Riehl World View

Feds Ignored Medicare Fraud Warnings For Years

Isn't this fun stuff to read. One can only imagine the sharks lining up to get their portion from any new health care reform. Medicare fraud is thought to be in the area of $60 Billion a year. Despite repeated warnings in some cases, the Feds managed to ignore it for years. Yes, please do take more of our money only to manage it as if it wasn't your own. Oh, that's right! It isn't. Which has proved to be one of the biggest problems facing government as long as it has existed.

America should be outraged over this. Instead, many Americans will simply gloss over it as business as usual when it comes to the Federal Government. Because they're looking after us, right?  What a sad joke.

MIAMI (AP) -- For three years, the federal agency in charge of preventing Medicare fraud repeatedly ignored internal watchdog warnings about swindlers stealing millions of dollars by scamming several programs, documents show.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors over three years during the Bush and Obama administrations but didn't respond to half of them, even after repeated letters, according to records provided to The Associated Press by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's office.

A July 2008 warning said organized crime had infiltrated the system and was costing more than $1 million dollars for each phony Medicare provider license the crooks obtained. The letter got no response, Grassley said.

Bill Sparkman: Census Worker's Death An Insurance Scam?

Talk about another shoe dropping, geez.

Dang, those Right Wing fanatics will stop at nothing in the pursuit of profits. No wonder capitalism is dying! And why has the Left stopped paying attention to this story? Don't they actually want to get to the bottom of it after having used up a political non-talking point? Don't they actually care about Census workers? Who would have guessed?

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - A census taker found hanging from a tree had named his son as his life insurance beneficiary, and investigators are looking into whether the father manipulated the death scene to make a claim possible, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press Thursday.
 
In an interview with AP, Josh Sparkman said he found paperwork for the private life insurance policy among his father, Bill Sparkman's, personal files but wasn't sure of the amount or when it was taken out. He said authorities have told him nothing about the case or produced a death certificate, which is usually needed to make an insurance claim.

Two law enforcement sources, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case, said investigators are trying to determine if Bill Sparkman manipulated the death scene, so his son could collect.

ACORN: We Have A Constitutional Right To Steal Taxpayer Money

Why don't these idiots go out and get real jobs. Breitbart's video busts told us what they do best. The pathetic part in all this is that they were not just allowed, but encouraged to run wild on taxpayer funding by corrupt liberals, including Obama. They should all hang together if you ask me. How long will it be before corrupt Democrats find a way to back door them the money? I bet they're accustomed to the back door. Maybe Barney Frank should spearhead the effort? After all, he ran a whorehouse at his condo once, too. Now that I think of it, I wonder if he bought it on ACORN dollars?

NEW YORK (AP) - ACORN has filed a lawsuit claiming that Congress violated the Constitution when it passed a law cutting off federal funding to the organization.
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit on ACORN's behalf Thursday in Brooklyn federal court. It claims the law was unconstitutional because it punitively targeted an individual organization.

Messages for comment left at the White House and the federal agencies named in the suit were not immediately returned.

San Fran Wants More Illegal Immigrant Felons

This is what you get when progressives are in control. Illegal immigrant Edwin Ramos had been charged with felonies while a minor. City policy prevented him from being deported. As an adult, he shot and killed a man and his two sons. But it didn't end there.

A measure was enacted to officially prevent authorities from turning over an illegal immigrant minor to immigration until he was convicted. That's right, prevent, not encourage. Not so fast, said Newsome, so he vetoed it. That meant they could be turned over. However, that didn't sit well with city supervisors, they overturned the veto.

Evidently they want to hold on to illegal immigrant criminals as long as they can, even if it means they kill someone one day. How utterly irresponsible and bizarre. 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- San Francisco supervisors have overturned the mayor's veto of a controversial ordinance involving how the city deals with illegal immigrant minors facing felony charges.

After Mayor Gavin Newsom last month vetoed a measure that would prohibit local authorities from turning over minors to immigration officials until the minors have been convicted, city supervisors on Tuesday voted 8-3 to override the veto.

Newsom and city supervisors have been at odds over the issue since the mayor ordered a change in the city's policy in 2008 after Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant, was charged with the fatal shootings of a man and his two sons.

Ramos had been charged with felonies as a minor, but the city's policy prevented him from being deported.

Extra Crispy: John Allen Muhammad Burns In Hell

Extra crispy, please.

A prison spokesman says John Allen Muhammad died by injection at 9:11 p.m. Tuesday at Greensville Correctional Center.

Holder Cares About CAIR

Please tell me this idiot isn't the AG of the US of A?

What, no Black Panther conferences this month and he feels an urge to talk? Great.

Just how exposed do you think these clowns are going to leave the nation with this incessant need to reach out to religious extremists? Oh, what am I saying. Obama is the protege of a religious extremist as in Reverend Wright.

And the circle closes as the first un-American, looking more like anti-American presidency in history rolls on much to the disgrace to the very office Obama works in every day. What's next? Is Commerce going to start pushing a bring a jihadist to work day? That ought to be a real blast!

Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to give a keynote speech next week to a Michigan group which includes the local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations even though the FBI has formally severed contacts with the controversial Muslim civil rights organization.

On Nov. 19, Holder is scheduled to speak in Detroit to the first annual awards banquet of Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust, a coalition of several dozen law enforcement and community groups. An online registration form for the event includes the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan on a list of “official & participating organizations.”

A spokeswoman for ALPACT confirmed that CAIR is a member of the coalition.

Gov Funded Hookers: The Next Civil Right?

Not usually down for government expansion, I'd say this police informant made out pretty damned good. Not only did the police pay for the hookers, he walked away with over $500 bucks as they also payed him for his time and joked about the tricks with him, to boot.

The case was thrown out over it. But as long as we're going to start expanding Civil Rights, subsidizing prostitution on the John's behalf while paying him for his time might not be such a terrible place to start. I'll have to call Allentown and see where to sign up. The drive isn't really all THAT far! I haven't quite gotten to the bottom of things in there, officer, can you spot me another Benjamin, or two?

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- An appeals court has ruled Pennsylvania State Police botched a prostitution investigation in which troopers gave an informant money to pay for sex four times at a massage parlor, along with a total of $180 for the man's trouble.

The Superior Court opinion issued Thursday upheld a Lehigh County judge's ruling that threw out prostitution charges against Sun Cha Chon in suburban Allentown on the grounds that the government had acted outrageously.

The appeals court ruling described how the man first approached state police to say he had been solicited for sex at the Shiatsu Spa. Troopers then supplied the unnamed man with government money and sent him back four times to engage in what the county judge called "a smorgasbord of sexual activity" during June and July 2006.

Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg said the man's subsequent visits did not advance the police investigation. He was given $360 total to pay for the services that allegedly involved Chon and another woman, plus the extra $180 for his time.

"The outrageous nature is it went beyond what was necessary to prove the prostitution charge," said Chon's lawyer, Maureen Coggins.

The Superior Court opinion recounted how police and the informant were recorded laughing about the sexual encounters.

"We expect more from the police, and demand that they conduct their investigations and utilize their resources without resorting to such embarrassing investigative techniques," Steinberg said in a written opinion that the appeals court cited at length.

Name That Party Update: Shelia Dixon - D

Perhaps it doesn't need to be stated given it's Baltimore. But as sitting Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon goes to trial, it's worth noting just how committed this award winning Democrat Mayor and Obama supporter was to helping women, neighborhoods and minorities. Uh, when she wasn't shopping on forced contributions from wealthy developers allegedly meant for the cause, that is. The item via Breitbart omits it, but, yes, she is a Democrat. That's with a Capitol D, so to speak.

For two decades in public office, Mayor Dixon has been a champion of neighborhoods and a pioneer for women and minorities. In 1987, she won a seat on the Baltimore City Council representing the 4th Council District, where she served for 12 years. In 1999, she became the first African-American woman elected as City Council President.

Census Worker Bill Sparkman: Suicide Suspected

h/t JL in email. Sad, of course. It seems police are increasingly less convinced Census worker Bill Sparkman met with foul play due to his government job. While not yet drawing conclusions, suicide is said to be the way their investigation is going. Don't wait to the Left to care. They got their mileage out of the guy. It isn't as if they actually carted about him at all.

WASHINGTON — Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

The officials said investigators continue to look closely at suicide as a possible cause of Sparkman's death for a number of reasons. There were no defensive wounds on Sparkman's body, and while his hands were bound with duct-tape, they were still somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said.

NJ Voter Intimidation: Campaign Gangbangers

Unbelievable. Known gang members and felons in neighborhoods in NJ they don't come from with name, residence information on people as they are pushing Democrats as campaign activists. Check out the video below from Election Journal. There's also a Flickr groupset up if people have pics of voter fraud, or intimidation that want to post. And a Facebook group. Use Twitter hashtag #votefraud for related Tweets.

Don't count on Holder at Obama's Justice Department to do anything. Corzine is said to be key to his agenda, according to the one, remember? This is the Chicago Way, after all.