madinamerica
Rebecca Troeger August 15, 2018
A study led by Dr. Schermuly-Haupt of the Psychosomatic Rehabilitation Research Group at Charité University Medicine Berlin examines the prevalence of side effects for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The researchers, whose results were published in Cognitive Therapy and Research, found that 43% of CBT patients in their sample experienced side effects, which they define as “negative reactions to an appropriately delivered treatment.”
“Knowledge about the side effect profile [of psychotherapy] can improve early recognition of side effects, safeguard patients, and enhance therapy outcome,” the researchers write.
Researchers have long recognized that psychotherapy has positive as well as negative consequences. Estimates of side effect (SE) rates for psychotherapy vary from 5% to 20% of cases. One such side effect — deterioration of symptoms due to therapy — has been found to occur in 3 to 10% of patients. Psychological distress and marital/family conflict are two common side effects of treatment; others include the appearance of new symptoms, suicidality, stigmatization, and tension or changes in a patient’s social relationships.
Despite historical recognition of psychotherapy’s side effects, there is currently little data on their features and rate of occurrence. Dr. Schermuly-Haupt and colleagues sought to address this gap. They interviewed one hundred CBT therapists, asking them to describe “unwanted events” (UEs) experienced by a recent patient who had undergone 10 or more sessions of CBT.
Therapists were prompted to distinguish between unwanted events (i.e., any unwanted event that occurs during therapy, which may or may not be related to the therapy), adverse treatment reactions (i.e., an unwanted event related to treatment), and side effects (i.e. an unwanted event related to treatment that met “professional standards”) through the use of an Unwanted Events-Adverse Treatment Reactions Checklist, which differentiates between these treatment reaction categories.
The researchers found a curious discrepancy between the percentages of side effects identified by psychotherapists who were first asked for a “spontaneous report,” versus the percentage later identified during interviews when the various categories of unwanted events were “systematically evoke[d]” through use of the checklist. Initially, 74% of therapists stated that they didn’t know of any UEs or SEs that had occurred during treatment.
After the structured interview, however, therapists reported that 43% of patients experienced one or more SE (Average .57, SD = .81). This difference in reported side effects may point to a blind spot on the part of psychotherapists, which perhaps owes to difficulty recognizing one’s ability to harm, as well as a lack of training and awareness about psychotherapy’s adverse side effects.
The most commonly reported side effects included “negative well-being/distress,” “deterioration of symptoms,” and “strains in family relations.” According to qualitative data, examples of “negative well-being/distress” included crying uncontrollably in session, discomfort, and fear when engaging in interventions in session (e.g., exposure activities, role plays), difficulty discussing specific topics, and strong feelings experienced in response to the therapist (e.g. anger, tension, stress, and anxiety).
Examples of family strain that emerged as a result of treatment included a spouse who was distressed after his wife became less attentive and took more time for herself after being in therapy and a client who felt guilt and sadness after choosing to distance herself from a parent.
The authors note that there is some debate regarding whether “ordinary reactions” to CBT, such as the distress reactions and changes in patients’ social relationships described above, should be characterized as side effects, particularly since they may be essential to successful treatment outcomes. They argue that even though these responses “may be unavoidable, justified, or even needed or intended,” they should nevertheless be categorized as side effects. These side effects, although “unavoidable” and even “intended,” should be studied and should serve as motivation to develop treatments that “are better tolerated,” they write.
The authors also note that although the majority of the side effects identified in their study were rated as mild to moderate (59.6%) and not lasting (89.6%), over 40% of side effects were classified as severe or very severe, and 8.8% were persistent. Reflecting on these findings, they conclude, “Psychotherapy is not harmless.”
The study has several limitations. As psychotherapists reported side effects, reports may have been influenced by therapist bias; the authors suggest that future studies use a blend of stories from patients, therapists, and outside interviewers. The study’s sample was composed of patients with various diagnoses, and as such, results would likely be different in a more homogenous sample, or with a different form of therapy. Additionally, as approximately half of the patients whose cases were reported on in the study were taking psychotropic drugs, and it is thus impossible to rule out the effect of medication on the observed side effects.
The authors hope that the results of their study will increase psychotherapists’ awareness of treatment side effects and that this will contribute to improved care. In alignment with the recent call for an enhanced psychotherapy informed consent process, the authors also state that their data can be used to strengthen informed consent in psychotherapy, as well as to support “risk monitoring” throughout treatment.
****
Schermuly-Haupt, M. L., Linden, M., & Rush, A. J. (2018). Unwanted Events and Side Effects in Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 42(3), 219-229. (Link)
Thank You Ms Troeger and MIA, BUT, . . . .
With all due respect we Do realize people are trying to 'fix' this broken system.
It Can't be fixed.
Defund it, completely. Shut it down with a 6 week grace period for its practioners to Close up shop and quit the biz.
On Day One of week 7, write out the arrest warrants and indictments and round up everyone still engaged in it.
Showing posts with label The Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Law. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2018
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
The Suicide of Europe
townhall
Ben Shapiro
Posted: May 30, 2018 12:01 AM
On Friday, the British police arrested Tommy Robinson, founder and former leader of the English Defence League, a far-right anti-Islam group. Robinson is a controversial character, to be sure, a sort of Milo Yiannopoulos lite. His chief focus is on the threat of radical Islam, which he believes threatens the integrity of the British system.
You don't have to like Robinson. But whatever you think of him, his arrest is absurd by any measure. You see, Robinson was arrested for standing outside a court building and reporting on a trial involving the alleged grooming of young girls for sexual assault by radical Muslims.
Now, what would be illegal about that, you ask? It turns out that Robinson was given a suspended sentence last year for filming outside another court building, where a trial for alleged gang rape by radical Muslims was taking place. He wasn't inside the courtroom. Nonetheless, the judge believed he was somehow biasing the jurors. According to the judge, Robinson was sentenced thanks to "pejorative language which prejudges the case, and it is language and reporting ... that could have had the effect of substantially derailing the trial."
This time, Robinson was again arrested for prejudicing a case, only he wasn't inside the court building. He was outside. And the media were originally banned from reporting on his arrest so that his trial wouldn't be biased. In other words, Britain has now effectively banned reporting that actually mentions the Islamic nature of criminal defendants for fear of stirring up bigotry -- and has banned reporting on reporting on such defendants. It's an infinite regress of suicidal political correctness.
But at least the Europeans have their priorities straight: While it's perfectly legal to lock up a provocateur covering a trial involving Muslims, the European Union is now considering a ban on products like cotton buds, straws and other plastics for fear of marine litter. And just as importantly, it's now perfectly legal to kill unborn children again in Ireland, where voters -- with the help of a cheering press -- decided to lift the ban on abortions until the 20th week, condemning thousands of children to death.
This is how the West dies: with a tut-tut, not with a bang. The same civilization that sees it as a fundamental right to kill a child in the womb thinks it is utterly out of bounds to film outside a trial involving the abuse of children, so long as the defendants are radical Muslims. The Europeans have elevated the right to not be offended above the right to life; they've elevated the right to not be offended above the right to free speech, all in the name of some utopian vision of a society without standards.
Discarding those standards was supposed to make Europeans more free; it was supposed to allow Europeans to feel more comfortable. But the sad truth is that no society exists without certain standards and Europe has a new standard: enforcement of its "tolerance" via jail sentence, combined with tolerance of multiculturalism that sees tolerance itself as a Trojan horse. The notion of individual rights sprang from European soil. Now they're beginning to die there.
Thank You Mr Shapiro and Townhall.
Actually, as loath as we are to disagree with Mr Shapiro, IF, he's referring to the misconception that the Magna Carta is the source of the Rights of the Individual, . . . . he's wrong.
The Rights of the Individual codified here were much farther reaching than those of the Magna Carta, over 1,000 years ago:
at Althing in Iceland.
Those laws sprang from earlier Laws in earlier Scandinavia.
And half of the British Isles were under the Dane Law for 3 Centuries.
Viking Age Iceland, Privatization Run Amok or Libertarian Paradise?
If you didn't like the services your Chieftain charged you a nominal fee to provide, you could contract with another Chieftain on the other side of the island to do a better job for you, without having to move there.
Imagine how much better service we'd get today from government if we could simply tell government at every level, each and everyone of us on an individual basis, we can and will do something about you.
You're Fired.
via lewrockwell.com
Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune?
By Roderick T. Long
If you want to read the actual laws:
These volumes are expensive. No two ways about it.
So you might ask your local Library to borrow them for you from another branch within your State.
Ben Shapiro
Posted: May 30, 2018 12:01 AM
On Friday, the British police arrested Tommy Robinson, founder and former leader of the English Defence League, a far-right anti-Islam group. Robinson is a controversial character, to be sure, a sort of Milo Yiannopoulos lite. His chief focus is on the threat of radical Islam, which he believes threatens the integrity of the British system.
You don't have to like Robinson. But whatever you think of him, his arrest is absurd by any measure. You see, Robinson was arrested for standing outside a court building and reporting on a trial involving the alleged grooming of young girls for sexual assault by radical Muslims.
Now, what would be illegal about that, you ask? It turns out that Robinson was given a suspended sentence last year for filming outside another court building, where a trial for alleged gang rape by radical Muslims was taking place. He wasn't inside the courtroom. Nonetheless, the judge believed he was somehow biasing the jurors. According to the judge, Robinson was sentenced thanks to "pejorative language which prejudges the case, and it is language and reporting ... that could have had the effect of substantially derailing the trial."
This time, Robinson was again arrested for prejudicing a case, only he wasn't inside the court building. He was outside. And the media were originally banned from reporting on his arrest so that his trial wouldn't be biased. In other words, Britain has now effectively banned reporting that actually mentions the Islamic nature of criminal defendants for fear of stirring up bigotry -- and has banned reporting on reporting on such defendants. It's an infinite regress of suicidal political correctness.
But at least the Europeans have their priorities straight: While it's perfectly legal to lock up a provocateur covering a trial involving Muslims, the European Union is now considering a ban on products like cotton buds, straws and other plastics for fear of marine litter. And just as importantly, it's now perfectly legal to kill unborn children again in Ireland, where voters -- with the help of a cheering press -- decided to lift the ban on abortions until the 20th week, condemning thousands of children to death.
This is how the West dies: with a tut-tut, not with a bang. The same civilization that sees it as a fundamental right to kill a child in the womb thinks it is utterly out of bounds to film outside a trial involving the abuse of children, so long as the defendants are radical Muslims. The Europeans have elevated the right to not be offended above the right to life; they've elevated the right to not be offended above the right to free speech, all in the name of some utopian vision of a society without standards.
Discarding those standards was supposed to make Europeans more free; it was supposed to allow Europeans to feel more comfortable. But the sad truth is that no society exists without certain standards and Europe has a new standard: enforcement of its "tolerance" via jail sentence, combined with tolerance of multiculturalism that sees tolerance itself as a Trojan horse. The notion of individual rights sprang from European soil. Now they're beginning to die there.
Thank You Mr Shapiro and Townhall.
Actually, as loath as we are to disagree with Mr Shapiro, IF, he's referring to the misconception that the Magna Carta is the source of the Rights of the Individual, . . . . he's wrong.
The Rights of the Individual codified here were much farther reaching than those of the Magna Carta, over 1,000 years ago:
at Althing in Iceland.
Those laws sprang from earlier Laws in earlier Scandinavia.
And half of the British Isles were under the Dane Law for 3 Centuries.
Viking Age Iceland, Privatization Run Amok or Libertarian Paradise?
If you didn't like the services your Chieftain charged you a nominal fee to provide, you could contract with another Chieftain on the other side of the island to do a better job for you, without having to move there.
Imagine how much better service we'd get today from government if we could simply tell government at every level, each and everyone of us on an individual basis, we can and will do something about you.
You're Fired.
via lewrockwell.com
Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune?
By Roderick T. Long
If you want to read the actual laws:
These volumes are expensive. No two ways about it.
So you might ask your local Library to borrow them for you from another branch within your State.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Shrink Wants To 'Contain' President Trump For An Evaluation
dailycaller
Justin Caruso Media Reporter
11:56 PM 01/06/2018
Yale psychiatry professor Bandy Lee has been raising concerns about President Trump’s mental health for over a year and suggested in a new interview that Trump should be physically contained for an “urgent evaluation” to determine his mental state.
In a Vox interview published Saturday, reporter Eliza Barclay asks Lee, “Okay, so you’re calling for an evaluation; you’re serious about that. How could he possibly be evaluated, since it seems like he wouldn’t voluntarily do it?”
Lee responded, “We encounter this often in mental health. Those who most require an evaluation are the least likely to submit to one. That is the reason why in all 50 states we have not only the legal authority, but often the legal obligation, to contain someone even against their will when it’s an emergency. So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation.”
She continued, “This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care.”
Lee then said that doing this would look too much like a “coup.”
She said, “Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.”
The professor has been promoting the idea that Donald Trump needs a psychiatric evaluation publicly and has been boosted by prominent mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. She has met with a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers about her claims. (RELATED: How The Media Mainstreamed A Democratic Conspiracy Theory)
Thank You Mr Caruso and DC.
You Should be feeling the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. If they're not you Need to pay closer attention.
If this Psychiatrist believes it's legal and its Their Duty for her and her confederates to 'Contain' the President of the United States to subject his future to Their OPINION, where do you think you and everyone else rate, in their OPINION?
That's right. You understand it perfectly. The Law doesn't apply to them. They're above it.
Not just because they're pissed off about losing an election, but because THEY have the Right and Duty to rule.
Except that according to Federal Statute, as Psychiatrists they don't.
Justin Caruso Media Reporter
11:56 PM 01/06/2018
In a Vox interview published Saturday, reporter Eliza Barclay asks Lee, “Okay, so you’re calling for an evaluation; you’re serious about that. How could he possibly be evaluated, since it seems like he wouldn’t voluntarily do it?”
Lee responded, “We encounter this often in mental health. Those who most require an evaluation are the least likely to submit to one. That is the reason why in all 50 states we have not only the legal authority, but often the legal obligation, to contain someone even against their will when it’s an emergency. So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation.”
She continued, “This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care.”
Lee then said that doing this would look too much like a “coup.”
She said, “Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.”
The professor has been promoting the idea that Donald Trump needs a psychiatric evaluation publicly and has been boosted by prominent mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. She has met with a number of prominent Democratic lawmakers about her claims. (RELATED: How The Media Mainstreamed A Democratic Conspiracy Theory)
Thank You Mr Caruso and DC.
You Should be feeling the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. If they're not you Need to pay closer attention.
If this Psychiatrist believes it's legal and its Their Duty for her and her confederates to 'Contain' the President of the United States to subject his future to Their OPINION, where do you think you and everyone else rate, in their OPINION?
That's right. You understand it perfectly. The Law doesn't apply to them. They're above it.
Not just because they're pissed off about losing an election, but because THEY have the Right and Duty to rule.
Except that according to Federal Statute, as Psychiatrists they don't.
Monday, August 3, 2015
House Moves To Protect VA Whistle Blowers: Obama Promises Veto
fiercehealthcare
August 3, 2015 | By Ana Mulero
The House passed a measure last week that would give the Department of Veterans Affairs more power to fire poor performers and give whistleblowers some of the strongest protections in history, The Washington Post reported. Under the new legislation, those who retaliate against whistleblowers, including supervisors, would face mandatory discipline, starting with a 14-day minimum suspension for a first offense and could be fired for the second. Also, all VA employees would have to be trained on how to protect whistleblowers. It's "the strongest law in the U.S. Code requiring accountability for bureaucratic bullies who retaliate," said Tom Devine, legal director for the nonprofit Government Accountability Project. Opponents include President Obama, who said he would veto the measure if the Senate approves it because he considers the bill overly broad and a threat to federal workers' due process rights. Article
Thank You Ms Mulero and Fierce Healthcare.
We would have Liked to have prefaced this piece with an 'Un [expletive]-ing Real', but it is Obama, after all.
The Due Process Rights of Federal Employees/Party Members are his excuse this time.
The Due Process Rights of Citizens?
Remember the scene in Braveheart where the Scots turned around and mooned the English?
Apparently, under Fast and Furious Holder the Due Process Rights of California State and San Francisco Govt employees/Party Members also trumped the Due Process Rights of Citizens.
August 3, 2015 | By Ana Mulero
The House passed a measure last week that would give the Department of Veterans Affairs more power to fire poor performers and give whistleblowers some of the strongest protections in history, The Washington Post reported. Under the new legislation, those who retaliate against whistleblowers, including supervisors, would face mandatory discipline, starting with a 14-day minimum suspension for a first offense and could be fired for the second. Also, all VA employees would have to be trained on how to protect whistleblowers. It's "the strongest law in the U.S. Code requiring accountability for bureaucratic bullies who retaliate," said Tom Devine, legal director for the nonprofit Government Accountability Project. Opponents include President Obama, who said he would veto the measure if the Senate approves it because he considers the bill overly broad and a threat to federal workers' due process rights. Article
Thank You Ms Mulero and Fierce Healthcare.
We would have Liked to have prefaced this piece with an 'Un [expletive]-ing Real', but it is Obama, after all.
The Due Process Rights of Federal Employees/Party Members are his excuse this time.
The Due Process Rights of Citizens?
Remember the scene in Braveheart where the Scots turned around and mooned the English?
Apparently, under Fast and Furious Holder the Due Process Rights of California State and San Francisco Govt employees/Party Members also trumped the Due Process Rights of Citizens.
- SFMHB 06/13/07 (4)
Sunday, July 5, 2015
The Penumbra School of Law
American Thinker
By Clarice Feldman
I was watching in horror a series of Mark Dice videos of interviews in which passersby signed petitions to repeal the First Amendment to shut down criticism of Obama because it was all clearly racist. petitioned to repeal the Bill of Rights; revealed they didn’t know when and why we celebrate the Fourth of July; signed up to ban the American flag and replace it with a New World Order one.
I wanted to believe the people responding were outliers -- just ignorant San Diego beachgoers. Unfortunately there are too many indications they are not, and that this disregard for the Constitution and its protections, this lack of knowledge of our history and how it shaped the Constitution, and why it is important to us, are rife in both the states and the federal government .
A. Widespread Administration Disrespect for the Law
This week we learned that the lawyer who previously was in charge of preserving and producing the Lerner IRS records, is now in charge of obtaining Hillary’s emails and producing them.
Which do you think we’ll see first -- the missing Lerner emails or the missing Clinton ones?
B. The Supreme Court Has Rendered the Congressional Power to Legislate Nugatory
Professor David Bernstein dissects the Roberts Court on ObamaCare and observes a disturbing trend
C. The Right to Religious Freedom Seems Imperiled Along with the Right to Free Speech
There’s nothing about the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage that necessarily impinges on the religious freedoms of others, but the writing is on the wall that this barrier is the next one the left intends to attempt to breach.
In Oregon, a state agency (with the Zimbabwe-like title The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry) in bed with the local LGBT community fined the small baker Sweetcakes $135,000 (forcing it into bankruptcy) for refusing to bake a lesbian couple’s wedding cake. It also banned the bakers from making any statements challenging same sex marriage.
Even worse tactics were used by Milwaukee D.A. John Chisholm against Scott Walker allies, apparently inspired by Chisholm’s public employee union member wife, angered at Walker’s policies.
I suppose I could bemoan the loss of our liberties or pen an optimistic piece on how this, too, shall pass. But I’m thinking there’s an economic opportunity in this widespread shift. Why not create a new online law school, the Penumbra School. You can get your law degree from me at little cost and in rapid order. How? Well, we can skip all the courses on legislation. All we need is a meditation course in its place where we try to divine the feelings on matters of the linchpin Justice Kennedy. And we can dispense with constitutional law since it is now whatever five justices think it should have been. Contract and Corporation Law classes are unnecessary as the GM bailout established they count for nothing if the president decides to abrogate them. Immigration Law is unnecessary, too. No need to read what Congress has passed about immigration just leaf through the latest executive orders from the White House. True that leaves a few things -- Administrative law, for example -- but it increasingly appears that with minor exceptions like this week’s SCOTUS slapdown of the EPA, that Congress is just giving the bureaucrats blank checks to regulate whatever the heck they want to as they please and generally the courts are giving them wide berth to do just that. Our laws are being written on shifting, unpredictable sands, and the people charged with legislating, enforcing and interpreting seem to like that just fine.
I think my idea’s a cash cow.
To those of you who think my graduates will never be able to pass a bar exam, I have a simple answer. How much longer do you think the Supreme Court will allow states to use bar exams, anyway? A smaller percentage of blacks pass bar exams than whites do.
Thank You Ms Feldman and American Thinker
And why shouldn't we, when the taxpayer funded National Institute of Mental Health published in 2011 that at any given time 26% of Americans are committing Thought Crimes?
By Clarice Feldman
I was watching in horror a series of Mark Dice videos of interviews in which passersby signed petitions to repeal the First Amendment to shut down criticism of Obama because it was all clearly racist. petitioned to repeal the Bill of Rights; revealed they didn’t know when and why we celebrate the Fourth of July; signed up to ban the American flag and replace it with a New World Order one.
I wanted to believe the people responding were outliers -- just ignorant San Diego beachgoers. Unfortunately there are too many indications they are not, and that this disregard for the Constitution and its protections, this lack of knowledge of our history and how it shaped the Constitution, and why it is important to us, are rife in both the states and the federal government .
A. Widespread Administration Disrespect for the Law
The administration at every level expresses its contempt for Congress and its legal obligations knowing the attorney general will never prosecute its wrongdoing. The most obvious at the moment involve record keeping by the IRS and Hillary Clinton.
As you’ll recall, the IRS contributed to Obama’s reelection campaign -- perhaps even fixing its result -- by denying his opponents the tax exemptions to which they were entitled. Then it made up cockamamie excuses why it could not produce the email record evidence which they were legally obligated to preserve and produce. Now it turns out that the records requested did exist and were destroyed after the agency was put on notice to keep and provide them to Congress.Eight months after Congress requested emails from embattled IRS official Lois Lerner, tax agency employees "magnetically erased" hundreds of backup tapes.In like fashion, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly lied about her noncompliance with her obligations respecting her email record keeping and disclosures to the State Department and Congress. Her conduct surely means classified information unlawfully kept on her insecure, previously undisclosed, server has made its way to foreign governments. (As these revelations of her lies continue to unfold daily you might want to follow my rule of thumb -- everything Hillary Clinton says or ever said is untrustworthy. Saves me lots of time waiting for her clumsily proffered tales to be unraveled as they certainly will be in time.)
"The IRS did not put forth an effort to locate and preserve the backup tapes," said Timothy Camus, deputy inspector general for investigations with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. He said 422 backup tapes were destroyed.
The new details about the IRS watchdog's year-long efforts to uncover Lerner's missing emails emerged during a hearing Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
This week we learned that the lawyer who previously was in charge of preserving and producing the Lerner IRS records, is now in charge of obtaining Hillary’s emails and producing them.
Which do you think we’ll see first -- the missing Lerner emails or the missing Clinton ones?
B. The Supreme Court Has Rendered the Congressional Power to Legislate Nugatory
Professor David Bernstein dissects the Roberts Court on ObamaCare and observes a disturbing trend
The ACA has never polled well, and the Republicans took over the House and then the Senate, in part due to dissatisfaction with Obamacare. Since the Republicans have no stake in fixing a law they unanimously opposed, and the Obama Administration has no intention of reopening the legislation to major changes, the Administration has been left with using and abusing executive discretion to delay, ignore, and modify statutory provisions to get the law to work, or just to avoid the negative political consequences of it working as planned.If the Court can “help out” Congress by reading into laws what isn’t there and changing the clear meaning of words like “state” into “federal”, it can “help” Congress even more by systematically rewriting any law with which a majority of the justices disagree. At best, this tactic will only encourage sloppier legislative drafting.
King v. Burwell represented the best hope that the Supreme Court would take the appropriate posture on all this, which is that those who rush through a law they haven’t even read or understood and with no political support from the other side have to live with the consequences when inevitable mistakes arise. Instead, the majority took the position that its job is to help out the other branches when it turns out that such a law is unworkable as written. Too bad.
For lazy Congressmen this is a boon. They can spend all their days fundraising and golfing. Of course, it’s only the little people in the trenches who need to be concerned about what laws require or permit them to do and plead for more certainty.
There’s nothing about the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage that necessarily impinges on the religious freedoms of others, but the writing is on the wall that this barrier is the next one the left intends to attempt to breach.
The ACLU was one of the primary proponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and has used the Act in litigation to protect religious freedom. But now, as ACLU deputy legal director Louis Melling explains, the ACLU wants RFRA to be limited (she uses the term “amended”) “so that it cannot be used as a defense for discrimination.”D. The Challenge to our Constitutional Rights Has Extended to the State Level As Well
Melling argues, “religious liberty doesn’t mean the right to discriminate.” Why yes, it does, or at least it can.
Take Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox institutions (with a few exceptions) won’t recognize women as clergy, won’t recognize someone as Jewish unless they are Jewish according to halacha, won’t eat food unless the oven was turned on by a Jew, won’t recognize Jewish-Gentile intermarriages as legitimate “Jewish” marriages, won’t recognize same-sex marriages, or, in most cases, the legitimacy of same-sex romantic/sexual relationships, wouldn’t hire a teacher who is pregnant out of wedlock or openly homosexual and sexually active because that individual would have flouted religious law, and so on.
All of these things are “discrimination,” and some of them are, or plausibly could be in the future, illegal (though some would be protected by the so-called “ministerial exception” independent of RFRA).
In Oregon, a state agency (with the Zimbabwe-like title The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry) in bed with the local LGBT community fined the small baker Sweetcakes $135,000 (forcing it into bankruptcy) for refusing to bake a lesbian couple’s wedding cake. It also banned the bakers from making any statements challenging same sex marriage.
In January 2014, the agency found the Kleins unlawfully discriminated against the couple because of their sexual orientation. In April, McCullough recommended they pay $75,000 to Rachel and $60,000 to Laurel.A list of these so-called damages, the failure to acknowledge there are other means of obtaining a cake elsewhere along with the agency ban on free speech by the defendants should put to rest any notion that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry is more than a soviet style show tribunal acting against this week’s designated kulaks.
In order to reach the total amount, $135,000, Rachel and Laurel submitted a long list of alleged physical, emotional and mental damages they claim to have experienced as a result of the Kleins’ unlawful conduct. Examples of symptoms included “acute loss of confidence,” “doubt,” “excessive sleep,” “felt mentally raped, dirty and shameful,” “high blood pressure,” “impaired digestion,” “loss of appetite,” “migraine headaches,” “pale and sick at home after work,” “resumption of smoking habit,” “shock” “stunned,” “surprise,” “uncertainty,” “weight gain” and “worry.” [Emphasis supplied]
Even worse tactics were used by Milwaukee D.A. John Chisholm against Scott Walker allies, apparently inspired by Chisholm’s public employee union member wife, angered at Walker’s policies.
Agents with weapons drawn swarmed through every part of the house. They barged into the bathroom where my partner was showering. I was told to shut up and sit down. The officers rummaged through drawers, cabinets and closets. Their aggressive assault on my home seemed more appropriate for a dangerous criminal, not a longtime public servant with no criminal history.Targets of these raids had been forbidden to discuss them and suffered these depredations in silence at the time.
After they left, I surveyed the damage. Drawers and closets had been ransacked. My deceased mother’s belongings were strewn across the floor. Neighbors gathered in small clusters at the end of their driveways and the press arrived in force.
What had prompted the raid? My guess: As an adviser to Gov. Walker, I had played a lead role in drafting and implementing public-employee labor reforms that would propel him to the national stage.
The governor’s reforms, commonly referred to as Act 10, prompted angry union protests. The reforms also enraged many politicians, including, as I would later find out, Mr. Chisholm and members of his staff. My ties to Gov. Walker and Act 10 made me a prime target for Mr. Chisholm’s campaign to intimidate anyone close to the governor.
In other words, I was targeted because of my politics -- in plain violation of the First Amendment and federal civil-rights statutes.
Mr. Chisholm had campaigned for Gov. Walker’s Democratic opponent.[snip] As Mr. Lutz testified, the Milwaukee County district attorney made it his “duty” to “stop Governor Walker” from succeeding with Act 10.
When you read these accounts of apparently sane members of Wisconsin's "public service" and "law enforcement" launching thug assaults with battering rams against the suburban homes of their ideological opponents, would you really want to bet that the full force of the state won't one day SWAT a "homophobic" florist to death? In a deranged culture where the Stalinist bloodlust of political correctness is so insatiable that a hit TV show has to be yanked from the airwaves because of the roof of a motor vehicle driven by the characters, how many networks will be willing to countenance anyone espousing "traditional" theology or morality?E. MY Plan
I suppose I could bemoan the loss of our liberties or pen an optimistic piece on how this, too, shall pass. But I’m thinking there’s an economic opportunity in this widespread shift. Why not create a new online law school, the Penumbra School. You can get your law degree from me at little cost and in rapid order. How? Well, we can skip all the courses on legislation. All we need is a meditation course in its place where we try to divine the feelings on matters of the linchpin Justice Kennedy. And we can dispense with constitutional law since it is now whatever five justices think it should have been. Contract and Corporation Law classes are unnecessary as the GM bailout established they count for nothing if the president decides to abrogate them. Immigration Law is unnecessary, too. No need to read what Congress has passed about immigration just leaf through the latest executive orders from the White House. True that leaves a few things -- Administrative law, for example -- but it increasingly appears that with minor exceptions like this week’s SCOTUS slapdown of the EPA, that Congress is just giving the bureaucrats blank checks to regulate whatever the heck they want to as they please and generally the courts are giving them wide berth to do just that. Our laws are being written on shifting, unpredictable sands, and the people charged with legislating, enforcing and interpreting seem to like that just fine.
I think my idea’s a cash cow.
To those of you who think my graduates will never be able to pass a bar exam, I have a simple answer. How much longer do you think the Supreme Court will allow states to use bar exams, anyway? A smaller percentage of blacks pass bar exams than whites do.
Bar Passage: California, the state that administers the most bar exams, reports pass rates by race. For July 2011, the pass rates for first-time test-takers were:So, it’s simply a matter of time until bar exams are challenged and abolished as having a “disparate outcome”, and my grads can sail home free with only a few courses on feelings and none on law.
• White test-takers: 75.4%• Asian test-takers: 67.3%• Hispanic test-takers: 55.3%• Black test-takers: 45.7%• Other minority test-takers: 59.0%California allows graduates of unaccredited law schools, as well as apprentices who "read the law," to take the bar exam, but those differences do not account for the racial disparities. The same California report breaks down bar results by educational preparation -- with the same racial patterns in each group.
New York, the nation's second-largest administrator of bar exams, reports similar racial disparities in bar passage. A study reviewing New York's July 2005 exam reported the following pass rates for first-time takers:
• Caucasian/White test-takers: 86.8%• Asian/Pacific Islander test-takers: 80.1%• Hispanic/Latino test-takers: 69.6%• Black/African American test-takers: 54.0%[No “Other” group reported]
Thank You Ms Feldman and American Thinker
And why shouldn't we, when the taxpayer funded National Institute of Mental Health published in 2011 that at any given time 26% of Americans are committing Thought Crimes?
Dear US Department Of Veterans Affairs, An Open Letter
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Nurses, Keepers of Healthcare's Dirty Little Secrets?
fiercehealthcare;
Staffers spill about preferential treatment for VIPs, bets on patients
In order to uncover what the healthcare industry wants to keep hidden, simply ask the tight-knit, hard-working professionals who experience the highs and lows of hands-on patient care every day--nurses.
That's the theory of author Alexandra Robbins, who in a recent Politico piece detailed some of the healthcare industry's glaring truths gleaned from interviews with countless nurses for her new book about the profession.
For example, nurses told Robbins about the five-star treatment certain celebrities and VIPs receive in hospitals around the country, often unbeknownst to rank-and-file patients who receive treatment at the same hospitals. Rich or influential patients often receive larger rooms, big-screen TVs, lush furnishings, better food and even separate floors, a practice one nurse told Robbins she and her colleagues "are disgusted by."
The practice is more than distasteful, though, as some nurses also indicated that resources allocated to VIP treatment can detract from the quality of other patients' care. In one case, a nurse said it was common at her hospital to move critical patients away from the nursing station to make way for VIP patients who actually required less observation.
Nurses are also well-acquainted with the healthcare industry's well-known "July Effect," which describes the uptick in medical errors associated with a new crop of medical residents every summer. And when newly minted doctors fumble, it is nurses who often have to correct errors and pick up the slack, according to the article.
Nurses themselves are not immune from questionable practices, however, as many told Robbins that hospital staffers commonly make bets about patients' conditions, injuries or even surgical outcomes. For example, nurses often can be found making small wagers to guess a patient's blood-alcohol level.
Along similar lines, many nurses describe widespread bullying and hazing among their peers, often carried out in accordance with time-honored hierarchies. The practice likely adversely affects patient care, and some experts suggest it may drive nurses away from the profession.
To learn more:
- read the article
- read the article
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Nurses say peer bullying is rampant--and patients pay the price
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Study: Nurses overworked, understaffed and stressed
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Thank You Ms Small and FierceHealthcare.
Unfortunately, this article misses the punchline.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Psychiatrists And Psychologists Not Reliable Expert Witnesses
November 16, 2014
Psychiatrists and psychologists who work as expert witnesses for the courts are generally no more scientifically knowledgeable or accurate about issues that involve human memory than regular practitioners or lay persons, according to a study published in Psychology, Crime and Law. In some court cases, wrote the authors of the study, the results could be “catastrophic”.
The study was based on a questionnaire distributed to members of the Norwegian Psychological and Psychiatric Associations, to which about 940 professionals responded. The surveys asked questions about current scientific understandings with respect to psychological topics often relevant to court cases, especially involving factors that affect memories in victims or eyewitnesses.
“The results of the present paper show that psychologists and psychiatrists serving as expert witnesses in court have limited knowledge about factors affecting the memory of eye witnesses and memory factors in general, and they do not score above the level of psychologists/psychiatrists in general,” wrote the authors. “Moreover, a comparison with the results of samples of lay persons and judicial professional shows that they do not outperform these samples on items common to the two surveys.”
They described the overall performance of those professionals who said they’d served as expert court witnesses as “not very impressive.” At the same time, these professionals rarely indicated that they were “uncertain” about their responses.
Nearly 40% of the expert witnesses incorrectly believed that the memory of young children is better than or equally good as adult memory, noted the researchers. A significant majority of both expert witnesses and regular mental health practitioners also believed that memories of childhood abuse could appear for the first time in therapy – the researchers suggested that when these “erroneous ideas about memory are brought to court it may have catastrophic consequences.”
“(T)he results of the present paper should caution the courts that the expertise of psychological and psychiatric expert witnesses may have limitations,” concluded the researchers.
(Abstract) Psychologists and psychiatrists serving as expert witnesses in court: what do they know about eyewitness memory? (Melindera, Annika & Magnussena, Svein. Psychology, Crime and Law. Volume 21, Issue 1, 2015. DOI: 10.1080/1068316X.2014.915324)
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