Posted on April 17, 2024 by Lloyd Billingsley in Canada, Health Care

Canada Extends the Victorian Age

On April 17, 2016, my mother Victoria Billingsley passed away at the age of 94. Today (April 17, 2024) she received a letter from Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare about “the recent cyber incident affecting local hospitals in the Southwest Ontario region,” including approximately 46,000 patients of Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare. As the letter explains:

We can confirm that, unfortunately, you were included in this group and some of the personal health information that you provided to Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare was stolen by cyber criminals. Based on our analysis of these files, we believe the following information of yours was included in the stolen data: Date of Birth, Personal Health Information, OHIP/Health Card Number.

We would like to emphasize that the perpetrators of this attack did not gain access to Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare’s electronic medical record (EMR) system, and this attack did not result in the full theft of all of your personal health information

We recognize that this incident may have shaken your trust in us, and we are focused on earning it back. We are, and always have been, dedicated to the security of your information. We will continue to reinforce that through improved security and training. We have rebuilt our systems to ensure that the perpetrators of this attack and their malware were removed. We have also made substantial improvements to our cybersecurty and network architecture. We have emerged stronger and safer from this.

We are focused on accountability We promptly reported the incident to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). The IPC has opened an investigation file, and while you are entitled to file a complaint, the IPC has advised that it is not necessary as they are already investigating the matter.

And so on, confirming that government monopoly health care, what some persist in calling “socialized medicine,” is not immune to a “cyber incident.” I can imagine what my mother, a teacher, would have said about it.

In the early days of rock and roll, parents down the street would say, “Timmy, turn down that damn noisy junk!” My mother calmly told me, “that music is strident and cacophonous.” On the eighth anniversary of her departure, her great grandson Henry texted “rest in peace Victoria.”

Posted on by Steven Hayward

Hey Folx: Today in Ivy League Inanity

Columbia University is a hotbed of anti-Semitism right now, and has seen more than its share of ugly incidents since October 7. Right now Columbia president Minouche Shafik is testifying before the same House committee where Harvard’s Claudine Gay self-immolated last fall. I’ve watched a few minutes of the proceedings, and it is clear that Shafik is much better prepared than was Gay to give halfway sensible answers to the committee, but this brief clip is the highlight of the day so far:

Congressman Banks did miss a wonderful opportunity to paraphrase Orwell, and respond, “I guess you have to attend an Ivy League college to learn how to spell that way.”

Posted on by Steven Hayward in The Daily Chart

The Daily Chart: Confidence in the News Media

Given the news about NPR (and even the New York Times, currently enduring its own internal Maoist struggle sessions, which I’ll discuss separately), this chart hardly needs any explanation. Though I’ll add that if the media keeps going in its current mode, I’m sure they can drive public trust all the way down to zero.

Posted on by Steven Hayward

The Other Shoe Drops at NPR

In yesterday’s item about the suspension of longtime NPR business editor Uri Berliner for telling the truth about NPR’s deep ideological bias, I meant to conclude by saying that the obvious next step would be his dismissal from NPR. And today the other shoe dropped: Berliner has “resigned” from NPR, but make no mistake, it was quite clear that NPR’s new Stasi management would no longer tolerate his presence.

And no surprise, NPR’s new uber-woke head, Katherine Maher, turns out to be one of those “my truth” types, which is a perfect fit for what I call the Age of Proprietary Truth. Here, if you can stand the full two minutes, is Maher from her Wikipedia days doing her best imitation of Titania McGrath:

Chaser—Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner has it pitch-perfect, noting that Maher represents “peak Karenism”:

Sometimes, a person enters the public spotlight and is such an embodiment of an established stereotype that it seems impossible for him or her to be a real person. If Tom Wolfe wanted to capture the essence of arrogant, alienated progressivism, he would reject NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, as too unbelievably on point.

The daughter of wealthy parents whose wedding was announced in the New York Times, Maher grew up in a wealthy white suburb of New York City before studying at the American University in Cairo, the Institut français du Proche-Orient in Syria, and finally New York University.

She then got internships with the Council on Foreign Relations and Eurasia Group in London and Germany before landing a job in New York City at UNICEF. She had stops with the National Democratic Institute and the World Bank, among other global nonprofit groups, before rising to become the CEO of Wikimedia in 2019.

It would be impossible to create a resume of a person more disconnected from Americans and more intertwined with the wealthy, urban, globalist elite who run the largest banks, media companies, and nonprofit groups in the United States. In other words, Maher has the perfect resume to run NPR.

And her tweets prove she is the perfect person for the job.

She’s a vegetarian. She hates cars. And white men flying on planes. She supports race-based reparations, rioting, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She believes “America is addicted to white supremacy.”

She doesn’t want to become a mother because “the planet is literally burning.” She uses phrases such as “CIS white mobility privilege” unironically. She admits to growing up “feeling superior … because I was from New England and my part of the country didn’t have slaves.” I wonder what fuels her sense of superiority now.

Actually I approve of Maher’s decision against pro-creation. She’s exactly the kind of person who ought not to re-produce.

More, from Chris Rufo—turns out Maher hates the First Amendment:

I’m thinking my description of Maher as Stasi-like is too mild.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Anti-Semitism, Biden Justice Department, FBI, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel

Inside a “protest”

NRO staff reporter James Lynch embedded himself in the New York City edition of the April 15 Kill the Jews rallies staged by A15 around the United States on Monday. I wrote about the rallies yesterday in “From sea to shining sea.” NRO has published Lynch’s story in “‘Israel Is a Terrorist State’: Scenes from New York City’s Disruptive Anti-Israel Rally.”

Lynch’s story reflects the hatreds coursing through the mob, especially including hatred of the Kill the Jews variety as well as hatred of the United States. Lynch concludes:

The disruption in Brooklyn was one of many anti-Israel protests that took place nationwide on Monday in metropolitan areas including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Antonio. Left-wing activist organization A15 Action was the primary organizing force behind the protests, being formed specifically for that purpose.

We need some serious reporting on the organizers and supporters of A15. Who are they? Where is the FBI? The organizers of these events constitute a fifth column and mean the United States no good. Their coordinated actions go well beyond lawful “protests.” They invite criminal prosecution. The curiosity of the mainstream media is nevertheless curiously limited — i.e., nonexistent.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in House of Representatives, Republicans

Time for MTG

John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.”

Since then the GOP House majority has been dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number asymptotically approaching zero.

It empowered Matt Gaetz to trigger the chain of events leading to McCarthy’s ouster from the Speaker’s chair. I decried that development in “Gaetz of Eden.” Has anyone asked Gaetz what good he did in sacking McCarthy?

McCarthy was deposed this past October. It seems like ancient history. McCarthy subsequently resigned his House seat effective December 31.

I have here in my hand a list of names. According to the list, among the Republicans getting out of Dodge with McCarthy are Reps. Bill Johnson (effective January 21), Ken Buck (effective March 22), Mike Gallagher (effective this Friday), and George Santos, whose departure was involuntary.

Now comes word that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job is in serious jeopardy. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massie are threatening to trigger another motion to vacate. Johnson’s transgression comes in the form of a plan to call up separate bills funding defense needs in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

This cannot stand. GOPe! Uniparty! Sell-out! Squish! And other deep thoughts.

It’s obviously time for MTG. Make her chairman of the Stupid Caucus and Speaker of the House. Let her manage Republicans’ incredible shrinking House majority with her deft touch. She can accelerate the promotion of House Minority Leader Hakeeem “The Dream” Jeffries to Speaker of the House ahead of schedule next January.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Biden Justice Department, January 6, Law, Supreme Court, Trump Prosecutions

In the J6 cases

In a week laden with news, we shouldn’t overlook the oral argument held yesterday by the Supreme Court in Fischer v. United States. The issue before the Court. Fischer is one of some 350 January 6 defendants charged with obstructing an official congressional proceeding allegedly in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (as well as other federal offenses). The question before the Court is whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in construing the statute, which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, to include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence.

The Supreme Court has posted audio of the oral argument here and transcript here. Briefs of the parties and amici curiae are accessible at the Court’s online docket at the link on the italicized case name above. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute has posted helpful legal background to the case as it comes before the Court here. Unlike the audio clip posted at the Supreme Court, videos of the Supreme Court audio (including C-SPAN’s) begin a few seconds into Fischer attorney Jeffrey Green’s oral argument.

The case raises a question of statutory construction and related canons of construction, such as ejusdem generis. The Court’s unanimous April 12 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts in Bissonnette turned on this doctrine and comes up in the course of the oral argument.

The reading of the statute’s mens rea element (“corruptly”) also comes up. The justices refer to the case of Snyder v. United States, in which the Court held oral argument on Monday. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar refers to several federal criminal statutes that incorporate the same mens rea element, such as 18 U.S.C. § 7212. Her argument prompted me to recall I had written an opinion for the Eighth Circuit as a law clerk in which the defendant (a tax-protester) had been convicted under § 7212.

The oral argument is immersed in issues of statutory construction bearing on the word “otherwise.” Without background in the issues, it is difficult to follow at this stage of the proceedings. Jewish World Review has posted the Washington Post story by Ann Marimow on the oral argument and it covers the argument in comprehensible form for lay readers.

To give you a flavor, consider the question posed by Justice Kavanaugh to Prelogar at page 96 of the hearing transcript:

I think the key word in the — is “otherwise.” And trying to figure out what that means under our established principles of statutory interpretation, it would seem to trigger ejusdem generis under the Begay precedent. And you’ve used the phrase a few times “catchall provision,” as does your brief. And the Scalia-Garner book describes ejusdem generis as how you interpret catchall provisions. So does ejusdem generis apply here or not?

Prelogar responds that ejusdem generis does not apply.

When I finished clerking I thought there was a need for a contemporary book on statutory construction. Were it not for the imperative of making a living, I might have tried to write it. Thirty years later, the Scalia-Garner book cited by Justice Kavanaugh filled the gap in the professional literature. The book is Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (2012), by Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner. Professor David Forte reviewed it for the Claremont Review of Books in “Taking Law Seriously.”

The interest of the Fischer case is of course enhanced by the fact that two of the four felony charges formulated by Krazee-Eyez Killa Jack Smith against President Trump arise under the Sarbanes-Oxley provision at issue in Fischer. The Post makes this point in the headline for Marimow’s story: “Supreme Court divided over key charge against Jan. 6 rioters and Trump.”

As I hear the oral argument, Justices Kagan and Sotomayor are in the government’s corner in this case. I think the rest are up for grabs. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh seem to be dubious about the breadth of the government’s argument. I found it difficult to get a take on Justices Barrett and Jackson. Justice Jackson raised questions skeptical of the government’s case, but she may have been satisfied with Prelogar’s answers.