Lobbyists this year began terminating their formal registrations with the federal government at significantly higher levels than usual, a joint study by OMB Watch and the Center for Responsive Politics has found.
The OMB Watch-CRP study found 1,418 "deregistrations" of federally registered lobbyists during the second quarter of 2009, a marked increase for any reporting period during all of 2008 and 2009. This occurred shortly after President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, which created new restrictions on former lobbyists appointed to the executive branch. Guidance was then issued in March, which marks the start of the 2nd quarter reporting, that enacted a gift ban and further restricted the kind of communications lobbyists could have about stimulus and TARP funds. Via a recent blog post, the White House also announced, “it is our aspiration that federally registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions,” a practice that is common today.
Although lobbyists terminate their registrations for a variety of reasons, a few hundred lobbyists, at most, typically fall from the ranks of active lobbyists each quarter.
OMB Watch's Lee Mason, the organization's Director of Nonprofit Speech Rights, commented on the timing of the acceleration of terminations and the president's policies on lobbyists.
“While we can’t draw a direct link between the president’s executive order and the increased pace of terminations during the second quarter of 2009, we can say that they came at a most controversial time,” Mason said. A diplomatic way of putting it.
The study also indicates that since the beginning of 2008, the number of lobbyists filing termination reports has generally outpaced the number of newly active lobbyists – a trend that considerably accelerated during this year's second quarter. All told, there have been 18,315 lobbyist termination reports filed since January 2008. Meanwhile, only 15,310 lobbyists became active again after previously filing termination reports. This leaves a total of 3,005 lobbyists who have effectively “de-registered,” of which more than half (1,691) have come since April 2009.
Another troubling issue highlighted by the organizations is that the thousands of lobbyists who appear to have left their line of work may not have actually done so. At the federal level, many people working in the lobbying industry are not registered lobbyists, instead adopting titles such as "senior advisor" or other executive monikers, thereby avoiding federal disclosure requirements under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. It's all smoke and mirrors. Nothing's really changed. Opacity Transparency in action.
Additionally, the terminology the lobbying community uses does not align with the categories of the U.S. Senate's or the Clerk of the House's lobbying disclosure databases. For example, on the disclosure form, there is no such term as “deregistration" – a phrase lobbyists and many in the media frequently use.
Given this limitation, the most accurate way currently to determine the number of unique active lobbyists terminating their registrations requires tracking lobbyists' names listed on line 23 of the Lobbying Disclosure Act's form (LD2, which tracks lobbying activity on behalf of a client) and standardizing the data per unique individual lobbyist. Congressional disclosure offices must therefore research the activity of each lobbyist prior to sending notification of missing reports. With no unique identifier per individual lobbyist and with no “deregistration” field, verifying and enforcing compliance with the rules is made much more difficult.
In a bid for greater government transparency and more useful and accurate lobbying disclosures, OMB Watch and CRP recommend the federal government make the following improvements in order to reach the intended goals of the Lobbying Disclosure Act:
· Assign a unique identification number to each federally registered lobbyist
· Add a field for "deregistering" as a lobbyist
· Amend the LDA to codify these changes
"Each of these corrective actions would allow the government, the media, and the public to more easily track lobbying activity and shine a light on the efforts of those who seek to influence government," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/02/2009 13:59 ||
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Finally, it is clear what President Obama meant when he said this would be the most "transparent administration in history." He wasn't saying that his White House would be open and accountable; he was saying that his administration didn't feel much need to come up with plausible lies, they'd be fine using the transparent kind.
In the months since Mr. Obama took office, his administration has showered the Democratic Party's key fundraisers with insider briefings from administration staffers, access to the president and top aides and all the social perks that only the White House can bestow. The president, who ran for office saying he wanted to clean up fundraising, is perfectly happy to wallow in the cash-for-access mud pit.
In reporting on exactly how the administration went down this corrupt path, reporters at The Washington Times asked the administration for White House visitor logs and guest lists for specific individuals such as campaign fundraisers and specific events such as cocktail parties and concerts. So far, the administration hasn't produced the information.
That pesky little fact didn't stop the deputy White House communications director from claiming in an e-mail, "For the first time in history, records detailing who visited the White House will be made public on a regular basis." Translation: At the moment, we are hiding our dirty laundry just like every other crooked politician, but at some point in the future, we will stop, and that will be "historic." Indeed, brazen and historic.
After The Times' report revealed the administration's "donor maintenance" program, reporters from other news organizations followed up at the daily White House press briefing, where White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to dodge questions by referring reporters to the Democratic National Committee. But who controls every aspect of what happens at the DNC? The White House. And when the DNC sells access to government officials, who employs those officials? The White House.
The administration's record for delivering more of the same when Mr. Obama promised "change" is unbroken. Mr. Obama promised that lobbyists would be locked out of top administration positions. That lasted just until the restriction became inconvenient. Mr. Obama promised to publish new laws on the Web for several days before he took action, so the public would have a chance to weigh in. The administration abandoned that promise, too.
Mr. Obama's abandoned promises exactly match those of his party's congressional leaders. After her party took control of Congress in the 2006 election, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised to create "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history." Yet today, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi protect Democratic politicians who cheat on their taxes, thwart disclosure laws and trade earmarks for campaign donations.
Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill hide behind the claim that past presidents and Congresses have done the same thing. That's no defense. Both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi promised a historic commitment to ethics and transparency. They should be judged by the standards they set for themselves, a test they have failed egregiously.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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You would think that visitors and other WH records would be monitored by a non-partisan overseer so the abuses from many previous administrations such as the Nixon tapes and Chinese with security clearances and access to all our secrets would not happen again, regardless of which party is in control.
CQ Politics rates the Virginia race as Leans Republican. Virginia (7 p.m. Eastern) The crucial region to watch as Virginia's results come in is the populous suburban area outside Washington, D.C., in the northern part of the state.
This area generally voted Republican before the population boom of the past couple of decades, but it recently has trended Democratic - and tipped the balance to the Democrats in their signal victories this decade as they reversed a period of statewide GOP dominance: the races for governor in 2001 (won by Mark Warner) and 2005 (current incumbent Tim Kaine), for U.S. Senate in 2006 (Jim Webb) and 2008 (Warner again), and for president in 2008 (when Obama won by a 7 percentage-point margin to become the first Democrat to win the state's electoral votes since 1964).
Although McDonnell's base is in the southeastern Tidewater (a.k.a. Hampton Roads) region, polls show him running above par in Northern Virginia, in part because he was raised in suburban Fairfax County, in part because his campaign has taken a well-modulated approach that emphasizes economic and transportation issues and plays down the conservative social issues that long were major priorities in his past state legislative tenure.
Deeds has sought to regain momentum in Northern Virginia by portraying McDonnell as hiding radically social conservative views, wielding a thesis McDonnell wrote, when he attended a college founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, that conveyed very traditionalist views about the role of women in society and the workplace. But Deeds, a rare statewide Democratic nominee who hails from rural and mainly conservative western Virginia, just has not caught fire in this important region.
The other place to look is in the southeast, McDonnell's home turf, but also home to many of Virginia's black residents. A strong turnout among this overwhelmingly Democratic constituency is crucial to the party's hopes in statewide contests.
If the polls are right and McDonnell is declared an early winner, look for the GOP to claim that the outcome was a declaration of voter dissent against Obama and the agenda of the national Democratic Party. They'll want to do that quickly -- just in case the other contests don't turn out so well.
CQ Politics rates the New Jersey race as Tossup.
New Jersey (8 p.m. Eastern) If this were a straight-up contest between Democrat Corzine, the popularity-challenged incumbent, and Republican Christie, a former U.S. attorney, the focus would simply be on which candidate is better holding typical party margins and producing voter turnout in traditional areas of strength. For Corzine, that would be in urban centers such as Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Camden and in the more liberal-leaning areas of the New York City and Philadelphia suburbs. For Christie, that would be the suburban and exurban areas, many of them affluent, that have stayed steadfastly Republican even as the state as a whole has trended strongly Democratic.
But the strong independent candidacy staged by Daggett, previously appointed by Republican state and federal administrations to high-ranking environmental policy posts, has knocked partisan presumptions off kilter. So a key thing to watch on Tuesday is whether Daggett's strength in polls - he's been drawing percentages in the teens - holds up, or if voters drift back, as they often do, to one of the major party contenders.
If Daggett is running well, the outcome of the race likely will be determined by whether he is eating more deeply into the vote that normally would be expected to accrue to either Corzine or Christie.
CQ Politics rates the New York 23 race as Tossup.
New York's 23rd District (9 p.m. Eastern): The stunning decision by Republican House nominee Scozzafava to quit the race three days before Election Day means the tossup election there will be decided by one thing only: what the voters who remained loyal to her, despite the barrage from the right, decide to do.
If her voters are mainly died-in-the-wool Republicans, they may be inclined to suppress their disappointment and vote for Hoffman as the un-Democrat remaining in the race. If that were to happen, Hoffman almost certainly would win the election.
If her voters think she has been treated unfairly and was bullied out of the race, they could defect to Owens, and if they do, he could win by a comfortable margin. What makes this a highly plausible scenario is the fact that Owens, a Democratic moderate with a military background, is actually more conservative than Republican Scozzafava on key social issues.
Finally, Scozzafava's name remains on the ballot, of course. So Republican backers who don't want to vote for Democrat Owens but can't abide the attacks launched against their candidate by Hoffman and his conservative supporters might cast what amounts to a protest vote for her. Or, they could just decide to stay home and not vote.
At stake is a district that, while no Democratic stronghold, is not the Republican bastion that it traditionally was. Though district voters in 2004 stuck with President George W. Bush as the Republican nominee, they did so by just a 4 percentage-point margin. And in a big breakthrough for the Democrats, Obama in 2008 carried the district for president by 5 points over Republican John McCain.
While McHugh kept the district in the GOP fold with a career's worth of easy House victories, he was never a conservative firebrand and his voting record had in recent years become more moderate. His focus throughout his career was on defense-related issues -- he was ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee at the time of his resignation, which was popular with most voters in a sprawling district that include the Army's Fort Drum.
So what we at CQ Politics will be watching Tuesday night as we try to call the winner in the House special election is how the county vote percentages for Democrat Owens and Conservative turned de facto Republican candidate Hoffman compare with those in the key 2008 contests. If Hoffman's leads in key counties are anywhere near to those enjoyed by McHugh when he won re-election with 65 percent of the vote, he will score a big victory and the conservatives will claim justification for their rebellion. But if Owens' vote is paralleling that for Obama in 2008, then the Democrats will likely be a step closer to a total monopoly on Northeastern House seats -- and Scozzafava's tormentors on the right will have scored a dramatically pyrrhic victory.
CQ Politics rates the California 10 race as Safe Democratic.
California's 10th District (11 p.m.) There is one other House special election on Tuesday, in California's vacant 10th Congressional District, is an island of calm compared to the rest of the day's slate. It isn't on the races-to-watch list because its outcome, in favor of the defending Democrats, appears a foregone conclusion.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, the Democratic nominee, is an overwhelming favorite to defeat Republican businessman David Harmer for the seat from which seven-term Democrat Ellen O. Tauscher resigned to take a high-ranking post in the State Department.
The 10th District, located in East Bay suburbs of San Francisco, is reliably Democratic. District voters gave 65 percent in 2008 to both Obama in the presidential contest and Tauscher as she won House re-election.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Remember that airline commercial that asks "Want to get away?" In the Internet age, there is no getting away when somebody comes up with a truly dumb, ridiculous, or just plain bad idea.
Obese health bill
1| House reveals new health plan
The details: House Democrats presented a 1,990-page, 400,000-plus-word bill to transform the nation's health care system. The extraordinarily complex bill adds more than $1 trillion in new spending and 13 tax increases to the federal budget. The Congressional Budget Office concludes that enactment of the bill will increase federal health care spending.
Race still a problem
2| Poll finds Obama optimism disappeared
The details: The election of President Obama one year ago brought a dramatic jump in the number of Americans who believe that the nation's racial problems will be worked out, to 67 percent. But that jump has nearly disappeared, according to a new Gallup poll, reverting to the same 56 percent expressed before Obama's election.
'Clunker' remorse
3| Independent study finds program wasteful, useless
The details: A study by automotive media site Edmunds.com found the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program generated only about 125,000 more sales than would have otherwise occurred. The program's rebates of up to $4,500 per sale thus cost taxpayers approximately $24,000 each.
Flag flap
4| Democrats pick flag-defacing video as finalist
The details:Politico reports that one of 20 video contest finalists chosen by Democratic National Committee employees features an American flag being defaced with health care graffiti. The contest was sponsored by the Obama campaign committee.
Afghan delay
5| Obama drags out decision process
The details: As American servicemen ended the deadliest month yet in the Afghanistan war, President Obama deferred his decision on Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 additional troops. Obama now wants a new study of each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces before making the decision he has delayed for weeks.
More foreclosures coming
6| New wave to hit region
The details: Another wave of foreclosures is expected to hit the Washington region's already battered housing market as more than 100,000 homes with delinquent mortgages are reclaimed by lenders. Prince George's County in Maryland and Prince William County in Virginia, which have already experienced high levels of foreclosures, will be among the hardest hit.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, but aside from that, everything's going great!
#3
I noticed those dealerships advertising "Cash For Clunkers" simply raised their Car prices around 4 grand, so the only folks who benefited were the dealerships, NOT the Consumers.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/02/2009 14:16 Comments ||
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Prince George's County in Maryland and Prince William County in Virginia, which have already experienced high levels of foreclosures, will be among the hardest hit.
Ring me up when it hits Middleburg and Upperville. Until then, I'm not receiving any calls from the beltway area.
We hear this all time -- conservatives in the GOP have to play nice with the moderates.
We never hear the other, that moderates should play nice with conservatives. Why is that? Consider the facts:
In Michigan's 7th Congressional District, conservative Tim Walberg challenged the very liberal Joe Schwartz in the 2006 Republican Primary and won. Walberg went on to win the general election.
In 2008, Schwartz endorsed Democrat Mark Schauer and Shauer used that endorsement to squeak out a win in this +2 Republican District.
In Maryland 1, conservative physician and state senator Andy Harris ran in the Republican Primary against Wayne Gilchrist. Harris defeated Gilchrist only to see Gilchrist throw his support to Democrat Frank Kratovil, who won with 49.12% of the vote.
In Arizona 5, conservative David Schweikert won the Republican nomination, but then lost to liberal Democrat Harry Mitchell. Why? Schweikert's primary opponent refused to help him and sat on his hands rather than help Schweikert pick up his opponent's primary support.
In Alabama 2, Jay Love beat Harri Anne Smith in the Republican Primary and ran against Bobby Bright in an R +16 district. Smith endorsed the Democrat and Bright went on to win 50.23% of the vote.
In New York 23, the liberal Dede Scozzafava drops out and instead of supporting the guy the GOP crawls on bended knee to, she endorses the Democrat.
All the time we hear "conservatives can't win the general" and "conservatives should play nice with moderates." The record shows that the moderates cannot take losing and conservatives don't win the general because the moderate GOP stabs them in the back.
If we are a team, it can't just be the conservative players in trouble for not passing the ball
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Don't like being a "moderate" Republican? Go be a "conservative" Democrat, see how you like the treatment over there.
Another election, another debacle for New York Republicans.
While GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava's abrupt withdrawal Saturday from the Nov. 3 House election in upstate New York came as a surprise, it shouldn't have -- over the past decade or so the New York Republican Party has emerged as the political gang that couldn't shoot straight, an operation so inept that it's sometimes hard to believe it exists in the nation's third-largest state.
The collapse of Scozzafava's campaign--and the quick rise of the national conservative revolt sparked by her nomination--is simply the latest calamity to befall the New York GOP and an illustration of the utter ruin into which the state party has fallen. In just a few short years, the party's presence in state politics has dwindled to the point of extinction-or irrelevance.
Little more than a decade ago, Republicans controlled the governor's mansion, the state Senate, one of two U.S. Senate seats, 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York City mayor's office.
Since then, though, the GOP has declined at a steady and accelerating pace. Today, the party has virtually no presence in the congressional delegation-it controls just two of the state's 29 House seats at the moment. It lacks a single statewide elected officer and represents only a minority in both chambers of the state Legislature-the first time since the New Deal that New York has had a Democratic governor and legislature. In 2006, in an open governor's race, the Republican nominee failed to win even 30 percent of the vote.
Last April, Republicans botched another upstate House special election despite starting with a 70,000 Republican voter registration advantage. In that contest, a high-ranking state Republican, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, cemented the GOP's Keystone Kops reputation by blowing a lead against an unknown businessman with no experience running for office, despite benefiting from heavy national Republican spending that far outpaced Democratic spending.
"I think the state of the New York Republican Party is at its lowest ebb we've seen and I've been watching this since the early '70s," said former Rep. Tom Reynolds, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee who also served as the GOP leader in the state Assembly during the 1990s. "When we look at 2010, it's hard to imagine us going any lower than we are."
Making matters worse, Reynolds said, there's little sign Republicans are prepared to start clawing their way back in 2010 with a strong statewide slate. While Republicans are hopeful that former Gov. George Pataki or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will run statewide, neither has made serious moves toward launching a campaign and the GOP bench is painfully thin.
"We have six statewide offices and one announced candidate, and that is [former Long Island Congressman] Rick Lazio, who has announced for governor," Reynolds said. "Many believe and want to believe that there's an opportunity. And I think that remains to be seen."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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And now this pink pant-suited harpy has endorsed the Dem candidate. Surprised? Shouldn't be. Like I said, there's nothing Repub about her - or maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps, she's all too Repub, repesenting everything that's wrong with the GOP these days.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/02/2009 4:55 Comments ||
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Perhaps, she's all too Repub, repesenting everything that's wrong with the GOP these days.
I think that is the more accurate statement. The GOP leadership is completely liberal and completely out of touch.
#3
Time to flush the punch bowl in Washington DC...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/02/2009 12:28 Comments ||
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It's the modern version of Realpolitik. The important thing is to get elected, not to elect someone who espouses your putative beliefs. If you have a liberal electorate you run a liberal. Doesn't matter what she believes, get her in so you can get your hands on the controls and in the till.
#6
Scozzafava was Tedesco all over again. Hand picked moderate squish local hack that the McCain part of the GOP wanted instead of the local conservative. And he lost miserably.
Local GOP apparatchiks doing the bidding of the McCain GOP politburo in the RNC, NRCC.
Hey Pete Sessions, can the contributors to the NRCC have their $1000000 dollars back?
Posted by: M Defarge ||
11/02/2009 13:17 Comments ||
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When Assemblywomen Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign because it appeared that her Conservative-party opponent, a Republican, stood a better chance to win on Tuesday she noted that she was a proud Republican. What she demonstrated was more than that. She showed she had the integrity and humility to step aside so the team, the Republican/conservative (small "c") party would have a better chance to be victorious. Clearly she was not a conservative and she took a beating from national conservatives, including me, for it. However, her announcement today is a lesson to all of us--that even those in our party who may not agree with us on many of our core principles and positions not only still want to be on our team, but want us to win.
Over a week ago I announced my support for the Conservative Doug Hoffman stating that I was a Republican before I was a conservative and that I had never before endorsed a third-party candidate in a general election against a Republican. I did so not only because Hoffman was more conservative, but I saw that coming down the stretch Hoffman had the best chance of winning against the Democrat.
We are faced with another three-way race for the governorship of New Jersey. The state of New Jersey is in a free fall under the inept leadership of Jon Corzine. Would I ever consider supporting the Independent candidate Chris Daggett there? Perhaps, if I thought, in these final days, the situation there were anything like it was in NY-23. But it is not. If you take a look at the Real Clear Politics poll average, Daggett is at 12 percent while Corzine and Christie are tied at 41 percent. What has been clear in all of the polls is that Corzine can't break out of the low 40s in support. Dagget won't quit because he's Corzine's creature -- there to take enough margin away from Christie to keep the Dems in power.
Daggett, meanwhile, isn't a Libertarian or a Socialist. He isn't carrying the banner for a cause or a party that he has embraced. He is running, I suspect, because he knows that another four years of Corzine would be a continuing train wreck for New Jersey and he thinks he could do a better job than Chris Christie.
Like Scozzafava, Daggett was a liberal Republican in the Tom Kean mold (Daggett worked for Kean) in New Jersey. Unlike Scozzafava, he left the party to join another cause, his own. Like Scozzafava, Daggett is not going to win the election on Tuesday. Scozzafava withdrew because she put what is best for her district and her country above her personal aspirations. Let's see if Daggett can exhibit the same selflessness.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Wow, this one got obsolete fast. It's Monday morning, and now Scozzafava's supposedly doing robocalls for Owens. What took Specter two months took Lunch Lady Dede two *days*.
I'm kind of surprised Daggett hasn't endorsed Corzine yet.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/02/2009 10:06 Comments ||
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Now that she's out, Dede Scozzafava has gone on vacation. Here's a video from her two week vacation. It also explains a lot about her political views.
If Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell wins Tuesday, it will almost certainly be with the help of legions of independent voters whose support of Virginia Democrats in recent elections has been integral to their success.
For years, Republicans were able to win in Virginia by driving up turnout within their base. But as their proportion of the electorate has dwindled, many in the party have said changing times demand that they adopt a more centrist message to appeal to voters outside the party. McDonnell has heeded that advice, making himself attractive to independents such as David Grimes, 43, a teacher from Fairfax County who supports abortion rights and backed Democrat Timothy M. Kaine for governor four years ago.
"There are some things that I disagree with him over," Grimes said of McDonnell, who is against abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. "But I'm always an advocate for some balance in government, and right now it seems like it's totally unbalanced in a way that isn't good for this country."
Sixty-one percent of self-described independents in a recent Washington Post poll of likely voters responded that they will cast their ballots for McDonnell, helping him secure a comfortable 11-point advantage over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds. Those unaffiliated voters make up more than one-third of McDonnell's supporters, and in Northern Virginia such voters have responded well to his message about taxes, jobs and the economy.
Grimes is in good company. Nearly 1 in 4 Kaine backers in the poll support McDonnell, and the Republican is also benefiting from their largesse. As of Oct. 27, McDonnell had attracted nearly $500,000 from 87 individuals and organizations who had previously donated to Kaine, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign financing. Among those donors is Sheila Johnson, a Northern Virginia businesswoman who was one of Kaine's biggest backers but whose support for McDonnell led her to appear in one of his TV ads.
Some of those who have switched their allegiance say McDonnell has done a better job of talking about the pragmatic issues that also propelled Kaine -- transportation, education and the environment. But they also say his vow not to raise taxes particularly resonates amid economic uncertainty.
"The last governor's race, the state was flush with cash, things were going great, the economy was zooming, houses were popping out of the ground, home values were through the roof," said Purcellville Mayor Robert W. Lazaro Jr., a Republican and McDonnell supporter who also approves of Kaine. "Now it's a totally different economic picture, and the state is being challenged differently. We have to consider how to do business differently."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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As 60 Minutes reported last week, Medicare fraud is rampant and has now replaced the cocaine (ahem) business as the major criminal activity in South Florida. Both 60 Minutes and the Washington Post report that Medicare fraud now costs American taxpayers roughly $60 billion a year. That may sound like a lot of money, but surely it pales next to the extraordinary profits of private insurance companies, right?
Well, let's see.... Last year, the profits of the ten largest insurance companies in America were just over $8 billion -- combined. No single insurance company made even five percent of what Medicare reportedly loses in fraud.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Does this include doctors and hospitals referring patients to their own CT scanners, and then ignoring the results when diagnosing their patients? Probably not.
We've seen similar reports regularly for decades from 20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes, etc. Different locations, same story. Solutions or consequences, not so much.
#7
Solution: legislate disclosures necessary to facilitate warrantless searches by police services. Currently, the frauds are working under Legislator radar.
#8
Fraud is operating behind a wall of bureaucracy. Lots of paperwork, little certification or auditing, even less prosecution. What passes for reform will only magnify both the bureaucracy and the fraud.
Rudy Giuliani was bumped out of his favorite Yankee Stadium seats on the first night of the World Series by Michelle Obama. The former mayor — who complained during the ALCS when he and wife Judith didn't get the primo seats to the right of the Yankee dugout — was positioned behind the photographers' box for Wednesday's game.
A source told Page Six, "The White House didn't want Giuliani to be sitting with Michelle. She was assigned the seats near the dugout and he was moved."
But because of the rain, the first lady didn't even take the seats and they remained empty and roped off for the whole game. Giuliani was back in the dugout box, enjoying on-camera interaction with the players, for Game 2.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/02/2009 12:27 Comments ||
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Nice Halloween picture, her husband should have dressed as the Devil..
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
11/02/2009 13:38 Comments ||
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#7
When you mentioned Michelle's Halloween picture I thought you meant this one but, of course, that was taken at the election victory party. They're both scary.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Finally, it is clear what President Obama meant when he said this would be the most "transparent administration in history." He wasn't saying that his White House would be open and accountable; he was saying that his administration didn't feel much need to come up with plausible lies, they'd be fine using the transparent kind. 
Virginia (7 p.m. Eastern) The crucial region to watch as Virginia's results come in is the populous suburban area outside Washington, D.C., in the northern part of the state. 
Remember that airline commercial that asks "Want to get away?" In the Internet age, there is no getting away when somebody comes up with a truly dumb, ridiculous, or just plain bad idea. 
We hear this all time -- conservatives in the GOP have to play nice with the moderates.
Another election, another debacle for New York Republicans. 
When Assemblywomen Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign because it appeared that her Conservative-party opponent, a Republican, stood a better chance to win on Tuesday she noted that she was a proud Republican. What she demonstrated was more than that. She showed she had the integrity and humility to step aside so the team, the Republican/conservative (small "c") party would have a better chance to be victorious. Clearly she was not a conservative and she took a beating from national conservatives, including me, for it. However, her announcement today is a lesson to all of us--that even those in our party who may not agree with us on many of our core principles and positions not only still want to be on our team, but want us to win. 
If Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell wins Tuesday, it will almost certainly be with the help of legions of independent voters whose support of Virginia Democrats in recent elections has been integral to their success. 
As 60 Minutes reported last week, Medicare fraud is rampant and has now replaced the cocaine (ahem) business as the major criminal activity in South Florida. Both 60 Minutes and the Washington Post report that Medicare fraud now costs American taxpayers roughly $60 billion a year. That may sound like a lot of money, but surely it pales next to the extraordinary profits of private insurance companies, right? 
