The Sidebar

From Jenna Bush Hager reveals husband Henry saved woman’s life while choking at restaurant: ‘My hero’ by Lindsay Lowe, Today.com, March 9, 2023:

Jenna Bush Hager is calling her husband a “hero” after he jumped into action to save a woman’s life.

The incident occurred Wednesday night when Jenna and her husband, Henry (Hager), were having a quiet dinner at a restaurant with Henry’s mom.

Jenna said she was sitting with her back to the restaurant, while Henry sat facing outward.

“All of a sudden, he says, ‘That woman is choking!’” Jenna said. “He gets up, he runs over, and he gives a woman the Heimlich maneuver for, it felt like it was 10 minutes.”

Jenna said some other people came over to help as Henry continued to try to save the woman.

“He continued, and other men were helping him, and I could tell he thought it wasn’t working, and he was saying, ‘Guys, keep going, keep going, keep going!’” Jenna said. “And she survived. 911 arrived.”

For the past month I've tried to verify Ms. Hager's story by sending a couple dozen emails and leaving messages for various parties: Mr. Hager, senior producers at the Today Show, NBC's head of publicity; and the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

I simply asked for basic facts: the name and address of the restaurant; the date of the alleged incident; whether the Hagers knew the name of the alleged choking victim; whether they took selfies with anyone at the scene; and if they knew the name of the EMS crew that arrived.

The result was deafening silence - including from Ms. Lowe, the writer who bylined the Today.com item. (Page down for the unanswered DMs I sent her.)

The only response came from Andrew Kaufman, Director of Communications and Marketing at the Bush Center: 

Unfortunately, the best way to reach the Hagers are the methods you used – my powers are limited there.

Did the incident really happen? If not, it wouldn't be the first time a celebrity may have fabricated a dramatic choking rescue. 

For example, in 2012 here's what country star Luke Bryan told People Magazine:

I had a friend do the Heimlich on me last Monday in a pizza restaurant. It was pretty freaky there for about 30 seconds. A piece of flatbread pizza flaked off and got lodged in my airway, and I went down. He picked me up and got it out of there!

As Sidebar readers know, I reported a string of stories about my unsuccessul efforts to verify his claim.

The Bryana and Hager stories story raise an interesting point.

When a celebrity makes a dramatic, newsworthy claim on national television, do they have a responsibility to back it up?

As you might guess, I think they do. 

But I don't have the clout to compel powerful, connected people to respond to my questions. 

If someone out there does have the requisite swat and the Hagers (or Bryan, for that matter) provide the information I requested, I'll update this item with gratitude and without hesitation.

  

Here's a statement I received this morning from attorney Cynthia R. Micklem who prosecuted Moore on behalf of the office of the Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney.

James Moore was sentenced to an active sentence of 20 years for carnal knowledge on January 13, 2023. Evidence showed that from September through December of 2019, Moore started a sexual relationship with a thirteen year old. She was the daughter of people he had met in his role as a “social media influencer.” The sexual abuse began on a joint family vacation with Moore and his wife and the victim’s family. After that vacation, Moore would drive from his home in South Carolina to wait outside the home of the victim. On multiple occasions, he would encourage the victim to sneak out of the house after her parents were asleep. Moore would engage in sexual acts with the 13 year old in his vehicle and eventually began taking her to a hotel.

Law enforcement obtained records of Moore’s conversations with the juvenile victim. The records  onfirmed the sexual abuse describing vaginal intercourse and sodomy. Among the sexually explicit messages to the victim, the messages also showed Moore manipulating the victim. Moore would repeatedly tell the victim that he was the only person in her life that cared for her. He would criticize her parents and other relationships creating distance between the victim and her family.

During sentencing, the Henrico County Circuit Court described Moore as being two people: one who is the well-educated community member who everyone sees as a good guy and second as someone who would describe “f- the brains out” of a thirteen-fourteen year old child. Someone who when the victim states she is feeling suicidal tells her “to get over it.” 

The judge sentenced James Moore to an active sentence of 20 years.

In response to my request, Moore's attorney - Aubrey Russell Bowles, IV of Richmond - chose not to comment.

June 1, 2022 booking photo of James William ["Jimmy"] Moore (Henrico County Sheriff's office)

In a shocking turn of events, Jimmy Moore - a prominent Spartanburg, SC-based popularizer of the low carb, high fat diet - is facing multiple counts of child sexual abuse next month in Henrico County, Virginia.

From Moore's author's page on Amazon:

My name is Jimmy Moore and I'm the dude behind the wildly popular online health blog and podcast called "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb." On January 1, 2004, I was a morbidly obese 410-pound man on a one-way ticket to an early grave who decided to take back control of my own health thanks to the Atkins diet by going on to lose 180 pounds that year coming off of three prescription medications. Although it wasn't an easy road, I am grateful I found the healthy low-carb lifestyle because it gave me my health and life back again.

As 2005 rolled around and people began to take notice of my very noticeable weight loss, they wanted to know how I did it. After probably telling my Atkins low-carb weight loss success story at least a bazillion times, I finally said I would create a blog to talk about it--and so I did in April 2005. Today, the "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog boasts 250,000 monthly readers and counting. In 2006, I became the host of one of the biggest layperson-led nutritional health podcasts on iTunes called "The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show" featuring interviews with all the top experts in the world of diet, fitness and health. That podcast airs Tuesdays-Wednesdays has 1400+ episodes and continues to attract new listeners in droves. I have three other podcasts--Nutritional Pearls Podcast, Keto Talk, and The KetoHacking MD Podcast--you might want to check out as well!

I'm the international bestselling author of Keto Clarity, The Ketogenic Cookbook, The Complete Guide To Fasting, Cholesterol Clarity, The Keto Cure, and Real Food Keto. Yes, I'm a busy writer! But I love every minute of it! These days I am super-passionate about helping empower people just like you to be in charge of your own health decisions and to stop abdicating that role to the so-called health experts who may or may not be giving you good advice. Educate yourself and be the boss of your own body and health. You can find out more about what all is happening with me at LivinLaVidaLowCarb.com [via the Wayback Machine]. Feel free to e-mail me anytime at livinlowcarbman@charter.net. THANK YOU again for being here and I look forward to getting to know you and helping you become that happy, healthy, and fit person you were always meant to be.

September 14, 2022

The Hon. Kwame Raoul
Illinois Attorney General
500 South Second Street
Springfield, IL 62701

Dear Mr. Raoul:

I'm writing regarding your office's 12+ year investigation of a tainted nonprofit, the Chicago-area Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF). SALF, which from 2006-2020 has been the subject of dozens of media exposes, was dissolved as an Illinois corporation in 2009.

SALF was founded in 1993 by the late Carol Jean Spizzirri, a convicted shoplifter and child batterer, according to an order of protection filed in 1992 by her daughter, Christina Jean Pratt. To perpetrate the SALF scam, Spizzirri falsely claimed to be a registered nurse and relentlessly promoted a fabricated backstory about Christina's tragic 1993 death.

SALF reportedly received over $10 million in tax dollars and what I estimate to be tens of thousands of dollars in private grants. Based on media reports and my estimates, about $7 million came from Illinois state taxpayers (including $200,000 to buy an office building in Springfield) and over $3 million came from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the first million of which was arranged by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin in 1999.

To obtain the funding, SALF claimed the money would be used to provide training in CPR and the Heimlich maneuver to students in Illinois schools.

In 2009, Spizzirri told the Chicago Tribune her organization trained about two million students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), then-headed by future U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who called Spizzirri “one of my heroes.” As documented on my web site, Duncan personally arranged a $174,000 contract for SALF to provide first aid training classes for 18,000 CPS students from 2004-06.

However, in response to my FOIA requests, CPS failed to produce a single training record. Further, in 2003 your agency awarded $25,000 to SALF to provide first aid training to students in these schools:

Salem School District #111 (Marion County)
South Central Community Unit School District #401 (Kinmundy, Marion County)
Camp Point CU School District #3
Beardstown CU School District #15
Rantoul City School District #137 (Champaign County)
Cass County School Districts (Cass County)
Edwardsville CU School District #7
Greenview CU School District #200

Per IL Senator Tim Bivins' 2012 emails to then-IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan (which include thorough documentation), none of the eight schools had records of any training.

In a 2015 interview, Senator Bivens said, "(SALF) claimed they had trained thousands and thousands of children...We can't substantiate that all of these children were trained."

As you may know, in approximately June 2010, your office initiated an investigation into SALF. According to a 2010 IL Public Radio report, "The Illinois Attorney General's office confirms it is reviewing how the funds were used, as is done whenever a charitable organization disbands."

To learn the outcome of the investigation, every six months or so, I file FOIA requests with your agency, asking for related records.

In an August 15, 2022 response to my most recent FOIA request, Assistant Attorney General Mark Rogina wrote: "(This office has reviewed) its records, and we determined that approximately 10,000 pages of records are maintained only in physical, hard copy form."

Based on the volume of documents, he suggested I narrow my request. I did so, resubmitted it, and received this August 22, 2022 response from Mr. Rogina:

Please be advised that because this investigation remains ongoing, we have no records responsive to your request.

It's unclear why it's taking your office over 12 years to investigate a long-defunct, thoroughly-discredited organization. Still, I hope you agree that the public is entitled to learn what happened to the millions of misappropriated tax dollars.

With that hope in mind, this is to respectfully request that you initiate a review to determine if the investigation of SALF has been conducted properly.

This is also to respectfully request that you provide me with the name of the staff member leading the SALF investigation and an approximate date when the investigation will be completed. I appreciate your consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096 USAphone/text: (678)322-7984‬
email: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/medfraud_pmh
bio: http://tinyurl.com/ych7o7dr

6/14/22 UPDATE:

For online news outlets that want to cover up reportorial errors, the digital age is a wish granted. 

A reporter gets something wrong? Just disappear it.

How bad can it get? Per a 2019 story in the journalism watchdog Press Gazette, my efforts uncovered that the vast majority of UK news outlets can disappear entire stories without recourse.

Moving right along, what you're reading is tied to my January 26, 2022 blog item, My dad's name has been scrubbed from a Delaware solar farm after I informed energy companies of his dark history.

At the time, I pitched the story to a bunch of Delaware news outlets including the News Journal, the leading daily in Wilmington, but I didn't get any takers.

A few days ago my Google News alert sent me a March 4, 2022 Journal News story by reporter Ben Mace because it included these words:

Straightforward factual error, right? Per my blog, my dad's name had been dropped from the solar farm. 

So on March 6, I emailed a polite request for a published correction to this department and copied Mr. Mace:

The News Journal is owned by Gannett, so in my request I pointed out that any correction should adhere to Gannett's editorial guidelines which in this case should include an explanation that the name  of the solar project was changed and on what date - also perhaps why it was changed.

A day after I sent a letter to three companies developing a solar energy farm in Delaware named after my father, the late Henry J. Heimlich MD (best known for his namesake anti-choking maneuver), his name has been stripped from the project.

I learned of the project via this January 20, Cape Gazette item, Delaware Electric Cooperative solar projects to provide clean power:

Seven new utility-scale solar projects will begin providing clean energy to Delaware Electric Cooperative members over the next three years. The nonprofit utility has announced it will purchase power produced at solar facilities to be built across Kent and Sussex counties.

...Construction will also begin this year on the 4.5-megawatt Heimlich Solar Facility that will power about 900 Sussex County homes, farms and businesses. The project is a partnership between Delaware Electric Cooperative and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, which is owned by DEC and 10 other nonprofit electric cooperatives.

The 35-acre facility is being built along Mile Stretch Road just west of Greenwood. Once completed, the facility will feature nearly 16,000 individual solar panels. The project is being managed by EDF Renewables Distributed Solutions, a developer of solar and battery storage projects in North America. The site, which is expected to begin producing power in late 2022, is named after Delaware native Henry Heimlich, who invented the Heimlich Maneuver.

Here's my January 24 inquiry to executives at the companies (click here to download a copy) and the email reply I received last night.