Media 'narrative' about pets going uneaten by Haitian migrants in Ohio is starting to fall apart

 By Monica Showalter

Yes, they're getting eaten.

ABC News debate moderator David Muir made a big deal of "fact-checking" President Trump when he cited reports at last night's debate that pets were being eaten by Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, whose flooding 20,000-strong presence was creating many problems for the city of 58,000.

My transcript:

TRUMP: "What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating, the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country and it's a shame.

MUIR: (interruption noises)

TRUMP: 'my dog was taken and used for food.' Maybe he said that and maybe that's good thing to say for a city manager." 

MUIR: I'm not taking this from this from television, I'm taking this from the city manager.

TRUMP: ..the dog was eaten by the people who live there.

MUIR: Again, the Springfield city manager says there's no evidence of that.

TRUMP: We'll find out.

MUIR: Vice President Harris, we'll let you respond to the rest of what you've heard.

KAMALA: (Giggle, giggle) "Talk about extreme." (titter, titter...)

Well, now it turns out that Muir the self-appointed fact-checker who cited a city manager's claim that he didn't get any reports about it didn't know what he was talking about.

President Trump, however, did.

Reports from a wide variety of sources are starting to emerge about pets and park wildlife such as ducks and geese being stolen, dismembered, chopped, cooked, eaten and used for bizarre voudou ceremonies to summon evil spirits by Haitian migrants, some of them flown in from Haiti by as "parolees" by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Here's an assemblage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's eyewitnesses, police reports, recordings, letters to Congress, and other stuff, and from such a wide variety of sources that it makes it hard to pat-ly declare, as Muir did, that nothing is going on.

Trump pointed out in the debate that a city manager might just have a public relations reason for witholding that information from the gullible press. He might even have an "interest" as such terms are, in seeing as many migrants flown in from Haiti or wherever as possible, owing to the lucrative federal contracts available to "minister" to them.

But that didn't matter to the part-time "fact-checker" with a nominal job as an impartial debate moderator last night.

What's interesting here is how the people who have lost pets might feel about it. There wasn't a trace of empathy from either Kamala or Muir about the people who may be missing their pets as pets are members of the family for most, taken with extreme cruelty by foreign migrants for eating or torturing purposes in occult rituals.

For someone to deny that you ever had a pet, that your pet was butchered and eaten by people who don't belong here and you'll never get a drop of justice, let alone a truth commission to say that it actually happened, is pretty heartless and disgusting.

The whole coverup, of course is Muir, and the city officials are trying to deny any negative effects of the Harris-Biden open borders policy. That's bad stuff, too, because if they'll cover up this, they'll cover up other crimes, and they'll arrogantly expect to never be held accountable for them.

Maybe that's changing as the facts and witness testimonies roll out, and there are lot of pet owners out there who might just find this concerning.

Because as the facts roll out, it looks increasingly likely that Muir was playing lapdog to the Harris-Biden administration instead of acting as the journalist he claims to be.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/that_media_narrative_about_pets_going_uneaten_by_haitian_migrants_in_ohio_is_starting_to_fall_apart.html

'Surgical Shortcut to Six-Pack Abs'

 Getting defined six-pack abs is no easy task, but there is a procedure that can give patients a boost in achieving the results they want.

High-definition liposuction or liposculpture, sometimes referred to as "ab etching," is a procedure that involves strategically removing fat from target areas and re-injecting it in other zones to create the illusion of muscle definition. This procedure is increasing in popularity, particularly among men, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons told Fox Newsopens in a new tab or window.

Neil Tanna, MD, a plastic surgeon and vice president of women's surgical services with the Katz Women's Surgical Center at Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York, told MedPage Today that while liposuction removes fat, high-definition liposuction goes a step further.

"You do liposuction in a way that accentuates the desirable contours of the body," he explained, noting that this is often the muscle contours of the abdomen.

For general liposuction, patients are first injected with tumescent fluid which contains epinephrine, a vasoconstrictor, as well as lidocaine, a local anesthetic, because liposuction can be painful.

"That way, when you're doing it there's less bleeding and bruising, less pain, and then that fluid is also helping you to suck and break up that fat," Tanna said. After waiting a bit, a cannula -- a thick metal rod with a hole on the end -- is used to "harvest" the fat.

High-definition liposuction is more selective about where the fat is removed from in order to carve out cavities. "You kind of create these negative spaces where you remove additional fat between pockets of muscle so you can accentuate that area," Tanna said.

Then comes fat grafting -- where the fat that's been removed is added into the muscle pockets to make the muscles look bigger than they actually are. This is similar to the process of the popular aesthetic procedure Brazilian butt lift (BBL) which involves a diffused fat transfer to the buttocks. The procedure only takes 1 to 3 hours and patients are fully recovered in a few days.

While high-definition liposuction is not as deadly as BBLsopens in a new tab or window, there are significant risks -- like re-injected fat entering the bloodstream.

"When you're injecting fat, you have to make sure that it's getting into the correct places and where you don't want the fat to go is ... into the blood vessels, because that fat can then travel ... to undesirable places, like the heart or lungs," Tanna said. Other risks include skin and fat necrosis as well as intestinal perforation, which can occur if the cannula is inserted too deep and punctures an organ below -- often the colon.

A 2019 paperopens in a new tab or window in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery assessed the results and complications of high-definition liposculpture in 417 patients and found that while "non-serious complications were frequent, most complications were local and safely treated without affecting surgical outcome."

Two-thirds of patients had hyperpigmentation and about a quarter had seroma or nodular fibrosis. Other complications included unsatisfactory definition in superficial liposuction areas, an unnatural looking body contour, burns related to the procedure, and Mondor's syndrome. Still, patients were overwhelmingly satisfied with their results, the study showed.

Tanna emphasized the importance of candidate selection for high-definition liposuction. The ideal candidate should be at their ideal weight and able to maintain it because fluctuations in weight change how fat looks on the body and how the skin moves, so the results may not hold with too much change in weight, though Tanna noted this is understudied. Any elective surgery is still a major health decision, Tanna said.

He also noted that social media has contributed to the rise in this procedure since people are connected to more information about cosmetic procedures and wanting to present their image to the world a certain way. Ultimately, high-definition liposuction is not a miracle shortcut to six-pack abs, but it can give patients the final push to reach their aesthetic goals.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/111906

Inpatient CBT Reduces Suicide and Readmissions After Discharge

 Brief cognitive behavioral therapy (BCBT) sessions adapted for psychiatric inpatients reduced postdischarge suicide attempts and readmission rates, according to a randomized clinical trial.

In a trial of 200 participants at a private psychiatric hospital, providing up to four sessions of BCBT-inpatient (BCBT-I) treatment reduced the occurrence of suicide attempts by 60% compared with usual care (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.20-0.80) in the 6 months following discharge, according to Gretchen Diefenbach, PhD, psychologist of the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, and co-authors reporting in JAMA Psychiatryopens in a new tab or window.

Meanwhile, the effect of such individual therapy sessions on readmission rates was moderated by substance use disorder (SUD): the rate of psychiatric readmissions was reduced by 71% (RR 0.29, 95% CI 0.09-0.90) in participants without a SUD, while it was not significantly changed for those with SUD (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.46-2.24).

Notably, the number needed to treat was seven for suicide attempts and six for readmission rates after controlling for participants with SUD, the authors reported.

"These results highlight a path forward for the field to shift to a new inpatient suicide prevention treatment model," Diefenbach told MedPage Today in an email, adding that the findings show that "improvements can be made to the current standard of care" and provide "support for [BCBT-I] as an efficacious inpatient suicide prevention treatment."

The BCBT-I sessions tested included narrative assessment and review of suicide attempt stories, crisis response plan, inventorying reasons for living, creation of a hope kit, reducing access to lethal means, developing coping cards, and relapse prevention.

Diefenbach said her group was surprised to find that the treatment effect of BCBT-I on suicide attempts remained similar for participants diagnosed with SUD, which represented 60% of all trial participants. Participants with a SUD experienced double the rates of readmission and odds of suicide attempt compared to participants without the disorder, according to the investigators.

The present findings highlight the importance of suicide-specific inpatient treatments, commented psychologist Kelly Green, PhD, and two colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in an accompanying editorialopens in a new tab or window. Such treatment, they noted, "remains a first-line intervention for patients judged to be at high near-term risk for suicide" despite innovations in outpatient settings.

Green and coauthors also praised the implementation and testing of BCBT-I, a combination of BCBT and cognitive therapy for suicide prevention, which "addresses a critical chasm in suicide-specific inpatient care by evaluating its efficacy compared to inpatient treatment as usual," they wrote. They also highlighted that the study's findings show the potential of evidence-based suicide intervention "to prevent, rather than briefly delay, suicide."

There are still gaps in the research for inpatient suicide intervention, Green's group noted, including the need to ensure outcomes are scalable and treatments can be easily implemented.

Diefenbach and colleagues acknowledged that the treatment was delivered on an individual basis by PhD-level clinicians, so more research will be needed to understand the treatment's effect when delivered through routine inpatient care.

To conduct the randomized clinical trial, Diefenbach's group recruited adults ages 18-65 at a private psychiatric hospital in Connecticut. Eligibility criteria were either suicide attempt within 1 week of admission or ideation with plan on admission as well as suicide attempt within 2 years. Exclusion criteria included current mania, schizophrenia, intellectual disability, those unwilling or unable to follow study procedures, and non-fluency in English.

The authors compared participants in a treatment as usual group (n=106) to those with additional BCBT-I (n=94). Treatment as usual consisted of 24-hour multidisciplinary care based on a short-term stabilization model as well as safety planning and care connection calls, based on current guidelines.

Trial participants were enrolled from January 2020 through February 2023. They had a mean age of 32.8 years, and 117 of participants were women.

The effect of BCBT-I on suicidal ideation was less clear, but post hoc analyses indicated less severe suicidal ideation following BCBT-I at 1 and 2 months follow-up.

The authors conducted follow-up assessments monthly for 6 months following discharge and collected medical records data through 6-month follow-up. In total, 57% of participants completed all follow-up assessments.

Limitations of the study include the relatively high loss to follow-up and its conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have affected the trial in various ways.

Disclosures

The study was funded by a grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Diefenbach reported receiving grants, material support, and consultancy fees from Oui Therapeutics. Co-authors reported relationships with Oui Therapeutics, the American Psychological Association, Guilford, and Springer publications.

Green disclosed grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Other editorialists reported relationships with the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Alkermes, Mind Medicine, St George's University, Fundacion Jimenez Diaz, Otsuka, MindMed, and NIMH.

Primary Source

JAMA Psychiatry

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowDiefenbach GJ, et al "Brief cognitive behavioral therapy for suicidal inpatients: a randomized clinical trial" JAMA Psychiatry 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.2349.

Secondary Source

JAMA Psychiatry

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowGreen KL, et al "Suicide risk -- a specific intervention target" JAMA Psychiatry 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.2273.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/generalpsychiatry/111908

'Threats to Whistleblowers, Rampant Fraud Plague Transplant System, Lawmakers Told'

 Presumably deceased organ donors waking up and mouthing, "Help me." Organ transplant executives threatening whistleblowers with being "cremated alive." Pancreases that could be used for transplant put in freezers and then getting "lost." Rampant Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

These were examples of problems with the current organ transplant system that House members heard about from witnesses Wednesday at a House Energy & Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearingopens in a new tab or window on the implementation of the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act, which was signed into law last year.

Subcommittee members on both sides of the aisle expressed horror and dismay that these problems hadn't been fixed. "The testimony about donors that are still alive ... is absolutely terrifying," said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.). She recalled that when she served in the Arizona state legislature, "every year on the lawn at the state capitol, the Arizona Donor Network had a big event to encourage people to sign up for the donor list, and if word got out to more people that these types of things were happening, I think there'd be less donors to sign up."

Lesko was referring to testimony by Greg Segal, founder of a transplant patient advocacy group called Organize. Segal, who has had several family members receive heart transplants, said a whistleblower told him that "he was instructed to recover organs from someone who was mouthing the words, 'Help me.' He decided not to proceed, and the person ended up surviving."

The organ transplant law was designed to modernize and improve the nation's organ procurement and transplantation system, the subcommittee explained in a memoopens in a new tab or window about the hearing. "One key provision of the act is the requirement that the OPTN [Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network] Board of Directors be independent and separate from the contractor managing the network," the memo noted. "The act also aims to address longstanding conflicts of interest and improve transparency and accountability within the OPTN."

Witnesses testified that the OPTN was rife with conflicts of interest. Seth Karp, MD, surgeon-in-chief at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said that despite the law's provision, the OPTN board is filled with board members from the United Network for Organ Sharing, the contractor that manages organ procurement.

"Patients are continuing to die in the United States waiting for an organ, due to self-interest, incompetence, and mismanagement," Karp said. "As a researcher, surgeon, and board member, I witnessed OPTN cover-ups, both in broad daylight and in back rooms. In broad daylight, the OPTN ignores research that shows huge numbers of missed donors, and lobbies against bipartisan, data-driven measures to hold OPOs [organ procurement organizations] accountable ... In the back room, OPTN leaders assure that no OPO leader will ever be held accountable for poor performance, and seek to prevent competition in the OPTN contract bidding process."

"You've empowered HRSA [the Health Resources and Services Administration] to break up the OPTN monopoly ... but without your continued oversight, OPTN leaders will continue to gut meaningful reforms," he told the subcommittee. "I urge you to enforce the law that ensures OPTN works to increase the organ supply."

Lesko asked witnesses what could be done to solve these problems. "De-conflicting the OPTN board and moving to [independent] board appointments," said Segal, noting that the OPTN's Membership and Professional Standards Committee (MPSC), which is supposed to investigate patient safety claims, has always been a "captive body ... If there were a functioning MPSC and they were meaningfully investigating these claims so that people felt comfortable even bringing these claims to the MPSC in the first place, that would be an excellent deterrent."

In addition, he said, "there are no licensure requirements that CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] has ever imposed on OPO staff who are interacting with donor patients ... An Uber driver told me that as a side job, he does organ recoveries for his local OPO; I think we need to professionalize this."

Jesse Roach, MD, a nephrologist who is senior vice president of government relations for the National Kidney Foundation, said his organization "commends Congress and HRSA for taking on this ambitious project ... But while progress has been made, we remain concerned about the lack of transparency, patient focus, and equity in the organ transplant system."

One concern, he said, is the increasing number of kidneys that are thrown away each year; he pointed out that one in four recovered kidneys are not transplanted.

In 2023, for example, "there were 8,574 kidneys recovered with intent to transplant, but were later discarded; that comes out to about 23 kidneys wasted per day," he said. "At the same time, an average of 12 people die each day waiting for a kidney transplant. This is a system failure and completely unacceptable."

Subcommittee members also had other specific concerns with the current system. "I know that 80% of organ transplant patients are in urban areas," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said to Karp. "What are we doing to make sure that we can reach people outside of the urban areas and make sure that they become eligible and get treated?"

"That's something that I wrestle with on a regular basis," Karp said. "We had a transplant center in the eastern part of Tennessee that closed; it served a rural population ... This has to be part of the national policy that we need to have these smaller centers. We need to keep them open."

Rep. Michael Burgess, MD, (R-Texas) said the allegations against OPTN "were among the most serious allegations I've ever seen," especially with respect to Medicare fraud.

"We can't really pay for all the Medicaid and Medicare that we promised people ... We should be interested in every dollar that we spend inappropriately in Medicare," he said. "The damage to the patients, the damage to the credibility of the system in which you all work, I almost don't know how you recover from that."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/transplantation/transplantation/111910

NYPD Commish no-shows 9/11 memorial ceremony amid resignation rumblings

 Embattled NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban was a conspicuous no-show at the 9/11 memorial ceremony Wednesday amid rumblings of his looming resignation — and he wasn’t alone.

No top City Hall officials publicly touched by the federal investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams attended the solemn memorial at the site of the former World Trade Center.

Only a smattering of Adams administration and NYPD officials showed face at the annual ceremony — yet another sign that the scandals have disrupted the daily duties of New York City’s top public servants.

“They are two sheets in the wind,” a political source told The Post. “They weren’t going to show up.”

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NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban skipped the annual 9/11 memorial ceremony Wednesday.Paul Martinka

Caban didn’t want to be a distraction at the hallowed Lower Manhattan ceremony, sources said

His absence was noteworthy for bucking a two-decade-old tradition of Big Apple police commissioners attending the ceremony marking Sept. 11, 2001 — a day in which 23 NYPD heroes perished in the attacks, and after which scores more died from illnesses related to the toxic and hazardous rescue and recovery at Ground Zero.

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris attended the Lower Manhattan ceremony.Paul Martinka

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Former President Donald Trump and JD Vance also attended the memorial.Paul Martinka

The Post could not find any past references to an NYPD commissioner being absent from the ceremony.

The COVID-stricken Adams himself was a no-show — his illness keeping him from standing alongside President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

Caban’s FDNY counterpart Robert Tucker attended the service, as did Adams Chief of Staff Camille Joseph-Varlack, Deputy Chief of Staff Menashe Shapiro, Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy, Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol and Community Affairs Unit Commissioner Fred Kreizman.

The only NYPD officials to attend were First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella and Mark Stewart, the department’s deputy commissioner for community affairs.

The meager showing by top New York City officials on the 9/11 anniversary ceremony — an event marking the worst terror attacks in US history — drew disbelief from many insiders, even considering the federal raids on Caban and other administration officials last week.

“I don’t know what’s going on over there,” another political source said.

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The absence of Caban and other top Adams administration officials from the ceremony drew disbelief.Paul Martinka
Caban has faced growing calls for his resignation or termination, including by The Post’s editorial board, after federal agents busted into his Rockland County home last week and seized his electronic devices.

The raids rattled many in City Hall and the NYPD, where police brass have been meeting in parking lots to avoid potential bugs by the feds, according to sources.

As Adams faced a grilling by reporters Tuesday over the raids and probes, he pointedly did not say whether Caban’s days as police commissioner were numbered.

He also didn’t commit to himself resigning if charged with a crime.

“I’m committed to continue to provide for New Yorkers, and I’m not going to deal with hypotheticals,” he said.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/11/us-news/embattled-nypd-commish-edward-caban-no-shows-9-11-memorial-ceremony/