American Morning
Ron Paul's son following in father's footsteps
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/art.paul.cnn.jpg caption="Rand Paul says his career as a political outsider should be a plus for voters."]
(CNN) - The phrase "like father, like son" is ringing true for Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
His son, Rand Paul, announced this week he's set his sights on the Kentucky Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning.
"I'm very worried about our country; I'm worried about the debt. I'm worried about what the debt will lead to," Paul said in an interview on CNN's "American Morning" when asked why he's jumping into the political arena. "Both sides of the aisle - Republican and Democrat - have been unwilling and afraid to address the deficit, and someone's got to."
The Kentucky Senate race is particularly high-profile since a seat held by a Republican will now be up for grabs.
Paul is expected to compete in the GOP primary next year with Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. The winner will face either state Attorney General Jack Conway or Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who are seeking the Democratic nomination.
While Grayson is considered the frontrunner in the Republican primary, "Paul will make things interesting for sure," said Al Cross, a veteran political writer in Kentucky and director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
"Trey Grayson is a very capable person, has a great deal of potential, but he has never really run a high-profile, hardball race, and I think that Paul is going to have the resources and the determination to hold his feet to the fire when it comes to issues," Cross said.
Cooling catches on for cardiac arrest patients
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/art.cooling.blanket.cnn.jpg caption="Therapeutic hypothermia patients receive a chilled saline solution and are put under a cooling pad or blanket."]
CNN Senior Medical Producer
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) - Seated on a jetliner, Dr. Mary Gallagher and her husband, Don Dietrich, were about to take off for an anniversary vacation in Puerto Rico. But a glance at her husband of five years set off an alarm - he was gasping for breath. Gallagher, an anesthesiologist, knew the signs: Dietrich was in cardiac arrest.
Gallagher ran to tell the pilot; someone called 911 from a cell phone; another passenger started CPR. Paramedics appeared and then Gallagher made a crucial decision: Even though protocol called for Dietrich to be taken to the nearest hospital, three miles away, she insisted he go twice as far, to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and its Center for Resuscitation Science.
By the time Dietrich hit the emergency room, he had a weak pulse. At most hospitals, standard treatment is to sit tight and hope for the best. But at UPenn, doctors hooked Dietrich to an intravenous line of chilled saline solution, dropping his body temperature to a cool 91 degrees.
More than 90 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest, as Dietrich did, end up dying. For more than a decade, there has been evidence that cooling a patient's body - or therapeutic hypothermia - improves those odds. No one quite knows why, but it's thought that the cold reduces the body's need for oxygen and slows the deadly chemical cascade that sets in when oxygen isn't circulating because the heart stopped beating.
Yet, as one 2007 paper put it, "implementation of hypothermia is lousy." In 2006, researchers at the University of Chicago found that just 34 percent of critical care physicians, and just 16 percent of emergency physicians, had ever attempted to use hypothermia to treat cardiac arrest. Makers of cooling equipment say fewer than 300 hospitals, out of more than 6,000 nationwide, have the necessary equipment.
Sheriff calls on National Guard in 'fiscal emergency'
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/mike.hale.cnn.art.jpg caption="Sheriff Mike Hale says there won't be enough cops to patrol the streets of Jefferson County, Alabama."]
When you hear that the National Guard has been called in, the first thing that comes to mind is – where's the natural disaster? Jefferson County, Alabama isn’t facing a natural disaster; it's facing a fiscal one. Now the sheriff there says he needs help and he’s calling for backup.
Sheriff Mike Hale says there won't be enough cops to patrol the streets in his county and the National Guard may be needed to protect the community. He spoke to Joe Johns on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday.
Joe Johns: When you look at this thing, the first thing that comes to mind is the county's image. And I wonder if people are speaking to you this morning about whether this is a good PR move so to speak.
Mike Hale: It's not about a PR move. The folks in Jefferson County elected me to keep neighborhoods and communities safe. The only thing I have failed to do is have the local government understand what their first responsibility is – and that's to keep neighborhoods and communities safe. They've broken a contract with the people of Jefferson County and my job and my plan is to make sure that the governor will give us some funds to keep the deputies rolling. And if funds are unavailable, I need some force multipliers to work with my deputy sheriffs to keep this community safe.
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Critics: Pres. Clinton is overshadowing his wife
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/journos.return.gi.art.jpg caption="Journalists Laura Ling speaks in front of Euna Lee, former Vice President Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton on August 5, 2009 in Burbank, California after being released by North Korean authorities."]
Laura Ling choked up with emotion when she described the moment she realized she would be freed from captivity in North Korea. “We were taken to a location, and when we walked in through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton.”
He was a rescuing angel, who brought the two American journalists home safely. Some are even saying Mr. Clinton's visit may also pave the way to a nuclear-free North Korea. But it wasn’t long before “The Hillary Question” came up.
“Where is Hillary?” asked Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. “Is North Korea too important to send a girl?” Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Africa on a diplomacy tour, some say President Clinton’s mission trumps hers.
“Just as Hillary muscled her way back into the spotlight...she was blown off the radar screen again by an even more powerful envoy: the one she lives with,” wrote Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. This comes after questions just last month, that President Obama was overshadowing Secretary Clinton by meeting with world leaders himself, and by sending Vice President Joe Biden to Iraq.
Clinton supporters argue Hillary is in no way being overshadowed. “I don’t think Bill Clinton would overshadow Secretary Clinton,” says Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen. “In fact if that were to be the case, I'm sure he would not have done it." Cohen says Mr. Clinton not only worked closely with President Obama to free the journalists, but he worked with his wife, the Secretary of State, too.
And besides, many analysts say, this was the kind of mission more suited to former Presidents. “The North Koreans wanted a high-level envoy and it was clear that it couldn't be somebody currently in government,” says Larry Sabato, who teaches political science at the University of Virginia. “So you know there were only several people imaginable; Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, and the North Koreans got the top banana, which is what they wanted.“
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