The North Miami Police Department has released the personnel jacket of officer Jonathan Aledda, the man who shot Charles Kinsey three times in the leg last week.
Here is the document:
North Miami Officer Jonathan Aledda Personnel Jacket by Rich on Scribd
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Here Are 5 Ways That Staying In the Closest Can Actually Damage Your Health
By Julia Fox
While a major hurdle for LGBT rights in the western hemisphere has finally been overcome in the past few years (legalization of gay marriage in both the United States and the United Kingdom), it looks less and less hopeful that same tolerance can be achieved globally.
In former communist bloc countries, the period for modest LGBT freedoms was brief, and homophobia is still widespread. Homosexuality is often considered an abnormality and in some cases, prosecuted under the criminal law.
These countries have a vast population of LGBT members who have lived in the closet for most of their lives while obliged to form traditional families. Spending the majority of their lives attempting to pass as heterosexuals to gain social approval and often engaging in secret same-sex relationships, these gay men and women end up with irreversible damage to their physical and mental health.
‘Coming out is no longer a matter of popular debate, but a matter of public health,’ claim scientists from Louis H. Lafontaine Hospital in Montreal.
But for some who spent most of their lives in the closet, it might be just impossible.
Whether it is the fear of being rejected by their now grown children, being criminalized by the homophobic society or ostracised by their own community, or the strong belief they would be unable to rebuild their lives with their new identity, these men and women are too broken to start anew.
Here are the main ailments that are likely to develop if you are forced to keep your sexual identity a secret from society and often from yourself:
- Dissociative Identity Disorder. Notable psychiatrist Sullivan and Roughton have discovered that closeted individuals routinely separate their attractions and feelings for the persons of the same sex from their identity. That means these men and women find their desires so unacceptable that they keep them out of their conscious awareness, separating their sexual identity from the rest of their persona. Blocking the anxiety-provoking thoughts about their sexuality forces them to lead a double life and are very often unaware of it.
- Chronic Depression. Increased fear and withdrawal from friends and relatives and the chronic stress of hiding one’s sexuality can lead to excess amounts of cortisol in the body, which contributes to severe depression as well as the general ‘wear and tear’ of the body. Scientists at the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at Louis H. Lafontaine Hospital in Montreal found that staying in the closet weakens your whole immune system in addition to leading to chronicle depression.
- Self-disgust & self-hatred. Socialised into thinking that being non-heterosexual is somehow ‘mad,’ ‘bad,’ ‘wrong’ or ‘immoral,’ many closeted gay and lesbian individuals develop internalized homophobia. They find that they do not belong and do not fit in either the ‘straight world’ or the ‘gay world.’ This painful feeling often leads to self-disgust, self-hatred and contempt for the more open LGBT members.
- Low self-esteem and negative self-view. Both can lead to avoiding fulfilling relationships with others. Spending the majority of their lives attempting to pass as heterosexuals to gain social approval, many closeted individuals develop low self-esteem and negative body image, which brings with them such issues as fear of intimacy, deep shame about their sexual experiences and inability to develop emotional intimacy, psychologists claim.
- Alcohol/drug-abuse & suicidal thoughts. Growing increasingly withdrawn and depressed, closeted individuals often follow unsafe sexual practices and engage in other destructive, risk-taking behaviours. Being ostracised by the community, fearing shame and physical torture and imprisonment, creating heterosexual families and dissociating themselves from gay population altogether leads many to a life of substance abuse and addictions. Constantly haunted by suicidal thoughts, many consider ending their lives.
My relationship with a closeted gay man, Sasha (who was actually my husband’s lover years before I married him and I chronicle in my memoir And Then There Were Three: Sixty Seven Letter to Sasha) opened my eyes to the many aspects of homosexuality and the life paths that LGBT men and women choose in the parts of the world where homosexuality is still considered an abnormality.
The freedoms that sexual minorities enjoy in democratic countries today are precious and unheard of in such places as Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia, Azerbaijan and other post-Soviet territories. Giving American LGBT members a glimpse into the lives of those who are less fortunate and still struggling for their rights will be an eye-opening read for many.
Julia Fox immigrated from Russia in her late teens, settling in the United States in the early 90s. She published two books of poetry before leaving her home country, both in Russian, and published two more in English language after immigrating. And Then There Were Three: Sixty Seven Letters to Sasha is her first autobiographical memoir.
For more information about And Then There Were Three: Sixty-Seven Letters to Sasha, you can visit Julia Fox’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. Anyone can write for us as long as you are fiercely interested in making the world a better place.
Cover Photo Credit: Carlos Luz/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Jeb Bush’s Connection To A Healthcare Company’s ObamaCare Boon
This article was originally published on www.risemiaminews.com on April 10, 2015.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s public political beliefs and personal financial gain seem to have been at odds during his time as a member of the board of directors of Tenet Healthcare.
The potential republican candidate for president stepped down from the company in late December, a move that came as no surprise to political watchers. But with the announcement, new attention is focusing on what Bush actually did at the nation’s third largest for profit hospital chain and whether he supported the corporation’s embrace of the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.
Just to put into perspective how big of a boon ObamaCare has been for Tenet, it’s CEO Trevor Fetter reported in a November 2014 press release that the company’s net earnings grew over 59% from the same time in 2013. Fetter said that 40% of that growth had come as a direct result of ObamaCare reforms.
Specifically, the additional revenue came from the Medicaid expansion in five states which Tenet operates in and a decrease in uninsured and “charity” hospital admissions.
“We drove an accelerating contribution in the third quarter from healthcare reform, with sequentially higher declines in uncompensated care and increases in Medicaid volume,” Fetter said in the release. “We achieved another quarter of strong performance across every dimension of our business.”
“It would make sense to pay Jeb Bush, because he’s a well connected guy.”
Bush joined Tenet soon after leaving public office in early 2007 and served until the last day of 2014. Bush came on the board shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the company of wide spread Medicare fraud between 1999 and 2002.
The government said that Tenet’s strong earnings in those years came about because of the company’s “exploitation of a loophole in the Medicare reimbursement system.”
Tenet refused to admit or deny the allegations made in the SEC complaint and agreed to pay a $10 million civil penalty. However, it did also pay $725 million to settle a Justice Department inquiry on the same matter.
Bush was brought on in part to help clean up Tenet’s corrupt image and instill greater public confidence. That strategy seemed to have worked.
And Bush was not the only politician on the ten-member board. Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska spent over a decade on the board starting in 2001, then temporarily stepped down in order for run for senate in 2012 and quickly rejoined it after losing. Kerrey did not respond to a request for comment.
According to multiple experts on corporate finance and governance, it is not unusual for politicians to be brought into the fold of companies.
“It is to most boards advantage to have people from both sides [of the political spectrum]”, Carlos Parra, a professor and Corporate Sustainability expert at Florida International University (FIU) said. “It would make sense to pay Jeb Bush, because he’s a well connected guy.”
That “well connected guy” happens to be a conservative leader and a son and brother to American presidents. Bush is also according to multiple polls, an early frontrunner in the 2016 republican presidential primary.
Bush at a town hall meeting event at Adams Opera House in Derry, New Hampshire. Photo Credit: Michael Vadon/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
He also really doesn’t like ObamaCare, at least not in public.
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” in October 2013, Bush emphatically said that, “Obamacare, flawed to its core, doesn’t work.”
But while he was publicly opposing President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, he and his company were profiting from its successes.
According to an SEC filling, Bush was paid $128,000 in cash and received $170,000 in stock options, for just under $300,000 in total compensation from Tenet in 2013.
2013 was a banner year for Tenet as it turned out. The company finalized a blockbuster deal to buy up Vanguard Health Systems, which increased the number of hospitals under Tenet’s management from 49 to 77.
Fetter told CNBC that the merger was sought after because of Vanguard’s footprint in states that had embraced the Medicaid expansion, or soon would. In other words, Fetter sounded confident that the law would be staying in place.
“Any board member has a higher calling to the shareholders than his political beliefs”
“The more you’re exposed to states with large numbers of uninsured people today, the better it is for a hospital in the future,” Fetter said in the cable interview.
Some find Bush’s perceived cognitive dissonance on the issue to be potentially problematic.
“If it were to come out that he were opposing ObamaCare but while on the board he was privately supporting it, then that would be a huge conflict,” Everett Wilkinson, a South Florida Tea Party leader said in a phone interview. “If I was on the board of Tenet Healthcare, I would not be happy that the president of the company came out and supported the legislation.”
A Bush spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the former governor strongly opposed ObamaCare in Tenet board meetings.
Tenet declined to release copies of the minutes to the meetings from board gatherings during Bush’s tenure, saying through a spokesman that they were not publicly available.
It’s worth noting that many business insiders see nothing wrong with the situation.
Bruce Foerster is the president of South Beach Capital Markets Advisory Corporation, a company that offers advice to firms and corporate boards. He said that he found Bush to be an upstanding businessman who played by the rules and liked the ideological balance on the Tenet board.
“Any board member has a higher calling to the shareholders than his political beliefs,” Foerster said. “The CEO of Tenet [Fetter] has the courage to have differing opinions in the board room, which is a rare trait for a CEO.”
But Qiang Kang, a professor of finance at FIU took a different view, saying that if Bush was making a profit directly from ObamaCare than he should disclose it. “I would not call it a conflict of interest but I do think it is an interesting issue,” Kang said.
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Cover Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Haitian Radio Host Called A Race Baiter By NoMi Councilman, After Controversial Rant The City May Have Paid For
What’s News In This Story?
–North Miami Councilman Scott Galvin called popular Haitian radio host Rotschill Anderson a race baiter after the media personality went on a controversial on-air racial rant.
-Galvin claims that the city has paid Anderson in the past to allow North Miami staff to promote the city on air. Galvin also said that it was his understanding that the city had paid for a May 1 appearance by Assistant City Manager Arthur H. Sorey III.
-Sorey was on the show to encourage residents to vote for a $120 million bond measure. But he also sat through a rant from Anderson that some found to be racist.
-Anderson strongly supported the bond and asked his listeners to vote for it because he felt it would improve the city’s heavily Haitian western section.
-But it was the language that Anderson used that has gotten attention: “The big white guy, the big jewish guy- they are going to come into your community, says that your community is ugly and its nasty… gentrification will kick in.”
-A quick public records search finds that North Miami has paid Anderson’s radio station at least $1,800 so far in 2018 for “public relations.”
-But city manager Larry Spring told RISE NEWS that Galvin is wrong and that the city did not pay Anderson for the May 1 show.
-The city council has temporally suspended all payments to media outlets until they can craft a new policy to prevent a future incident.
——Here’s Something Completely Different: ——
There’s A Secret Buddhist Temple In This El Portal House
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