A Dallas dentist has agreed to pay the state and federal government $1.2 million to resolve allegations that he submitted false orthodontic claims under Medicaid.
Dr. Richard Malouf, former majority owner of All Smiles Dental Center, allegedly submitted false Medicaid claims between 2004 and 2007.
News 8 reported on Malouf’s lavish homes and two multimillion dollar corporate jets. Malouf did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in his settlement.
He is one of several orthodontists highlighted for multimillion dollar billings under Medicaid.
Eleven dental operations statewide have had their state funds suspended for credible allegations of fraud in billing the Texas Medicaid Orthodontics program. This follows a 10-month News 8 investigation of medicaid orthodontics in Texas, which found the state spends more on braces for poor children than the rest of the nation combined.
Watch the video embedded below for more on the story.
Of course, there will be some money paid back to the State of Texas and the federal government. Some bureaucrats will be scolded or fired. Maybe a dentist or two will have their dental license suspended for a while.
But, the total lack of oversight in this program is an example of what happens when government involves itself too much into health care. There is vast unaccountable waste, abuse and fraud.
On the second anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, one has to wonder what will happen in the future with the public purse should the United States Supreme Court rule the law is constitutional
These are my links for March 12th through March 13th:
Protests, attacks hit Afghanistan in wake of massacre – Thousands of people took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday to protest the killing of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier, burning an effigy of Barack Obama and calling for the killer to be tried in Afghanistan.
Demonstrators in the city of Jalalabad chanted “Death to America — Death to Obama” and blocked the main highway to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported.
“Jihad (holy war) is the only way to get the invading Americans out of Afghanistan,” one banner read, according to the newspaper.
Specter also claims that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not uphold his promise to grant him seniority accrued over 28 years of service in the Senate as a Republican.
California’s Greek Tragedy – WSJ.com – Long a harbinger of national trends and an incubator of innovation, cash-strapped California eagerly awaits a temporary revenue surge from Facebook IPO stock options and capital gains. Meanwhile, Stockton may soon become the state’s largest city to go bust. Call it the agony and ecstasy of contemporary California.
California’s rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits, and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking. From the mid-1980s to 2005, California’s population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000.
California’s economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. The unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12% of America’s population, California has one third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
The words come from Bill Maher. The HBO comedian was tweeting his disapproval of the campaign to deprive Rush Limbaugh of his sponsors. Especially distressing for Mr. Maher is that the campaign continues even though Mr. Limbaugh has apologized for his rude remarks about the Georgetown Law student who had testified before Congress on behalf of the contraceptive mandate.
Mr. Maher’s “defense,” of course, may have more to do with self-defense. For in the midst of the ritual denunciations of Mr. Limbaugh, it has emerged that liberals—Mr. Maher included—have long called conservative women things far more vulgar. That has led to embarrassing explanations of why Mr. Maher gets a pass, and whether the super PAC backing President Obama should return the million dollars that Mr. Maher has donated.
Republican Donors in Limbo – The extended Republican presidential primary has left many GOP donors paralyzed — unsure of whether to invest in the upcoming battle against President Barack Obama or focus on Congressional races.
Party insiders increasingly believe that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the nomination, a development that would likely open the donor spigot for the general election. But a victory by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) or ex-Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) would probably have the opposite effect. A GOP money machine skeptical of the party’s White House prospects would likely spend instead on House and Senate races as the best hope for a November gain.
Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths – Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of dying by 12%.
The study found that cutting the amount of red meat in peoples’ diets to 1.5 ounces (42 grams) a day, equivalent to one large steak a week, could prevent almost one in 10 early deaths in men and one in 13 in women.
The scientists said that the government’s current advice that people should eat no more than 2.5 ounces (70 grams) a day, around around the level the average Briton already consumes, was “generous”.
Dr Frank Hu, co-author of the study, said: “Given the growing evidence that even modest amounts of red meat is associated with increased risk of chronic disease and premature death, 2.5 ounces (70 grams) per day seems generous. The bottom line is that we should make red meat only an occassional rather than regular part of our diet.”
Red meat often contains high amounts of saturated fat, while bacon and salami contain large amounts of salt. Replacing red meat with poultry, fish or vegetables, whole grains and other healthy foods cut the risk of dying by up to one fifth, the study found.
Steve Schmidt: Putting Palin on the ticket taught me there are worse things than losing – Via Mediaite, Exhibit A in why John Podhoretz’s review of “Game Change” is titled “Back Stab.” Actually, scratch that; this is Exhibit Z. Schmidt’s getting more attention for it now because the movie’s getting attention but he’s been dumping on Palin publicly for more than two years and privately for who knows how long. (Leaks from unnamed staffers began less than a week after election day and Palin allies inside the campaign warned weeks earlier that they were coming.) This is his job now, I think — doing sporadic cable-news cameos as some sort of RINO Dr. Frankenstein who created a grassroots monster and has to atone by killing it. Michael Goldfarb, who left the Weekly Standard to join the McCain campaign’s communications team, has had enough:
Back Stab – Sarah Palin as portrayed by her disloyal staff. – Nicolle Wallace was the onetime consultant to CBS News and media aide to George W. Bush who was assigned to work with Sarah Palin after the Alaska governor was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It was Wallace who assured the McCain campaign that her dear friend Katie Couric, a committed liberal with a history of interviewing Republicans and conservatives in a quietly nasty way, was the right journalist to conduct a major early interview with the extremely conservative vice-presidential nominee.
Palin has only herself to blame for how horribly she came off, but as she was the most hotly sought-after interview in the world at the time, the McCain campaign could have picked and chosen and been cleverly calculating about which journalist would win the prize. Wallace was responsible for one of the great blunders in political advance work of modern media history.
Now, imagine you’re making a movie about the Palin story, one that demonstrates a modicum of sympathy for Sarah Palin’s excoriation at the hands of the media. (I know, I’m talking crazy, but go with me here.) In such a movie, Nicolle Wallace’s catastrophic guidance could have been portrayed in several ways. It could have been played as a simple goof, a wrongheaded political calculation. Or as an example of a kind of golly-gee naïveté, with Wallace being snowed by a seductive Couric. Or as a careerist move killing two birds with one stone, with Wallace seeking to stay in the good graces of her former colleague Couric despite several years of working for Republicans.
Other loyal McCain staffers I’ve spoken to have had the same reaction. While a few senior aides from the McCain campaign collaborated with the authors of Game Change and painted a picture of John McCain and Sarah Palin as so craven or ill-informed or incompetent that no handler could have gotten them elected, the reality is that John McCain was the better man and would have made a better president.
We lost that campaign partly because of events beyond our control, and partly as a result of bad counsel given by the same people who are apparently so flatteringly portrayed in this movie. John McCain deserved better than to be betrayed by his own top aides, and true to form he has honorably stuck by Gov. Palin even as she’s been smeared in the press over and over again by the same self-serving former staffers. I only hope that the Romney campaign takes notice of what’s happened here.
Halperin and Heilemann have gotten a $5 million contract to do the same thing to Romney that they did to McCain, and they will no doubt be looking for Romney aides the same way a con artist searches for his mark – seeking the emotionally vulnerable, the weak, the insecure, the ones who value the approval of MSNBC analysts more than the respect of their own campaign staff. Unfortunately, every Republican campaign has them – and given the opportunity Halperin and Heilemann are certain to reoffend.
Center-right leaders, Bush alums form religious conscience group – A collection of prominent center-right leaders, including multiple top Bush administration officials, have founded a new advocacy group to advocate for measures exempting religious organizations from federal rules governing contraception coverage, POLITICO has learned.
Among those involved in planning the group are former presidential adviser Mary Matalin, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, former RNC Chairman and Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, former Rep. Bill Paxon, former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn and New York Rabbi Meir Yaakov Soloveichik.
Their 501(c)4 organization, Conscience Cause, is aimed at “stopping the implementation of a Department of Health and Human Services regulation which would compel people and organizations to pay for drugs and services that violate their faith,” according to a statement shared with POLITICO.
Both Nicholson and Flynn are former ambassadors to the Vatican; Flynn is the lone Democrat in the group, though he has endorsed Mitt Romney for president.
College board says it is addressing probation issues – The board that oversees Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges has drafted a letter to the commission that put the colleges on probation, outlining what it has done to improve and what more it plans to do.
The Ventura County Community College District board is set to vote on the letter Tuesday..
“We’re trying to specifically respond to their concerns, to show them what we’re doing,” said board President Stephen Blum. “We realize we can’t just tell them what we’re going to do. We have to do what we say we’re going to do. I see this as one of our first steps.”
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges put the three campuses on probation last month, citing problems on the board. The commission noted one trustee’s “disruptive and inappropriate behavior.” Although he is not named in the letter, that trustee is Art Hernandez, who represents Oxnard.
Gawker more acceptable than conservative talk radio for advertisers? – Given all the attacks on advertisers who advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show or other conservative talk radio shows, one has to wonder why the companies below — who are highlighted on Gawker Media’s advertising page — do not apply such standards of civility and civil discourse to Gawker Media?
Of particular interest was Ford Motor Company, which was included in a list of companies which allegedly had instructed Premier Networks not to run its ads on conservative talk radio for fear of controversy. I have e-mailed Ford both to confirm it will not advertise on conservative talk radio and that it advertises on Gawker Media sites, but have not heard back.
At the end of the day, the point is not that advertisers should quite Gawker, it’s that there is a complete double standard. Sexualized, unapologetic attacks on conservative women simply are part of the accepted landscape.
Chiang, who manages the state’s cash, said the shortfall was likely due to a spike in tax refunds going out earlier than expected in February. Income tax receipts were 5.7 percent, or $99.9 million, below the Department of Finance’s projection.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are anxiously awaiting tax receipts from March and April, two significant revenue months as taxpayers file their returns. The Democratic governor has proposed a budget to close a $9.2 billion deficit, but the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has suggested that Brown’s estimates are overly optimistic and that the deficit is likely higher than that figure.
Though lawmakers have begun to review Brown’s budget in committee, they do not plan to take significant steps on the plan until late spring, closer to the June 15 deadline. Democratic leaders have said they want to see what tax revenues will be like in March and April before deciding how much to cut and where.
The infographic below, created by Online MBA, breaks down the demographics, including education level, income, age and gender of social media users, along with other miscellaneous facts.
Some sites’ users are more demographically alike than others. One thing is the same for most social sites — college students, or those who have completed some college, represent the majority on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg and Reddit. Among Facebook users, 57% have completed some college, and 24% have earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Although, people 45 and older make up 46% of Facebook users.
Social media sites are also seeing a gender split — women use social media more than men. More women are on Facebook and Twitter. About 57% of Facebook and 59% of Twitter users are women.
Women gravitate toward Pinterest and young, techie men hang out on Google+. Pinterest has the heaviest gender imbalance — 82% of users are women, who pin crafts, gift ideas, hobbies, interior design and fashion. On the other spectrum, Google+ is dominated by men (71%) and early adopters, engineers and developers. About 50% of Google+ users are 24 or younger.
LinkedIn reports an even ratio of men and women — 49% over age 45 — who use the site to connect with other business professionals.
Most people use social media to stay in touch with friends and family, and more are doing so while on the go. About 200 million Facebook users check their Timelines from their mobile devices every day.
Justice Dept opposes Texas voter ID law – The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Texas is the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over photo ID requirements for voters.
The Justice Department said Texas officials failed to show that the newly enacted law has neither a discriminatory purpose nor effect.
The department had been reviewing the law since last year and discussing the matter with state officials. In January, Texas officials sued U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking a court judgment that the state’s recently enacted voter ID law was not discriminatory in purpose or effect.
These are my links for December 21st from 08:15 to 13:30:
Perry Super PAC Smashes Mitt, Newt in New Ad – Texas-topper-backing “Make Us Great Again” buys IA and SC TV time for new 30-second spot dumping the oppo file on the two frontrunners.
Announcer: “Decades ago Gingrich goes to Washington. Romney runs pro-choice campaign for Senate.”
Read the script below.
SCRIPT: Decades ago Gingrich goes to Washington. Romney runs pro-choice campaign for Senate. Gingrich found guilty of ethics violations. Mitt creates Romneycare. Gingrich joins Pelosi in support of global warming. Support TARP bank bailout. Collects big bucks from Freddie Mac. Rick Perry creates a million new jobs, cuts taxes, reduces regulations; the proven conservative.
Make a deal on the payroll tax, and come back for more – The Journal editors suggest: “At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly. Then go home and return in January with a united House-Senate strategy that forces Democrats to make specific policy choices that highlight the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation. Wisconsin freshman Senator Ron Johnson has been floating a useful agenda for such a strategy. The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule.”
Johnson is suggesting implementing seven of the spending-cut ideas from the Simpson-Bowles debt commission, which amount to a cut of $655 billion over 10 years. These are relatively noncontroversial items such as reducing congressional and White House budgets by 15 percent, imposing a three-year freeze on federal workers’ pay, reducing the size of the federal workforce and selling excess government real estate. In other words, Johnson is asking if his colleagues can’t at the very least agree to chop the low-hanging fruit in the budget.
Well, it would have been nice if the supercommittee could have managed that, or if that kind of package of cuts could have been presented as a full year offset for the payroll tax reduction. But that’s for next year.
The GOP, if it has not the wherewithal to oppose a payroll tax reduction (When will Congress ever have the nerve to increase it and stem further hemorrhaging of funds available for Social Security? Why not cut the entire tax, according to the Democrats’ logic?), then cut a deal and come back to finish the work in 2012. If the Democrats want another 10 months of payroll tax relief, then Republicans should get something for that (e.g. more cuts, a definitive decision on the pipeline). Just not now. In January.
Capitol Stand-off: Republicans Caving? – My prediction: House Republicans will soon – probably within 24 hours – cave in and accept the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut passed last week by the Senate.
I base this on conversations with House Republicans who know they are losing the public relations battle and losing it badly. They know they are taking the blame for a stand-off that threatens to raise taxes on 160 million Americans. And they cannot let that happen.
As one top House Republican aide just told me: “I do not expect taxes to go up on January 1st.”
At this point, there is really only one way for taxes not to go up on January 1st: House Republicans need to fold. Democrats won’t give in because they are completely confident that House Republicans will take the blame for the impasse. And Republicans don’t disagree.
Republicans are now searching for a face-saving way to give up. The most likely scenario would be for Democrats to agree to negotiations on a full-year extension to begin as soon as next week – but only after the House passes the two-month extension.
The Senate is gone. The House has left behind a few stragglers to sit on a conference committee that may never meet. The president’s still around but itching to go to Hawaii to be with his family. Christmas is coming. Hanukkah is here.
The decision by House Republicans to deep-six a bipartisan deal to extend a payroll tax cut has left that party divided and given Democrats an issue with which to hammer them throughout the holidays. House leaders insist theirs is the principled stand because they want a year-long extension, not a two-month one.
But right now, they are hearing it from all sides, including the influential Wall Street Journal editorial board, no friend to Democrats.
Texas Gains the Most in Population Since the Census – Texas gained more people than any other state between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2011 (529,000), followed by California (438,000), Florida (256,000), Georgia (128,000) and North Carolina (121,000), according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates for states and Puerto Rico. Combined, these five states accounted for slightly more than half the nation’s total population growth.
“These are the first set of Census Bureau population estimates to be published since the official 2010 Census state population counts were released a year ago,” said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves. “Our nation is constantly changing and these estimates provide us with our first measure of how much each state has grown or declined in total population since Census Day 2010.”
The United States as a whole saw its population increase by 2.8 million over the 15-month period, to 311.6 million. Its growth of 0.92 percent between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2011, was the lowest since the mid-1940s.
“The nation’s overall growth rate is now at its lowest point since before the baby boom,” Groves said.
California remained the most populous state, with a July 1, 2011, population of 37.7 million. Rounding out the top five states were Texas (25.7 million), New York (19.5 million), Florida (19.1 million) and Illinois (12.9 million).
Gingrich to House GOP: Give In on Payroll Tax – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who famously lost budget battles to President Bill Clinton amid two government shutdowns, had some advice to House Republicans at loggerheads with another Democratic president: Give in.
“Incumbent presidents have enormous advantages. And I think what Republicans ought to do is what’s right for America. They ought to do it calmly and pleasantly and happily,” Mr. Gingrich said when asked about the clash between President Barack Obama and House Republicans over extension of the payroll tax cut.
Mr. Gingrich made it clear he favored a one-year extension of the two-percentage point payroll tax cut, which expires Jan. 1, not the two-month extension that passed the Senate with bipartisan support. He called the Senate bill “an absurd dereliction of duty.”
“Obama is so inept as a president, and the Congress is so dysfunctional as an institution, that we are lurching from failure to failure to failure,” Mr. Gingrich said.
He offered sympathy to House Speaker John Boehner for having to negotiate with “a Senate majority leader who is totally disruptive and a president who is basically campaigner-in-chief, who has no interest in solving the problems of the American people.”
But he said resistance was doomed.
“It’s very hard for the legislative branch to outperform the president in communications,” he said. “He has all the advantages of being one person. He has all the advantages of the White House as a backdrop, and my experience is presidents routinely win.”
Despite the candidate’s success in expanding his political brand in recent weeks and months, those who support him remain a very distinct segment of the Republican electorate, as evidenced by a new poll in Iowa.
The Iowa State University/Gazette/KCRG survey is the latest poll to show Paul leading in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses. His 27.5 percent-to-25.3 percent lead on Newt Gingrich is within the margin of error, but it reflects a race that appears to be headed in the good doctor’s direction.
News from The Associated Press – OUCH “@AP: France ponders drastic move: telling 30,000 women to remove risky breast implants: -CC”
Scribd Protests SOPA By Making A Billion Pages On The Web Disappear – The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is delayed in Congress, but it is definitely not dead. The media company lobbyists and their Congressmen (hello, Lamar Smith!) are simply regrouping. Some of the more controversial aspects of the bill include transferring liability for copyright infringement to sites that host user-generated content and blocking that content via DNS servers.
To highlight the chilling effect this legislation could have on free speech on te Internet, today document-sharing site Scribd is protesting SOPA by making every document disappear word-by-word when you vist the site. All in all, there are a billion pages of documents on the Scribd. “With this legislation in place, entire domains like Scribd could simply vanish from the web,” warns Jared Friedman, CTO and co-founder, Scribd.
GOP shuts down House on Dems’ payroll-tax gambit – House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess.
The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the two-month extension. House Republicans have blocked that deal, which is strongly backed by President Obama, and are holding out for an extension that covers all of 2012.
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who was serving as the presiding officer, banged his gavel to close the session Wednesday morning even as the two Democrats were demanding to be recognized.
“You’re walking out, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers,,” Mr. Hoyer shouted after Mr. Fitzpatrick as he marched off the floor, leaving the two Democrats, both from Maryland, to themselves in the cavernous chamber.
These are my links for December 9th through December 12th:
U.S. Supreme Court blocks court-drawn Texas map in win for Republicans – The U.S. Supreme Court has again thrown Texas’s new congressional map into a state of flux, temporarily blocking a court-drawn redistricting map late Friday and announcing that it would rule on the constitutionality of the map early next year.
The ruling is a win for Republicans who had sought to hold up the map of the state’s 36 congressional districts. The map was drawn by a three-judge panel after a map drawn by Texas Republicans got caught up in the courts.
The court also put a temporary hold on the state legislative districts drawn by the panel, and will decide on the constitutionality of those maps.
The Supreme Court has called for an expedited hearing and will hear arguments on Jan. 9.
Supreme Court to decide Arizona immigration law – The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would decide whether Arizona’s tough law cracking down on illegal immigrants can take effect, a case arising from the fierce national debate on immigration policy ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The high court agreed to review a ruling that put on hold the key parts of the law signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer in April 2010. The case has been closely watched because several other states have adopted similar laws.
The law requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the nation illegally. Other parts require immigrants to carry their papers at all times and ban people without proper documents from soliciting for work in public places.
The justices are likely to hear arguments in the case in April, with a ruling due by July. It could produce another contentious election-year ruling for the court, which also will decide President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul law.
BuzzFeed Adds Politico Writer – Ben Smith – BuzzFeed, a site where the editors and algorithms sift the Web in search of viral articles elsewhere, has decided that it needs articles of its own.
In a move that is sure to surprise the political and journalistic classes, the site is hiring Ben Smith, one of the foremost writers at Politico, to build a new breed of social news organization.
As editor in chief, Mr. Smith will hire more than a dozen reporters right away, said Jonah Peretti, who founded BuzzFeed with Kenneth Lerer, “and then we will keep growing from there.” The reporters will be scoop generators, Mr. Peretti said. “By breaking scoops and drawing attention,” he added, they will help increase traffic and, by extension, advertising sales.
It is a tenet of BuzzFeed that the Web pages users like to click are different from the pages they like to share with others. BuzzFeed encourages the second case, the sharing of links, articles and photos on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites. The reporting by Mr. Smith and his staff will be produced with that sharing strategy in mind.
“I already write for the social Web and consume most of my news on the social Web,” said Mr. Smith, who calls Twitter his main source of news.
Gingrich Ahead in Iowa by Double-Digits – A new University of Iowa Hawkeye poll shows Newt Gingrich leading among likely Iowa caucus-goers with 30%, followed by Mitt Romney 20%, Ron Paul at 11%, Michele Bachmann at 9%, Rick Perry at 8% and Rick Santorum at 5%.
Another 11% of likely caucus goers remain undecided.
With three weeks until Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, the Texas governor has retooled his message from the strict jobs focus he began with in August to one promoting him as a conservative outsider.
And he’s doubled down on television advertising for the home stretch, having already spent more than $2 million in Iowa only to see his support remain in single digits.
Perry’s revamped charge to the Jan. 3 caucuses is a sign of the pressure he faces to revive his faltering national campaign. And it’s far from clear whether it’s working.
Record 64% Rate Honesty, Ethics of Members of Congress Low – Sixty-four percent of Americans rate the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress as “low” or “very low,” tying the record “low”/”very low” rating Gallup has measured for any profession historically. Gallup has asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethics of numerous professions since 1976, including annually since 1990. Lobbyists also received a 64% low honesty and ethics rating in 2008.
But on Sunday afternoon in Hudson, N.H., prompted by a voter who asked him to share an experience that had changed his world view, he opened up about how his experience as a Mormon missionary in France had given him an appreciation for the privileges of his upbringing.
Romney – a wealthy former business consultant who has been under fire for offering rival Rick Perry a $10,000 bet in Saturday night’s debate – noted that he had grown up “with a great deal of affluence” as the son of an auto executive who became Michigan’s three-term governor.
William Jefferson Appeal Could Weaken Corruption Statute – A federal prosecutor warned Friday that if the conviction of former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) is reversed on appeal, it would place many fraudulent acts committed by lawmakers outside the scope of current bribery law.
Jefferson was convicted of 11 corruption charges in 2009, but his legal team is arguing that since the former Congressman’s scheme to connect businesses in which he had a financial stake with foreign governments was not related to his formal legislative duties, his activities are not covered by the bribery statute under which he was prosecuted.
Government prosecutors say agreeing with Jefferson’s argument would require a narrow interpretation of the law that is unprecedented.
Perry was hitting President Obama for his green energy policy when the slip occurred at a campaign event Sunday in Iowa.
“No greater example of it than this administration sending millions of dollars into the solar industry, and we lost that money,” he said. “I want to say it was over $500 million that went to the country Solynda.”
Solyndra is a solar energy company that went bankrupt after receiving over $500 million in federal loan guarantees.
The gaffe was the latest in what has become a pattern of verbal miscues for the Republican presidential candidate.
(404) http://shar.es/o9kaL–and – RT @jpodhoretz: Put the 10K line together with Jonathan Last’s piece in Standard today– Romney has had better days
These are my links for November 8th through November 9th:
Court will draw Texas map in boon to Democrats – In a boost to Democrats’ chances of retaking the House next year, federal judges in Texas will draw a map for the state’s 2012 congressional races.
A Washington, D.C., federal court on Tuesday declined to sign off on redistricting plan spearheaded by the state Republican Party. The D.C. court ruled that the Republican line-drawers “used an improper standard or methodology to determine which districts afford minority voters the ability to elect their preferred candidates of choice.”
The decision means the issue is headed for a lengthy court battle, which, in turn, means the map won’t be ready in time for the 2012 election. Because of this, the DC court tasked a panel of federal judges in San Antonio to draw an interim 2012 map — which could lead to significant Democratic gains — by the end of the month.
“This most likely means three additional Democratic seats in Texas,” said former congressman Martin Frost (D), a victim of the GOP’s last redistricting map. “The GOP overreached one time too often in Texas.”
Republicans had drafted a map on which they would likely win three of the four new seats the state is gaining in reapportionment — despite already having a 23-to-9 edge in the state’s congressional delegation and much of the state’s growth over the last decade occurring among minority communities.
Democrats say a court-drawn map could net them an extra two or three seats in Congress, bringing their gains to three or four seats and reducing GOP gains to one or zero seats. Republicans expect the new map to include one new GOP seat and three new Democratic ones.
Democrats nationally need to win 25 seats to retake the majority.
David Gregory: No “Grand Wizard” In GOP To Force Cain Out – On Wednesday’s “Today” show, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” David Gregory says there is no “Grand Wizard” right now in the GOP to “force” Cain out of the primary. Transcript below:
Ann Curry, NBC News: “He’s not stepping down, continuing to suck the air out of the narrative the Republican party really wants to tell. Does the party now wish he would just go away?”
David Gregory, NBC News: “Well there is no, you know, Grand Wizard in the party right now who can really force the issue. I’ve talked to Cain’s advisers in Iowa, they think their support is still strong there, that it’s not falling. There may be cracks in the foundation according to pollsters I’m talking to, that his numbers may be starting to shift but right now core support remains there.”
UPDATE: David Gregory has apologized and tweeted the following: “‘Wizard’ remark this morning was a very poor choice of words. Did not mean to make that connection at all. Was not thinking. I apologize”
The constitutional amendment passed is largely symbolic, coming in response to the 2009 federal health care overhaul, a provision of which mandates that most Americans purchase health care.
Supporters hope it will prompt a challenge of the overhaul before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The tea party and Republican groups backing the amendment say the Affordable Care Act was an overreach by the Obama administration and Congress.
They hope approval of the ballot issue will bar Ohio from instituting a state-mandated health insurance program like that of Massachusetts.
Opponents argued state law can’t trump federal law and that the amendment’s wording could unintentionally jeopardize state health programs.
“Her son works at POLITICO,” Block said of Karen Kraushaar, whose name POLITICO printed earlier today after other media outlets made her identity public.
Continue Reading
“I’ve been hearing that all day – you’ve confirmed that now?” Hannity asked.
“We’ve confirmed that he does indeed work at POLITICO and that’s his mother, yes,” said Block.
Block appeared to be referring to former POLITICO reporter Josh Kraushaar, who left for another outlet, National Journal, in 2010.
Josh Kraushaar tweeted earlier in the day, apparently after getting questions, that he’s in fact not related to Karen Kraushaar, and simply has the same last name.
Herman Cain Accuser filed complaint in next job – A woman who settled a sexual harassment complaint against GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain in 1999 complained three years later at her next job about unfair treatment, saying she should be allowed to work from home after a serious car accident and accusing a manager of circulating a sexually charged email, The Associated Press has learned.
Karen Kraushaar, 55, filed the complaint while working as a spokeswoman at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department in late 2002 or early 2003, with the assistance of her lawyer, Joel Bennett, who also handled her earlier sexual harassment complaint against Cain in 1999. Three former supervisors familiar with Kraushaar’s complaint, which did not include a claim of sexual harassment, described it for the AP under condition of anonymity because the matter was handled internally by the agency and was not public.
To settle the complaint at the immigration service, Kraushaar initially demanded thousands of dollars in payment, a reinstatement of leave she used after the accident earlier in 2002, promotion on the federal pay scale and a one-year fellowship to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, according to a former supervisor familiar with the complaint. The promotion itself would have increased her annual salary between $12,000 and $16,000, according to salary tables in 2002 from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Kraushaar told the AP she considered her employment complaint “relatively minor” and she later dropped it.
These are my links for September 12th from 15:03 to 15:21:
Obama Seeks to End Tax Breaks to Pay for Jobs Plan – President Barack Obama would pay for his $447 billion jobs plan by ending a series of tax breaks for oil and gas companies, hedge-fund managers and people making more than $200,000, the White House said Monday.
In total, Mr. Obama's plan would end about $467 billion of tax breaks over 10 years, said White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew. The president has previously proposed ending the tax breaks, but has faced stiff resistance from Republicans.
By choosing to end the tax breaks, the White House is likely setting itself up for a fight with Republicans. Over the summer, Republicans said they wouldn't end tax breaks amid concerns doing so as the U.S. is coming out of a recession would hamper the recovery.
Mr. Obama said he expects an uphill battle. "There's going to be enormous resistance," the president said during a surprise visit to a briefing White House officials were hosting with people from minority news websites.
The president said he needed everyone's help to get the jobs package passed. "I want you guys to pump this up," Mr. Obama said. "Either Congress gets it done, or if Congress doesn't get it done, people know exactly what's holding it up," he said later. The president's remarks at the event weren't on his public schedule to reporters.
"It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). He continued, "We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn't appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit."
The White House disputed the notion that raising taxes on the wealthy would hurt growth. The measures to pay for spending "are spread out so that there aren't negative impacts," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.he
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Read it all
Obama Plans to End Tax Breaks to Pay for Jobs Program – White House budget director Jack Lew outlined Obama's proposals for paying for the plan, targeting the rich and corporations as the president has in the past to no avail. A limit on itemized deductions and certain exemptions on individuals who earn over $200,000 and families who earn over $250,000, which would raise roughly $400 billion over 10 years.
Lew said the "tax provisions" that Obama was proposing included:
A limit on itemized deductions and certain exemptions on individuals who earn over $200,000 and families who earn over $250,000, which would raise roughly $400 billion over 10 years.
A proposal to treat carried interest earned by investment fund managers as ordinary income rather than taxing it at capital gains rates, which would raise $18 billion.
Eliminating certain oil and gas industry tax breaks that would raise $40 billion.
A change in corporate jet depreciation rules that would raise $3 billion.
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Read it all.
Note:Being rich to Obama just went down to $200K a year from $250K a year income.
The company will be idling — stopping the usage of — two energy generating units. It will also cease extracting lignite from three different Texas mines.
The EPA regulation Luminant cites as too burdensome is the new Cross-State Air Pollution rule, which requires Texas power generators to make “dramatic reductions” in emissions beginning on January 1, 2012.
“We have hundreds of employees who have spent their entire professional careers at Luminant and its predecessor companies,” Luminant CEO David Campbell said in a statement. “At every step of this process, we have tried to minimize these impacts, and it truly saddens me that we are being compelled to take the actions we’ve announced today. We have filed suit to try to avoid these consequences.”
The company said it has been trying to meet the new standards, but won’t be able to do so without closing down several facilities and eliminating 500 jobs.
“As always, Luminant is committed to complying fully with EPA regulations,” Campbell said. “We have spent the last two months identifying all possible options to meet the requirements of this new rule, and we are launching a significant investment program to reduce emissions across our facilities.”
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More jobs bite the dust because of the Obama Administration
These are my links for August 26th from 06:03 to 14:40:
Take Texas out of cross-state air pollution rule – Remember the rolling blackouts during the extreme cold this winter? Are you ready for more of the same all summer long? Are you ready for job cuts? Are you ready for businesses to stop coming to Texas costing us new jobs? That's what is likely to happen if the Environmental Protection Agency does not reconsider including Texas in its cross-state air pollution rule.
We've heard the threats of rolling blackouts this summer because of hot temperatures and record power usage. If you take away a significant percentage of the state's capacity to produce electricity a threat becomes a reality and we start losing power on a regular basis.
The state will lose that capacity because the EPA's cross-state air pollution rule would force Texas lignite coal-fueled power plants to shut down or reduce output, eliminating perhaps as much as 10 percent of the state's capacity to produce electricity. The EPA figures that those plants could just import low-sulfur Wyoming coal. The EPA figures wrong. It would take a long time to convert and permit the necessary changes to those plants, and cost ratepayers a lot of money. Plus right now there is no excess production of coal in Wyoming to meet the additional demand and the impacts of getting that coal to Texas have not even been considered.
What happens to your bottom line? We will all pay higher electric rates. It's supply and demand. For businesses still trying to recover from some really bad economic times, that could mean layoffs. For those businesses looking to move to Texas from other states, this might just make them decide to stay put. Who wants to come to a state where the rates are high and the lights go out every time it gets hot? I wouldn't.
Poll Watch: 65% of online adults use social networking sites – Fully 65% of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. This marks the first time in Pew Internet surveys that 50% of all adults use social networking sites.
The frequency of social networking site usage among young adult internet users under age 30 was stable over the last year – 61% of online Americans in that age cohort now use social networking sites on a typical day, compared with 60% one year ago. However, among the Boomer-aged segment of internet users ages 50-64, social networking site usage on a typical day grew a significant 60% (from 20% to 32%).
“The graying of social networking sites continues, but the oldest users are still far less likely to be making regular use of these tools,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and co-author of the report. “While seniors are testing the waters, many Baby Boomers are beginning to make a trip to the social media pool part of their daily routine.”
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