PHONY MITT ROMNEY AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES. LOL.

U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, ANTONION SCALIA, OPENS DOOR TO GUN REGULATION IN SPITE OF THE COURT'S 2008 DECISION IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VERSUS HELLER. WATCH VIDEO.

JOHN MCCAIN DEFENDS HIS PICK OF SARAH PALIN, MAKES IT CLEAR HE ALSO DISAGREED WITH DICK CHENEY OVER USE OF TORTURE. OUCH! THOSE TWO ARE "TORTURING" US.

McCain defends Palin selection following Cheney criticism

Revisiting the last presidential race, Sen. John McCain defended his 2008 selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate after former Vice President Dick Cheney called the decision a "mistake."

The 2008 Republican presidential nominee, asked Monday about Cheney's comments, told Fox News that "everybody has their own views" and said he remains "proud" of the 2008 team's performance.

"I'm always glad to get comments four years later," McCain said, with a hint of mild sarcasm. "Look, I respect the vice president. He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not. I don't think we should have. But the fact is that I'm proud of Sarah Palin, I'm proud of the job she did, I'm proud of the job she continues to do."

Cheney addressed the 2008 vice presidential nominee selection in an interview over the weekend with ABC News.

"I like Governor Palin. I've met her, I know her. She's an attractive candidate. But based on her background she'd only been governor for what, two years. I don't think she passed that test ... of being ready to take over, and I think that was a mistake," he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/30/mccain-defends-palin-selection-following-cheney-criticism/#ixzz2276bAe1h

Former Vice President, Dick Cheney On The Importance Of Picking A Vice Presidential Candidate: John Mccain Picking Of Sarah Palin Was A "Mistake"! OUCH!! I Know. That Was Why John Mccain Lost My Support And Vote. Watch Video.

Words To Live By, Words Of Wisdom, And Words To Ponder, As PATRIOTIC LIBERTY LOVERS LIKE ME.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

FOUNDING FATHER, Thomas Paine, The Crisis (December 23, 1776)

PHONY MITT ROMNEY IS AN AMERICAN STATESMAN. I'M ROTFLMAO!

SATURDAY BONUS CARTOON: WHY ULTRA LEFTIES DON'T DO FAST FOOD. LOL.

JOEL PETT CONTINUES TO HEART MITCH MCCONNELL. NOT! LOL.

GUN CONTROL? HOW ABOUT SOME GOVERNMENT CONTROL?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SON, TOO TALL. MANY HAPPY RETURNS, SON.

YES, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

CALLING ON BEHALF OF PHONY MITT ROMNEY.

I RECEIVED A PHONE CALL FROM A A PERSON CALLING FOR MITT ROMNEY TELLING ME THAT WE NEED TO VOTE OUT PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND THAT MITT ROMNEY WILL REPEAL OBAMACARE.

SHE WAS SHOCKED TO HEAR ME SAY I DO NOT TRUST PHONY MITT ROMNEY AND OBAMACARE IS REALLY ROMNEYCARE.

SHE ASKED ME WHY I DID NOT TRUST MITT ROMNEY AND I TOLD HER THERE'S NO WAY HE CAN GO FROM BEING ON THE LEFT OF TED KENNEDY TO NOW CLAIMING TO BE THE NEXT ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SHE PROCEEDED TO TELL ME THAT I HAVE TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER, AND I MIGHT AS WELL VOTE FOR ROMNEY INSTEAD OF OBAMA.

I ASKED HER: WHO SAYS I HAVE TO VOTE FOR EITHER OF THEM?

I BELIEF I SPOILED HER EVENING.

WHAT COULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA? NOT THE NRA, AS LIBERALS WOULD WANT YOU TO THINK.

LIBERALS THINK OTHERWISE BELOW:

FOX NEWS HEADLINE: DRUG MONEY FUNDS VOTER FRAUD IN EASTERN KENTUCKY, WELL, I'M SHOCKED! NOT!! WINK!!! WATCH VIDEO.

MADE IN CHINA. LOL.

JOE PATERNO'S "LAST BOWL" GAME. ROTFLMAO!

PEGGY NOONAN TEACHES "A REMEDIAL COMMUNICATIONS CLASS" AT PEGGYNOONAN.COM.

A Remedial Communication Class
Lessons from three recent failures, at the Olympics and on the campaign trail.

Thoughts on three recent failures to communicate:

In the controversy surrounding the uniforms of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, the problem isn’t China. That the uniforms were made there is merely a deep embarrassment and a missed opportunity. Our textile and manufacturing companies deserved that work. You wonder how it could be that no one in the American Olympic Committee or in Ralph Lauren’s company asked, “By the way, we’re making the outfits in America, right?”

And—here’s part of the missed opportunity—on being told yes, someone might have thought: “Hey, we could do a nice commercial to run during the games, with American women and men making the uniforms, looking up from their sewing machines as the camera goes by and saying, ‘Good luck America.’ The last shot is of a seamstress at the end of the day on a floor in the New York Garment District. As she goes to turn off the lights, she walks by a mannequin wearing the full uniform, gives the shoulder a little pat and says, ‘Good luck, kid.’” As if we’re all in this together, and what we’re all in is actually bigger than the games.

Instead—sigh—China.

But that isn’t the biggest problem. That would be the uniforms themselves. They don’t really look all that American. Have you seen them? Do they say “America” to you? Berets with little stripes? Double breasted tuxedo-like jackets with white pants? Funny rounded collars on the shirts? Huge Polo logos? They look like some European bureaucrat’s idea of a secret militia, like Brussels’s idea of a chic new army. They’re like the international community Steven Spielberg lined up to put on the spaceship at the end of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Americans wear baseball caps, trucker hats, cowboy hats, watch caps, Stetsons, golf caps, even Panama hats and fedoras. They wear jeans and suits and khakis and shorts and workout clothes. The Americans in the now-famous uniform picture look like something out of a Vogue spread where the models arrayed on the yacht look like perfect representatives of the new global elite.

Our athletes aren’t supposed to look like people who’d march under a flag with statues and harps and musical notes. Also, the women’s uniforms make them look like stewardesses from the 777 fleet on Singapore Airlines.

The failure of the uniforms is that they don’t communicate: “Here comes America.”

They communicate: “Chic global Martians coming your way.”

***

The reason Mitt Romney isn’t releasing more tax returns can be reduced to three words: Bill Clinton’s underwear. When he first ran for president, Bill Clinton put out his tax returns. Lisa Schiffren, an enterprising young writer for The American Spectator, went through them and found that the Clintons, when they were in Little Rock, had gone to great lengths to limit their tax bills, to the point of itemizing each contribution to local charities, including Mr. Clinton’s old underwear. Hilarity ensued. This is the kind of thing everyone in national politics fears.

But the question remains. Mr. Romney has known at least since 2007 that he would be running for president. He never in that time made sure his taxes from that date would pass rigorous public examination? This is odd, especially since he’s supposed to be so methodical, tidy, organized and prudent. The political answer to the question “Should Romney reveal more tax returns?” is, “That depends on what’s in them.” But the nonpolitical answer is yes, he should.

The failure of communication here involves failing to arm proactively against the problem, and reacting flat-footedly when it arrived.

***

The president stepped in it this week with his own failure to communicate.

Mr. Obama, at a campaign appearance at a fire house in Roanoke, Va.: “Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.” If you own a store or factory “somebody invested in roads and bridges,” somebody built the infrastructure that allows for commerce. Fair enough. We all built it, with public moneys for public benefit. But it makes as much sense to tell the wealthy businessman, “Feel guilty because the taxes of the poor built that highway,” as it does to tell a mother on public assistance, “Feel guilty because your hardworking neighbors built that road.”

How about nobody feel guilty.

The president seemed to me to be confusing a poor argument—he implied we owe our wealth and growth as a nation to government programs—with a good one, that nobody achieves success alone. This is true: Nobody proceeds unhelped through life, everyone who’s achieved something got some encouragement from a neighbor or a teacher or a coach.

But Mr. Obama makes this point mischievously. He aims his argument at his political opponents—Republicans, Romney supporters. Yet many of them—most, probably—are involved one way or another with churches, synagogues, civic groups and professional organizations whose sole purpose is to provide assistance and encouragement to those who are ignored and disadvantaged. Conservatism doesn’t mean “do it alone.” God made us as social animals and asks us to help each other.

Mr. Obama was trying to conflate a nice thought—we must help each other—with a partisan and ideological one, that government has and needs more of a role in creating personal success. He did not do it well because his approach was, as it often is, accusatory and vaguely manipulative. Which makes people lean away from him, not toward him.

It is odd he does not notice this, because communicating is his obsession. He made this clear again in his interview last week with Charlie Rose. “The mistake of my first couple of years was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right,” he said. “But, you know, the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism.”

I am certain the president has no idea how patronizing he sounds. His job is to tell us a story? And then get our blankie and put us to sleep?

When he says “a story” he means “the narrative,” but he can’t use that term because every hack in politics and every journalist they spin uses it and believes in it.

We’ve written of this before but it needs repeating. The American people will not listen to a narrative, they will not sit still for a story. They do not listen passively as seemingly eloquent people in Washington spin tales of their own derring-do.

The American people tell you the narrative. They look at the facts produced by your leadership, make a judgment and sum it up. The summation is spoken—the story told—at a million barbecues in a million back yards.

The narrative on the president right now is: He’s not a bad guy, but it hasn’t worked.

Some people will vote for him anyway, some won’t. But all, actually, know it hasn’t worked. That’s the narrative.

To get that wrong—that the American summation comes from the bottom up and not the top down—is a big mistake. It means you don’t know you’ve got to change some facts, as opposed to some words.

HOW YOU WILL BE AFFECTED BY OBAMAROMNEYCARE (THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT).

How will the coming changes in health care coverage affect you?

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the controversial law to overhaul health care, millions of Americans are asking the same question: How will it affect me?

“It’s going to affect everyone,” said Jodi Mitchell, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of health departments and groups. “... People want to know what’s in it.”

The Courier-Journal consulted health care experts, government agencies and others to answer some of the common questions people are raising about the law, which runs more than 2,000 pages, and how it could affect their daily lives, whether they are young people, working-age parents, senior citizens or business owners.

Experts agree the changes will be sweeping. Some provisions have already taken effect, such as one allowing young adults up to age 26 to stay on a parent’s health plan, and another forbidding health insurers from excluding a child from coverage because of a pre-existing health condition. Adults with pre-existing conditions can get insurance through a federal program until 2014, when insurers won’t be able to exclude them, either.

Many more rules are scheduled to take effect in 2014, including one of the most controversial — the individual mandate that people carry health insurance or pay a penalty.

That mandate — which the Supreme Court upheld under the federal government’s taxing power — is at the heart of a divisive debate that continues today.

Many health officials, including Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness, say the law is a step in the right direction, affirming that access to health care is a right and not a privilege. But many others say it’s an assault on individual freedom. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called it “the single worst piece of legislation passed in modern times.”

Earlier this month, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed a bill to repeal the law, known formally as the Affordable Care Act. But Dewey Clayton, a political science professor at the University of Louisville, said he sees the law surviving in the long run.

“Politics will come into play,” he said. “... But many Americans will say, ‘It’s law; now let’s move on. We’ve got too many other pressing problems.’ ”

Still, some health care experts said it’s unclear what could happen if the political landscape changes.

“That’s the big mystery of the 2012 election,” said Susan Zepeda, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, which strives to address unmet health needs of Kentuckians. “If the balance of power in Congress changes, if the person in the White House changes, it’s conceivable that Affordable Care may be repealed.”

Another issue that remains hazy is how many states will expand the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled, as called for in the health care overhaul. The Supreme Court’s June 28 decision said the federal government can’t withhold current Medicaid funds from states that refuse to comply with the expansion.

Officials in seven states have announced plans to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. Kentucky and Indiana officials have not yet decided. States that opt in face a financial burden down the road, since the federal government will reduce its contribution to the expansion costs from 100 percent to 90 percent in 2020 and later years.

“In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, a great deal of questions remain about how an expansion of Medicaid would affect Kentucky, particularly the long-term cost to the state after the three-year period of full federal cost coverage expires,” said Audrey Tayse Haynes, secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Zepeda pointed to figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation showing more Kentuckians stand to gain than those in other states from a Medicaid expansion, with about 57 percent of uninsured adults becoming newly eligible for coverage.

As states sort out these unknowns, here are answers to some common questions about the law:

All residents
All residents

Q:
What is the “individual mandate”?

A: The mandate means virtually all Americans must have health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.

If you already have insurance, you’ve met this requirement. The Congressional Budget Office says about 80 percent of the 272 million Americans under 65 would be insured in 2014 even without the new law.

For individuals, the penalty for not having insurance will start at $95 a year, or up to 1 percent of income, whichever is greater. By 2016, it rises to $695 a year for individuals and $2,085 for families, or 2.5 percent of income.

The law includes a carrot as well as a stick — namely, subsidies to help working-class and middle-class people buy private insurance through new, state-based health insurance exchanges beginning in 2014. These will be available to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $90,000 for a family of four.

Those who make less will get a bigger subsidy. For example, a family of four earning $33,075 a year will have to pay 4 percent of their income, or $1,323 a year, for insurance premiums — with the remainder paid by the subsidy.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an average of 15.5 percent of Kentuckians, or 663,000 residents, lacked health insurance from 2008-2010; and 12.8 percent of Hoosiers, or 813,000 people, were uninsured during that period.

Q: Might I become eligible for Medicaid under the new law?

A: That’s unknown, since Kentucky and Indiana leaders haven’t yet decided whether to participate in the Medicaid expansion. If they opt in, starting in 2014, Medicaid would effectively cover people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which is currently $15,415 for an individual and $31,809 for a family of four.

Q: I haven’t been able to get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Will the law change that?

A: For the next couple of years, people can get coverage from a federal program known as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, or PCIP, which began in July 2010. This is separate from a state high-risk pool known as Kentucky Access, which has existed for more than a decade.

To qualify for a PCIP, you must be a U.S. citizen who has been uninsured for at least six months and have a pre-existing condition or have been denied coverage because of a health condition. To apply, go to www.pcip.gov. There are three types of plans — standard, extended and HSA — and the monthly premium for a 45- to 54-year-old getting a standard plan in Kentucky is $226; in Indiana it’s $284.

Both the PCIP and Kentucky Access will stop operating in 2014, when the law says people can no longer be denied coverage or charged higher premiums for having a pre-existing condition.

Q: How will I find health insurance?

A: New state health insurance exchanges will start up in 2014 as marketplaces for affordable coverage — primarily serving individuals buying insurance on their own, and small businesses.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear issued an executive order on Tuesday creating an exchange in Kentucky, but Indiana officials have not committed to creating one, with Gov. Mitch Daniels saying it will be up to the next administration to decide whether to do so. If a state doesn’t create its own exchange, the federal government will step in to establish and operate one.

According to Kentucky’s Office of Health Policy, open enrollment for Kentuckians will begin in October 2013 and will take effect in January 2014.

Beshear said the exchange will enable eligible individuals to receive tax credits and subsidies to help reduce the cost of premiums, and qualify small businesses for tax credits through the Affordable Care Act.

Although the exchange is still being developed, Mitchell of Kentucky Voices for Health said she expects it to be not only a place to shop for insurance, but a clearinghouse for insurance-related information that people can call to ask questions.

The federal government says the exchanges will help make insurance more affordable by offering people choice, and encouraging competition among insurers on a level playing field. People will also be able to find out if they qualify for programs to make insurance more affordable, such as advance payments of the premium tax credit or Medicaid. Also, a Small Business Health Options Program, SHOP for short, aims to give small businesses the clout big businesses have when they buy insurance.

Q: Are any new taxes included in the new law?

A: The Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate under the federal government’s ability to tax, so the penalty for not having health insurance can be viewed as a tax. Also, starting in 2013, people who earn more than $200,000 a year and married couples earning more than $250,000 will pay a Medicare payroll tax of 2.35 percent, up from 1.45 percent. Such high earners will also face a new, 3.8 percent tax on unearned income such as dividends.

Starting in 2018, the law imposes a 40 percent excise tax on the portion of most employer-sponsored health coverage worth more than $10,200 a year for individuals and $27,500 for families, which some have dubbed “Cadillac” plans.

Though there are rumors to the contrary, the law does not contain a real estate sales tax or real estate transfer tax.

Young people
Young people

Q: I’ve heard that young adults can stay on their parents’ health insurance plans. What are the details?

A: Health plans that offer coverage for dependents now must allow young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance until their 26th birthday. So far, 35,600 young adults in Kentucky and 38,400 in Indiana have gotten insurance this way.

At this point, the provision applies to individual plans and new employer-based health plans. If young adults can get insurance through their own jobs, their parents’ existing employer-based plans don’t have to cover them. But that changes in 2014, when they can stay on a parent’s plan even if their employers offer coverage.

Call your insurance company, insurance agent or your company’s human resources department to find out when during the year an adult child can be added to your policy.

Q: What if my young adult child gets married or becomes pregnant?

A: Married young adult children up to age 26 still qualify for coverage. And if the parent’s plan covers pregnancy, the child’s pregnancy should be covered. But the plan doesn’t have to cover the new baby.

Q: How does the law affect coverage for young children still at home?

A: Insurers can no longer exclude children from coverage because of pre-existing conditions, impose lifetime limits on how much they’ll cover or drop them from coverage when they get sick. Starting in 2014, new health plans must cover basic pediatric services as well as dental and vision needs for kids.

Working-age

adults
Working-age adults

Q:
Will my premiums rise if I get my insurance through my job?

A: That’s unclear. The Kentucky Department of Insurance points out that employers will continue to make decisions about plans offered to employees.

“There are some folks who believe that insurance companies have already factored in the higher-risk patients” they’ll have to cover under the law, said Zepeda, of Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. “I wouldn’t expect premiums to continue to go up.”

Jose Fernandez, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Louisville, said the law’s impact on premiums is largely unknown at this point. He said there are provisions that could push up premiums slightly, such as the elimination of lifetime caps on coverage, but there are also provisions that could push them down, such as the influx of many more healthy young people.

Q: I get my insurance through a large company. Besides possibly affecting my premiums, how else might the law affect me?

A: New health plans have to cover preventive services, such as cancer screenings, with no co-pays. They also can’t drop you from health coverage if you get sick, and they cannot deny your child coverage because of a pre-existing condition. If you have a Health Savings Account, you can keep it.

In 2014, insurers won’t be able to deny coverage to adults with medical conditions or refuse to renew their policies. They also won’t be able to limit coverage based on pre-existing conditions or charge higher rates to people in poor health.

Q: What if I work for a small company?

A: If you have insurance through your job, the provisions listed above would apply. Also, starting in 2014, insurance deductibles for small groups (50 employees or less) will be limited to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families.

If you work for a small company that doesn’t offer health insurance, there’s no requirement that the company start offering it. Employers with fewer than 25 employees may be able to get tax credits for providing coverage, but they don’t have to do so and aren’t penalized if they don’t.

If you don’t get insurance at work, you can shop for it in the insurance exchange.

Q: Are there any insurance plans that aren’t affected by the new law?

A: Yes. The law “grandfathers” existing health insurance plans, meaning that if a person was enrolled in a plan on March 23, 2010, that plan has been grandfathered. It’s unclear whether changes to a health plan, such as what is covered, make it a new plan rather than a grandfathered plan.

Grandfathered plans are exempt from the vast majority of insurance changes under the law, but they do have to abide by some, such as bans on lifetime limits on essential health benefits, bans on health plan terminations and the requirement to allow children to stay on parents’ insurance up to age 26.

In 2014, grandfathered plans also won’t be able to make someone wait more than 90 days to be eligible to enroll in health benefits, and those providing group coverage won’t be able to exclude people based on pre-existing conditions.

Senior

citizens
Senior citizens

Q: Does the law affect my Medicare coverage?

A: Medicare benefits haven’t changed, but co-pays have been eliminated for preventive services such as mammograms and prostate cancer screenings, a provision that has affected more than 1.2 million seniors in Kentucky and Indiana so far. Seniors can still enroll in a Medicare HMO or Medicare Advantage plan, but the Advantage programs could change.

The law reduces payments to Medicare Advantage plans while rewarding high-quality plans. Experts say insurers may respond by charging higher premiums, reducing their network of health care providers or getting out of the market altogether.

Q: Does the law address the “doughnut hole” gap in Medicare drug coverage?

A: In 2010, seniors who had reached the doughnut hole (which in 2010 meant they had spent $2,830 on prescriptions) got $250 rebates. Last year, people in the doughnut hole received a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs. In 2020, the doughnut hole is slated to be eliminated, although seniors will still have to pay the standard 25 percent of drug costs until they reach the threshold for Medicare catastrophic coverage, when co-pays drop to 5 percent.

Business

owners
Business owners

Q: How does the law affect me if I own a small business?

A: A lot depends on the size of your business.

Small firms with fewer than 50 employees aren’t required to offer health insurance.

Very small businesses can get tax credits — although just for two years. Those with fewer than 25 full-timers and average annual wages of less than $50,000 and which pay at least half the cost of health insurance for employees are eligible for credits. Through 2013, the maximum credit is 35 percent for small businesses and 25 percent for small charities — rising to 50 percent and 35 percent, respectively, the next year.

“It’s a way of giving a Groupon to these small employers,” said U of L’s Fernandez.

But there’s a potential penalty for small businesses with more than 50 employees. They’ll have to start paying a fee in 2014 if any employee receives a federal subsidy to buy private coverage through the health insurance exchange. The penalty, which rises over time, initially equals $2,000 multiplied by the number of workers in excess of 30. For example, an employer with 75 workers would pay a penalty of $90,000, or $2,000 times 45 employees.

Q: What if I own a larger business?

A: Businesses with fewer than 100 workers will be able to buy coverage starting in 2014 through a program in the health insurance exchange called Small Business Health Options, or SHOP.

Starting in 2014, businesses with more than 200 employees must automatically enroll workers in a health plan and won’t be able to impose a waiting period of more than 90 days. Employees can opt out if they choose.

Also, large employers could face penalties if their coverage is deemed inadequate or too expensive, with premiums higher than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income.

Before 2014, firms may be eligible to take part in an early retiree program that provides financial assistance to employers and unions to help them cover early retirees ages 55 to 64. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has received applications from more than half of Fortune 500 companies, all major unions, and government entities in all 50 states. Approved sponsors in Kentucky include Brown-Forman., Humana and others. The program ends in 2014, when early retirees can find insurance through the exchanges.

Sources: Kentucky Voices for Health, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, Kentucky Department of Insurance, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the White House, Kaiser Family Foundation, The Urban Institute, Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, U.S. Census Bureau, National Association of Realtors, Internal Revenue Service

Kentucky Supreme Court Upholds Removal Of Harlan Circuit Judge, Russell D. Alred.

Kentucky Supreme Court upholds removal of Harlan judge
By Jack Brammer

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld a decision by the Judicial Conduct Commission to remove Harlan Circuit Judge Russell D. Alred from office for misconduct.

In a 62-page opinion Monday written by Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr., the state's highest court agreed with the commission's finding of eight of nine counts of misconduct by Alred.

"From our review of the record, it is clear that Judge Alred engaged in a pattern of misconduct, displaying disregard for the law and the Kentucky Code of Judicial Conduct," said the opinion. "He continually refuses to accept responsibility for his actions or acknowledge his wrongdoing."

An attorney for Alred, Marcus Carey of Erlanger, argued before the Supreme Court in April that Alred was treated unfairly and should be allowed to keep his job.

The Judicial Conduct Commission ordered Alred removed last September.

Alred agreed not to preside over cases after the commission ruling last year, but he still receives his salary.

The high court's ruling does not take effect immediately. Alred can ask the court for a rehearing.

Alred was the fourth judge since 1984 to be removed from office by the commission.

The commission had offered a deal in which Alred would receive a 90-day suspension if he would admit ethics breaches, but he refused.

The panel judged Alred guilty of numerous ethics violations, including having improper involvement in cases, failing to dispose of cases fairly, using his office to advance personal interests and misrepresenting his actions.

In the Supreme Court ruling, Justices Mary Noble and Wil Schroder concurred with Minton's opinion. Justice Daniel J. Venters concurred in a separate opinion, which Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson joined.

Justice Bill Cunningham concurred in part and dissented in part in a separate opinion, which Justice Will T. Scott joined.

In his opinion, Cunningham wrote, "Judge Alred has not killed or physically injured anyone. He has not molested his secretary. He has not stolen a dime.

"In fact, he hasn't even been charged with a crime of any kind — misdemeanor or felony. None of his friends or family members has gotten rich or gone free because of his missteps. He has not enriched himself financially nor engaged in any kind of debauchery.

"His judicial misconduct has been primarily on behalf of children and against criminals. In all his excessive exuberance, he has failed to grasp his professional responsibility. He simply has not learned how to conduct himself as a judge."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/23/2267865/kentucky-supreme-court-upholds.html#storylink=cpy

AURORA, COLORADO, MOVIE THEATER SHOOTING SUSPECT, JAMES HOLMES, APPEARS IN COURT. WATCH VIDEO.

PENN STATE FOOTBALL PROGRAM HIT WITH NCAA SEVERE PENALTIES AS A RESULT OF JERRY SANDUSKY CHILD SEX ABUSE SCANDAL. GOOD RIDDANCE. WATCH VIDEO.

UPDATE: THE BIG TEN CONFERENCE SLAPS PENN STATE WITH SUSPENSION FROM CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES AND DENIES REVENUE SHARING WORTH $10 MILLION OR MORE. READ MORE HERE.

IS CABINET FOR HEALTH AND FAMILY SERVICES KENTUCKY'S VERSION OF NAZI GERMANY'S FEARED SS? ONE HAS TO WONDER!

Watchdog Report: Reviews of child abuse deaths not always complete
Cabinet did not do required evaluation in some abuse cases
By Beth Musgrave and Bill Estep — bmusgrave@herald-leader.com, bestep@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Derek Cooper was just 2 years old when his father, Brandon Fraley, put his hands over the crying toddler's mouth "until the child was silent," according to a state file on the case.

"The love and laughter that once surrounded our family has disappeared and in its place a heavy fog of despair has settled," Jessica Wall, the boy's mother, wrote in a victim impact statement when Fraley was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

According to the social services case file on Derek, which the Lexington Herald-Leader obtained through a court order, there was a previous allegation of domestic violence by Fraley in 2006 that was unsubstantiated by social workers. There also were other previous reports involving Fraley when he was a child.

Still, state child-protection workers did not conduct an internal review of Derek's death, even though state law mandates such a review by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services in every case in which a child dies, or nearly dies, because of abuse or neglect and the cabinet "had prior involvement with the child or family."

A Herald-Leader analysis of 41 child fatalities in 2009 and 2010 found at least six cases where the cabinet did not do an internal review even though there were previous reports involving the family before the child died. The reviews are supposed to examine the cabinet's actions in a case to see if there were missteps, and to identify needed improvements and training that could prevent future deaths.

In some of those six instances, the cabinet's prior contact with adults in the cases occurred when they were children themselves, and the cabinet does not do internal reviews in such cases, said Jill Midkiff, a cabinet spokeswoman. She cited that reason in Derek's death, but provided no explanation about why the 2006 domestic violence investigation of Fraley didn't trigger an internal review of Derek's death.

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said if the cabinet is not doing internal reviews as required, officials may miss an opportunity to fix problems in the child-protection system.

"One of the reasons why they are so important is for systems change," Brooks said of the internal reviews. "It's like a coach looking at a game tape — you have to figure out what went right and what went wrong."

A lack of confidence in the cabinet's internal reviews was one reason Brooks and other advocates applauded a move last week by Gov. Steve Beshear to create a new panel outside the cabinet to review child deaths and critical injuries caused by abuse and neglect in Kentucky.

The 17-member panel will meet quarterly, review the cases and make recommendations. The review panel will be housed in the Department of Justice and Public Safety, and the people on the review panel will not be cabinet staff.

Brooks said the external reviews can serve as a check to make sure the cabinet is following its protocols consistently, backing up its promises with actions. Brooks said he hopes outside reviews also will examine the adequacy of the cabinet's internal reviews.

There were wide inconsistencies in how different child-protection offices around the state conducted internal reviews in 2009 and 2010, and in the scope of recommendations they produced. Some of the reviews appeared to be thorough, but in others, child-protection workers produced only one-page reports with little detail on what happened to the children and no assessment of potential improvements, a Herald-Leader review found.

State Rep. Susan Westrom, D-Lexington, who sponsored an unsuccessful measure to create an external child-fatality review panel earlier this year, said she was encouraged Beshear moved to create such a body. But the cabinet also needs to do good internal reviews, Westrom said.

"The cabinet for so long has hidden everything it could," she said.

Angel Tucker

The death of 5-month-old Angel Tucker also did not spur an internal review by the cabinet, even though there was a prior report involving Brittany Felty Garcia, Angel's mother, a month before Angel's death.

The Medical Center at Bowling Green called cabinet officials after Garcia brought Angel to the hospital in November 2009 after reportedly falling down stairs with the baby.

Hospital staff contacted the cabinet because Garcia had delayed bringing the baby in for treatment, but child-protection workers did not accept the report. Instead, the cabinet made a "resource linkage," meaning a link to other services or information.

Angel, who lived in Morgantown, died Dec. 4, 2009, as a result of blunt-force injuries to her head and spine.

Midkiff, the cabinet spokeswoman, said the commissioner who oversees child-protection workers would review Angel's case on Monday to explain why an internal review was not conducted.

Other examples in which the cabinet did not do an internal review include:

■ Kayla Mosley, 2, who died of an acute drug overdose in March 2010 in Bell County. Authorities believe her parents were not watching her when she swallowed their pills. According to the case file, there was at least one prior report involving her parents in 2008.

Details about the prior report were removed from the file provided to the newspaper, as they were in many other case files. The newspaper, along with The Courier-Journal of Louisville, is in an ongoing legal battle with the cabinet over how much information from the case files the state must release.

Midkiff said the state would review Kayla's case on Monday to determine why an internal review was not conducted.

■ Kiara Smith, who was 12 months old and lived in Grant County when she died as a result of blunt force trauma in January 2009. Her mother's boyfriend, Brandon Barnhill, was convicted of beating her to death. The case file indicates that there were no reports against Kiara's mother, who was 17 at the time of Kiara's death. However, there were numerous reports regarding Kiara's grandmother.

Barnhill's conviction was overturned on appeal, but the prosecutor, Jim Crawford, said he will retry Barnhill on the murder charge.

Midkiff said no internal review was conducted because the state does not do them in cases where the cabinet's prior involvement with an adult came when the person was a child.

■ Cole Frazier, 21 months, who was shot and killed by his father in May 2009 in Nelson County. The cabinet had received multiple reports of domestic violence between Cole's parents while the child was present, including one days before Cole's death. The cabinet did not investigate the last claim of domestic violence because Cole's parents did not live together at the time, according to the case file.

When the Herald-Leader first reported about Cole's death in January, Midkiff said no review was required because there was no ongoing case involving the family, and the prior reports involved domestic violence among adults in the home, not allegations of abuse or neglect to the little boy.

■ Kayden Branham, also known as Kayden Daniels, who died in May 2009. The 20-month-old Wayne County toddler drank a caustic drain cleaner that had allegedly been used in making methamphetamine at the mobile home where Kayden and his 14-year-old mother were staying.

Kayden's mother had been removed from her parents' home and placed in foster care earlier, but she and the baby had been returned to her mother's home before Kayden's death. All three — the grandmother, the 14-year-old mother and Kayden — were still being supervised by the cabinet at the time he died.

The cabinet said it did not do an internal review because there was a court order in place for a short time that barred anyone other than mental-health professionals and defense attorneys from talking to Kayden's mother about his death.

However, that order would not have prevented an internal review. Also, it was later dissolved.

An attorney involved in the criminal case related to Kayden's death said a review would show that the cabinet didn't do enough to protect the boy.

Amy Dye

In another high-profile case, the cabinet acknowledged it did not do an internal review after the death of Amy Dye, a 9-year-old who was killed in February 2011 by her adopted brother in Todd County.

The cabinet had prior involvement with the family, facilitating Amy's adoption by her great-aunt and later checking into reports from school officials about concerns that the vivacious girl was being abused at home, according to records.

The cabinet said it had no jurisdiction to pursue those reports because a sibling, not a parent, was allegedly hurting Amy, but Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd flatly rejected that assertion in a ruling last November.

It is clear under state law that abuse includes situations in which a parent or guardian ignores physical abuse of one child by another, or fails to take action, Shepherd said.

"This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny," Shepherd wrote last November.

Cabinet officials said the agency did not do an internal review because Amy died at the hands of a sibling, not a parent or guardian.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/22/2266544/watchdog-report-reviews-of-child.html#storylink=cpy

Words To Live By, Words Of Wisdom, And Words To Ponder, As PATRIOTIC LIBERTY LOVERS LIKE ME.

"We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man."

-- John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

JOEL PETT IS STILL HATING ON FORMER POTUS GEORGE W. BUSH, AND ON THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION (NRA).

UPDATE: ... AND YET SOME MORE:

PENN STATE REMOVES STATUTE OF FOOTBALL COACH, JOE PATERNO, FROM FRONT OF STADIUM, AS NCAA READIES "CORRECTIVE AND PUNITIVE MEASURES" AGAINST THE SCHOOL. I SAY: GOOD RIDDANCE AND WELL DESERVED!

Penn State removes Joe Paterno statue
(IN PICTURE ABOVE, Workers covered the statue of former football coach Joe Paterno near Beaver Stadium on Penn State's campus on Sunday before taking it down.)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Penn State football stadium Sunday, eliminating a key piece of the iconography surrounding the once-sainted football coach accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against a retired assistant.

Workers lifted the 7-foot-tall statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watching chanted, ‘‘We are Penn State.’’

The university announced earlier Sunday that it was taking down the monument in the wake of an investigative report that found the late coach and three other top Penn State administrators concealed sex abuse claims against retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

The statue, weighing more than 900 pounds, was built in 2001 in honor of Paterno’s record-setting 324th Division 1 coaching victory and his ‘‘contributions to the university.’’

A spokeswoman for the Paterno family didn’t immediately return phone and email messages.

Construction vehicles and police arrived shortly after dawn Sunday, barricading the street and sidewalks near the statue, erecting a chain-link fence then concealing the statue with a blue tarp.

Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it ‘‘has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.’’

‘‘I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,’’ Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.

He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it ‘‘symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.’’

The statue’s sculptor, Angelo Di Maria, said it was upsetting to hear that the statue had been taken down.

‘‘It’s like a whole part of me is coming down. It’s just an incredibly emotional process,’’ Di Maria said.

‘‘When things quiet down, if they do quiet down, I hope they don’t remove it permanently or destroy it,’’ he said. ‘‘His legacy should not be completely obliterated and thrown out. ... He was a good man. It wasn’t that he was an evil person. He made a mistake.’’

The bronze sculpture has been a rallying point for students and alumni outraged over Paterno’s firing four days after Sandusky’s Nov. 5 arrest — and grief-stricken over the Hall of Fame coach’s Jan. 22 death at age 85.

But it turned into a target for critics after former FBI Director Louis Freeh alleged a cover-up by Paterno, ousted President Graham Spanier and two Penn State officials, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz. Their failure to report Sandusky to child-welfare authorities in 2001 allowed him to continue molesting boys, the report found.

Paterno’s family, along with attorneys for Spanier, Curley and Schultz, vehemently deny any suggestion they protected a pedophile. Curley and Schultz await trial on charges of failing to report child abuse and lying to a grand jury but maintain their innocence. Spanier hasn’t been charged. Sandusky was convicted last month of 45 counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys.

Some newspaper columnists and former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden have said the statue should be taken down, while a small plane pulled a banner over State College reading, ‘‘Take the statue down or we will.’’

But Paterno still has plenty of fans, and Penn State’s decision to remove the monument won’t sit well with them. One student even vowed to ‘‘chain myself to that statue’’ if there was an attempt to remove it.

University officials had called the issue a sensitive one in light of Paterno’s enormous contributions to the school over a 61-year coaching career. The Paterno family is well-known in the community for philanthropic efforts, including the millions of dollars they've donated to the university to help build a library and fund endowments and scholarships.

Workers lifted the statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watching chanted, ‘‘We are Penn State.’’

The university announced earlier Sunday that it was taking down the monument in the wake of an investigative report that found the late coach and three other top Penn State administrators concealed sex abuse claims against retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

A spokeswoman for the Paterno family did not immediately return phone and email messages Sunday morning.

Construction vehicles and police arrived shortly after dawn Sunday, barricading the street and sidewalks near the statue, erecting a chain-link fence then concealing the statue with a blue tarp.

Penn State President Rod Erickson said he decided to have the statue removed and put into storage because it ‘‘has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing.’’

‘‘I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,’’ Erickson said in a statement released at 7 a.m. Sunday.

He said Paterno’s name will remain on the campus library because it ‘‘symbolizes the substantial and lasting contributions to the academic life and educational excellence that the Paterno family has made to Penn State University.’’

The bronze sculpture outside Beaver Stadium has been a rallying point for students and alumni outraged over Paterno’s firing four days after Sandusky’s Nov. 5 arrest — and grief-stricken over the Hall of Fame coach’s Jan. 22 death at age 85.

But it turned into a target for critics after the Freeh report’s stunning allegation of a cover-up by Paterno, ousted President Graham Spanier and two Penn State officials, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz. Their failure to report Sandusky to child-welfare authorities in 2001 allowed him to continue molesting boys, the report found.

Paterno’s family, along with attorneys for Spanier, Curley and Schultz, vehemently deny any suggestion they protected a pedophile. Curley and Schultz await trial on charges of failing to report child abuse and lying to a grand jury but maintain their innocence. Spanier hasn’t been charged. Sandusky was convicted last month of 45 counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys.

Some newspaper columnists and former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden have said the statue should be taken down, while a small plane pulled a banner over State College reading, ‘‘Take the statue down or we will.’’

But Paterno still has plenty of fans, and Penn State’s decision to remove the monument won’t sit well with them. One student even vowed to ‘‘chain myself to that statue’’ if there was an attempt to remove it.

University officials had called the issue a sensitive one in light of Paterno’s enormous contributions to the school over a 61-year coaching career. The Paterno family is well-known in the community for philanthropic efforts, including the millions of dollars they've donated to the university to help build a library and fund endowments and scholarships.

The statue, nearly 7 feet tall and weighing more than 900 pounds, was built in 2001 in honor of Paterno’s record-setting 324th Division 1 coaching victory and his ‘‘contributions to the university.’’

EDITOR'S COMMENT: JOE PATERNO SACRIFICED THOSE KIDS ON THE ALTER OF WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES. I PRACTICE FAMILY LAW DOING A LOT OF DEPENDENCY, NEGLECT AND ABUSE CASES. I GUESS THAT MAKES ME A LITTLE MORE SENSITIVE THAN MOST PEOPLE, BUT THAT'S ALL RIGHT BECAUSE I OWE NO ONE ANY APOLOGIES FOR MY SENSITIVITY TOWARDS THE GENERAL WELFARE OF CHILDREN.

MEANWHILE, THE NCAA WILL ANNOUNCE "PUNITIVE AND CORRECTIVE MEASURES" AGAINST PENN STATE TODAY.


I CAN'T WAIT. CAN YOU?

"EDITED FOR CLARITY". LOL AT PHONY MITT ROMNEY.

KENTUCKY "PISSED" AWAY ALMOST ONE AND HALF BILLION DOLLARS IN ECONOMIC INCENTIVES TO CREATE JOBS. GO FIGURE!

Kentucky spent $1.29 billion on economic development incentives over last decade
By John Cheves

FRANKFORT — Kentucky has spent $1.29 billion on economic development incentives over the last decade, mostly in the form of tax breaks to companies that pledged to create jobs, according to a new report shared Thursday at a legislative hearing.

The 577 companies that took incentives reported creating 55,173 jobs in the state from 2001 to 2010, more than two-thirds of them in the manufacturing sector. The gross cost per job was $23,385, according to the report by Anderson Economic Group of Chicago.

The General Assembly ordered a study of the state's incentives programs in 2011.

Testifying Thursday, senior consultant Caroline Sallee said her firm's findings had gaps. It's impossible to know how many jobs would have been created anyway if the state hadn't offered incentives, she said. And it's hard to say, when considering the total cost of incentives, what the state simultaneously gained from those jobs through taxes it collected from workers and the money they spent in their communities, she said.

"What should give you comfort is that we feel the gross cost is not that high," Sallee told the Interim Joint Committee on Economic Development and Tourism. "If anything, the actual net cost is lower."

Lawmakers said the report left them satisfied with the incentives offered by the state Cabinet for Economic Development and Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet.

"I do think Kentucky is moving the ball more forward than we get credit for," said House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville.

Among the report's other conclusions:

■ Kentucky lags behind a peer group of 13 other states in the Southeast and Midwest, including its neighbors, in knowledge-based jobs, which the consultants defined as jobs in advanced manufacturing, life sciences or communications technology. These jobs tend to pay the highest wages.

About 5 percent of Kentucky workers are employed in the knowledge-based sector, compared to 8 percent on average in the peer states. Kentucky spends competitively on its research universities, but graduates often leave the state to pursue jobs elsewhere. Kentucky does not aggressively leverage its incentives at the universities in ways that stimulate private research-and-development start-ups, as North Carolina does.

"There appears to be something of a brain drain here," said Jason Horwitz, senior analyst at Anderson Economic Group.

■ Kentucky pays Economic Development Secretary Larry Hayes $250,000 a year, which is $100,000 more than the average for his counterparts in peer states. However, some of the other states may offer additional compensation for their officials that could not easily be identified, the consultants said, and it's possible that Hayes' job duties may be more demanding in some way.

■ Kentucky is a tax-friendly state for businesses. The overall share of business profits taken as taxes in Kentucky is 18.2 percent, compared to 19.3 percent on average for the peer states.

However, that means Kentucky offers tax breaks against a tax rate that's already lower than the regional average, the consultants said. Meanwhile, Kentucky is not competitive in two areas important to corporate leaders looking for locations: infrastructure, such as roads and Internet access, and an educated workforce.

Kentucky should throw less money at businesses and invest more in schools, vocational training, transportation and high-speed Internet access, said Jason Bailey, director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy in Berea.

"That trade-off is not debated enough around here," said Bailey, who attended the hearing. "We have to understand that tax breaks result in less revenue. That affects our ability to pay for the fundamental things we expect government to provide, such as infrastructure and education — things that businesses benefit from just as much as individuals do."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/19/2264034/kentucky-spent-129-billion-on.html#storylink=cpy

WHY PHONY MITT ROMNEY WILL NOT RELEASE HIS TAX RECORDS. LOL.

GEORGE ZIMMERMAN TELLS SEAN HANNITY TRAYVON MARTIN'S DEATH WAS "GOD'S PLAN", EVEN AS WE AWAIT GOD'S PLAN FOR GEORGE'S DAMNED SOUL.

WATCH VIDEO BELOW (TO WATCH THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW, GO TO THE BEAST):



READ THE SCOOP BELOW:

George Zimmerman: Trayvon Martin's death was 'God's plan'
By Frances Robles

After saying he did not regret any of his actions the night he killed Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman backtracked and apologized to America Wednesday night in his first interview since the shooting that polarized the nation nearly five months ago.

In an apparent attempt at damage control just two days after a cousin’s sexual molestation charges went public, Zimmerman broke his silence in an exclusive interview with Fox News conservative talk show host Sean Hannity. His lawyer, Mark O’Mara, sat beside him as Zimmerman recounted the Sunday night that he encountered a hoodie-clad black teenager who walked too leisurely in the rain.

Asked if he regretted getting out of the car that night or owning a gun, Zimmerman said no. Asked if he would do anything differently, Zimmerman said no a third time, and added that Trayvon’s death was “God’s plan.”

Later, as the interview ended and the host asked if Zimmerman had a message for Trayvon’s parents or the general public, Zimmerman said that before responding he wanted to change his answer to the earlier question. He explained that he thought Hannity had asked if he was sorry he didn’t get a lawyer at first, wished he hadn’t spoken to the police so much or taken voice stress tests.

“I do wish there was something, anything I could have done that wouldn’t have put me in the position where I had to take his life,” Zimmerman said. “I want to tell everyone, my wife, my family, my parents, grandmother, the Martins, the city of Sanford and America: I’m sorry that this happened. I’m truly sorry.”

In a statement after the show, Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, said: “We must worship a different God, because there’s no way my God would have wanted George Zimmerman to kill my son.”

Martin’s speechless attorney, Benjamin Crump, uttered just two words: “just ... unbelievable.”

Zimmerman recounted the events of Feb. 26, when he encountered Trayvon at a townhouse complex in Sanford. Zimmerman explained that he was on his way to go grocery shopping to Target, carrying a gun to the store like he did everywhere except work.

The teen’s “body language was confrontational,” and Zimmerman thought Trayvon put his hand in his waistband to intimidate. The teen, he thought, might have had a weapon.

Several times, Zimmerman denied following Trayvon, despite a tape of his call to police in which he said he was doing just that. When he told the police dispatcher that he was following the stranger he found suspicious, he meant he was “walking in the same direction, not actively pursuing him.”

Hannity asked if perhaps Trayvon ran because he was afraid.

Zimmerman said Trayvon “skipped,” and “wasn’t running out of fear.”

Hannity wondered how he could tell.

Zimmerman said Trayvon came out of nowhere and asked him if he had a problem. He said the high school junior broke his nose with one punch, banged his head on the concrete, hit him at least a dozen times in the head and threatened to kill him. He said Trayvon straddled and tried to suffocate him, causing excruciating pain.

Zimmerman said he “shimmied” on the ground to get off the concrete, causing his shirt to go up and gun to be exposed. He stopped Trayvon from getting it, he said, and fired a single shot.

He claimed an hour passed before he knew the boy was dead.

Twice, Hannity asked Zimmerman to explain his behavior immediately afterward that caused one witness to tell investigators that the shooter seemed unfazed by what had just happened.

“I was scared, nervous,” Zimmerman said. “I thought the police were going to come, see me with a firearm, and shoot me. I was terrified.”

He did not directly respond to a question about whether he molested his cousin — a claim his cousin made to investigators shortly after the shooting, which became public this week. His only mention of the cousin was to remark that the only person to accuse him of being “remotely racist” is the same person “who claims I am deviant.”

He asserted that he had been cleared of race-related charges by the FBI, a point which appeared to be his own analysis of the lack of damaging evidence contained in FBI reports released last week.

Explaining that he was raised by his Peruvian mother and grandmother while his Caucasian dad was in the Army, he considers himself “a Hispanic American.” He believes civil rights leaders such as Rev. Al Sharpton who accused him of being racist should apologize, like Zimmerman said he would if he had done something wrong.

O’Mara did not allow his client to respond to questions about whether he lied about money raised from supporters.

Hannity and Zimmerman added that no money exchanged hands for the interview. They talked about prior chats they had off camera, including one days before the arrest when Zimmerman was despondent, alone in a hotel with a gun. He had not spoken to his family in weeks.

Zimmerman said he was “sorry” that Trayvon’s parents had to bury their child.

“I love my children even though they aren’t born yet, and I am sorry that they buried their child,” Zimmerman said. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like, and I pray for them daily.”

Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder after a nationwide public outcry over racial profiling and the perception that Zimmerman received special treatment by the police department that investigated him.

The interview was an apparent attempt to stem a recent tide of negative publicity in the case.

“I am not a racist,” Zimmerman told Hannity. “I am not a murderer.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: TRAYVON MARTIN'S PARENTS RESPONSE IS HERE.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/19/156747/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martins.html#storylink=cpy

CARTOON THAT WILL MAKE REPUBLICANS SMILE. LOL.

CARTOON THAT WILL MAKE DEMOCRATS SMILE. LOL.

IN KEEPING WITH THE DICTATES OF Federal Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act (OBAMAROMNEYCARE), KENTUCKY'S GOVERNOR STEVE BESHEAR ESTABLISHES HEALTH BENEFITS EXCHANGE.

Beshear creates health-benefit exchange; legislative panel rejects rental space
By Jack Brammer

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear signed an executive order Tuesday to create an online marketplace offering health insurance plans for Kentuckians, as called for in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Shortly afterward, the Kentucky General Assembly's Capital Projects and Bond Oversight Committee rejected, on a 4-3 partisan vote, a proposal by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to spend $294,540 for rental space to accommodate 210 employees associated with the health insurance exchange.

Despite the vote, Finance Secretary Lori Flanery has the authority to override the oversight committee's decision and let the rental project proceed. Beshear said late Tuesday that Flanery will sign the lease "in order to make sure that we don't fall behind on implementation and run the risk of a federal takeover of our health benefits exchange."

Sen. Bob Leeper, an independent from Paducah who usually sides with Republicans, said he could not support the rental lease because he was reluctant to put his name on anything related to "Obamacare."

He also expressed concern that the state has not yet determined whether health plans in the exchange will cover abortion and contraception. The state will have to notify the federal government of its plans by Sept. 30.

Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, said the exchanges are vital to the federal health care act, which he said was based on a Massachusetts law that was approved under then-Gov. Mitt Romney, the expected Republican nominee for president.

Leeper and three Republicans voted against the lease, and three Democrats supported it.

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, appeared before the committee to question the health cabinet's authority to spend money on the lease.

He criticized the Beshear administration for not briefing legislative leaders about his executive order "on one of the biggest public policy changes in the history of the commonwealth."

Williams said the state has "no idea" how much it will cost to operate the health benefit exchange when it becomes fully operational in 2015. Health cabinet officials told the oversight committee they had no information on the future costs of the exchange.

Several interest groups, including the Kentucky Hospital Association, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Kentucky Voices for Health, and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, have said they want the state, not the federal government, to operate the exchange.

"Kentucky is more in tune with the unique regional and economic needs of our citizens, as well as the health insurance needs of individuals, Kentucky small businesses and non-profits," Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Tayse Haynes said in a statement.

Kentucky's exchange "will provide one-stop shopping" for Kentuckians who have had difficulty finding or qualifying for affordable health insurance, Beshear said.

The exchange, which is to begin operation Jan. 1, 2014, also will assist employers with enrolling workers in health plans, enable individuals to receive tax credits and subsidies for their insurance premiums and qualify small businesses for tax credits, Beshear said.

Beshear, a Democrat, said in May that he would issue an order establishing a state-operated exchange, provided that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal law, which it did on June 28.

Beshear's order creates the Office of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, which will oversee implementation and operations of the exchange. It will be housed in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Beshear said the state has received three federal grants totaling $66.4 million for planning and implementation of a state exchange.

The development and operation of the state's exchange will be financed entirely with federal dollars until Jan. 1, 2015, after which it will be wholly financed with revenues it generates, Beshear said.

Rodney Murphy, executive director of the health cabinet's administrative and technical services office, told the legislative oversight committee that the federal government will pay 95 percent of the lease for 29,454 square feet of space at 12 Mill Creek Park in Frankfort through June 30, 2015.

The remaining costs will be paid through revenues it generates, he said.

State deputy budget director John Hicks said the legislative-enacted state budget set aside $5 million in Medicaid funds that could be used for the exchange, but Williams disagreed.

Murphy said the lease agreement has a 30-day cancellation notice in case the federal health care act is repealed or changed. He said the vendor who is selected to operate the exchange probably will bring in about 100 employees. The rest will have contracts with the state.

Beshear selected Carrie Banahan to be executive director of the new state office.

A career state employee with experience in the Department of Insurance and the Department of Medicaid Services, Banahan currently is the executive director of the Office of Health Policy within the cabinet. She will remain acting executive director of health policy until a permanent replacement is named.

Beshear's order also sets up an 11-member Exchange Advisory Board. He expects to announce appointments to the advisory board by mid-August.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/17/2261526/beshear-creates-health-benefit.html#storylink=cpy

PHONY MITT ROMNEY WILL RUN THE COUNTRY LIKE HE RAN BAIN CAPITAL.

WE JOIN THE LEXINGTON HERALD LEADER IN BEMOANING "KENTUCKY'S BACKWARD POLICY ON EX-FELON VOTING RIGHT". YES, WE DO!

Ky.'s backward policy on ex-felon voting

Ky. disenfranchises too many citizens

Each election season, responsible citizens loudly bemoan — as they should — low voter turnout.

In the Kentucky primary this May, only 14 percent of registered voters exercised their privilege.

Equally discouraging — but more easily remedied — is that a huge number of Kentuckians did not even have that privilege.

As a report issued by the Sentencing Project last week confirms, Kentucky remains one of the most backward states when it comes to restoring voting rights to felons who have paid their adjudicated debt to society.

We are one of only six states in which more than 7 percent of the population is disenfranchised as a result of felony convictions. Among black Americans, that climbs to 22 percent.

Contrast that to neighboring Indiana where less than 1 percent of the voting age population is disenfranchised for felony convictions and 7.8 percent of blacks.

Kentucky is one of only a handful of states that doesn't restore voting privileges even after a person has served time and been released from probation or parole.

Under the Kentucky constitution, ex-felons can only regain voting rights by petitioning the governor individually.

For several years, the Democrat-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives has passed a bill to place an amendment on the ballot that would automatically restore voting rights for all but the most serious criminals once they have served their sentences or been released from probation or parole.

Each of those bills has died in the Senate where Republicans set them aside without a hearing.

That's just another example of the cynical march by some right-wing elements to pick and choose who gets to vote in this country.

Voting is the most basic privilege of citizenship, it is what holds a democracy together. We don't take to the streets in violent protest when we lose an election because we had a say and will again.

It's in everyone's interest for people who have committed crimes and served their time to rejoin society. But the chances of that happening are reduced when they are excluded from this most basic right.

Opinion polls consistently show that people favor restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time. It's time for the Kentucky Senate to get that message.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/17/2260811/kys-backward-policy-on-ex-felon.html#storylink=cpy

KENTUCKY SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LAW MAKING LANDLORDS LIABLE FOR TENANTS' DOG BITES.

Ky Supreme Court rules landlords could be liable for dog bites

If their tenants’ dogs bite people, an opinion by the Kentucky Supreme Court says landlords can be liable. The Kentucky Enquirer reported the opinion won’t help a Newport family. Their child was wearing a lion costume for Halloween when he was mauled by a boxer in July 2009. The court ruled the dog was too far from the rental property for the landlord to be liable in that case. Instead, the dog’s owner was found liable. She was ordered to pay $80,000 to the family.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: THE CASE IS BRANDON BENNINGFIELD (BY AND THROUGH HIS MOTHER AND NEXT FRIEND, LAURIE ENNINGFIELD) V. HELEN ZINSMEISTER, DECEASED; AND WADE ZINSMEISTER. YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO READ THE OPINION.

KENTUCKY GOVERNOR STEVE BESHEAR BELATEDLY CREATES PANEL TO REVIEW CHILD ABUSE DEATHS. BUT "THE PROOF WILL BE IN THE PUDDING" OF WHO MAKES UP PANEL, SO WE RESERVE FURTHER JUDGMENT ON MOVE.

Beshear creates panel to review child abuse deaths
By Beth Musgrave

FRANKFORT — Kentucky will create an independent panel of experts to review cases of children who have been killed or severely injured as a result of abuse and neglect, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Monday.

The decision came as the Cabinet for Health and Family Services released thousands of pages of documents Monday that detail the state's involvement with dozens of children who were killed or nearly killed as a result of abuse and neglect. Still, the cabinet continues to withhold some case files and has redacted large portions of others.

It filed an appeal Monday with the Kentucky Supreme Court after a crucial legal decision last week in a lengthy court battle between the state and Kentucky's two largest newspapers, the Lexington Herald-Leader and The Courier-Journal of Louisville. The newspapers sued the state for access to social worker case files on children who were killed or critically injured as a result of abuse and neglect in 2009 and 2010.

Beshear signed an executive order Monday to create the external review panel. The 17-member panel, which will be based in the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, will examine child deaths to determine whether state child-protection workers could have done more to protect a child and to determine causes of death.

"When a child dies or is critically injured because of abuse or neglect, we must carefully review the practices of all government entities involved to make sure that our system performed as it was supposed to — and if not, that review allows us to take disciplinary action," Beshear said Monday in a news release.

The group will meet quarterly and will prepare an annual report that identifies issues contributing to child deaths and injuries. The panel will include law enforcement, prosecutors and medical experts. The makeup of the panel will be determined by outside groups and Attorney General Jack Conway.

Cabinet officials said the panel's meetings will be open to the public, but it appears that records used by the panel would not be subject to the state's Open Records Act. Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Haynes said the panel was not created to circumvent the state's disclosure laws. Even if information used by the panel is not subject to disclosure, the cabinet's case files will be available to the public under existing law.

"This is something that the governor told me he wanted to do shortly after I arrived," said Haynes, who was named secretary of the cabinet in April. "We've been working on this for several weeks ... before the Court of Appeals decision."

Many child advocates praised the creation of the independent panel Monday, saying it will help the state develop protocols and services to prevent more child abuse deaths. Kentucky averages between 20 and 30 child abuse-related deaths per year.

"The lessons we learn by reviewing child deaths have come at an enormous price — the life of a child," said Dr. Melissa Currie, chief medical director of the University of Louisville Pediatrics Forensic Medicine unit. "This action by the governor is to be commended, as it establishes a panel that will ensure that no child's death in the Commonwealth of Kentucky will go unexamined by objective and knowledgeable eyes."

The General Assembly considered a proposal in 2011 and 2012 to create a similar external review panel. The legislation passed the Democratic-led House but failed in the Republican-led Senate in 2012. It is likely that the legislation will be re-introduced in the upcoming legislative session to codify the executive order, cabinet officials said.

Lengthy litigation

The Herald-Leader and The Courier-Journal sued the state in 2010 to obtain internal cabinet records involving the death of 20-month-old Kayden Branham, a Wayne County toddler who drank drain cleaner that allegedly was used to make methamphetamine. Both Kayden and his mother, who was 14 at the time, were under the supervision of the cabinet at the time of Kayden's death in May 2009.

Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled that the media was entitled to child-protection records when a child dies or nearly dies from abuse and neglect. All other child protection records are confidential, the judge ruled. The cabinet did not appeal that ruling.

The two newspapers then filed requests under the state's Open Records Act to obtain the case files of all children who died or nearly died from abuse and neglect in 2009 and 2010, but the cabinet at first refused to release the documents. The newspapers sued again, and Shepherd ruled in late 2011 that the newspapers were entitled to the case files.

The cabinet said Monday that there are about 140 case files from 2009 and 2010 that fall under the newspapers' request. Of those, the state had released redacted versions of 76 files. It released 43 more case files Monday.

Cabinet officials said other cases have pending court action and will be released after they have been adjudicated.

There is disagreement about what information in the files should be withheld from the public. The cabinet originally redacted a broad array of information — sometimes even erasing the names of people who had been criminally charged.

Shepherd ruled in February that the cabinet had 90 days to turn over the remaining case files. Shepherd also fined the cabinet $16,000 for withholding the records and awarded $57,000 in attorney fees to the newspapers.

The cabinet appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals, asking the court to stay Shepherd's order. In a July 9 ruling, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals refused to block the release of the documents.

Shortfalls exposed

The cabinet filed a motion Monday with the state Supreme Court asking it to stay the lower court's ruling, which would have compelled the cabinet to release the child abuse case files with limited information redacted.

"We disagree on how much personal information about the children and private individuals included in caseworker files should be made public," Haynes said in a written statement.

Kif Skidmore, a lawyer who represents the Herald-Leader, said the newspaper will oppose the cabinet's motion before the state Supreme Court.

"The Governor's executive order has no impact on our positions in the pending litigation," Skidmore said. "The Cabinet violated the Open Records Act by its wholesale refusal to allow inspection of the child fatality and near-fatality records and continues to violate the act by its insistence on redactions that are far beyond what the Open Records Act allows."

The records released by the cabinet so far have exposed shortfalls in the state's child-protection system.

For example, Judge Shepherd blasted the cabinet's handling of the case of Amy Dye, a 9-year-old girl who was killed by her adoptive brother in February 2011. Shepherd said the cabinet failed to protect the girl even though Todd County school officials had contacted the cabinet multiple times in the two years before Dye's death with concerns about possible abuse. The Todd County Standard, a weekly newspaper, successfully sued the cabinet to get access to Dye's records.

The cabinet said it did not investigate those complaints because the abuse was not at the hands of a parent or guardian.

In the case of Kayden Branham and his mother Alisha Branham, records show that social workers asked Alisha Branham's mother, Melissa Branham, to come in for drug tests at least 24 times. The difficulty in getting Melissa Branham to take drug tests should have prompted caseworkers to take a closer look at whether the state should remove Kayden Branham, child protection experts have said.

Alisha Branham later told authorities that she moved to the trailer where Kayden died because her mother did not have food for her son to eat.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/16/2260408/beshear-creates-panel-to-review.html#storylink=cpy

PHONY MITT ROMNEY, BAIN CAPITAL AND POTUS BARACK OBAMA. I'M ROTFLMAO!

PROSECUTION "WITNESS #9": "GEORGE ZIMMERMAN AND HIS FAMILY DO NOT LIKE BLACK PEOPLE UNLESS THEY ACTED WHITE". WATCH VIDEO.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: HOW DOES A BLACK ACT WHITE, SO I CAN KNOW?

America Has Become A Pill-Popping Nation. TRUE THAT!

America has become a pill-popping nation
BY MITCH ALBOM

Last week, my father, who is 83, suffered a medical emergency. At the hospital, he was asked this question: “How many pills do you take?”

His answer: aspirin and Zocor. “That’s it?” came the reply.

Days later, after he’d been prescribed a daily blood thinner, a blood pressure drug and a stronger cholesterol drug, a therapist asked, “How many pills do you take?” He answered with the three new medications.

“Wow,” he was told. “You’re doing great for your age.”

Both responses are telling. We live in the age of prescription, when anything and everything has a pill assigned to it. If you’re not swallowing something, doctors are surprised.

Did you know the average American fills 12 prescriptions a year? Our medicine cabinets are stocked with small brown bottles. From heartburn to heartache, there is a pill you can pop.

And that’s how the drug companies want it.

“It’s a huge business,” says Alesandra Rain. She should know. At one point in her life, Rain took more than 100 pills a day – the result of an injury and personal issues that led to one prescription after another. “I took pills for insomnia, for anxiety, for sleep, for depression.”

She blames doctors. She blames herself. “I wanted my pain handled instantly,” she admits.

And plenty of drugs promised to do it. Think about how many kids are already on attention deficit disorder medication, how many adults are on weight-loss or sexual function pills, how many senior citizens have plastic dispensers labeled Monday through Sunday to organize all their prescriptions. Nearly half of Americans older than 65 take five medications a day, and a third of them will suffer adverse side effects.

Yet we keep swallowing.

Diagnosis by TV

America wasn’t always a pill-popping nation. It used to be that if you had a problem, you saw a doctor, and if the doctor felt it was serious enough, he prescribed something.

Today, TV ads trumpet drugs straight at us. You’re asked if you have a problem. You’re told there is a way to deal with it. You see actors smiling in suggested healing. Next thing you know, you’re asking your doctor for those pills.

There’s a reason the pharmaceutical industry typically spends nearly twice as much on advertising as it does on research.

It works.

Here’s the mentality of our country now: If you have a problem, open a vial. Cholesterol rising? A pill for that. Can’t sleep? A pill for that. Feeling blue? A pill for that. Never mind that these issues were once dealt with by diet, exercise or facing our problems. Today it’s easier – and better for the drug industry – if you just ingest something.

“The HMO system has crushed us,” says Rain, who eventually told her doctors “Enough,” quit all her medications, and started a group called Point Of Return to help others with drug-dependence issues. “Doctors today don’t have time to figure out what’s wrong. They just write a prescription.”

Of course, they have motivation, as we learned in the recent humongous $3 billion judgment against GlaxoSmithKline. It revealed that doctors were often enticed to prescribe drugs through perks and kickbacks. This, on top of the fact that Glaxo wrongfully marketed anti-depression medicine to teenagers.

It’s clear why the drug companies would push those limits. The younger you hook ‘em, the longer you have ’em.

Side effects

Did you know only America and New Zealand even allow direct-to-consumer drug ads? Think about it. Why should average citizens be seeing ads for drugs? Shouldn’t that be limited to the physicians who then determine whether they are appropriate?

But the drug industry leapfrogs the process, counting on those in pain, in sadness, overweight or overindulgent to head for the pharmacy.

Who’s watching the side effects? Who’s checking for drug interaction – especially when people take so many medications?

And then there’s this issue: What standards are being set for “problematic?” What level is truly too high for cholesterol? How long is too long for depression? What really determines ADD? The lower the bar, the faster the medication gets prescribed.

My hope is that my father is not on his pills for long. This may dismay certain doctors, but so be it.

“How many pills do you take?” The answer ought to be: “Only as many as I need.” Sadly, as our medicine cabinets prove, that is not always, or even often, the case.

FEDERAL JUDGE FINDS KENTUCKY CABINET FOR HEALTH AND FAMILY SERVICES IN CONTEMPT OF COURT. SO WHEN WILL STATE JUDGE SHEPHARD FOLLOW?

Judge holds Kentucky health cabinet in contempt

LEXINGTON, KY. — A federal judge held the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services in contempt of court on Monday over a Medicaid dispute in Eastern Kentucky.

U.S. Senior Judge Karl S. Forester, in a six-page opinion, wrote that the cabinet has failed to comply with a May court order that allowed patients to transfer from Medicaid insurance company Coventry Cares, which has sought to sever its contract with Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

ARH, a network of eight hospitals in the region, has accused the cabinet of hindering transfers for 8,400 patients who have requested a switch from Coventry to WellCare of Kentucky, another Medicaid company that still has a contract with ARH.

Forester said he will consider possible sanctions at a later date but will not force the cabinet to process the transfers considering that the new open enrollment period for Medicaid will begin on Aug. 20, allowing patients to switch companies on their own.

“The court is also concerned that there has been so much confusion regarding this contract termination that any further letters or activity at this point may only make matters worse,” Forester wrote.