Posted on 12/23/2003 7:42:00 AM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Furthermore, it's really none o' our business how he spends his money (in terms of boats, homes, etc.).
I've listened to Rush for years and can't recall him being on a big anti-drug kick. I find it suspicious that the media keeps rehashing a quote (made in jest) from years ago about the need to arrest more white drug users just to keep things racially balanced.
(f) Standard: Disclosures for law enforcement purposes. A covered
entity may disclose protected health information for a law enforcement
purpose to a law enforcement official if the conditions in paragraphs
(f)(1) through (f)(6) of this section are met, as applicable.
(1) Permitted disclosures: Pursuant to process and as otherwise
required by law. A covered entity may disclose protected health
information:
(i) As required by law including laws that require the reporting of
certain types of wounds or other physical injuries, except for laws
subject to paragraph (b)(1)(ii) or (c)(1)(i) of this section; or
(ii) In compliance with and as limited by the relevant requirements
of:
(A) A court order or court-ordered warrant, or a subpoena or summons
issued by a judicial officer;
(B) A grand jury subpoena; or
(C) An administrative request, including an administrative subpoena
or summons, a civil or an authorized investigative demand, or similar
process authorized under law, provided that:
(1) The information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate
law enforcement inquiry;
(2) The request is specific and limited in scope to the extent
reasonably practicable in light of the purpose for which the information
is sought; and
(3) De-identified information could not reasonably be used.
(2) Permitted disclosures: Limited information for identification
and location purposes. Except for disclosures required by law as
permitted by paragraph (f)(1) of this section, a covered entity may
disclose protected health information in response to a law enforcement
official's request for such information for the purpose of identifying
or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person,
provided that:
(i) The covered entity may disclose only the following information:
(A) Name and address;
(B) Date and place of birth;
(C) Social security number;
(D) ABO blood type and rh factor;
(E) Type of injury;
(F) Date and time of treatment;
(G) Date and time of death, if applicable; and
(H) A description of distinguishing physical characteristics,
including height, weight, gender, race, hair and eye color, presence or
absence of facial hair (beard or moustache), scars, and tattoos.
(ii) Except as permitted by paragraph (f)(2)(i) of this section, the
covered entity may not disclose for the purposes of identification or
location under paragraph (f)(2) of this section any protected health
information related to the individual's DNA or DNA analysis, dental
records, or typing, samples or analysis of body fluids or tissue.It says "administrative request", and doesn't require any kind of subpoena or other process, the way I read it.
And is not a secretary technically a "law enforcement official"?
Good. Maybe he can teach them how to vote.
Henican: Rush Limbaugh's words come back to haunt By Ellis Henican
Let's all admit something."
Rush Limbaugh was on his usual tear.
"There's nothing good about drug use," he was saying. "We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
And this includes zillionaire radio hosts?
Hmmm ...
When you have a talk-radio show 15 hours a week, you have an awful lot of air to fill. On this particular day, which was Oct. 5, 1995, Rush was roaring about the scourge of illegal drug use.
Even though blacks and whites break the drug laws in roughly equal percentages, he noted, black druggies go to prison far more often than white druggies do. But to the liberal-bashing host, this was no reason to ease up on blacks.
"What this says to me," he told his listeners that day, "is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."
Including zillionaire radio hosts?
Well, maybe not.
What a week it's been for Rush.
First, he gets chased out of ESPN in a racial furor. Then, he is accused in Florida of buying thousands of powerful painkillers from an illegal drug-selling ring.
OxyContin. Hydrocodone. Highly addictive opiates. A gargantuan number of pills over several years -- almost 100 a day on one 47-day binge. His 42-year-old housekeeper, Wilma Cline, says she dealt the closely controlled pills to America's top-rated syndicated radio host. Some were hidden under his mattress so his wife wouldn't find them. Others were passed in a Denny's parking lot.
The story was broken by the National Enquirer, but it's already burst into the mainstream media. Secret tapes. Incriminating e-mails. Twice, Limbaugh reportedly checked himself into rehab -- and later relapsed.
What will the conservative listeners think?
What pain, what disappointment, what insecurity could explain something like this? The talker wasn't talking about that Thursday.
Understandably so.
Another public moralist had been caught in a personal jam. And Rush's words were coming back to haunt him.
The constant digs at Bill Clinton not inhaling.
The heartless shrug when Jerry Garcia died.
"'When you strip it all away," Rush had said of the Grateful Dead guitarist, "Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks."
Rush Limbaugh isn't the first prominent finger-pointer to eat his own words. It wasn't so long ago that Bill Bennett was explaining how an anti-vice crusader could also be a degenerate gambler.
And Jeb Bush, the president's brother and Rush's governor, was pleading for leniency and privacy when his daughter was arrested for drugs. Yet he'd been happily sending other Florida youngsters to long prison terms for similar crimes.
Typical.
But there in the dusty Limbaugh archives one glimmer of sanity did appear Thursday.
It came from 1998, just about the time Wilma Cline's black-market drug ring was revving up. Rush was on the radio. He was talking about America's "half-baked" war on drugs.
We might all be better off, he said quite plainly, if drugs were legalized -- and then regulated like cigarettes.
"What is missing in the drug fight," he said, "is legalization. If we want to go after drugs with the same fervor and intensity with which we go after cigarettes, let's legalize drugs. Legalize the manufacture of drugs. License the Cali cartel. Make them taxpayers and then sue them. Sue them left and right and then get control of the price and generate tax revenue from it. Raise the price sky high and fund all sorts of other wonderful social programs."
Was he serious? I'm not sure.
But the timing is interesting, you'd have to say. And I'll bet he quotes those words again.
The 'RATS are prosecuting Limbaugh for obvious political reasons.
Per Rush's official statement, "These records will show that there was no doctor shopping. But the larger issue is that the seizure of Mr. Limbaugh's private medical records without going through the process outlined by the state legislature is clearly an invasion of Mr. Limbaugh's constitutional right to privacy. Mr. Limbaugh was not Dr. Shopping."
The statement goes on to say that the state has been leaking bogus info on the case to the media.
These are bold and very straightforward words, spoken by a very confident el Rushbo. I assume they are true. It would make absolutely no sense to say "Mr. Limbaugh was not Dr. Shopping" if it were not actually true.
Things are still looking up for Rush!
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