rssPosts by John Tomasic
John Tomasic has worked as a writer and editor at various news, literary and academic publications, including at the Huffington Post, Business 2.0 magazine and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope All-Story. He was managing editor at OffTheBus, the Huffington Post’s 2008 presidential-election citizen-journalism project, and editor at Pop+Politics, a journalism training program and website hosted by USC's Annenberg School. He was an analyst for the UN commission established to investigate war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. He has a master's degree in history and has taught at universities in America and Europe.
Ideology Trumped Science in Weld County Contraception Decision
When Weld County commissioners decided to stop providing emergency contraception to county patients, concerns rooted in anti-abortion politics trumped scientific facts and testimony provided by the county’s medical chief, according to documents obtained by The Colorado Independent.
Ethics Commission Poised to OK Limited Gessler Defense Fund
Draft documents drawn up by Colorado Independent Ethics Commission suggest members will allow Secretary of State Scott Gessler to establish a private defense fund he hopes to draw on in the event that an investigation launched into his alleged misuse of public funds leads to criminal charges. The apparent nod from the ethics board comes despite harsh dissent of its chairman, Dan Grossman.
Catholic Schooling: Bereft Father Says Catholic Health Has Got to ‘Make Their Bottom Line’
CANON CITY— Jeremy Stodghill isn’t the kind of Christian who believes the Gospels map an earthly alternative to life’s hard knocks.
In Malpractice Case, Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Aren’t People
Lori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.
Weld County Vote Against Emergency Contraception Leaves Patients Looking Elsewhere
A controversial and unreported move by the Board of Weld County Commissioners to stop dispensing emergency contraception has forced low-income county health department patients to seek the drugs at the scant number of non-profit clinics in the area.
Suthers Backs Gessler Effort to Set Up Personal Criminal Defense Fund
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office this week made what’s sure to be a controversial decision to officially support Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s effort to establish a legal defense fund. The fund would host contributions from private donors willing to cover costs tied to a Denver District Attorney criminal investigation into reimbursements Gessler charged to his office for alleged unofficial expenses.
Ethics Commission Moves Forward with Gessler Investigation
The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission yesterday unanimously voted to investigate Secretary of State Scott Gessler for misuse of public funds.
U.S. selling tens of billions in war machinery to turbulent Middle East
American arms deals didn’t come up in the “foreign policy debate” held during the presidential campaign just ended. Yet it’s hard not to view them as a major plank in U.S. foreign policy.
DU citizen panel wades into campaign-finance swamplands
DENVER– The University of Denver’s “strategic issues panel of accomplished citizens” tasked with examining campaign finance regulations and making recommendations on how to improve those regulations or their enforcement got a dose of the miserably complicated task ahead of…
Obama Wins Second Term
Americans voted to reelect President Barack Obama tonight, giving him four more years to work to expand the economy and drive down stubborn unemployment numbers. Throughout the long campaign, voters told pollsters they favored his steady demeanor and, in the end, embraced his vision of a government that sought to prioritize middle class opportunity, in part through a federal tax policy that asks the top earners in the country to pay the same rates they paid in the Clinton years, when the U.S. economy boomed.
