any optimist in me hopes this drumbeat of reporting and sharing information might help to prevent something like this from happening again, and/or hold people accountable.

Way back in April, 2014, so called financial "emergency managers," in a cost cutting move, switched Flint from a more expensive water source from Detroit to a less expensive source in the Flint River.

The Flint River is full of pollutants. City residents almost immediately began complaining about water quality, but, given that budget austerity is MUCH more important than people's health, or so the emergency managers, under the Gov. Rick Snyder seemed to think.

As we now know, the Flint River water was incredibly corrosive, and wore down pipes, which leached lead into the drinking water. Thousands of people were likely poisoned and many kids will now live the life long cognitive health effects of lead poisoning.

I've said before Snyder's handling of the whole thing is criminal and he should be jailed, much less the governor of Michigan.

And as with most scandals, new revelations over how bad this thing was managed keep coming out.

There was a growing, very loud chorus from Flint residents by October, 2014 about the water.

Michael Gadola, Snyder's legal counsel wrote in now-leaked emails that the Flint water situation had gotten "downright scary" and said the city "should try to get back on the Detroit system as a stopgap ASAP before this thing gets too far out of control," according to The Guardian. 

Well, it was too far out of control, but I get what Gadola was saying. He knew, correctly, that if Snyder stayed the course, this would get even uglier. Much uglier. We know now he was right.

However, other advisors to Snyder decided it would be too expensive to assume the monthly $1 million cost to return to Detroit water.

Yeah, that's pricey, but what about the effect on Flinters' health. And if you don't care about people, it's gotten a lot more expensive than $1 million a month, now, huh, Ricky?

The Guardian's reporting goes on:

Snyder's chief of staff at the time, Dennis Muchmore, told the Detroit News last week, "The assessment was you couldn't do it because it was a cost that should have been borne by the system."

On February 5, 2015, a reporter asked the Snyder administration about returning Flint's water to Detroit. State Treasury Spokesman Terry Stanton said, again, it would be too expensive to do so.

Later that day, according to the recently discovered emails and documents, Muchmore wrote that switching Flint back to Detroit would "probably be a good use of money as opposed to people refusing to use city water."

He went on: "After all, if (General Motors) refuses to use the water in their plant and our agencies are warning people not to drink it....we looks pretty stupid hiding behind some financial statements."

That memo referred to a previously disclosed GM's decision not to use Flint water in its plant because it was corroding the brand new cars it was trying to manufacture. And it referred to a state office building in Flint in which workers were given bottled water to avoid Flint water, a piece of the scandal also previously disclosed.

Snyder finally put Flint back on Detroit's water in October, 2015 when the public pressure finally became too much to bear.

This new information above, reported in The Guardian and Flint Journal, were part of a batch of 2,500 emails released last week under Freedom of Information Act requests.

Why didn't we read these sooner, when other batches of Flint water-related emails were released?

Because the administration, naturally dragged its feet on releasing them. I can give Snyder a quick PR 101 lesson here: If there's a mess up: Release all the information you have right away. No matter how hard you try to hide information, it's going to come out sooner or later.

The PR damage, if thats the only thing you care about, will be much less if you're upfront, early.

Getting back to the Flint water issue here,  Snyder's administration has repeated said, over and over again, it was Flint officials' decision, not his or his aides or his emergency managers, who decided to take Flint off Detroit water in the first place and start taking water from the dangerous Flint River.

The Flint Journal reported this weekend, that despite Snyder's claims to the contrary, emails show that wasn't the case.

Says the Journal: "Newly released emails show an aide to Gov. Rick Snyder disputed that notion just days before a damning op-ed by former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley.

'It is important to note that council did not take a vote to use Flint river (sic)',  Harvey Hollins, Snyder's director of urban initiatives wrote in an October 7, 2015 email to Dan Wyant, former director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Days later, Earley penned an op-ed claiming Flint officials approved the switch to the Flint River as the city's drinking water source."

The Flint City Council DID agree to stop using Detroit water, but they also never voted to start taking water out of the Flint River.

This doesn't make clear precisely who decided to make the switch, but it doesn't exactly absolve Ricky, does it?

I'm sure there will be a continued slow parade of new revelations about Flint, his emergency managers and the government of Michigan.

Meanwhile, Flint is still struggling with undrinkable water, an unknown number of kids from Flint, no doubt many, will have to contend with the lifelong effects of lead poisoning, and gawd knows new horrors we will learn about what happened to all those unsuspecting citizens of Flint.

I keep saying Snyder should face criminal charges. Investigations are still underway. But it's looking worse and worse for him. Though frankly, I care much less about him than I do about the fine residents of Flint, Michigan.

Let's Literally Kill People With Surprise Ambulance Fees!

Warning: A trip to the hospital in an ambulance
might bankrupt you, because insurance and profits  

It's become the American Way: If you don't think you're making enough money, just sneak in a bunch of exorbitant fees that catch you by surprise.

The airline industry is a leader in that, with fees for every little service that used to be included in the air fare. Hotels do it.

Then, hospitals and doctors started doing it. Somebody who is not in the patient's insurance network  steps into the operating room or whatever just briefly. Then they would present a huge bill to the patient for the minimal amount of work they do.

Ambulance companies are doing it, too, in one of the worst stories I've heard about this type of practice

According to Consumerist, many people who get trips to the hospital in ambulances often get huge bills from these ambulance companies.

Apparently, you're suppose to know ahead of time which ambulance is covered by your insurance, and you are somehow supposed to know, when you're in the throes of a heart attack or something, which ambulance company to call, which employees need to be working on that ambulance and even the route that ambulance will take.

You call an ambulance in an emergency. By definition, during an emergency you can't spend hours researching who works at which ambulance service and which ambulance is covered by your insurance and which one isn't.

So you take your chances and call an ambulance. But maybe you won't.

This is the most Darwinian, evil of business practices. If you take it to its logical conclusion, people who don't have much money and are in an emergency will be afraid to call an ambulance and just die. People who have money will call the ambulance, and if they are presented with a big bill, they'll just groan, then pay it.

In nature, it's the survival of the fittest. In our current system, it's survival of the richest. If you're poor, whether it's your fault or not, you deserve to die. If you're rich, whether you've earned all that money or not, you deserve to live.

I get it. The cost of ambulances and paramedics and all that must be paid for by somebody. You'd think there would be some way to pool insurance plans across competitors or something that you pay only your deductible under your insurance plan no matter which ambulance takes you to the hospital.

That way, you pay your fair share through the deductable and your normal insurance premiums, and the ambulance companies get paid, like they need to.  But I guess it's more profitable to just find loopholes and force people to pay huge out of network fees.

I can't afford our current system, and neither can a lot of other people, but we're stuck. There's money to be made, profits to gather, and if a few people die and/or go bankrupt, oh well.

I guess if I ever need to go to a hospital, I'll need to take my chances and hope somebody gives me a ride, and gets me there in time.

Wood As An Ingredient In Cheese, And Other Wrong Things In Our Store Bought Food

Does the grated parmesan cheese you buy at the
supermarket have wood pulp in it? Probably.
This is another example of how the food
industry lies to us. 

If I eat prepackaged shredded parmesan cheese, will I get termites?

An odd question, yes, but maybe not so odd given the revelations this week that some grated cheeses have an unannounced ingredient: Wood.

Well,  it's cellulose, but most of that comes from ground up wood.

In 2012, it turns out the federal Food and Drug Administration raided a Pennsylvania cheese factory and found that Castle Cheese Inc. was doctoring its so-called 100 percent real parmesan cheese with substitutes like fillers and wood pulp, says Bloomberg News.

Castle's president, Michelle Myurter pleaded guilty recently to criminal charges. She could face up to a year in  jail and a $100,000 fine, Bloomberg says. 

It also looks like other producers of grated parmesan cheese fill it in with what is basically groud up wood.

This wood, or cellulose as regulators call it, is considered a safe additive and can comprise up to four percent of that can of parmesan you pick up at the local Piggly Wiggly or whatever.

Bloomberg had various paremsan cheese from grocery stores tested.  The results weren't great. Essential Everyday has what it calls 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, but a sample from a Jewel-Osco store in Wisconsin showed it was actually 8.8 percent cellulose

I guess Essential Everyday thinks that wood chips are the exact same thing as cheese.

Other grated parmesan cheese came back with anything from 0.3 to 7.8 percent wood chips.

The worst part about all this is we can't trust food manufacturers to tell us what's really in the food they sell us. That's because marketing is more important than truth. And safety.

True, most of the lies they tell us are about ingredients that probably wouldn't harm most of us. But there are people allergic to certain things. Nobody would ever be able to trace things back because who knows exactly what you ate and when?

There's a lot of examples of inaccurate food claims:

Olive Oil:

Last year, we learned that extra virgin olive oil might be anything but. According to CNBC and numerous other media outlets, Italy's anti fraud investigators were probing whether seven well known olive oil brands were selling lesser quality olive oil as "extra virgin."

Again, the extra virgin olive oil that really isn't won't hurt you, but you're paying extra from a high quality product that is not high quality at all.

Extra virgin olive oil comes from the first press of olives, which is the best. Subsequent presses aren't as good, and are sold as either virgin olive oil or just olive oil.

Maple Syrup

Here where I live in Vermont, maple syrup is an important industry. Just last week, members of the Vermont Sugar Makers Association and other maple industry groups took the food industry to task for saying there's maple in their products when there is not, according to the Associated Press.

Again, the artificial ingredients and corn syrup that masquerades as maple syrup in such products as oatmeal and energy bars won't hurt you much, but they lead you to believe that you're getting wholesome maple syrup when you're really not.

Says the AP:

"Roger Brown, chairman of the Maple Industry Committee of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association, said maple syrup - derived from heating sap from maple trees - is a premium product and sweetener and for that reason a number of companies imply that a product contains maple without the ingredient being present. 

He said the association has asked the FDA to investigate so that consumers get what they're looking for, and maple producers get compensated for their hard work."

Pet Food:

Even pet food is subject to ingredients that aren't there.

According to Poisonedpets.com, Blue Buffalo was forced to admit last year that it had chicken by-products in its pet food, like internal organs, renderings etc. That was contrary to what Blue Buffalo packaging and advertisements said.

This came to light only after pet food rival Purina, which grew suspicious, sued Blue Buffalo.

Assume They're All Lying.

I guess the bottom line here is many, if not most food manufacturers are lying to us about what is in the food they sell us.

The only way around it is to grow all of our own food, which of course is a huge challenge for most people.

The FDA says they focus more on food safety rather than ingredients, which makes sense. The FDA is too short staffed and underfunded to go after people who lie about what ingredients they put in our food.

Industry wins over our well-being again, I'm afraid.







 

Michigan City, State Officials Thought Giving Children Lead Poisoning Is OK If It Saves Money

The nation's worst scandal, lead poisoning due
to Michigan government ineptitude or worse,
is not getting enough attention

UPDATE:

Under mounting pressure MIchigan Gov. Rick Snyder requested the Obama administration declare a federal state of emergency in Flint over the poisoned water crisis.

Obama quickly made that declaration Saturday.

Of course, it was the Snyder administration's actions that ultimately led to the mass lead poisoning of Flint's children because of the bad water, as Snyder and his minions were trying to save money.

Of course, "saving money" led to this tragic and expensive disaster.

The emergency declaration will free up $5 million to federal aid, which would go toward trucking clean water into town and distributing water filters in the hopes that will help.

Obama was forced to deny Snyder's request for a disaster declaration which would have freed up more money to rescue Flint from its bad water.

However, disaster declarations can only be made if there was a natural disaster. This was man made. Flint would have been better off, in one sense, had a big tornado trashed the city. Instead, conservative politics trashed the city, with Ma Nature havng nothing to do with it

I'm all for Obama's decision to declare a federal emergency in Flint, The people there need all the help they can get. But as a taxpayer, I resent the politicians who, in trying to demonstrate how "fiscally conservative " there are, ended up costing taxpayers like me and you all this money to help Fiint.

Meanwhile, Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders said Snyder should resign from his position as governor because of the Flint Water Crisis.

Said Sanders in a statement: "There are no excuses. The governor long ago knew about the lead in Flint's water. He did nothing. As a result, hundreds of children were poisoned. Thousands may have been exposed to potential brain damage from lead. Gov. Snyder should resign."

The nationwide anger at Snyder is really - finally - building now. This has become a national story, and the pressure on the Snyder administration is intensifying, which is great.

Saturday, when Sanders first Tweeted his desire for Snyder to resign, I retweeted and responded. "...or face criminal charges."

I don't think I've ever gotten so many retweets and likes from any comment I've ever made on Twitter.  This is out of about 17,500 Tweets I've posted since June, 2011.

I do think there will be a lot of investigations into Snyder and the managers he appointed to ruin run Flint.

I hope justice is served, and if there was indeed criminal wrongdoing by Snyder or anyone in his administration, they go to jail for a long, long time.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION FROM JAN. 7:

There's been an unfolding scandal in Flint, Michigan that I can't believe hasn't gotten more attention than it has.

An unknown number of children have suffered lead poisoning due to apparent incompetence and a potentional cover up by the ironically named Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

This bad acting might go up all the way to the Michigan Governor's office.

Luckily, the media - and the nation - are finally paying more and more attention to this crisis and scandal, but still not enough is being done.

They were involved in what was to be a money saving move to stop buying expensive drinking water from Detroit and take the water from the Flint River instead.

The only problem is the Flint River is wicked polluted and those pollutants are corrosive. So the corrosive water wore down lead pipes in the Flint water system, and people were drinking water heavily laced with lead for months.

The basic questions are: Did politicians know that kids and families in Flint, Michigan were being poisoned by high levels of lead in drinking water? And did they do nothing because it would have cost money to fix the problem? And would spending money ruin their conservative bonafides? And were those conservative bonafides more important than the health of Flint's children?

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder finally apologized for the fiasco over the New Year's holiday, but was he culpable in this, too?

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into this, and Dan Wyant, the head of the Michigan Department of Environment Quality (MDEQ) has resigned. The federal Environmental Protetion agency is also investigating.

The MDEQ continuously denied there was a problem for most of 2015 even as evidence mounted that there was a dangerous problem with Flint's drinking water.

None of this would have come to light had it not been for some dogged heroes. One was the Flint Journal and its parent media company, MLive, which pursued the story relentlessly. (Pulitzer Prize for them?)

MLive has a handy dandy chart that cuts through the complexity of this thing and gives you a flow chart of who were the good guys and who were the bad guys here.

There were major heroes to this story as well.  Michigan Public Radio kept at this, too.

A huge assist came from ACLU of Michigan, which kept hammering away to get documents proving the problem. Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards got involved and proved there was indeed a crisis with lead and contaminated water.

Other hereoes include Erin Brockovich, who used her fame to try to broadcast the problem to a larger audience. There were Flint residents like Melissa Mays who would talk about this to anyone who would listen.

Unfortunately, there were also a large number of villians here that covered up the problem as long as they could.

From 2011 to April, 2015, Flint city government was under the control of an emergency manager appointed by Snyder, rather than local government. This was because Flint's city budget had ballooned to $19 million.

No matter what the reason for the budget deficit - local incompetence, circumstances beyond anyone's control or a combination - the emergency managers were pretty undemocratic.

The managers reported directly to the governor, and not the people of Flint. The voters of Flint basically couldn't hold anybody accountable for their actions, since the mayor and city council were essentially just there for window dressing.

That lack of accountability helped lead to the debacle, many observers believe, since Flint residents had little ability to demand change or create change in leadership through the ballot box.

Potential villians, then, in this case include Snyder, who only belated came on board to say Flint's water was dangerous. There's Darnell Early, who advocated to switch the water source to the Flint River. He also says it's the Flint City Council's fault, but there's no record of that council deciding to take water fron the Flint River.

Then there's the guy who just resigned from his directorship at MDEQ, who kept saying for months Flint's water was safe, even as evidence mounted that it wasn't. The MDEQ spokesman, Bradley Wurfel, who also recently resigned, kept attacking the credibility of Edwards and his fellow Virginia Tech researchers, even though it turns out they were exactly right.

Were these potential villians just in denial, sticking to their original proposals because they made them and they "had" to be right?  Or was this an attempt at a coverup, trying to prevent word from getting out that the water was unsafe?  Preventing, that is, until they could come up with a Plan B, or figure out a way to shift blame to somebody else?

In any event, documents uncovered showed indications of high levels of lead in the drinking water by July. Yet, this information was suppressed until at least September, and people kept drinking the dangerous water.  Officials tried to poo-poo the situation as a harmless "seasonal change" whatever that is.

Was this situation a "missed opportunity" to release information as one state official said, or was it a coverup?

"Everyting they looked at, they found a problem, and they never told anyone," Edwards said of the MDEQ, according to MLive.

It's certainly not over for soe of Michigan's leaders who might be culpable in this fiasco.

Even celebrities have gotten involved. Filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore is asking U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate Gov. Snyder. 

Cher actually Tweeted that Gov. Snyder should be executed over this, which definitely seems a little over the top.

What's way, WAY more over the top is how elected leaders could know something is wrong with the water, that children were being permanently damaged by lead and possibly other contaminants in the drinking water, and still drag their heels.

Again,  it smells like elected officials, including Snyder, might have made their political futures with a fiscal conservative brand more important than the children of Flint, Michigan.

Snyder is refusing to say what he knew and when he knew it in regards to Flint's water, says NBC News. 

If this isn't a scandal of immense proportions, I don't know what is.

Let's hope the Justice Department investigation actually gets some answers, and here's hoping that MLive, Michigan Public Radio and other media outlets- local, national and international - keep the pressure on to get completely to the bottom of this.

Even worse than all this, Flint's water is still dangerous and nobody is really doing anything about it.

True, they're not taking water from the Flint River. They've switched back to Detroit. But the corrosion in the pipes from the previous Flint River water is still very likely leaching lead into the drinking water supply.

You'd think with an emergency declared, you'd get something like big National Guard tankers full of water in Flint to distribute clean water, Red Cross and other big volunteer groups helping, and people going door to door making sure people were drinking safe water.

But, nope. Flint is full of people who are in and near poverty. The economy has been very rough on Flint. In this nation's political world, poor people don't matter, so the residents of Flint, and their children, are still drinking dangerous water that is injuring them.

It's not like they can afford to drive to a suburban Big Box store and buy cases of bottled water. They have no cars and no money to do this.

I guess Snyder's administration's message to Flint is go screw yourselves.

Outrage: Elderly, Sick Man Has To Dial 911 Just To Get Food To Live On

 Clarence Blackmon, an elderly cancer patient,
had to call 911 to get groceries because
 the rehab center he was at discharged him
and left him to his own devices. Assholes.  n

The following story has been presented in the media as a heartwarming story, but I'm outraged by it.

An elderly man, weak with prostate cancer, was discharged from a hospital and sent home. Great! He's recovering with the help of family and visiting nurses and plenty of follow up care from the hospital.

Just kidding!

He was dumped into the house and left to his own devices and was physically incapable of getting any food. The man got so desperate that he called 911 and asked someone there to buy him groceries.

"What i need is someone to get to the grocery store and bring me food, because I need to eat something. Whatever you can do to help. I can't do anything. I can't go anywhere. I can't get out of my damn chair," Clarence Blackmon told 911 dispatcher Marilyn Hinson, according to the Huffington Post. 

Click on this sentence to listen to the tough 911 call Blackmon placed

Luckily, the 911 operators didn't tell him that they were only for emergencies and tell him to go away. Hinson  recognized this was an emergency.  Hinson's supervisor entered Blackmon's name into the computer and learned he was ill and had no family in the area. Blackmon's wife died in 2011.

They also discovered Blackmon had withered away to 115 pounds in large part because he was unable to get food for himself.

Hinson went to Blackmon's house with officers from the Fayetteville, North Carolina Police Department to deliver groceries. They also made sure that Blackmon would get follow up care and help.

That's the heartwarming part.

Here's why I'm outraged, though. It appears as if the hospital just discharged Blackmon without making sure he would get the help for follow up treatment. What, was the old guy unprofitable now? Maybe used up his insurance or something? Groceries don't make pharmaceutical companies profitable like pills do, was that the problem?

According to the Inquisitor and ABC News, the private treatment and rehabiliitation center that discharged Blackmon never bothered to contact the North Carolina Department of Social Services, as they should have.

The DSS is now involved, helping Blackmon, and an outpouring of donations because of news reports about this incident are going to Blackmon and others who need help.  (He's donating the extra food he can't keep to the Salvation Army.)

Still, my blood is boiling. Does this rehabilitation hospital and others in the country just dump people out on the street when they're done with them, figuring they'll just die a quiet death and stop bothering everyone for shrieks?

I hope the people who did this to Blackmon at the hospital are punished BIG TIME. It's also time for investigation on how other hospitals and rehab centers discharge people who can't fend for themselves.

Now there's a good story idea for you journalists and muckrakers out there.

Chicago Police Apparently Has Their Own Guantanamo

Homan Square in Chicago. Kind of
a Chicago Police Guantanamo Bay. Probably
very unconstitutional. Will it be stopped?  

I've long been suspicious of heavy military equipment owned and operated by local police.

You know, tanks, missile launchers, all that kind of stuff that risks blurring the line between protecting and serving the public and turning areas to tense military zones.

But if a bombshell article in The Guardian is true, I had no idea it was this bad.

It turns out the city of Chicago has what amounts to its own Guantamano, a secret interrogation compound called Homan Square, which the Guardian called the "domestic equivalent of a CIA black box."

That means family or attorneys could not find people who might have been in there, people spent days inside shackled, sometimes beaten, and almost always denied basic Constitutional rights.

The horrifying Guardian article details the following:

"Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
Beating by police resulting in head wounds
Shackling for prolonged periods
Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility
Holding people without legal cousel for between 12 and 24 hours including people as young as 15"

The Guardian said at least one person was found unresponsive in Homan Square and later died.

Not surprisingly, the Guardian said Chicago Police Department officials would not respond to any of the newspaper's questions.

It appears Homan Square has been operating since the late 1990s, but it's been so secretive that there's been little public attention. People who were brought or imprisoned there tend not to talk about. Apparently, it's been made known that discussing it could make Chicago Police act rather unpleasantly toward people who open their mouths.

Many of those brought there are people arrested at protests. I guess out of concern for terrorism.

But many people who are unconstitutionally shelved into Homan Square are just rank and file drug dealers and similar accused criminals. Why not just book them like you normally do when they are arrested?

More sane police officials seem to be quite appalled by Homan Square. It's true police often have an office or building somewhere in which most people don't know what's going on. It's usually a quiet little getaway where police can talk with informants without blowing anybody's cover

Hey, you gotta do things like that in police work, so that's cool.

But Homan Square is different: Says the Guardian:

"But a retired Washington DC homicide detective, James Trainum, could not think of another circumstance nationwide where police held people incommunicado for extended periods.

'I've never known any kind of organized, secret place where they go and just hold somebody before booking for hours and hours and hours. That scares the hell out of me that even exists or might exist,' said Trainum, who now studies national policing issues, to include interrogations, for the Innocence Project and the Constitution Project."

Trainum should be scared on two levels. One, as he pointed out, that this civil liberties hellhouse in Chicago exists, as he points out. He should also be scared that other police departments have their own versions of Homan Square, and we don't even know about it.

Of course, the next important question is who in Chicago knew about this. How high up the chain of command does this go?

But the Guardian article does suggest quite a little coverup. This place seems to violate the official rules of the Chicago Police Department, though I'm sure people follow a lot of looser unofficial rules, too.

The Guardian quotes a former Chicago detective and current private investigator names Bill Dorsch:

"Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to legal counsel, would be a 'career ender,' Dorsch said. 'To move just for the purpose of hiding them, I can't see that happening.'"

Then why haven't any cops, detectives or brass had their careers ended by the shenanagans at Homan Square?

I know, I know, focusing on this Guardian piece makes me look like I think all police agencies are a corrupt criminal racket. Obviously, that's not the case. I still have faith in most police departments.

I also know that Chicago has a rich and sordid history of corruption, and Homan Square seems to be just part of that, um, tradition.

But given the fact that this exists, and for all I know exists elsewhere, is disconcerting to say the least.

We keep getting a steady drumbeat of cases concerning police brutality, overreactions and such in the news, and that seems to be unrelenting. Like the case I read about today of a sheriff dragging a mentally incompetent woman by the feet through a Florida courthouse. 

Some of the police unions think police officers and departments can do no wrong. However, every organization has bad apples, and I worry police have more than their share. So why not weed out the bad ones.

Meanwhile, there are some people out there who think all police are awful. That risks encouraging a few wingnut wackos to go off and shoot some innocent cop. That's already happened, of course.

I'll repeat what I've said in the recent past: Maybe it's time for police departments to recognize that when people criticize some of their tactics, that doesn't mean we are anti-police. It can't hurt to at least listen to the critics. If the argument is bullshit, then fine.

But some critics might be exactly right about their police criticism. Really. It's time for reform.

If the Guardian's reporting is correct, time to disband the place One Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba is quite enough. We don't need more in the mainland United States.

Stupid Newspaper "Proof Readers" Slime Ky. Sheriff For No Good Reason

To be clear, Hardin County, Kentucky
Sheriff John Ward thinks people who go into
law enforcement do so because they want
to serve their community, not because
they want to shoot minorities. Idiots at
a Kentucky newspaper changed a
story to smear his reputation, apparenty  

The Elizabethtown, Kentucky News-Enterprise newspaper had a bombshell in the third paragraph of a story concerning law enforcement in Hardin County, Kentucky.

It quoted Hardin County Sheriff John Ward as saying, "Those who go into law enforcement typically do it because they have a desire to shoot minorities."

Given the recent tension involving shootings, and non-prosecutions of white police officers who have shot and killed unarmed black men recently, this was scary. There's already enough tension out there. This would make it worse.

Is Sheriff Ward a horrible racist?

Um, no. Not at all.

Here's the problem. Sheriff Ward never said such a thing.

It turns out when reporter Anna Taylor submitted her article to editors, she had accurately quoted Sheriff Ward as saying, "Those who go into law enforcement typically do it because they have a desire to serve the community."

Not exactly controversial, but hey, it was accurate. That's what we want!

According to the Washington Post and numerous other media outlets, it turns out some so-called proof readers decided to pull a prank and change the quote to that incendiary one about shooting minorities.

Yeah, a real knee slapper.

This had to be the most fire-able offense possible, and editors at the Kentucky News-Enterprise quickly fired two "proof readers." The editors did not elaborate on how the paraphrased quote turned into that false bombshell.

According to media watcher Jim Romenesko:

"Two copy desk staffers - 23 and 32 years old - have been fired, I'm told. One wrote the 'shoot minorities' line on the page proof as a joke and the second - in charge of the front page - put it in the story. One worked at the paper for about six years, the other less than a year."

It looks like one put it in as a joke, and the other unquestioningly went with it, without thinking, "Did the sheriff really say that?"

The article, headlined "Law Enforcement To Be Honored For Service" is still up on the paper's Web site, but it has been corrected to reflect reality, and includes an apology for the original error.

I bet News-Enterprise editor Ben Sheroan is pissed. Wicked pissed. And I don't blame him. How could anybody who works for a newspaper do such a thing, even if they intended, but failed, to erase the stupidity? Of course, maybe at least one of these "proof readers" really intended to get this in the paper, just to stir the pot, as it were.

Sheroan wrote a correction and retraction that read in part:

"Many of Thursday's upset callers asked the same question. 'Doesn't anyone proof your newspaper?'

Well, surprisingly, that's where the error took place. A function and process designed to rid the news pages of error instead added a terrible one that altered the reporter's original sentence. No reasonable excuse can exist."

Again, what were these so called proof readers thinking?

Look at the damage they caused.

First of all, they at least attempted to damage Sheriff Ward's reputation and there's no evidence he deserved it. He could sue for libel, but so far he's said he probably won't. But still. If he's a good cop, let's celebrate him. Patting the good cops on the back and highlighting their good work makes it that much harder for the bad cops to run rampant.

Then there's the issue of damaging the credibility of the whole movement to reform police departments, or at least police officers, who do unfairly target minorities. Those who are resisting reforms would use this as an example for their arguments that police are unfairly targeted by critics.

So let's wreck the reform movement to improve police racial rules. Like I said, these "proof readers" are incredibly awful.

And what of reporter Anna Taylor? She's clearly blameless, but her byline was on that article. Journalists live and die by their reputations for accuracy and fairness, and this might have terribly damaged her credibility.

Will everyone understand that Taylor did her job well and responsibly, and actually wrote an accurate, professional article? We can only hope so.

I almost wish they publicly named these two awful "proof readers" who used to work for the News Enterprise. They deserve to be totally shamed.

I'm glad I never met anybody like these "proof readers" in my three decades in journalism.

Uintah: Worst Public School On The Planet Literally Snatches Food From Kids Because Parents Behind On Payments

Congratulations to Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City for being by far the worst public school on the planet.

Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City, where
the lunchroom bully is apparently the school's
so-called nutrition manager.  

I bestow this "honor" on Uintah because some food service managers there who were pissed off because some parents were behind on their kids' lunch payments, snatched the lunch trays away from the kids whose parents who hadn't paid, and threw them in the trash, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. 

This of course happened in front of the students' classmates, so the food managers bullied the kids, set the Worst. Possible. Example., wasted food, and are basically evil people.

I can't believe so far nobody has been brought up on child abuse charges over this. Nobody has been fired yet, either, which is amazing, though I'm sure that will happen. At least I hope so. A lot of heads need to roll here.

At first, the school offered a pretty weak apology.

"If students were humilated and upset...that's very unfortunate and not what we wanted to happen," said school district spokesman Jaosn Olsen said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Oh, come on!  That's EXACTLY what whoever was responsible for this wanted to happen!  The idiots, who put new meaning into the word "vindictive" WANTED to humiliate the kids, it seems to me,  because they wanted to take it out on somebody. They couldn't reach the parents to humiliate them, so let's pick on the kids!

So I guess there's school sanctioned bullying and child abuse.   It does make me wonder if the idiots in charge of Uintah Elementary School let bullying go on unimpeded.

Another sad thing there are probably a number of educators and food workers and administrators at Uintah Elementary School who have the students' best interests at heart.  The Tribune article noted some employees in the school cafeteria wept when they saw what was going on, but were powerless to do anything about it.

By bullying these kids over really what was a pittance in lunch money, the people who did this surely demoralized the educators who do give a damn about the kids and want them to thrive.  So those good educators are probably less effective now.

Way to create an environment where kids learn!

Since then, after the initially weak "apology" and no doubt because there was a huge, building and understandably torrentially angry outcry among parents, the school put out a Facebook message.

The Facebook message said in part:

"We understand the feelings of upset parents and students who say this was an embarrassing and humiliating situation. We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again."

Notice the careful language here, avoiding responsibility. It refers to upset parents and students who say  this was an embarrassing situation. The word say suggests an attitude of "Well, they SAY they were embarrassed but they're just trying to draw attention to themselves."

The rest of the Facebook post is full of excuses. Well, we tried to get ahold of the parents, we did give the affected students some fruit and milk, yada yada yada.

The school did concede this should have been handled in a different manner.

Ya think?

What in the world was the school trying to gain? They weren't recouping any money from parents who didn't pay because they threw the food out. The school said they threw the food out because it couldn't be served to other kids who did pay once it was placed on a tray.

THEN LET THE DAMN KID EAT HIS FOOD AND DEAL WITH HIS OR HER PARENTS LATER!!!!  I can't believe anybody is that stupid so as to just throw their food away.

Of course, they're not that stupid  As I said, somebody in that school really wanted to humiliate those kids.  Certainly not the majority of people who work there, but one or two people. It only takes one bully to really make a mess of things.

Now this story has gone viral, and the decent people of the world are sending terribly angry messages to the school from all over the world. You should read the comments on their non apology apology Facebook post! 

Feel free to go there and post your own thoughts. (Though please, no threats or ugly language please.)