Wanker of the Week: Phill Kline

There were lots of wankers this week, so many it was quite a winnowing process selecting just one. Thank God for Phill can't-even- spell-Phil Kline.

Kline is the former Kansas state legislator and Attorney General who was thumped by Paul Morrison in the AG race in November. Paul Morrison switched parties just too tromp his ass and send him packing.

Kline just doesn't give a good-god-damn about minutiae such as "due process" or professional ethics. He was born 40 years too late and in the wrong super-power. He woulda been one hell of a Soviet aparatchik. Unfortunately, he's a pretty fuckin' lousy American.

He spent his four years as Attorney General obsessing about abortions performed on minors. He tried to obtain confidential medical records, and some confidential information made it to the air on Bill O'Lieleys show.

Now he has a new obsession.

Kline out of bounds with blood-test plan

Prosecutor seeks evidence of a crime at the expense of a medical patient’s privacy. Health professionals object. Prosecutor says he’ll arrest them if they stand in his way.

The sequence has a familiar ring to anyone who followed Phill Kline’s turbulent term as Kansas attorney general. It’s perturbing, but not surprising, to see him continue the pattern as Johnson County’s district attorney.

As attorney general, Kline sought records of some patients who had received abortions. He waged an unsuccessful and widely ridiculed legal battle to require counselors, doctors and others to notify authorities if they suspected that some teenagers were sexually active.

Now Kline wants hospital staffers to obtain blood tests from certain unwilling patients to determine whether they are intoxicated. He says he’ll arrest the medical personnel for “obstruction of justice” if they don’t comply, even though they are bound by federal regulations and accreditation guidelines to respect patient privacy and a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment.

No responsible person wants to let intoxicated drivers off the hook. But the proper procedure is to obtain a warrant from a judge if a motorist balks at providing a blood sample.

In a small number of cases, a warrant won’t be available. Reasonable prosecutors have still found ways to hold drunken drivers accountable without forcing health care workers to violate professional codes.

Kline, however, lacks finesse and experience in criminal prosecution, not to mention respect for health professionals. After just three months in his new post, he is drawing the once-respected Johnson County district attorney’s office into unnecessary, but predictable, controversy.

This health professional is not going to play along. I have informed the healthcare staffing agencies that I take shifts for every summer when I'm off from school, that I will not take any shifts on the Kansas side. An invasive procedure committed upon an objecting lucid patient is assault, and I am not going to commit that crime.

Fuck Phill Kline. He may not have any professional ethics, but I do. And I am not going to put myself in a position where I have to chose between whether to live up to the professional code of ethics that I have operated under for two decades, or going to jail. I have no desire to be a martyr or a test case. Kansas trauma teams will just have to operate without me until that wanker is out of office.

Preparations Underway for Johnson's Return to the Senate

I don't know about you, but I was on the verge of a complete and total meltdown/outburst/full-on hissy-fit after the events of the last week.

If I had not gotten a bit of good news, I might have simply imploded into a tight, quivering little ball of redheaded rage and fury.

Senator Tim Johnson, who suffered the rupture of an Arterio-Venous Malformation (AVM) in December of last year has been recovering steadily, and preparations are being made for his return to the Senate. Those preparations include widening aisles and doorways, a freeing up area around his desk, and in general making his office and personal washroom wheelchair accessible.

Motor ability on the Senator's right side was compromised by the event and he is expected to use an electric scooter to facilitate his mobility. A "natural rightie," the Senator is also learning to write with his left hand.

Johnson fell ill on December 13th while conducting a telephone interview, and a capital physician referred him immediately to the ED at the George Washington University hospital, where he underwent emergency neurosurgery later that day.

Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said Wednesday that the senator would be in the rehabilitation facility "for a while longer" and would undergo outpatient therapy before returning to the Senate. She would not speculate on how long that will take.

Thank a god I am certain doesn't exist for a little good news. My head won't explode today...(but there is always tomorrow...)

Boom Town

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going" General Jack Sheehan.

The "Splurge" has been underway for two months now. And to what end has it brought us?

In the last week two vital bridges in Baghdad have been destroyed by suicide bombers, attacks by suicide bombers in Baghdad yesterday killed 57, and a suicide bomber struck in the heavily secured parliament building in the Green Zone itself.

In March, more American troops were killed than Iraqi forces. April is on pace to be more deadly still, with 40 fatalities last week alone.

This is not what "success" looks like, and Americans do not get to win Iraq's civil war.

Those in charge don't have any idea what the hell they are doing. Turns out real warfare ain't exactly that much like Risk, afterall. (Who knew???)

The stench of desperation hangs heavy in Washington, and grows thicker and more sickening by the day.

The geniuses who know nothing of war outside Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers have painted us into a corner and decimated the military of manpower and materiel - to the point it will take decades to rebuild.

The desperately out-of-touch who advocate the "Splurge" stubbornly insist that the "new" strategy will work - because it has to. There is no contingency in case it doesn't and McCain admitted as much yesterday in a campaign appearance in Iowa.

“I have no Plan B,” Mr. McCain said in an interview. “If I saw that doomsday scenario evolving, then I would try to come up with one. But I cannot give you a good alternative because if I had a good alternative, maybe we could consider it now.” He went on: “I am not guaranteeing that this succeeds,” said Mr. McCain, “I am just saying that I think it can. I believe it has a good shot.”

Based on what, Senator? On the escalating violence? On the ratcheted up casualties? On the fact that we have to redeploy Guardsmen back to battle even though that violates the contract they signed when they joined? On the fact that we are force to extend battle tours for the Active Duty Army in a shell-game attempt to maintain the numbers of troops in theatre?

How the fuck is it *supporting the troops* to send them into escalating violence with no alternative strategy in place? People who advocate death and destruction and support this criminal president and his cabal of minions do not get to question my patriotism, got that? (Too shrill? Too fucking bad, I don't give a rat's ass what some mendacious fucktards who support this clusterfuck think. I will be at least this shrill for the better part of the next year, until someone I love dearly completes his tour and comes home safely.)

Now - Explain to me - in specific detail, not mealy-mouthed platitudes - why I should have any faith in anything proposed by the gang who couldn't shoot straight? I'm not a silly little girl with pie-in-the-sky ideals that have no basis in reality. I am a seasoned observer. I grew up in the Navy, I married the Air Force and I joined the Army my damned self. This criminal enterprise in the White House and their mendacious minions in the Pentagon (many of whom have slunk away and recanted - like Perle and Adelman - but should still be hung by the neck until dead) have been absolutely positively 100% wrong about absolutely positively everything to this point. As I am not insane, I do not keep trying something over and over, expecting a different result.

I consider "Victory will be a stable democratic Iraq" a mealy-mouthed platitude. Nice sentiment, but how do we achieve that? What cost are you willing to bear to see that end? Are you willing to pay some taxes? Do you believe strongly enough in it to put your skin in the game? To encourage your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews to join up? Or do you only have the courage to carry a balance on your charge-cards because the president said to go shopping?

What cost are you personally willing to bear to achieve that end? That is the real question. Because while the American military is at war - the American people are at the mall.

Sunday Morning Spiritual: Hallelujah

I don't know about secret chords that please the lord - but this song strikes a chord with me.

If you like the Cowboy Junkies, you will love Over the Rhine.




(I know, I have posted this video before - but it was right after I moved to this URL, and traffic is getting back up near where it was, and this band deserves the recognition. So I opted for site-owner discretion and reposted it.)

WaPo Betrays Democracy

What exactly is the compromising position Karl Rove has evidence of Fred-the-Feckless Hiatt being caught in?

It is the only explanation for the willingness of the Washington Post editorial pages to carry the putrid bilgewater for this administration.

Apparently five million missing emails is no big deal - certainly this is no missing 18 minutes of audiotape. Silly reactionary Democrats!

But it's not particularly helpful, as Mr. Leahy did in a speech on the Senate floor, to invoke "the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes" or to accuse the administration of deliberately causing the e-mails to disappear. If White House aides were trying to conduct government business off the official record, why would they have sent e-mails from their gwb43.com accounts to Justice Department officials at the Justice officials' government addresses?

Off the top of my head, I would say because they aren't very smart.

As Atrios would say, this has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions

At the same time, we can understand the frustration of Mr. Leahy and his colleagues. The good news Thursday was that White House counsel Fred F. Fielding finally responded to letters from Mr. Leahy and others about lawmakers' request for access to White House

And by the way, I have a low fucking tolerance for willfully obtuse mendacity.

It is Senator Leahy. Not Mr. Leahy. Senator Leahy. Use the appropriate honorific when you refer to the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When you don't you just tip your hand that you are really just a bunch of sniveling little bitches who don't want to offend the jackals that control the access.

For the record, five million emails is a big deal. It's a huge deal. Serious crimes might have been committed, crimes that undermine the foundation of our very democracy. And then there are the apparent cover-ups that compound the problem.

Washington Post, you have been dropping the ball a lot lately.

I know you have real journalists on staff that still do some stellar reporting. That makes this idiocy that much harder to take. Maybe your op-ed staff needs a retreat with Dana Priest to have their journalistic roots refreshed?