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As John McCain and other big-government Republicans
call for an Ebola czar, The Federalist‘s Mollie
Hemingway
points out that we already have one—and that the office doesn’t
seem to be doing much good:

the federal
government not ten years ago created and funded a brand new office
in the Health and Human Services Department specifically to
coordinate preparation for and response to public health threats
like Ebola. The woman who heads that office, and reports directly
to the HHS secretary, has been mysteriously invisible from the
public handling of this threat. And she’s still on the job even
though three years ago she was embroiled in a huge scandal of
funneling a major stream of funding to a company with ties to a
Democratic donor—and away from a company that was developing a
treatment now being used on Ebola patients.

Before the media swallow implausible claims of funding problems,
perhaps they could be more skeptical of the idea that government is
responsible for solving all of humanity’s problems. Barring that,
perhaps the media could at least look at the roles that waste,
fraud, mismanagement, and general incompetence play in the repeated
failures to solve the problems the feds unrealistically claim they
will address. In a world where a
$12.5 billion slush fund at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention is used to fight the privatization of liquor stores,
perhaps we should complain more about mission creep and Progressive
faith in the habitually unrealized magic of increased government
funding.

Read the rest
here.

Bonus link: The Ebola debate, like so many debates, has
turned into a face-off between the forces of Needs More Spending
and Needs More Policing. They’ll probably compromise and give us
both. In the meantime, if Hemingway’s article is an antidote to
knee-jerk calls for more spending, this
2008 paper offers some good responses to the more-policing
crowd.

The day after Oscar Fueselier was arrested and taken to Orleans
Parish Prison (OPP), he was brain-dead, comatose, and handcuffed to
a hospital bed. The 57-year-old Vietnam War vet with a history of
mental health issues was being held in the jail for missing traffic
court. His cellmate, 18-year-old Richard Jackson, was there on
armed robbery charges. After complaining Fueslier smelled like
urine, Jackson stomped on his head.

Fueselier was immediately taken to the jail’s hospital and held
there for three days, brain-dead and unresponsive. On his third day
in the hospital, the office of New Orleans Sheriff Marlin Gusman
released Fueselier from custody, and he was transferred to a
hospice. One week later, Fueselier died, and the official cause of
death was listed as lung cancer. Because he was released from
custody before he died,
Fueselier’s death was never investigated by the sheriff’s
office, and an official autopsy was never conducted.

According to a new multi-part
investigative series published by Louisiana’s
Times-Picayune called “Dying at OPP,” Fueselier was one of
seven inmates who were released from custody shortly before they
died. Because their deaths occurred after they were released, they
don’t appear on any official count of the jail’s inmate fatalities.
This, the Times-Picayune
reports, is “a practice that critics say is an intentional
circumvention of the public reporting requirements for in-custody
deaths.”

Beyond not officially reporting these seven deaths,
Times-Picayune found that OPP failed to notify the
families of several inmates who died while in custody. In some
cases, families weren’t notified until days or weeks after their
relative had died.

In
one case, the wife of an inmate was told her husband had been
released when she called every day for two weeks; he had actually
been dead the entire time. He died two days after he was brought to
OPP on charges of domestic battery. In
another case, the father of an inmate wasn’t told that a guard
had critically injured his son—who had been brought in two days
earlier on charges of public drunkenness—until after he had been
taken him off life support. In a
third case, the sister of an inmate was told she had been
released when she had actually been declared brain dead, two days
after being charged with biting a security officer. In all three
cases,
lawsuits have been filed alleging that mistreatment by OPP
guards contributed to these inmates’ deaths. The sheriff’s office
is fighting these claims.

Since 2006, a total of
44 inmates at OPP have died, including seven the sheriff’s
office did not report. According to the Times-Picayune,

OPP’s inmate death rate exceeded state and national averages
“in all but one year from 2006 to 2011.”

As one of the country’s most notoriously awful jails, abuse,
negligence, and incompetence have run rampant at Orleans Parish
Prison for years. Things have gotten so bad that the jail was put
under a federal consent decree in 2013 to improve conditions for
inmates. In his opinion, Federal Judge (FIRST NAME) Africk
wrote that the decree “is the only way to overcome the years of
stagnation that have permitted OPP to remain an indelible
stain on the community, and it will ensure that OPP
inmates are treated in a manner that does not offend contemporary
notions of human decency.” (Emphasis mine)

The court ordered OPP to make several improvements, including
reporting inmate deaths to a federal monitor who would then notify
the U.S. Department of Justice. Despite these mandated changes,
there are
still no independent investigations after an inmate dies at the
facility. Instead, New Orleans Parish sheriff deputies carry out
inmate death investigations. 

For now, families of inmates who have died at OPP have little
consolation.
Five lawsuits in total have been brought against the New
Orleans Sheriff’s Department over inmate deaths, but sheriff’s
lawyers are fighting them all.

The biggest barrier to innovation in the United States is the
government itself—so says a panel of “50 executives, innovators,
and thinkers” surveyed
by The Atlantic. Specifically, 20 percent of them say
that government regulation/bureaucracy is the worst hurdle to
creativity, while another 16 percent finger immigration policies as
the worst offender.

Unsurprisingly with this tech-savvy audience, more than three
times as many (35 percent) consider Edward Snowden a “hero” as
consider him a “traitor” (11 percent). Twenty-four percent pick
“neither/it’s complicated.”

And what’s the biggest threat to privacy? While 8 percent of the
panel picks government, twice as many put the blame on unconcerned
citizens and a complacent culture (14 percent said Facebook and 11
percent tag Google).

See the full survey here.

“I will not commit you and the rest of our Armed
Forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq,”  President
Obama told an audience at MacDill Air Force Base less than a month
ago. It wasn’t the first time he’d made that promise, but it’s one
that’s looking increasingly incompatible with his announced
intention “to degrade and destroy” ISIS.

With the American public horrified by the bloodthirsty
organization/budding hellhole country (take your pick), but also
opposed to committing troops to combat in Iraq and Syria, Obama and
his unenthusiastic coalition have confined themselves to air
strikes against ISIS facilities and assets—a strategy that doesn’t
appear to be getting the job done. It’s increasingly obvious,
writes J.D. Tuccille, that the president is going to have to give
ground on one commitment or the other and either abandon his
efforts against ISIS or his promise to avoid a ground war.

View this article.

• The
  death rate for Ebola infections has risen to 70 percent. The
  World Health Organization warned there could be up to 10,000 new
  cases a week over the next two months (and probably up to 5,000
  unfounded scares a week during that time as well).
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is
  donating $25 million to fight Ebola, so quit complaining about
  Facebook ads already.
• City corruption watch: Former Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor
  
  Patrick Cannon has been sentenced to 44 months in federal
  prison for corruption and taking bribes. Former Los Angeles City
  Councilman
  Richard Alarcon was sentenced to four months in jail for voting
  fraud and perjury for living outside the district he represented
  (and claiming otherwise).
• Karen Lewis, president of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union,
  
  will not be challenging Mayor Rahm Emanuel after all in order
  to treat her recently discovered brain tumor.
• Jurors in Denver determined that five
  deputies used excessive force against a homeless street
  preacher who died after an encounter with them in 2010 that
  involved Tasers and sleeper holds. The family of the victim was
  awarded $4.6 million in damages.
• The Catalan government in Spain has
  called off plans for a vote on independence, but they may still
  pursue autonomy through incremental means.

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